Chapter 15: The First Kiss

Elana, who had been standing close to the door, flinched in surprise and stiffened her shoulders.

“Did you come here determined to drive someone insane? Do you even know where you are, talking about ‘your people’?”

Calliod’s eyes were half-wild as he kicked the door open.

His voice wasn’t raised, but the tone that slipped out was nothing short of menacing.

The fact that she was here—knowing full well what this place had been used for and who it had once belonged to—made his blood boil.

Telling her to wait had been his version of mercy, a shred of patience meant to give her the chance to quietly walk away.

But now she had the audacity to knock so boldly and speak of ‘her people’? It was infuriating.

Once, his father had been her person.

He himself had been her person.

And it was Elana who had cast them both aside with her own hands.

With that history between them, what exactly was she trying to do, saying such things now—as if to drive him to madness?

Calliod even wondered if she was doing this on purpose—just to enrage him enough to kill her.

“Do you find me amusing? Do you think I’m pathetic because I’ve been letting you be?”

His voice was a low growl.

Meeting the murderous gleam in his eyes was no easy feat, yet Elana straightened her back even more and replied with composure.

“That’s not it. After today, I’ll never see my nanny and Camela again. I just wanted their last moments to be peaceful.”

“There’s someone else whose mood you should be concerned about. Oh—my feelings don’t matter to you at all, is that it? It seems our princess still doesn’t understand her situation.”

His words dripped with open mockery.

It wasn’t unexpected, so Elana simply responded calmly.

“They’re the only ones I have left. I don’t want to trouble—”

“Have you ever even had ‘your people’?”

Every word she spoke grated on him.

Cutting her off mid-sentence, Calliod jabbed her shoulder, pushing her back.

“If you did, then the moment you realized where you were, you should have shut your mouth and left. How dare you come here and flap your tongue?”

His touch was rough enough to shove her back toward the wall.

“They’re yours now too. I’m asking you to show them a little consideration. That’s not so hard, is it?”

Pushed against the wall, Elana met his furious gaze without flinching, stating her demand clearly.

Calliod let out a sharp, derisive snort.

“One kiss, one photo—that’s all this farce of a wedding will be, and you’re asking for so much.”

“A lot can change in that farce—”

He couldn’t stand looking at those lips move a second longer.

With a rough, unkind grip, he yanked her toward him and called for his aide.

“A wedding? To hell with the wedding. Alrhsn, take the shot—let’s end it now.”

Then, without warning, he crushed his lips against hers.

“Mm—”

The sudden kiss made Elana gasp and struggle to push against his shoulders, but the more she resisted, the more relentlessly his lips pursued hers.

It was so rough she couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a kiss or an attempt to consume her whole.

Like a buoy tossed about by waves, she was completely swept along.

Her breath caught in her throat, and his looming weight made her let out an involuntary sound.

She beat her fists against his chest, but instead of pulling away, he only pressed in deeper, gripping the back of her head and refusing to let go.

When no amount of shoving or hitting worked, there was only one option left.

Elana bit down on his lips.

“Ugh.”

He let out a low groan and finally pulled away from her.

“Haah!”

In all her life, she had never experienced a kiss like that—and neither had Calliod.

What kind of married couple bit each other’s lips during a kiss?

Breathing heavily, Elana clutched her trembling hands around her skirt, glaring at him with eyes full of resentment.

Calliod, looking almost amused, wiped the blood trickling from his lip.

“Biting someone’s lips and then giving them a look like that?”

“I never gave you permission for this.”

“Ha! Permission… It seems you still haven’t grasped your position. From now on, Princess, if I tell you to strip, you strip. If I tell you to spread, you spread. Do you understand?”

Seizing her collar as if he were grabbing her by the throat, he yanked the trembling Elana toward him.

His tone was almost formal, but his words were vulgar beyond measure.

No matter how long Elana had lived under rough treatment, she had never been spoken to like this.

She’d been treated as though she didn’t exist, ignored completely, but never subjected to such filthy remarks.

It left her utterly unsettled.

Her startled heart raced wildly, like a small animal caught before a predator.

Calliod pressed his thumb against her kiss-dampened lips, almost crushing them, and spoke in a low voice.

“My consideration is keeping your neck and body attached. That’s as far as it goes. If you want your people to at least witness your wedding, go back without another word—before I do something worse.”

It might have been better if he’d simply said he’d kill her.

His eyes were filled with enough murderous intent to draw a sword on the spot, and his words were as cold as frost.

Still, Elana—accustomed to countless threats—found him preferable to those who had promised to kill Geranine and Camela at the slightest misstep.

Of course, the thought of whatever ‘worse’ meant did make her heart skip, but venomous words had a way of dulling when heard often enough, and she had no intention of stepping back so easily.

Then, behind Calliod, his aide Alehan shook his head urgently, his eyes pleading with her not to do anything.

‘Please, just go.’

His silent cry was so clear that Elana closed her lips and lowered her gaze from Calliod.

“Fine. I get it. Now let me go.”

The fact that she yielded so quickly, when moments ago she looked ready to push back again, made Calliod’s eyes narrow for an instant.

But unwilling to prolong such a pointless struggle—or to keep facing her—he reined in his temper and stepped back.

He tilted his head to the side—a silent order to leave.

Only then did it feel as if the taut string of tension between them finally snapped.

Elana let out the breath she’d been holding and quietly turned away.

She had taken only a few steps before hesitating, glancing back with an awkward look.

“Sorry. About your lip… I didn’t mean to.”

She always tried to appear confident, but this time she felt so embarrassed that it was hard to maintain the facade.

Her fingers fidgeted where they were clasped together, and her cheeks flushed faintly as she stole a glance up at him.

She couldn’t tell if her face was hot from the mild fever she’d had earlier, or simply from the sheer embarrassment of what had happened.

What she did know for certain was that she didn’t want him to see her blushing.

Without waiting for his reply, she quickly turned and left.

Calliod watched her hurry away, her steps brisk and composed, without a single flaw to latch onto even if he wanted to find fault.

A small, incredulous smirk tugged at his lips.

“She can’t even protect her own life, yet she still manages to do whatever she wants.”

His tongue brushed over the spot where she had bitten him.

The metallic tang of blood lingered on its tip.

***

Once she had put enough distance between herself and the office, and even the knights had fallen back, Elana leaned against a wall to catch her breath.

Her heart was pounding so fast it left her short of breath.

How did it end up like this?

She’d only gone to ask for more time—so how had it turned into that?

Her fingers brushed over the lips that had met his.

It was the first real kiss of her life.

Though she and Calliod had been betrothed since childhood, they had always maintained propriety.

And when it came to affection, hers had far outweighed his; at most, they had held hands.

Her late husband hadn’t even managed a proper kiss during their wedding vows, too timid to do more than press a nervous brush to the philtrum under her nose.

As a minor noble from the borderlands with nothing but a title, he had been utterly overwhelmed by marrying a princess, trembling through the entire ceremony and barely hearing the high priest’s cue.

That timid man had died before they could even spend their first night together, and so such an intense, heated contact was something Elana had never experienced in all her life.