Chapter 5: Reclaimed Memories
The first horn blast shattered the afternoon calm like a stone through glass.
Do-yeon was in the solarium, the scent of jasmine thick and cloying. The sound, a low, mournful bray that climbed into a sharp, metallic shriek, froze the blood in her veins. It wasn’t the palace trumpet for ceremonies. This was rougher, wilder. A war horn.
Before the second blast finished, she was moving.
Her embroidery hoop clattered to the polished floor, forgotten. She didn’t call for her maids. She didn’t think. The silken slippers on her feet were a hindrance; she kicked them off, feeling the cool, rough grain of the cobblestones through the reception hall. The echo of the horn was still vibrating in the marble pillars as she hit the courtyard.
Chaos.
Courtiers in fine silks clustered like frightened birds, their whispers a hissing crescendo. Guards in polished armor jogged toward the main gate, their expressions grim under their helmeted brows. The sun, high and sharp, glanced off the manicured hedges and the still surface of the moonlit fountain, where the water’s gentle trickle was now drowned by the panicked hum.
And then she saw him.
A company of riders exploded through the archway of the main gate, their horses lathered and blowing, their armor scarred and dulled with dust and something darker. At their head, a figure taller than the rest, his black plate mail scored with fresh grooves, his crimson cloak torn and stained. He reined his monstrous black stallion to a skidding halt, the animal’s hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones.
Seung-heon.
His helmet was gone. His face was a mask of grime and dried blood that wasn’t his own. His eyes scanned the courtyard, not with the warmth of a returning prince, but with the cold, assessing gaze of a general surveying a field. He looked carved from the same stone as the pillars, immutable and deadly.
Something primal overrode every lesson, every ounce of royal decorum beaten into her. The memory of his weight on her, his teeth in her throat, his fingers inside her—it wasn’t a memory of violation. It was a claim. It was a truth. Her body knew it before her mind could catch up.
She ran.
Barefoot, her own silk robes—a pale, delicate blue—flared behind her like desperate wings. She weaved through the stunned courtiers, a streak of color against the grey stone. Her heart was a drumbeat in her throat, matching the wild rhythm of her feet on the ground.
“My Crimson Prince!”
The scream tore from her lungs, raw and loud enough to slice through the courtyard’s din. It was a title she’d never spoken aloud, one born from the dark well of that bedchamber, from the taste of her own blood in his mouth. It echoed off the marble, shocking the whispers into a dead, gawking silence.
Every head turned. Every eye locked onto the mad princess sprinting across the royal yard.
Seung-heon’s head snapped toward the sound. For a fraction of a second, the cold general’s mask cracked. Something raw and blinding flashed in his eyes—shock, then a possessive, terrifying heat. He moved with a predator’s speed, swinging down from the saddle before the horse had fully stilled. His heavy sword, still flecked with gore, clattered to the cobblestones with a sound that made the entire courtyard flinch.
He took two strides forward and opened his arms.
She leaped.
Her momentum carried them both, but he stood unwavering as a mountainside. Her arms locked around his neck, her legs around his waist. His armored body was hard and unyielding, the metal cold even through her robes, but the arms that crushed her to him were iron bands. She didn’t care about the dirt, the blood, the audience. She found his mouth with hers and kissed him.
It was not a gentle kiss. It was a collision.
Her lips were soft and desperate against his chapped, brutal ones. She poured every ounce of her fear, her relief, her awakened hunger into it. She tasted dust and salt and the faint, metallic hint of battle. He growled into her mouth, a low, vibrating sound of pure need, and his tongue invaded, claiming her just as ruthlessly as he had that night. His hands gripped her ass through the silk, hauling her tighter against the unyielding plate of his codpiece. It was savage. It was indecent. It was, in front of gods and court, a declaration.
When they broke apart, gasping, the world rushed back in. The stunned silence was absolute, broken only by the snort of a horse and the distant, fading echo of the horns. Do-yeon, still clinging to him, became aware of a hundred pairs of eyes. The horrified glare of the Chancellor. The terrified awe of the maids. The calculating curiosity of the ambassadors.
Seung-heon didn’t look at them. He looked only at her, his breath hot on her face. His eyes, still holding that storm of emotion, scanned hers. “Are you hurt?” His voice was rough, graveled by smoke and shouting.
She shook her head, words failing her.
He shifted his grip, holding her with one arm, and bent to retrieve his discarded sword with a sharp, fluid motion. Still holding her against his chest as if she weighed nothing, he turned toward the inner keep. His voice, when it came, was a whip-crack of command that brooked no argument, no gossip. “The courtyard is cleared. Now.”
He didn’t wait to see it done. He simply walked, carrying her past the frozen figures, his boots ringing a steady, final beat on the stones. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of leather, sweat, and iron. The scent of him. Of survival.
He didn’t take her to her chambers. He shouldered through a small, arched door used by servants, into a cool, dim storage room lined with casks of wine and oil. It was silent, private. He set her down on her feet on the stone floor, but didn’t release her. His hands came up to frame her face, his thumbs smearing the grime on his own gloves across her cheeks.
“You called me that in front of everyone,” he said, his voice a low thrum.
“It’s what you are,” she whispered, her own voice trembling not with fear, but with a ferocious certainty. “I felt… I felt you were in danger. The horn…”
“Scouting party. Ambush.” His words were clipped. “It’s handled.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, still swollen from his kiss. “What you did was reckless. It was foolish.”
