“Ahh!”

Egon touched without hesitation the place she had never shown, never let another reach.

Slip—

“For all your protest, you are diligent.”

Laerte could not even understand his words.

His fingers slid through the slick wetness between her thighs, parting her as though stroking liquid. Flustered, she tried to push him away.

But she was perched upon his thigh. With one arm wrapped tight about her waist to hold her close, and the other hand caressing her br*asts, Egon had completely ensnared her.

He teased her n*pples while his hand moved tirelessly.

When the fingers that had been gliding over her slippery folds invaded within, Laerte cried out in fright.

“Kyaaah—mmph, mmph!”

Through tear-blurred vision, dark silver spilled before her eyes. Even the brush of Egon’s hair tickling her brow was reason enough to flee.

But straddling his leg as he stirred her most secret place, she could not muster the strength to shove him aside.

“Hh… hhkk…”

As Laerte sobbed, struggling against the weight of it, Egon withdrew his tongue only to lick across her lips.

“Just breathe.”

He spoke as though he might take pity on her.

“If you’d take your hand away…”

Even as he told her to breathe with the tone of some primeval god, his fingers worked at her entrance, squelching wetly, twitching like a fish caught in a net.

Laerte twisted, torn between the shock of the act and the shameful pleasure rippling through her body, but he did not budge—intent on what he was doing.

“Do not cry out. Would you have the hunters find us?”

“If… if I don’t do this—mmph.”

At her words, Egon silenced her with another kiss, as if her protest were absurd.

From the outset, she had lost control of her own will.

Their mouths met in a deep, wet kiss, making Laerte’s mind reel. While her heart had wrapped itself in layer upon layer of refusal, shielding itself tightly, Egon’s two great hands had crushed it apart in a single grasp.

Her mouth was filled with mingled saliva thick with his scent, and disgust was the only emotion she could feel. She pushed at his shoulders and chest with her fists.

But in the instant their bodies parted, his coarse hand slipped between them, seizing her br*ast once more.

She could not adjust. Egon’s movements flowed without hesitation, as naturally as water. She alone flailed like a sodden leaf tossed about in the current.

These alien sensations thrust her spirit between pain and shame.

“Ah!”

In that moment, she understood clearly.

This could not be. She could not spend the night with a man she hardly knew.

When his thumb pressed firmly against the tender tip of her br*ast, the teasing knead set her nerves alight, scattering her reason.

‘No. No. This cannot be.’

At last, Laerte opened the eyes she had kept clenched shut.

“…Ah.”

And instantly regretted it.

The man’s gaze met hers—darkened. Perhaps it was the fire, untended, dwindling low. Yet to her, they seemed black with lust, steeped in ravenous greed.

Telling her to fulfill her duty, he appeared instead as some demon incarnate, terrifying and grotesque, ready to bite, devour, and consume her as he pleased.

‘Can men truly be like this?’

Could they touch a stranger, a woman they did not love, with such sharp, searing eyes?

As Laerte’s confusion spilled plainly across her face, Egon’s hands worked diligently over her br*asts, his gaze fixed on her as if he read her thoughts entire.

“Egon.”

Clutching the hand that still rubbed her br*ast, Laerte spoke his name.

“We… today is the first time we’ve met—ahh… isn’t it?”

Swept away by his touch, she trembled, afraid of his unrelenting force.

“…And so?”

A chill ran down her spine at the rough, lowered timbre of his voice.

While Laerte’s heart wavered in turmoil, the man drew in a short breath and shamelessly groped below, lifting her and shifting her position.

“Wait—there, not—ahhh!”

Before she could stop him, in the instant it seemed he had found her entrance, he thrust in heavily.

“Ahh—ugh…”

Laerte groaned at the pain of being forcibly spread, and he paused for a moment to steady his breath.

“Hh… hhkk…”

She sobbed, pleading.

“I… I can’t.”

“No. You can.”

Egon answered, as though restraining something that pressed within him.

“You will bear my child.”

Those words pierced sharply into her chest.

‘His child? I will bear his child?’

Why had she never thought of that—that Egon would be part of the inevitable result?

Laerte felt as though the naïve world she had lived in until now shattered from its very peak, piece by piece.

And yet… had her parents even loved one another when they conceived her? She did not know. Never once had she heard, while growing up, that she was a child born of love.

All that mattered was that the clan’s line continued.

In that moment of realization—that Henant’s prosperity had been bought with such secret bargains of birth—Laerte lost the will to resist.

Surely none had conceived purely for love.

The neighbors she had seen, who seemed more like friends or family than husband and wife—never whispering sweet words, never dreaming of tenderness—flashed through her mind in succession.

Now she understood why everyone had regarded Vito as strange, for never hiding the affection he held for her.

‘So this is what it is. Duty.’

Like a branch about to snap, her arms had braced against him—but now they fell limply.

At that, the man, who had remained buried in her while only catching his breath as if waiting, began to move.

Cradling her frail body in both arms, Egon lifted her and started to thrust, his hips rising and falling.

Each repeated push, clumsy at first, soon grew slick, then wet and messy.

Laerte pressed her head against his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, enduring this moment of pain.

‘I just want it to end quickly.’

She prayed desperately for it all to pass swiftly, thinking only shallow thoughts—like a pheasant burying its head in the brush, waiting for danger to end.

Her mind and body moved apart, no longer her own to command.

Thud. Thud, thud.

Her body, seated upon him, was pounded upward, like a candle fixed in its holder.

“Ahh—ahhh!”

Trapped on the lap of a stranger, she screamed in pain, unable to move.

In the cramped cave, there was nowhere to turn or run; only her own cries and sobs filled her ears.

Thankfully, the man did not press her down completely.

This was not how she had imagined her first night would be.

Holding her tightly and thrusting upwards, he suddenly released one arm, only to grip her firmly by both hips.

“Stop.”

Laerte wept as she pleaded.

“…Please, stop now.”

But Egon coldly refused the breathless words she forced out.

“You know that is not possible.”

“Hhh…”

As he moved inside her and gripped her waist, Laerte shrugged and let out another sob into his chest.

Egon took hold of her arms and placed them over his shoulders. Laerte clung to him, holding on tightly as though to dull the pain of her sorrow.

Their shadows flickered and merged onto the cave wall as though they were two tenderly embracing lovers.

They faced each other, their eyes locking, and his er*ect p*nis pierced her.

Yet while heat blazed through her body, her chest felt frozen, so cold that it seemed as though it might shatter.

Though they embraced, their hearts held different truths.

As the man thrust into her repeatedly, she felt her hips begin to sting. Suddenly, he drew in a harsh breath and froze.

“Khk.”

“Haa… haa…”

Laerte gasped for air.

‘Is it… over?’

It felt as though her world had been torn to pieces. The dull ache throbbing through her body was like a bruise imprinted upon her soul.

And yet, the thought that the wretched, forced act had at last ended was enough to dry the tears that had streamed from her eyes.

Just as she awkwardly tried to slip from Egon’s arms—

Clench.

He seized her again, filling her deeply where he had just withdrawn.

“Ahh!”

Laerte struck him with her fist.

“Stop!”

“You must accept me.”

“……”

It wasn’t that she didn’t know she had to accept him. She only wanted to escape it all.

“Every night.”

Wrong. Laerte knew well that once a night would not suffice.

“…Until a child takes root. It is Henant’s duty.”

His voice carried along her body, sinking thickly into the fading edges of her consciousness.

“Tomorrow night as well.”