Lucian couldn't see outside of Miss Karina's room due to her walls being enforced with the same lead material as Lady Lily's walls inside brothel rooms. It was a special material that blocked astral connections it seemed.
Again, Miss Karina stared at Lucian for a long moment. As if she didn't know how to respond to that. A fraction of a second later, her lips moved, "You will sleep with me on the bed."
"Why would you want to destroy your reputation instead of ending this engagement in a less harmful way? People will laugh at you." Lucian found her a bit weird. The more time he spent with her, the more he felt her intelligence dropping with each word she said.
"Because I don't want to marry him!" She radiated a dangerous aura, but what was there to danger, when it felt like she was marching to her own doom?
"How does that justify you acting like a loose woman?" Lucian watched her pace around her room like a caged animal, biting her nails. She was more stressed than he was, and he was the one playing the role of a slave. "Your fiance will probably spread rumors of you being an easy woman, unfit to be his wife, in order to break the engagement."
"Then he will have to call off the engagement." She began to smile, as if she had figured it all out. And again, the dangerous aura she emitted was too big for the foolish mind that was making such decisions.
"I've heard he is secretly handsome," Lucian lied, pulling a random card out of his sleeve. He had no idea if Cray was good looking, but all love interests were absolute heart throbs according to the prophecy, and he had no reason not to use it.
She had bought a handsome slave during the action, but after Lucian's appearance, she had decided to keep him and throw away the other slave. It seemed like she wanted to lose her first time to a good looking man.
She scoffed at his claim, "As if, a disfigured face can't be handsome. Half of his face is burned off. He is a hideous monster that hides in the dark. Now get on the bed and let's get this over with."
She walked to the bed and began undressing, her back facing him as she untied her corset.
Her fiance must be coming to witness the so-called affair between her and Lucian, which was why she was in a rush.
Lucian thought of postponing it enough for the man to get here and see for himself, but she just had to pull out a dagger from her belt, the strings from her corset not fully undone yet.
"I said come here," she raised her voice, her patience wearing thin.
Lucian was only worried about her curse ability that only the northern women seemed to have. He didn't know if she had one or not, but it would be risky to find out.
'Listen to her,' Voice's worst advice came, 'Your womanizer reputation will never spread this way, if you keep refusing women.'
Lucian gave Voice a mental side eye, 'Why are you helping her Voice? I'm trying to stay loyal here.'
He had done enough shady things already, there was no reason to add to the pile. Lucian remained hidden in the ridiculous blanket-fort he'd built, hoping she would throw the dagger at him, so he could have a weapon to defend himself with. But she didn't.
Instead, she climbed in and began to dismantle his sacred fort, sheet by sheet, frowning at every layer as if it offended her.
Lucian jumped out the moment she tried to touch him, and used the blanket to trip her over, sending her sprawling. Then used the chair to hit her dagger out of her hand. It bounced across the cabin floor and slid under the bed.
"You!" She crawled after the dagger, "How dare you! I saved your life— " she gasped in pain as he hit her back with the chair, knocking her onto her stomach.
"Oh, you have no idea how many times I heard that line," Lucian said, placing one leg of the chair against the back of her knee, pressing down, "I'm not getting raped tonight, no matter how many times you save my life."
"Raped?!" She looked at him over her shoulder like he had grown two heads, "I'm offering you pleasure, you ungrateful swine. Do you know how many men wish to be in your place?!"
"And do you know how many women wish to be in your place?" Lucian gave her a raised eyebrow as if asking her to take a second look at him, "I just don't go around calling people names and bragging about it. You should learn some humility, Miss Karina."
Lucian pressed the chair harder when she turned still, probably from embarrassment. He also realized that her stillness had another purpose, to make him touch her, so she could curse him with her ability.
When he refused to fall into her trap, she started shouting, screaming, and cussing him out, "You useless piece of shit! Come here and touch me! I bought you, so I order you to do as I say!"
She tried to roll, get up, and grab him, but he used the chair and its legs to keep her in place. She slashed at him with her dagger, but her movements were predictable. He avoided her strikes and hit her arms with the chair.
The door suddenly opened.
Lucian glanced toward the new intruder. It was a handsome man with long, black hair, wearing a dark blue coat with gold trim.
The intruder's green eyes were on Lucian and Karina, a confused look on his face.
They were currently in a very dangerous position. With Lucian almost hitting her vital point, her neck. Her dagger in a slashing motion, and her clothes half off.
The man released his astral energy, the pressure in the room crushing Lucian under its weight. Sapphire rank.
Miss Karina still refused to look in the intruder's direction. The veins around her irises turned red, her pupils changing shape as she tried to crawl after Lucian. "No, I want you," she kept repeating the mantra, as if trying to convince herself, "I want you, I don't want him, I want you. You, not him."
The fiancé had to pull his astral projection back to avoid crushing her.
Lucian gasped for breath as she began to grope his leg, her nails digging into his skin, "Kiss me…please, kiss me!"
Lucian felt sick to his stomach when she used her curse to crawl on top of him, trying to touch his face.
"Miss D'Angelo," the man said, his voice strained, "Control yourself."
Bile rose in Lucian's throat, he couldn't hold it in. He vomited violently across her shoulder and chest, making her jump away from him in disgust, quickly wiping herself with a sheet that was laying around.
"You...disgusting...pig─!??" She was so busy with it that she forgot to avoid the intruder's face.
Lucian wiped his mouth, sweat dripping down his face as he looked up, watching in terror how her identity violently malfunctioned before his very eyes.
Her expression went slack. She stared at her fiancé as if seeing him for the first time. "No… There's no way."
She stumbled back, regret, fear, and anger mixing on her face. One moment she loathed him with every fiber of her being. The next, she was ready to throw herself at his feet.
The intruder bowed slightly, "Miss D'angelo" and began to retreat.
"Wait!" Miss Karina scrambled after him on her hands and knees, "Wait, no, don't go! It's not what it looks like—!"
'Is Miss Karina an awakened shackled?'
Lucian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slowly picked himself up from the floor, to test out his new theory. "Miss Karina...she's under the influence of an aphrodisiac. It's not her fault that she mistook me for her fiance. Please don't judge her too harsh─"
'SHUT UP,' a voice that didn't belong to Voice yelled in his head, so loudly it made Lucian hold his head in pain. It didn't belong to Mathieu's either, so he assumed it belonged to Karina's. "She tried to rape you, so DON'T YOU DARE EXCUSE HER!'