Chapter 27

Meeting Lino’s emerald eyes, which were currently swirling with sheer bewilderment, Grondil smiled and gave a slow nod.

“If the reward is of this caliber, I suppose I don’t mind playing along with that bastard Emperor’s nasty little requests a bit longer.”

“Haha. Your Highness, why would the gods be crazy enough to present me to you as a gift? I may not be a Duke, but I am still a human being with fundamental human rights.”

He fully intended to add, So stop treating me like an object, but choked on a sharp gasp as Grondil’s hand suddenly plummeted from his chest straight to his crotch.

“Why are you suddenly touching… Hngh.”

“Divine power? You don’t need it,” Grondil murmured. “Healing prayers aren’t the only type of prayers that exist, are they?”

“N-No, you came because you were sick with a cold, did you no—Urgh…! So at least take some pharmacy medi—”

“Miraculously, touching your body seems to have cured me.”

“That’s impossible.”

He had definitely been sitting on the edge of the bed a moment ago. Yet, while his mind was short-circuiting from the hands groping his chest and crotch, he had somehow been shoved backward, his spine hitting the mattress. His back was pinned to the bed while his legs dangled helplessly over the edge.

Sliding off his spot beside him, Grondil parted Lino’s legs and situated himself firmly between them. To ensure his prey couldn’t rise, he pinned Lino’s shoulder down with one hand while the other returned to fondling his chest. Spreading his thumb and index finger wide, he cupped the underside of the pectoral, gathering the surrounding flesh to accurately gauge its sheer volume.

When Lino began to thrash, the Duke simply bent his knee, pressing it heavily into the knight’s crotch. The struggling body went rigid instantly, effectively pacified. Leaning forward, Grondil buried his lips into the sensitive skin beneath Lino’s ear.

He darted his tongue out for an exploratory lick, tasting his prey, before immediately baring his teeth and biting down viciously on the side of Lino’s neck.

“Hk. That hurts!”

Lino shuddered violently from the sharp pain. The bite marks on his shoulder from three days ago were still vividly apparent. And it wasn’t just marks—the bruises had bypassed blue entirely, blooming into a sickly, necrotic purple. At least his shoulder could be hidden by clothing. The neck was a completely different story. It might be manageable in the dead of winter, but wearing a turtleneck or a scarf in the middle of summer was out of the question.

“It’s your punishment for deceiving me, so endure it,” Grondil commanded softly.

“P-Punishment?”

Having mercilessly gnawed on the skin right over Lino’s carotid artery, Grondil’s mouth moved downward, aiming for Lino’s lips. Due to their height difference, his lips ended up brushing against Lino’s forehead instead. Clicking his tongue in annoyance at the misalignment, he shoved his hands beneath Lino’s armpits and dragged him forcefully up the mattress. Consequently, Lino’s dangling legs were hauled entirely onto the bed.

A moment later, the massive bulk of the Duke’s body mounted him, pinning him down completely. The room was maintained at an optimal temperature, yet Lino shivered uncontrollably. It was the exact same chilling sensation he had experienced earlier.

It was the primal instinct of the weak in the face of the strong, a screaming realization within the brutal law of the jungle. I’m going to be eaten alive. His survival instincts were hyper-aroused, having already suffered two attacks on vital areas. His genitals had been crushed beneath a knee, and his carotid artery had been bitten. It suddenly occurred to him that it was probably no coincidence the chest Grondil kept squeezing to the point of bursting was the left side—the side protecting his heart.

Absolute certainty washed over him: this man was going to devour him entirely, leaving not a single scrap of bone behind.

This really isn’t something I need to be so certain about.

Unfortunately, the gods, as always, were not on Lino’s side. In a room occupied solely by him and Grondil, it was glaringly obvious whose side the heavens would favor.

“This… punishment,” Lino stammered, his voice trembling. “What exactly does it entail?”

He couldn’t stop the tremor in his tone as he asked for specifics. He had a sinking feeling this wouldn’t end with just a savage bite to the neck.

