Chapter 115
“Urgh…”
“Don’t be too bitter though. Your brother isn’t the only one. Serdin and Terche, and Helios too, all of them—”
Zephyros drew out his last words, made a circle with his thumb and index finger, then stuck his other index finger through it with a smirk.
“They violated my little sister. Because your brother ordered them to.”
Rezus Anocton hadn’t revealed that Terche and Helios had also violated Psyche. But Zephyros spoke as if they all had. It was to shatter Ruon’s mind even further.
“There’s a limit to how much you can disgrace your ancestors…”
“Hic…”
“Should call it a criminal family now instead of a knight family. What knights in this world take turns ravaging one helpless woman? Right, Ruon?”
“You… crazy bastards…”
Zephyros giggled while slowly stroking his lips. His expression said he’d expected this.
“Oh— are you including your brother among those crazy bastards?”
Muttering as if amused, Zephyros suddenly thrust his hand under Ruon’s top.
“…! What, what are you… ugh!”
After easily removing Ruon’s top, Zephyros firmly pressed Ruon’s chest and his kicked stomach. While Ruon couldn’t breathe through the pain, Zephyros stripped off his pants too.
Looking down at the young man stripped of everything except underwear, Zephyros gestured toward somewhere. Then the head of House Riveus, Tenon, approached with a chair, sat Ruon in it, and bound his limbs. Ruon only breathed roughly like hyperventilating.
“Shh, Ruon. It’s okay. We won’t do much today. If you just answer my questions well.”
Zephyros spoke kindly while stroking Ruon’s hair. However, in his other hand was a sharp needle.
* * *
Zephyros tortured Ruon as if slowly choking him. In a gentle voice, he repeatedly asked about Rezus’s main ability and weakness, and when Ruon refused to answer until the end, he slowly pulled out one fingernail.
Then in a gentle voice again, he repeatedly asked about Rezus’s main ability and weakness, and when Ruon didn’t answer, he slowly pulled out another fingernail. That’s when Psyche closed her eyes and turned her head away.
“Look straight ahead.”
A strong force gripped her jaw and forced her to face forward. Psyche desperately shook her head with her eyes tightly shut.
“Open your eyes.”
“No, I don’t want to see…!”
“Should I pull out your fingernails too? Open your eyes.”
If she didn’t open her eyes, Zephyros seemed truly ready to pull out her fingernails as he did to Ruon. But despite his threatening presence, she absolutely couldn’t open her eyes. If she saw any more scenes of Ruon being tortured, she would no longer be able to view him as just a character in text.
A hostage necessary for the novel’s story. Until now, that’s all she seemed to think of Ruon as. But when she saw him trembling before Zephyros, suffering in pain as his fingernails were pulled out – she realized Ruon was a person just like her. Yes, Ruon was a person. Not a character in a novel… but a person breathing and living in this world, someone’s younger brother.
But she didn’t want to acknowledge this fact. Because if she did, it seemed she would no longer be able to endure here with her sanity intact. To endure, she had to think this was just a scene in a novel, that Ruon was just a character playing the role of a hostage in that novel.
But if she saw any more footage of Ruon being tortured… she didn’t think she could do that anymore.
“This is the last. Open your eyes.”
“……Please, Rezus. Don’t do this.”
At last, tears flowed from her eyes. Psyche kept her eyes tightly shut, clutching his clothes, and hung her head low.
“You can do anything to me. But……, but things like that……, I just can’t watch……Please. Please don’t do this……”
“……”
Rezus’s expression completely hardened. A bitter laugh escaped through his teeth belatedly. Another failed plan only brought forth a hollow laugh.
He had intended to make Psyche watch the torture video until the end this time. And he was planning to give her another chance to betray Mathes. If her sympathy for Ruon was genuine, if her anger towards Zephyros who tormented innocent hostages was real. She would accept the proposal.
Yet she says she can’t betray, and can’t watch the video.
If it were someone else, he would have thrown away all pretense without hesitation and forced them to watch the video, then ripped out all their fingernails. But it was different with Psyche. Her tears made him hesitate. Even though she showed the weakness he so despised, even though he knew this appearance was an act to shake him…… strangely, a corner of his heart wavered.
He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let her sway him any further. Though he might not have been able to make her watch the torture video until the end, he could easily violate her.
He no longer felt any guilt about defiling her.
He turned off the video irritably. Forcefully lifting her cheek wet with tears, he devoured her lips right there.
<Continues in Volume 3>
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