‘If you love, you want to sleep together. So if you don’t want to sleep together, you don’t love.’
With that lesson in mind, Rapine began to have doubts.
“Why won’t you look at Rapine? Am I nothing to you? I, who love you, am right here…”
Rapine’s lower lip trembled as she began to doubt Benjamin’s love for her.
“I… I only think of Your Highness.”
“Rapine…”
“I only love and think about Your Highness…”
Tears started to fill Rapine’s gentle eyes. She sat up abruptly from where she had been lying in Benjamin’s arms.
“I knew my mother was captured, and even thought of betraying Queen Yuri Hsien. I even resolved to find out what research my mother had been doing!”
A gaze mixed with resentment, hatred, worry, and fear shot at Benjamin. Tears fell freely.
Rapine was naive but not stupid. She belatedly realized that the Queen and the Crown Prince were enemies.
At first, she only wanted to clear the false charges of Regicide Conspiracy that Kendalri faced. But the human heart doesn’t work as one wishes.
“I’ve told you everything honestly, that I’ve truly fallen in love with Crown Prince Your Highness.”
Benjamin’s gaze was special. Even if Kendalri loved Rapine dearly, sometimes she looked at her with pitiful eyes. There was guilt visible in that love—guilt for not being a daughter who can fulfill her share of responsibility.
But not Benjamin. The Benjamin who had saved Rapine from a serious injury had never considered Rapine a fool.
“Your Highness made me love you by only looking at me, so why don’t you… Why don’t you…!”
“Oh, Rapine. Calm down.”
Rapine sobbed and pounded on Benjamin’s chest. Benjamin quickly grabbed her wrists to soothe her.
“Easy. What are you so afraid of, Rapine?”
“Crown Prince Your Highness, will you… will you…”
“Are you afraid I might abandon or betray you, like Hescliffe betrayed Yuri Hsien?”
“…”
“Like how I abandoned Yuri Hsien, you think I might abandon you too?”
“….!”
Lapiné, stabbed with the truth, gasped for air. Benjamin gently sighed as if he understood, and pulled the stiffened Lapiné into his arms.
“Poor, adorable Lapiné, my lovely lover. Don’t worry.”
The whispered voice was poignant and tender, enough to melt the heart frozen by short-lived fear.
“Relax.”
With a whisper to calm down, the touch on her back was warm, unlike earlier.
“Listen to my heartbeat, Lapiné. Does it sound like a lie?”
Lapiné listened carefully to the pulsing beat of Benjamin’s heart as she steadied her breath.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The man’s healthy heart was beating strongly with love for a woman. It was a powerful resonance that could make Lapiné’s entire body vibrate. It was absolutely not a lie.
“No…”
Tears of relief trickled from one of her eyes. Benjamin saw this and pulled Lapiné even closer into his embrace.
Though his heart was thinking of Yuri Hsien and was slowly cooling while holding another woman, it posed no issue in deceiving Lapiné.
Benjamin, who had nearly seen his plans go awry, turned his head to the other side and sighed, when Lapiné quietly spoke.
“Because you… love me, there’s no one else but me now, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then… please grant one request from Lapiné.”
“Tell me, what would you have me do?”
Benjamin whispered sweetly. If he could just find out what Kendall was researching under the queen’s orders through using Lapiné, he even had thoughts of murdering the deceitful prostitute.
However, the request Lapiné made far exceeded Benjamin’s expectations.
Lapiné whispered.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
_____
Please help me, I want to bring you the best possible things.
If you find any chapter or novel with poor translation and editing quality, let me know by commenting directly under that novel or chapter. I will retranslate it as soon as possible.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
