Content Warnings: S*xual *ssault (attempted r*pe), forced s*xual contact, physical restraint, coercion, and degrading language.

“Stop your drunken rambling and leave if you have no business here.”

Julia pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead and drew a long breath to hold back the irritation threatening to spill out.

The thick alcohol smell in the room was unpleasant, worse than unpleasant, it was revolting.

He would surely need to be gone a long time before she could air the place out.

She hated leaving the window open and having insects swarm in toward the light.

Everything connected to Henry Rodev was something she hated.

“I was just about to, I have a backlog of work to…”

“Hey, Julia! What do you think you’re doing!”

Henry rudely pressed his hand down on Julia’s shoulder as she moved to push herself up from the desk.

Julia’s body was shoved back into the chair.

“What do you mean?”

“Bridal training! Training to become the wife of this Henry Rodev! Practice to support and sustain me! That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

Henry shouted with a slightly slurred tongue, the way someone ranting drunk might.

“…It is called bridal training, yes.”

Julia muttered with a tone of resignation.

‘More precisely, it should be called training for a servant who cannot resign.’

She chewed on the thought bitterly inside.

A butler or a secretary had it better, at least.

They could resign or retire.

Julia, on the other hand, was bound by the shackles of marriage between the two families, so under the name of bride, of wife, she was in a position where she could never run away or quit for the rest of her life.

“Right! Bridal training! But here’s the thing…”

Henry swayed and planted both hands on the desk, leaning his upper body forward.

His unpleasant, flushed face drew close to a suffocating distance.

“There’s one very important thing missing. Haaah.”

The breath Henry exhaled carried a foul stench of sour alcohol that hit her in a wave.

Julia reflexively hardened her face and held her breath as she murmured.

“You seem to have drunk too much. Please leave as you are.”

At that, Henry watched her contemptuous reaction from right in front of him, opened his mouth, and laughed like a dazed animal, then without warning tilted his head and pressed his lips roughly against hers.

“Haha, you know, looking at you, you’re kind of cute?”

“Mmph!”

Julia suppressed a surge of nausea that felt like stomach acid rising and desperately tried to twist her head away, and Henry, as though he had been waiting for exactly that, clamped a large hand firmly around the back of her head.

There was no way out.

Those filthy lips reeking of alcohol pressed slick and close against hers.

“St, stop… mm, mph!”

Julia wrenched her head in resistance, and he forced his lips deeper over hers.

A wet, repulsive tongue tried to pry its way through her firmly shut lips.

In that instant, Julia’s mind went white, every circuit of thought cut off, plunged into panic.

“Open your lips for me, Julia.”

Henry whispered against her lips, his gaze glinting with a rank desire.

“Ngh!”

He grabbed her jaw roughly with his other hand and forced it open, then pushed his writhing tongue long and deep inside.

Horrible. Disgusting.

Julia thrashed, horrified by the dreadful foreign sensation rummaging through her mouth, but her body, held firmly in place, could not move an inch.

Against the brute strength of a full-grown man, her resistance was feeble and helpless.

What crashed down on her slight body was one-sided violence.

Julia’s face twisted, unable to hold back the nausea rising within her.

“Haha! I didn’t notice before, but apparently you’ve gotten quite pretty lately. Everyone wants a piece of you. Especially my friend, he’s absolutely crazy about you, keeps asking me to hand you over.”

Henry pulled his lips away for a moment and looked at her suffering with a snickering grin.

“The guys were all curious this afternoon. Whether I’ve had a taste of such a ripe fruit right beside me. Now that I think about it, for some reason I haven’t touched you at all, have I? Why was that? Strange, isn’t it?”

His gleaming eyes shone with a ferocious light, the look of a predator fixing on its prey.

“And if you go off to Saint Rose’s, there won’t be many chances to get my hands on you, will there? So tonight, I’m personally going to give you a proper ’bridal lesson.’”