Straddling his prey, Grondil blinked languidly, locking onto Lino’s emerald gaze. Leaning in so close that their noses bumped and their lips practically brushed, he answered the question without a single shred of hesitation.

“Sex.”

“Ah…”

He had anticipated the answer, yet hearing it straight from His Highness’s mouth made his vision go completely black, even with his eyes wide open.

“F-For how long…?”

“Until I get bored.”

“…”

He had fully expected a time limit like, ‘Until our schedule in the Zetina Kingdom is finished.’ This was completely outside his calculations.

‘Until I get bored’ was such a horrifyingly ambiguous metric that Lino’s face contorted instinctively. From his perspective, he desperately wished the man would get bored instantly and fuck right off. But looking into Grondil’s dangerously glossy eyes, he realized that hope was utterly dead in the water.

Observing Lino’s petrified state, Grondil laughed soundlessly. The terrified little fledgling couldn’t even formulate a thought of escaping when faced with the fangs of a ravenous beast.

He was usually such a coward, yet whenever Grondil pushed just a little further, he would inevitably snap, exhibiting a spectacularly fearless defiance that the Duke found endlessly entertaining.

Even now, upon hearing the verdict, Lino’s face screamed sheer disgust, but he remained utterly incapable of outright refusal. However, if I prod him just a bit more…

“Since a healing prayer is out of the question, how about we substitute it with a different kind of prayer?” Grondil suggested.

“Your Highness… assuming the sex is my punishment, why must I still pray—”

“I’ve been carrying quite a few heavy burdens on my mind.”

“…Burdens?”

It was a sudden pivot, but one that made logical sense. A man bearing the title of an Imperial Duke would naturally have countless headaches to deal with.

But why bring that up right now?

“I have many troubles that I cannot simply voice to others,” the Duke confessed smoothly. “Therefore, I plan on making my confessions to you from time to time, Sir Cliff.”

Lino exhaled a long, suffering sigh. “Your Highness, as I stated earlier: diagnoses belong to doctors, medicines to pharmacists… and prayers to priests. I highly recommend making your confessions at a nearby temple.”

“These are secrets I cannot reveal to others… Sir Cliff, you truly are a heartless man.”

If these are secrets he can’t even tell a holy priest, shouldn’t he be even more secretive around a Holy Knight?

Grondil was deliberately using utterly contradictory logic to rattle him.

“Is listening to your confessions… also part of my punishment?”

“Were you planning on refusing if I didn’t frame it as a punishment?”

“If at all possible… I would prefer to decline the confessions.”

What kind of sins would a Duke of the Empire possibly confess to? A high noble like Grondil would have an endless list of enemies. He probably wanted to murder a political rival, or perhaps he already had… It had to be something along those horrifying lines.

And remaining blissfully ignorant of such matters was the absolute best policy. He might be demanding Lino listen now, but the moment he decided he couldn’t leave loose ends, he would undoubtedly silence him permanently.

How can I get out of this?

Lino’s brain cramped, smoke practically billowing from his ears as he desperately drafted and discarded excuse after excuse.

“I won’t confess very often, so you don’t need to rack your brain trying to find a way to refuse,” the Duke murmured, reading him perfectly.

“Haha…”

A painfully awkward laugh tumbled from Lino’s lips. He had always thought the man was beast-like, but now he suspected Grondil was an actual monster. How the hell did he instantly dissect Lino’s thoughts just by looking at his face?

“Are you wondering how I deduced what you were thinking?”

“How did you… Hrk…!”

His attempt to ask was violently derailed, morphing into an urgent gasp as a sudden, intense pressure bore down on his crotch. What the…? Grondil’s knee had been pinning him down for a while now, but the sensation had subtly, terrifyingly shifted. Lifting his head just an inch to look down, Lino was met with the horrifying sight of his own completely exposed thighs and groin.

When did he strip me?!

His pants must have been discarded while he was momentarily distracted by the whole confession nonsense. Since his shoulder was still firmly pinned in a painful grip, Grondil had clearly used the hand previously exploring his chest… but how did he take them off so seamlessly?

