Chapter 46. With This Kind of Face

It was useless for Iella to try to resist by keeping her lips tightly closed. He forcibly parted her lips by inserting his thumb like before. He pushed into her helplessly opened mouth.

As if his only purpose was to invade and leave his mark, he pushed roughly. He persistently chased her retreating tongue, entwining it like a snake, sucking deeply, and swallowing as if to take away all her breath.

‘Can’t breathe.’

Iella felt like her breathing was being blocked for the first time. Like a body that couldn’t escape from his sticky and viscous entanglement.

The thought that she needed to escape from him rose like an instinct.

“Ugh……”

Chase let out a painful groan as he pulled his lips away. When he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the blood-red color mixed with saliva smeared on his skin. A tangy taste lingered in her mouth.

His eyes, the same red as blood, turned back to her as she glared at him while panting. Traces of smeared lip makeup were visible, along with thin saliva that looked as if a drop of blood had been mixed in.

Chase languidly ran his tongue over his lower lip, feeling the tingling pain as he looked at it. Instead, his lower region boiled with excitement.

“Are you encouraging me?”

He grabbed her pelvis and pulled her closer to him. His visibly protruding lower part dug between her spread legs, rubbing against her with only a fabric between them.

Iella was bewildered by him showing no sign of impact despite seeing blood.

“That’s not what I—hng……”

But just as she was about to counter-attack, her body suddenly stiffened, and her consciousness gradually blurred. Iella had experienced such symptoms once before.

“No……”

She reflexively grabbed onto anything visible in front of her and tried to resist the voice in her ears. But there was no way she could overcome the sorcery like that.

‘How am I supposed to clean up this mess!’

If she was going to be at his mercy, it might be better to forget her memories, but she didn’t really want that either. If the former was the lesser evil, the latter was the worst situation!

“Ailexia?”

“Wait, h—.”

Even in this situation, she could hear his voice. He seemed perplexed by the sudden change. She wanted to shout that this wasn’t what she wanted either.

They said it would be easier if she gave up, but this was something she shouldn’t give up on, which was maddening.

In the end, the situation unfolded just like before.

The strength left her hand that had been tightly gripping his sleeve, then it moved up and pushed his broad chest. As if he had relaxed his body, unlike before, his body was easily pushed away.

‘Why couldn’t you be pushed like this earlier!’

Seeing this, Iella unconsciously burst out with words from her heart. And immediately after, she felt something strange.

‘…My consciousness remains?’

Unlike before, her consciousness remained intact. Iella immediately tried to move her body according to her will. But her body, just like then, didn’t move as she intended. It moved as if someone else was controlling it.

“Ha, I didn’t expect you to be this proactive.”

In the end, Iella had to watch, fully conscious, as Ailexia’s body sat on top of him in the chair. It was absolutely desperate.

‘If it’s going to be like this, just take my consciousness away too…!’

Now she was going crazy for a different reason.

* * *

Wet, squelching sounds echoed through the dining hall. Iella was enveloped in a very peculiar feeling.

The gaze watching the scene before her was like that of a third person, like a spectator watching a play, but the sensations she felt were vivid, as if she were the actual participant.

‘This isn’t some kind of sensory stimulation experience….’

Even for an experience, what kind of sensual experience was this? Iella felt like crying. She tried to close her eyes and not look, but she couldn’t do that, and she tried to comfort herself that she was completely detached from this situation, but that didn’t work either.

“Haah.”

Meanwhile, the large hand wrapped around her nape slowly moved down to her back. The other hand that had been resting on her pelvis went down to her b*ttocks and pulled her closer to him.

Iella felt something touching beyond the thin underwear and silently screamed.

‘Stop, no!’

But contrary to her wishes, her body, faithful to its desires, wrapped both arms around his neck and pressed closer. Her soft br*asts were firmly pressed against his firm chest.

Chase’s lips curled up, and then he laid her back on the table again. Iella watched him scanning her lips, glistening with saliva, and clasped her hands as a non-existent conscious entity.

‘Please. I won’t even expect to move. Just let me say something!’

Unaware of her desperate feelings, Chase gazed steadily at her unexpectedly docile attitude with languid, downcast eyes.

“If I had known you would be this cooperative, I wouldn’t have wasted time on unnecessary actions. Then I wouldn’t have had to keep you in the imperial palace. Isn’t that right?”