“I don’t care.”
A dark smile touched his lips. “No. You don’t, do you?”
His mouth came down on hers again, but this was different. This was not the shocked, public collision. This was slow, deep, and devastatingly thorough. He kissed her as if he was memorizing the shape of her soul. His tongue swept against hers, and she met him thrust for thrust, her hands coming up to clutch at the hard edges of his armored shoulders.
When he pulled back, his breathing was ragged. “I need to feel you,” he growled. “Not through plate.”
His hands went to the complex straps and buckles of his armor. With a series of sharp, practiced clicks and hisses, the heavy pauldrons fell away. The cuirass followed, hitting the stone floor with a heavy thud. Greaves, vambraces, all discarded in a growing pile of steel until he stood before her in just his sweat-dampened linen undershirt and trousers. He looked younger, older, utterly real.
He pushed her back against a heavy oak cask, the wood cool through her thin robes. His hands found the sash at her waist and pulled. The robe fell open. He shoved it from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. She stood before him in only her thin shift, the translucent linen doing nothing to hide her peaked nipples, the soft shadow between her thighs.
His eyes darkened. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I know.”
He kissed her again, his hands sliding up her sides, warm and rough through the shift. He gathered the fabric at her hips and yanked it upward, breaking the kiss only to pull it over her head and toss it aside. The cool air of the storeroom prickled her naked skin. His gaze burned over every inch of her.
Then he turned her, gently but firmly, to face the cask. “Put your hands on it.”
She did, the rough wood grain biting into her palms. She heard the rustle of his clothes, the sound of his belt being undone. Then his body pressed against her back, his heat searing. His lips found the healing marks on her neck, now just faint silver lines, and he laved them with his tongue, sending a sharp thrill straight to her core.
One hand closed over her breast, kneading the soft flesh, pinching her nipple until she gasped. The other hand slid down her stomach, through the coarse hair, and found her already slick and hot.
“So ready,” he murmured against her skin, his fingers sliding through her wetness. “Always so ready for me.”
He plunged two fingers inside her without warning. She cried out, her back arching, her nails scraping the wood. She was still tight, aching from the memory of his previous taking, and the stretch was a bright, perfect pain. He fucked her with his fingers, hard and fast, the lewd, wet sound filling the quiet room. His thumb found her clit, circling with a ruthless pressure that had her moaning, her knees buckling.
“Please,” she begged, the word torn from her. She didn’t know what she was asking for.
He knew.
He withdrew his fingers. She felt the thick, blunt head of his cock press against her entrance. He was huge, and she was trembling with need and a spike of visceral fear. He grasped her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“Look at you,” he breathed, his voice thick with lust. “My princess. My reckless, fucking beautiful princess.”
He thrust home.
The fullness was breathtaking, a stretch that bordered on agony. She screamed, a raw, guttural sound muffled by the cask. He buried himself to the hilt in one brutal stroke, seating himself so deeply inside her she felt speared. He held there for a moment, letting her feel every inch of him, letting her body clench and spasm around the invasion.
Then he began to move.
He set a punishing rhythm from the start, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back into her with enough force to rock the heavy cask. Each thrust knocked a gasp from her lungs. His hand left her breast and tangled in her long hair, pulling her head back, forcing her spine into a deep arch that took him even deeper. The angle was merciless, hitting a place inside her that burned.
“Is this what you wanted?” he grunted, his breath hot on her ear. “When you ran to me? You wanted this? To be fucked like a common whore in a storage room?”
“Yes!” she sobbed, the humiliation only fueling her fire. “Gods, yes!”
His pace grew frenzied, desperate. The slap of his skin against hers, the creak of the cask, their mingled grunts and moans—it was a filthy, glorious symphony. His fingers found her clit again, rubbing in harsh circles in time with his thrusts. The coil of pleasure, wound so tight from the moment she’d heard the horn, began to fray.
“Come for me,” he commanded, his voice ragged. “Come on my cock. Now.”
It was the pressure of his command as much as the friction that tipped her over. Her orgasm tore through her, a convulsive wave that ripped a scream from her throat. Her vision whited out as her cunt clenched violently around him, milking his length.
With a final, guttural roar, he lost his rhythm. His thrusts became short, savage jerks as he buried himself as deep as he could go. She felt him swell, then the hot, spurting pulse of his release flooding her insides. He held her there, shuddering, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, his hips making small, involuntary movements as he spilled the last of himself into her.
Slowly, the world seeped back. The cool air on her sweat-slicked skin. The scent of wine and dust. The heavy, steadying weight of him against her back.
He softened inside her and gently pulled out. A trickle of his seed slid down her inner thigh. He turned her around, his hands surprisingly tender on her arms. His eyes searched hers, the battle-fury gone, replaced by something complex and weary.
He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking her jaw. “They will talk,” he said quietly.
“Let them.” Her voice was hoarse.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, a chaste, shocking contrast to the violence of moments before. “The war is coming here, Do-yeon,” he whispered against her skin. “The scouting party… they weren’t just looking for territory. They were looking for you.”
He pulled back, his expression grim. “And now, thanks to your little display, every soul in that courtyard knows exactly how precious you are to me. Your memory may be gone, but your enemies are starting to remember.”