Chapter 189

Episode 29: Poisoned Rat(4)

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That sensation when you feel thirsty even after drinking water.

Aristine gave in to the impulse, looking calm as she tilted her head.

“Well, I don’t really know…we have to behave like a couple first.”

“What?”

Tarkan’s eyes instantly shook. The trembling in his eyes was completely different from before.

Seeing that made her want to do more for some reason.

“Aristine.”

His tone was simultaneously filled with anxiety, dissatisfaction, and desperation.

Tarkan’s ferocious glare somehow reminded Aristine of a beast with drooping ears in the rain and she grinned.

“Right, we did get married. But if we are a real couple, then this much will be nothing, right?”

“What do you—.”

Aristine pulled Tarkan’s arm.

As his body leaned toward her, Aristine lifted her heel slightly and extended her arm to him.

Her soft hand brushed past Tarkan’s firm chest and wrapped around his thick neck.

Aristine giggled, dangling from Tarkan’s neck.

“Right?”

“You…”

Tarkan was speechless and shut his mouth tight.

Despite the childishly bright smile on her face, her soft chest was pressed tightly against his firm chest.

Tarkan was practically bare-chested, and the Irugoian dress that Aristine was wearing was styled in a way where the fabric flowed down the curves of her body without a corset.

“Ugh…”

Even worse, it was still late summer.

The sweltering heat had subsided, but the fabric of Aristine’s dress was still thin.

“Stop playing around.”

Tarkan spoke through clenched teeth, trying to distract himself as much as possible.

He deliberately averted his gaze.

Because if he looked down at Aristine, he would be in a different kind of trouble.

‘Why is the neckline of her dress so low?’

For someone who always had more than half of his chest out, he had no grounds to speak.

“I don’t want to? I can do this much since we’re a couple, no?”

Aristine wiggled her feet, enjoying Tarkan’s troubled reaction.

And every time she did, her soft body, which was touching him, also shook softly, tormenting Tarkan.

Eventually, Tarkan felt like this might be bad if he kept enduring like this so he frowned at Aristine.

“You’re so…!”

But he couldn’t continue speaking.

Aristine and Tarkan’s eyes became as big as a lantern at the same time.

Tarkan turned his head so fiercely toward Aristine that an unintentional accident occurred.

Aristine’s lips touched the corner of Tarkan’s lips.

In fact, you couldn’t even say it was his lips. It was somewhere across his chin and cheek.

It was an ever so slight touch on his lower lips that calling it touching might be embarrassing.

But it was still his lips.

Tarkan felt her lips on his lips.

The eyes of the two surprised people met at a distance that could no longer be described as close.

The moment her body temperature, breath, and touch fully sank in, Tarkan’s eyes deepened.

Something dark, intense, and heated arose in his golden eyes, as if the veil of the night had descended.

Aristine’s body trembled at his gaze which felt like it was going to devour her.

Aristine didn’t even know why she felt so embarrassed, but she quickly pulled herself away, thinking it was just because their lips touched.

Feeling awkward, embarrassed, and a little sorry for some reason, she gave a little laugh and said,

“W-We’re a couple so this much is….”

Aristine couldn’t look at Tarkan and avoided his gaze by looking straight to the side. She tapped her nose for no particular reason while stumbling over her words.

Her white cheeks were dyed a shade of peach.

A thick silence fell over the two.

“Oh, I’m full! I’m going to rest!”

Aristine couldn’t handle it anymore and zoomed out of the room, leaving behind those words.

Tarkan stared after her, vacantly, then he went “Ah—” and sank into a chair, covering his face.

“You really…”

The sentence was never finished.

He should have known from the last time they went undercover or that time she was making a fuss about tickling him, but his wife loved playing around, so he was in trouble.

‘No, to call it trouble…’

Tarkan couldn’t help but think back to her touch.

To his developed senses, everything about her felt delicate and vivid and even now, the sensation was still vivid.

“Ugh…”

A faint groan escaped his lips.

He was definitely in trouble.

“….”

A glimpse of compassion could be found in the eyes of the court ladies looking at Tarkan.

‘She really pulled one on His Highness Tarkan. She just let it drop.’

‘Princess Consort is a little terrible.’

‘You should take responsibility after doing that!’

‘Your Highness Tarkan, I’m cheering for you! But you need to suffer a little more too!’

‘This is so much fun watching from the side.’

In the end, the compassion of the court ladies was nothing but crocodile tears.

* * *

Aristine kept pouring water on her face to cool it down.

Even after her face was drenched in cold water, the heat did not subside.

She looked at her face in the mirror.

‘It’s red.’

Other than that, her face looked no different from usual, but her lips strangely looked more prominent.

She unconsciously touched her lips.

The sensation of Tarkan’s skin.

Hot, smooth and firm.

He smelled of fire and iron.

A smell that heated up Aristine and made her feel different than she was now.

She didn’t know what that difference was. She…couldn’t know.

Because she felt like it would be irreversible once she knew.

Aristine threw water at her reflection in the mirror.

The splattered water reflected the light, obscuring the face that she was currently making.

‘I need to pull myself together.’

Aristine returned to the room, sent the maids out and looked at the water basin with flowers.

She got the idea after seeing the flower basin in the king’s game room so she ordered for a basin in her room as well.

It was the first time that Aristine had personally requested something for interior decoration, so the court ladies excitedly worked on the basin.

As a result, there were new flowers in the basin, day in, day out.

Aristine stirred the water slightly with her finger, pushing the beautiful dahlia flower to the edge as she stared at the water surface.

Just in case something was reflected.

Ever since her business got back on track, she had been checking every day but so far, she hadn’t seen anything.

‘Is today another failure?’

Right when Aristine was about to move away…

The surface of the water began to flicker on its own. A sign of the Monarch’s Sight activating.

Sure enough, in the blink of an eye, something other than reality was reflected on the briefly calm water surface.