“……”

“Well, the late imperial consort wouldn’t have wanted that.”

The late imperial consort. Iella raised her head as if reacting to that word.

Clearly, when the Emperor had left her a warning before, he had also talked about the deceased Empress.

‘Why?’

Not just one person, but two people had mentioned the Empress in front of Ailexia. That meant there was definitely some connection between the deceased Empress and Ailexia. But she couldn’t tell what it was.

Not much information about the late imperial consort was widely known. It was only widely spread that she was a woman the late Emperor had brought back from his recuperation, but few knew where or how he had brought her.

The same was true for Ailexia. There were plenty of rumors good for gossip, but hardly anyone knew the truth about her.

‘It’s strange that they would have met somewhere by chance.’

The late imperial consort rarely left the palace provided by the late Emperor. It was clear as many rumors circulated that she was conscious of the Empress’s gaze.

Ailexia’s existence was announced after the current Emperor’s ascension, so it was unknown what she had done before then. However, since the late imperial consort had passed away even before the current Emperor ascended the throne, as far as she knew, there was no overlapping period.

‘Could they be… mother and daughter?’

Looking for a connection between the two, Iella eventually extended her thoughts to bloodlines. But she quickly dismissed it.

‘No. Ailexia’s mother was said to be a sorceress. That’s why Ailexia suffers from sorcery depletion disease.’

In a situation where the perception of sorcerers was still not good, the late Emperor would not have taken a woman who was a sorceress as his consort.

‘No matter how I think about it, the connection… eek!’

Iella, who had been lost in deep thought, suddenly exclaimed in surprise. It was because she felt a hand entering between her skirts, slowly stroking the inside of her thigh and heading toward her center.

“No!”

A voice filled with urgency burst out. Iella realized she had spoken aloud only after his hand stopped just before reaching her underwear.

The conscious entity of herself, with eyes wide open, looked down at her body. She could see that she was firmly gripping his arm, which was half-covered by the hem of her dress.

Iella immediately tried to move her hand again. But it seemed to be a temporary phenomenon, as when she tried once more, nothing happened.

“…Are you playing around?”

Confused by this incomprehensible situation, Iella just blinked her eyes when she heard his voice from above her head. Looking at him, she saw his eyebrows furrowed in displeasure.

Chase looked once at the hand that was holding him back, then turned his gaze to her face, which was flushed with a red hue.

“You rushed at me eagerly, and now you say no?”

He scolded her as if telling her not to say such nonsense, and rubbed her eye area with his thumb.

“With this kind of face.”

The red tinge spreading on her white skin and her drooping eyes proved that she too was excited by this situation.

At least in Chase’s eyes.

Iella became perplexed. He showed no sign of believing her only sincere moment. She felt like he would consider her scrutinizing his intentions as merely a tantrum. Sure enough, he continued what he had been doing.

However, the hand that was about to fiddle with her lower region only wandered and caressed the inside of her thigh, not going deeper. Like he’s being considerate of her who had said no.

‘Can this be called consideration?’

Of course, it didn’t feel like consideration to Iella. She watched him devouring her lips again.

With wet, squelching sounds, the two tongues wrestled, entangling like one body. The hand that had been rubbing her eye area slowly moved down to caress her cheek, and like her eye area, stroked her ear lobe that had turned bright red.

Iella felt each and every sensation vividly.

‘It’s ticklish, and hot….’

Chase’s touch was different from Allen’s. While Allen’s touch had a basic underlying urgency, perhaps due to the semi-forced learning that he needed to satisfy Ailexia, Chase’s touch had a leisurely quality to it, even if there was a dry craving. That slow and sensual movement made her body feel even hotter.

At this rate, it seemed like she would really mix bodies with him here. Iella’s face turned pale as she hurriedly looked around the dining hall where only the two of them were present.

Never! She could not allow it under any circumstances.

‘Wh-what should I do?’

Iella racked her brain as she watched his hand, which had been kneading her earlobe, sneakily pass over her collarbone and move down to her chest. Then suddenly, a thought crossed her mind.

‘Isn’t moving the body different from expressing emotions?’

Emotions come from consciousness, not the physical body, so it might be possible. Wasn’t the incident just now, when she had stopped him, similar in context?

Iella immediately put it into action. In the current situation, there was only one emotion among joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure that could be noticeable enough to stop him at once.

‘Sad thoughts. Sad thoughts.’

Tears.