Chapter 26 🔞
‘A noble sort of hobby. All you have to do is turn the butterflies you catch into specimens. They’re beautiful, too.’
Lately, butterfly specimens had become a major trend among the capital’s nobility. Just as Ael’s brother spoke proudly while displaying his own collection, many nobles had taken to the pastime. Of course, they didn’t catch the butterflies themselves. They purchased them from collectors. Nor did they make the specimens. Their plump, sluggish hands were far too likely to ruin the delicate wing patterns.
‘A child is best for the job, with their delicate hands and keen senses. And their eyesight is still sharp. Since sunlight fades the wings, you have to work at night, always in the dark.’
Butterfly specimens made by candlelight in the dimness of night. The children who made them often lost their vision before long, selling one’s eyes for a few coins in effect.
And they went on boasting about it, as if it were something grand.
Thanks to the craze, collectors were traveling to every corner of the continent. Ael once came across one forager even on the battlefield, searching for a rare butterfly.
But his brother’s specimens were little more than a grotesque excess. Even the nobles desperate to curry favor with the imperial family wouldn’t speak a word about his collection.
There was only one reason. It was made entirely of butterflies common in the capital.
Of course, it wasn’t as if the Crown Prince of Bretnach, heir to the great empire, couldn’t afford rarer kinds.
‘Specimens are best when made from live butterflies. You pierce their chests with a pin while they’re still alive. That way, they look more lifelike.’
Whether that was true or not, Ael couldn’t say. Perhaps it wasn’t about how they looked. Perhaps he simply preferred watching them die.
In any case, if he wanted to pin them alive, he had no choice but to use what you could catch nearby. That was why his collection consisted only of the ordinary.
‘The problem is that he’s gathered hundreds, even thousands of them.’
He grimaced, the unpleasant thought lingering like a bad aftertaste. His brother’s butterfly specimens filled not only the walls of the Crown Prince’s office but lined the corridor leading to his chambers in excessive abundance.
“A–Ael…”
Kiara’s arms wrapped around his back with sudden urgency, scattering the dark thought like dust in the wind.
Had he once thought she was like a butterfly? Foolishness.
How could anyone compare Kiara to those lifeless things, pinned neatly beneath glass? When she burned so vividly in his arms?
“I–I can’t…”
Even during that brief pause in his thoughts, she couldn’t bear the delay. Clinging tighter, as if coaxing him wordlessly.
But Ael, ever mischievous, only let his knee brush between her legs — deliberate and unhurried. Not quite what she wanted, and certainly not yet.
A sound escaped her, somewhere between a gasp and a moan, as her body shifted in instinctive response.
The friction where her skin met rough fabric left her breathless and aching. The sensation bloomed low in her stomach, and she tensed without meaning to.
When her hips moved again — half involuntary, half pleading — he smiled faintly.
“Now, now. We can’t have you like this already.”
He lifted her leg, guiding it around his waist. His fingers grazed her thigh, then slid higher, slow and lingering.
Each pass of his hand made her tighten around him, impatient despite herself.
Finally, Ael’s fingers found their way through the gap and found the clxtoris that bulged between the valleys.
“Mmm.”
She winced, her lower belly tightening. Ale, who had carefully covered his fingers with the fluid that was slowly flowing out, played with that little nub that was starting to stand to attention.
He rubbed it in circles, flicked it with his fingertips, and pressed it firmly.
He loved the soft moans that came out of her. He pushed his fingers deeper and deeper into her, growing greedier and greedier. Finally, his fingers pushed through the petals of her flesh and circled her slowly blooming opening.
“Hmph…”
Kiara’s moans began to mix with a lustful anticipation. As if that were a signal, Ael began to take off the armor he was wearing.
The leather buckles tugged roughly at the tightly clasped straps, loosened, and fell to the floor with a thud. It was more of a tug than a pull.
All the while, Ael’s fingers continued to slip in and out of Kiara’s tight hole.
The squelch of her aroused love juices mixed with the awkward sound of his undressing.
When he finally succeeded in stripping himself down to nothing but his tunic, he whispered low in Kiara’s ear.
“Take it off.”
At that firm command, Kiara’s hands dug beneath Ael’s tunic. The feel of her fingers roaming over hard muscle caused Ael to let out a small moan.
“Hah.”
Her fingertips brushed against his nxxple, already taut with tension. A mischievous impulse flickered through her, and she let her nail lightly drag across it — slow and deliberate.
Just as Ael so often did to her.
“Still composed, are we?”
He said, raising one eyebrow. At the same time, the fingers that had been probing Kiara suddenly increased to three, and she let out a deep sigh.
“Hmph.”
“You still had the presence of mind to do that after getting it wet like this?”
As if all her earlier teasing had been a lie, Kiara let her arms fall limply to her sides. Ael’s mouth curled on one side.
She ought to be punished for toying with him like that.
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