You Cannot Refuse
Barcas's pupils dilated wide, the silver-gray flecks scattered across his blue irises churning. But the trace of that turmoil lasted only an instant.
In a flash his expression returned to ice, and he fixed her with a gaze that flickered a piercing blue. Then a dry voice laced with a hollow laugh cut through the silence.
"Do you even understand what you're saying right now?"
"Do you take me for a fool?"
Thalia painted an arrogant look across her face despite the tension that left her knees weak. She would never—never—let herself appear as if she were begging.
"It means I'm saying I'll share a bed with you."
"..."
"What? Do I need to spell it out more bluntly?"
When she lifted her chin and sent him a challenging look, the sneer lingering at the man's mouth faded.
He uncrossed his arms and slowly approached her.
"You'll sleep with me?"
The heavy low voice that drove down onto the crown of her head sent a chill along her spine.
Thalia forced strength into the nape of her neck that wanted to shrink away of its own accord. Barcas looked down at her without so much as a twitch, then seized her chin and pressed his thumb firmly down on her lower lip.
"And that's why you came looking like this?"
She felt the sticky dye smear at the corner of her mouth. Thalia flushed and struck his hand away sharply. A faint mockery rose on Barcas's face.
"You flinch at even this much contact, and you want to do what, exactly?"
"That's because you always touch me out of nowhere—!"
Thalia, who had been retorting with a flustered face, clamped her mouth shut. She must not get swept up by this man.
"Why so much talk? I'm saying I'll do it!"
Barcas's mouth twisted subtly.
"If you say you'll do it, am I simply supposed to obey without question?"
The sharper-than-expected reaction brought heat to the back of her neck.
She swallowed the humiliation and glared at him with fierce eyes.
"Yes."
"..."
"You have to do as I demand."
His open, clear eyes narrowed. It was less that he was offended than that he found it absurd.
Thalia put strength into her stiff legs and rose from her seat. Then she stepped up to his face and provocatively lifted her head.
"You're the head of the Sierkan family now, and you have a duty to leave behind an heir. This is something a married man ought to do."
"I wasn't aware you'd developed such a thorough sense of responsibility."
A bitter sneer brushed his lips.
"So what you're saying is, you'll sacrifice your body for me and my house—is that it?"
Thalia looked up at him with a rigid face.
She had thought he might show reluctance, but she hadn't expected him to sneer so openly. Wasn't this the man who, since their marriage, had been almost disconcertingly gentle with her? Perhaps he simply found the idea of sharing a bed with her that repulsive.
Thalia swallowed the humiliation and answered coldly.
"How much longer do you think we can maintain this formal arrangement? The fact that we aren't a proper married couple will be discovered soon enough, and I'll become an even greater laughingstock than I am now. If you go too long without an heir, your vassals won't stay quiet either."
Having rattled this off, Thalia let out a sharp laugh.
"Or is that what you're hoping for?"
Barcas's handsome jawline visibly hardened.
Ignoring the warning in his eyes, Thalia continued mockingly.
"If we hold out like this for just a few years, people from every side will clamor for you to dissolve the marriage and take a new Grand Duchess. His Majesty the Emperor will probably pretend he can't refuse and grant the divorce. Don't tell me you obstructed Aila's marriage so you could remarry her when the time comes—"
"That's enough."
A voice honed to a razor's edge scraped savagely across her brow. The man who had leaned in close spat the words threateningly.
"There's a limit to how much I'll sit and listen."
Thalia knew she was stepping across a line she shouldn't cross. But she couldn't back down.
She drove a gimlet-sharp gaze into his face and raised her voice.
"If that's not the case, then do as I demand! You don't have free will anyway, do you? You're nothing but a puppet that moves according to duty."
"And you aren't the Empress's puppet?"
Barcas said it with a sneer.
Thalia felt the color drain from her face.
Looking down quietly at her as she went pale, Barcas added coldly.
"I don't know what that woman goaded you into, but I will not play stud horse for you."
Then he straightened his bent body and picked up the coat he had set aside.
"Your Highness may use this room tonight."
Thalia stared at him with dazed eyes as he moved toward the door.
A chill swept over her as if cold water had been poured over her head.
Trembling all over with humiliation, Thalia the next moment limped after him.
When she roughly yanked at the fabric covering his broad back, she felt the large body—densely woven with hard muscle—go rigid.
She shoved him with all the strength she had. But the fortress-like frame didn't budge. Letting out her rage, she shoved him hard once more, and Barcas seized her shoulders.
A moan slipped out under the powerful grip. Hearing the sound, the man flinched and withdrew his hands. Thalia didn't miss the opening and charged into his iron-hard chest. At last the body solid as a rampart tipped backward.
Thalia toppled him and straddled his stomach. The brief struggle left her breathing rough, scraping her throat raw as sandpaper.
Heaving her chest and exhaling hot breath, Thalia glared down at him with eyes like fire.
"You must not defy me."
The man's beautiful face twisted faintly. She spat the words at that face as if coughing blood.
"You said you'd do everything I asked. You said you'd do everything you could."
The hand that had been about to push her off froze midair and went still.
Thalia clenched the front of his shirt as if wringing it and yanked hard.
The trembling that shook her body grew fiercer. She strained not to plead, but tears began to mix into her voice.
Thalia forced strength into her quivering jaw and cried out stubbornly.
"Keep your word!"
With that ringing cry, a storm-like silence settled over them.
Unable to meet his eyes directly, Thalia lowered her forehead to his slowly rising and falling chest.
A bead of sweat that had run down her temple lingered at the corner of her eye before falling with a soft plop onto his shirt.
As she stared blankly down at it, firm fingers touched the tip of her chin. Then her head was lifted, and a face bearing an inscrutable expression filled her dizzying field of vision. Before she could grasp its meaning, her shoulders were pushed back.
"...Very well."
Barcas, sitting up, released a thick voice. Thalia faced him with trembling eyes. She could see his taut, swollen Adam's apple working up and down. After a long moment he opened his mouth to complete the answer.
"I will do as Your Highness wishes."
Even though she had finally gotten the answer she wanted, the trembling only grew stronger. Thalia wrapped her arms around herself with convulsing fingers. Then a tightly condensed voice pierced her ears once more.
"But not today."
She snapped her head up and glared.
Barcas continued somewhat hastily.
"It was only a few weeks ago that you coughed up blood and collapsed. Once your health has fully recovered—"
"My body is fine."
Thalia shouted roughly.
"I'll do it with you when I decide. And that's today. Right now."
She felt his entire body go taut. Was he resenting her tyrannical behavior?
It didn't matter. If she backed down here, she would never again be able to make a resolve like today's.
Once this mad impulse cooled, she would shut herself back inside her own walls.
So it had to be this moment, when she had dragged out every last scrap of courage she had left.
"You cannot refuse."
Something flickered in his eyes. Anger? Disgust? No. It didn't matter.
This... this... is not love. Not passion, not desire. It is nothing more than a struggle to survive. So there is no need to feel wretched.