If he were wearing a skirt, sure. But these were pants. He had zero memory of his legs being pulled out of any pant legs. As he stared down at his entirely hairless, exposed crotch with bewildered eyes, a scrap of fabric in a very familiar color drifted into his peripheral vision.

I think those are my pants…

The color and texture were undeniably his, but why the hell were they ripped to shreds? While Lino was busy mourning the pathetic remains of what used to be his trousers, Grondil flawlessly executed a one-handed maneuver to strip him of his t-shirt.

Riiiip—

The sickening sound of thin fabric tearing echoed loudly through the silent bedroom.

Rip?

Why was his t-shirt making a tearing noise? Startled, Lino scrambled to check his chest.

“…” Was I… wearing a button-down instead of a t-shirt…?

Lino stared down at the remnants of his shirt, which had been sliced perfectly in half. It was a flimsy summer tee, so grabbing it with both hands and ripping it apart was entirely possible. However, Lino’s shirt hadn’t been violently torn; it was cleaved straight down the middle with surgically clean precision, as if snipped by a pair of massive scissors.

“I felt we had exchanged enough useless banter, so I used my hands a bit,” the Duke casually offered.

“Your… hands?”

Not a knife or scissors, but your hands?

Peeling the severed halves of the shirt aside, Lino inspected the fingernails resting heavily on his chest. Perfectly manicured into modest, rounded lengths, they looked absolutely nothing like blades capable of shredding fabric.

“I cut it cleanly without leaving a single scratch on you, didn’t I?”

Poking his index finger into Lino’s solar plexus, Grondil boasted about his flawless handiwork. Whatever method he had used, the tailoring on the severed shirt was so magnificent it almost warranted a patronizing pat on the head and a ‘good boy.’

Noticing Lino’s gaze fixated entirely on his finger, Grondil purposefully, agonizingly dragged it downward. He traced a line over smooth, pale skin, dipping the digit slowly into Lino’s navel. Bypassing the deep indentation to breach the boundary of his hairless crotch, the touch sent a violent flinch wracking through Lino’s frame.

Poking and prodding the bare, completely smooth skin with curious fingers, Grondil eventually flattened his palm, rubbing lazy, heavy circles directly against the flesh.

“I really like this part of you.”

The Duke had an intense, unnerving fascination with Lino’s smooth groin. He swept his ravenous gaze over it, massaged it with his bare hands, and occasionally bit down on his own protruding tongue. It was glaringly obvious he was fighting the urge to lap at the skin like a starving animal.

“And I adore this part as well.”

Abandoning the crotch, he moved straight to the chest. He flicked the soft nipples with the pad of his finger, watching with dark satisfaction as the surrounding pectoral muscles violently seized in response.

“Has anyone ever touched you here?” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

When no satisfactory answer was forthcoming, Grondil shaped his fingers into pincers, seizing the dormant, flat nub and yanking it outward with brutal force.

“Gah! N-No, never!”

A shrill, pathetic yelp tore from Lino’s throat as a searing pain erupted from a body part he generally forgot existed. The pull was so vicious that Lino instinctively arched his chest forward in a desperate bid to alleviate the agonizing tension.

“Hmm. Seeing how eagerly you thrust yourself up, begging to be touched… I highly doubt this is your first time.”

“What?! No! I’m absolutely not begging, and this i-is definitely my first time!”

Appalled by Grondil confidently asserting total fabrications, Lino scrambled to defend himself. He desperately wanted to spit out, If I yanked your nipples that barbarically, you’d be arching your back too! But he bit his tongue. If he provoked him, the lunatic would likely just laugh and bare his own chest, eagerly challenging Lino to do exactly that.

“I only moved because it hurt.”

“Is that so?”

Grondil stared intently at the complaining knight’s face. His eyes narrowed, carefully weighing the validity of the claim.

Lino’s rapidly blinking eyes were undeniably glossy. He had clearly been in genuine pain, as a thin film of unshed tears shimmered over his irises.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to kiss it better.”

Kiss it better? Wait, does he mean…?