Henry smirked and slowly licked his wet lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Better taste than I expected? Sweet and tangy? If you’re supposed to be the perfect model of a lady, you should be perfect in bed too. A devoted wife by day, a temptress by night. Isn’t that ideal? Don’t you think so?”

Just as she suspected, the crude talk from earlier in the day was what lit the fuse.

Now that she confirmed Henry’s dark intentions, Julia resolved to stay alert and protect herself.

First, she needed to steer the conversation away from this.

He could still be reasoned with for now, so if she could calm him down, talking it out and changing his mind was the better path.

“Ngh, th, this kind of thing should wait until after the wedding…”

“Oh come on, sooner or later it’s going to happen regardless. The wedding ceremony is just a formality. Honestly, you were sold to our family, weren’t you?”

Henry was more forceful than she expected.

He pressed his large, solid body against her with a pleased smirk.

Julia realized in an instant that she was cornered.

“If anything, I think my parents would be happy if we got physical before the wedding. It would take care of the heir problem quickly. Nothing but good things, right?”

Henry grabbed Julia.

“Ngh.”

A woman’s slight body was helpless against a man’s strength.

“Th, that… it could make us a laughingstock in society… Thinking of the family’s reputation, it’s something that should not and must not happen.”

“It’s fine. Everyone knows you live here as my fiancée. If we’re going to get married anyway, it doesn’t matter at all whether I get my hands on you or pin you under me. A fiancée isn’t some unqualified lover, is she?”

“I… no!”

Henry threw her thrashing body onto the bed and pinned her down with his weight.

“No refusals. You have to accept me regardless. The family’s continuity, the duty to produce an heir, meaning s*x and bearing children. That’s a very important obligation. That’s what bridal training is for, too.”

Henry forced Julia’s knees apart with a grin.

“You’re coming into our Rodev family anyway, so if you fulfill your duty ahead of time, isn’t that better for both of us?”

The look Henry fixed on her was genuine.

“Even if you’re showing before you start school, everyone around here is going to be happy about it. Why not do something filial while you’re at it?”

He was truly going to violate her.

“Ngh! Th, that would only make us a joke. It’s disgusting! Stop it!”

Julia trembled, overwhelmed by the fear surging through her.

What was about to happen was not difficult to predict.

She was being driven into something horrific and wretched with no protection whatsoever.

“Disgusting? More precisely, what’s disgusting is getting pregnant before the wedding in a shameful way, is that what you mean?”

Henry knelt upright over her and curled the corner of his mouth as he undid the knot of his trousers.

“Fine. I don’t want a brat squalling and making things annoying right now, so I’ll use protection. The fact that I’m even doing this shows how much I, as your fiancé, am respecting your wishes and being considerate of you. Understand?”

“Ngh, mph!”

Henry’s large body came down over her, and Julia shuddered and went rigid.

“Wow, a v*rgin, how exciting. It would be even better if you had a Saint Rose’s uniform on. Oh, should I put a wig on you too?”

Henry smirked and pinned Julia so she could not move.

The heat of their bodies pressed together, the firm sensation of it, was revolting and made her skin crawl.

“V*rgins are supposed to be such a pain to break in. Tch.”

Julia’s wrists were caught and pinned above her head. She could not move.

At that moment, a move she learned in her home self-defense lessons flashed through her mind.

‘They taught it as a last resort for a threat to one’s chastity, but…’

It was described as the most powerful and swift response for when you found yourself in an unexpected situation at a crowded palace evening party, a rowdy ball, or in the garden. But it was a move you could not attempt twice.

‘Smile seductively for a moment to make him drop his guard, then kick hard at his center.’

Julia decided to do exactly as she was taught.

“Listen, Lord Rodev…”

She smiled suddenly, in a way that was meant to be alluring, and Henry’s eyes narrowed as a mocking smile rose to his lips.

“What, so you’ve finally decided to open up nicely? You’ve heard the rumors that I’m particularly well-endow… Gack!”

Julia kicked with everything she had at the center of his body, and in the moment Henry curled in on himself in pain, she broke free of his hold and scrambled off the bed.

“You little sh*t!”