Predatory Marriage

Predatory Marriage — Chapter 207. Evening Walk (1)

Translator: Atlas / Editor: Regan

The proposal, delivered in his charming voice, was tempting. Leah almost accepted immediately, but then she hesitated.

Ishakan didn’t press her. He waited for the answer as patiently as if he had expected her to think about it, and moved around the room in the meantime with a strange familiarity, as if he had been there before and remembered it. As he approached the bed, she hurriedly called him back.

“King…”

“Call me Ishakan,” he said, looking back at her with his golden eyes. “You can also call me Isha.”

They were nowhere near familiar enough for her to address him with a nickname.

“How could I be so rude as to address you by name?” She answered, avoiding his piercing gaze. “I can’t do that.”

“Hmm.” Ishakan rubbed his chin with his fingers. “Well, if you don’t, I’ll scream.”

“…What?”

Ishakan drew a deep, threatening breath, and Leah panicked, frightened that a scream would bring her ladies-in-waiting to the room.

“I, Ishakan!”

He chuckled lightly, and his large hand stroked her head.

“Well done.”

Leah pursed her lips at the warm, tingling glow she felt. She didn’t understand why it felt so good when this man touched her.

“I hope from now on you can talk comfortably,” Ishakan said. She had tried to draw a line, but this man relentlessly broke down every boundary.

“You take your jokes too far.”

“Well…” Ishakan lifted an eyebrow. “I really might have screamed. My patience has been limited lately.”

“……”

He said it so seriously, and inwardly Leah sighed. She had never imagined she would be called the King of Kurkan by name, but every time he spoke she felt herself being dragged along with him. Their personalities were so different. And yet she had even cried in front of him, when she had asked for the dates.

It did feel pleasant, calling him by name.

Leah looked at him for a long moment. She had been thinking about him for days, and now he was standing in front of her. It was an absurd and embarrassing reunion, not at all what she had expected, but she decided it was welcome.

“…You said I had lost my memory,” she said, remembering the words that had troubled her most. It still sounded ridiculous, but she wanted details. Right now, there was no one in her life that told her anything at all; everyone just agreed with her and blindly followed her orders. It made her feel very alone.

Ishakan was the only one that had told her something was wrong. It couldn’t hurt to listen to someone who at least had an opinion.

“I’d like you to explain a little more,” she said. But surprisingly, he didn’t seem enthusiastic about the request.

“If it could be solved in words, I would have done so,” he replied. “They wouldn’t be called spells if they were so easily broken.”

“Spells…?”

“I am only here to help you, Leah.” He held out his hand, a gesture that meant she would have to go with him if she wanted to learn more.

Leah drew a deep breath. Though there were dozens of reasons why she shouldn’t go, the impulse to take his hand was so intense, she ignored them. That large hand felt so strong and so warm, and Ishakan immediately drew her close and lifted her into his arms in one fluid motion.

“You’re lighter,” he said with a slight frown, as casually as if he had lifted her many times in the past. He headed for the balcony, and Leah barely had time to blink before they were both in the air.

“……!!”

She was so frightened, she clung to him tightly. She would have thought the noise of their landing would resound through the silence of her palace, but Ishakan landed on the ground without a single sound and immediately moved on as if nothing remarkable had happened.

Leah lifted a hand to her pounding heart. One day it was going to burst because of this man. –Posted only on Novel Utopia.

Ishakan seemed to know the palace as well as the palm of his hand. It was unsettling that he also seemed familiar with all the various security systems, but now that she thought about it, it was also strange that they had met for the first time before that fountain. It was not a place that anyone in the palace often visited, and she couldn’t help wondering how a foreigner from the desert had come there.

Leah yawned as all these many things ticked through her mind. Drowsiness had been creeping over her for some time, but in the warmth of his arms and with his fresh scent enveloping her, her nervousness faded. Snuggled in his arms, she drifted off to sleep without realizing it.

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