Chapter 1.1 – Prologue
by seiya“Hht…”
A faint moan echoed through the dimly lit room. Cynthia grasped the man’s shoulders as he pressed his lips to her neck, kissing her repeatedly.
The polished metal of his military epaulettes felt cold against her hands.
“Wait…”
“Do you not like it?”
The man, who had been trailing kisses along her jawline, lifted his head to meet her gaze.
The moment she met his eyes, dark and glinting under the moonlight streaming through the large window, Cynthia felt as though her heart had stopped. His gaze was deeper than anything she had ever read in a book or even imagined.
“It’s not that I don’t like it…”
“Then what is it?”
The man tilted his head slightly, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. Still, his mouth moved upward, brushing slowly from her jaw to her ear.
“Nhn… Y-You’re not supposed to be like this!”
When his warm lips touched her earlobe, Cynthia couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out.
At her protest, the man finally pulled his lips away from her face and let out a low chuckle.
“You really do say the strangest things, Cynthia.”
“….”
“As if you know me so well.”
…Of course, she knew him well.
Cynthia, pinned beneath him, rolled her eyes silently. After all, this handsome man showering her with heated glances and passionate kisses was none other than one of the male leads from the R-rated reverse-harem angst novel she’d been reading.
And not just any male lead. He played a significant role as the female lead’s fiancé.
Grand Duke Tesion Romanov.
“What kind of person do you think I am, Cynthia?”
His voice, laced with amusement, washed over her. As Cynthia turned her head to meet his gaze again, she hesitated for a moment before parting her lips.
“Y-you’re supposed to be kind of self-controlled… proper… no, abstinent… someone who has no interest in things like this…”
“Me?”
Tesion let out a louder laugh this time.
He gently picked up a strand of Cynthia’s hair that had fallen across the bed and brought it to his lips.
“I-I’m right, aren’t I…?”
Cynthia stammered as she replied, but she wasn’t entirely certain.
Still, she was probably right. In the novel, Grand Duke Tesion Romanov was the one and only man who had never spent the night with the legendary heroine, who had built a harem of nearly twenty lovers. He was the only chaste man in the story.
Then, by her ear, his low voice fell again.
“Well, who knows.”
While reading the novel, Cynthia couldn’t understand why the heroine, Elizabeth, left her fiancé, the Grand Duke Romanov, untouched.
Sure, in the first half of the novel, Tesion had lost his sight, so maybe the story’s progression had been difficult because of that. But once he regained his vision in the second half, he quickly soared as the readers’ favorite, poised to become the standout male lead…
‘The longer the buildup, the bigger the explosion, right?’
But then?
Even in the latter half of the novel, nothing happened.
‘There were even reviews wondering if Tesion Romanov had some kind of… issue.’
“Where are you looking?”
Tesion gently took Cynthia’s chin and turned her face toward him.
Snapping out of her thoughts, she slowly scanned his face again. As their eyes met, Tesion wore the expression of a lion leisurely eyeing its prey.
“Restrained and proper. And not interested in things like this…”
He murmured softly.
Hearing her own words repeated in his voice made Cynthia’s face turn crimson. Tesion reached for the ribbon tied at her chest, his fingers toying with it as his violet eyes gleamed.
“Would you like to see if that’s really true?”
Cynthia stood frozen, stunned.
‘Did that… really just happen?’
A pool of red spilled out from beneath the overturned carriage, which had been smashed so badly it was barely recognizable. The liquid crept across the filthy ground, inching closer and closer until it stopped right at her feet.
Staring down in a daze, Cynthia immediately recognized what it was.
The moment she fully grasped the question, all the sounds that had been muffled suddenly came flooding into her ears at once.
“Hey! Miss, are you alright?”
“Oh my…! You nearly got hit by that carriage the mad horses were pulling!”
That was when her legs gave out beneath her. As Cynthia’s slender body wavered, a strong-looking woman standing nearby quickly reached out and caught her arm.
“Miss! You must be really shaken, are you okay?”
Her arm, held by the woman, trembled uncontrollably despite her will, and her head spun.
“Still, shouldn’t we report this right away…?”
“Shh! Don’t you see the crest on that carriage? That’s the Ducal House of Bailey’s symbol! Let someone else handle it. We should leave before things get worse.”
“But someone could still be alive—”
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