The Duke’s Imposter Sister - Chapter 66

Gris had encountered many gems during her time in Grandia, but none of them were red. The stone glimmered like the hardened blood of a pure, divine creature.

Wait, a gem the color of a creature’s blood… Bellin had mentioned something like that before…

“Duke Vianut has bought a very expensive thing. It was an earring studded with a gem, red as the blood of a pigeon. The gem was called ruby… He said that it looked very enigmatic, and reddish like the eyes of a witch.”

“…”

“There is a legend of a phoenix with eternal life. Finding life dreary, it reborn as a ruby.

That’s when the talks began that if you have a ruby, you will escape death.”

Gris heard that he had spent ten gold coins buying them. But no matter how much he hated giving her what she wanted, how could he give her a piece of jewelry that was worth ten times more than what she initially asked for?

“Wha… what’s that?”

He seemed gratified at seeing the woman, who had so far been silent, react with surprise. While she lightly placed her hand on her cheeks as if imagining where the jewel would be placed, she lightly lifted her hair and drew a smile.

“Red jewel.”

His low, masculine voice grazed her ears. Gris’ lashes were flickering as she cast a sidelong glance to the man who was lowering his head.

“Instead of one gold coin… Do you intend to give me that?”

“Yes.”

He was looking at Gris’ nape without her knowing. Gris endured the urge to shudder as his hot breath touched her neck. His uvula was wobbling. For a moment, his neck muscles thickened and the veins beneath were rising.

Perhaps she was again feeling the urge to suck his skin like the last time. Gris felt as if she were about to go mad as a tingling sensation crept down her legs.

“Your Highness, I don’t deserve too much kindness.”

She hated feeling these sensations she had never experienced before, especially from such a cold and arrogant man. As if on reflex, her intention to refuse him instantly spurted out of her mouth.

“I can’t accept it.”

He placed the jewelry box on his desk and dragged the oil lamp next to him. He then pulled out the earring and held it in front of the fire. His hand was surprisingly delicate, and the silhouette of his profile was as elegant as a sculpture. He fully caught her attention when he spoke.

“I don’t like it either,” he slowly replied as he furrowed his eyebrows, like something had tired him out.

She couldn’t know what he meant by his words— if he loathed women who got on his nerves or if he hated himself for being troubled by a girl like her.

That familiar scent of rosemary clasping strongly at her windpipe wafted through her nose. She instinctively held her breath to prevent herself from inhaling too much of it.

He then firmly stared at the sterilized earrings and lightly gripped Gris’ earlobe with his fingertips.

“You’ll hurt yourself if you move.”

She realized too late that he was trying to pierce the ear. The sharp needle was already pinned against her earlobe, and Gris tightly pressed her fists.

“No, wait, stop!”

The tip of the needle began to dig into the flesh. Her skin was burning. She even started hallucinating that the cool, night air was heating up.

“Ouch!”

It seemed that Vianut was also acutely aware of the change in room temperature. The air was growing damp with his sighs. Gris experienced her body muscles tensing. He looked at her unceasingly, as if unwilling to let any change in her facial expressions go unnoticed. Her breathing trembled and her blood pulsated against her veins.

It was terrible. She could not believe that she received a piercing from a man.

“Oh, it hurts.”

But she could not comprehend why abhorrent images of erotic acts kept appearing in her mind. When she saw the defenseless expression on his face as he pierced her ears, the sound of her throbbing heart slowly intensified.

“No…”

The needle completed piercing her flesh and exited through the other side of her earlobe. After checking the needle with his index finger, he fixed the pin on her earlobe. He then immediately sterilized the other pair of earrings in the fire. She felt something stir within her as she looked at his delicate touch.

She wondered what was the meaning behind his obtrusive actions that bordered on improper. Was it to satisfy his desires that could not be fulfilled as the Grand Duke, who had to hand over everything to a well-informed successor?

At that moment, he pressed her other earlobe with his hand. Gris held her breath as she stared up at him. There was a tinge of excitement in those azure eyes that were checking her freshly wounded ears. They seemed filled with a desire to devour anything that fell within their sights, but perhaps that feeling was more of an impulse to vent out the repressed passions that had been building within him.

Her eyes sparkled and she wanted to blurt out things from her mind just to release her desires. She wanted to say that she yearned to possess and taste him, up to the deepest parts of him that she had never experienced before. The needle pin broke through the skin of her earlobe.

“Your Highness, ahh…ouch!”

His body stiffened and tensed formidably, as if he had just buried himself deep into the body of a woman. Cold sweat ran down in his forehead, then a hot breath brushed near Gris’ cheek.

“Ha…”

The needle pierced the flesh at once. Gris scarcely felt the pain as she had been more thrilled by the sight of this man’s chest.

As he bowed his head, he touched the jewelry box and picked up the backing for the second earring. Soon, he blocked off the other needle.

“It’s done,” he slowly said, “Even before you could cry.”