Just by looking at his eyes, she stumbled on her feet while trying to step back, and once again he wrapped his arms around her waist, but this time they were face to face...

His gaze shifted from her eyes to her lips and he brought his face closer to her. 

*THUD*

Before his lips could find their way to hers, she pushed him back. This time there wasn't any fear, but a fire in her eyes. 

"HOW DARE YOU?", she questioned with a strict, straight voice.

"Did you just push me?"- his reply came without flinching a bit. He came closer but she moved further away, bringing her right hand to her left, pinching the skin tightly through the sleeves.

"HOW DARE YOU COME INTO MY ROOM THROUGH THE WINDOW? JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE THE KING, DOES THAT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BREAK INTO SOMEONE'S ROOM AT MIDNIGHT?" Though she was maintaining her loud tone, the fear started to settle down in her chest.

There was a heaviness while she was speaking because those golden eyes were enough to intimidate her. Not to forget the words of her father, which still rang in her ears. 

The fact that she was talking back to the King of the five kingdoms just managed to amplify the fear. And if he's anything like the other Kings or her own father, she would be dead any moment without even getting a final wish.

"Wh...what if I were changing my clothes? Why couldn't you come from the front door like.. Like a gentleman?" she continued asking to suppress the fear. However, her voice died down a bit.

Paying no attention to the question and the need to answer, his eyes wandered around the room as if he didn't care about a single thing she was saying.

"Well, in that case, I would have seen you undressed or underdressed." - the calmness in his tone was enough to make Lara throw a fit of curses at him, but for the betterment of her family and kingdom, she kept it under her breath.

And instead of those curses, "How could you even say that?" - is what came out of her mouth or more like from her teeth, as she was pressing them hard to suppress her anger. The grip of her nails tightened through the fabric and left a stinging pain in her nerves but it wasn't enough to make her anger fade.

He turned to her, his gaze once again wandering, but this time on the dress Lara was wearing. The light green and yellow colored jeogori.. the perfect colors to make her face glow. The loosened knot of her dress left no trace of the curves and her figure around which the king had wrapped his arms just a few minutes ago.

"You are going to be my wife tomorrow morning. We'll be consummating the marriage the following night. I'm anyways going to see you without that on your body." He pointed to the jeogori, "What's the big deal if it's today or tomorrow?" he added, leaving Lara with a stunned expression.

"And I can come to your room whenever and however I like. You are my fiance after all."

There was not the slightest regret or feeling of sorry in his answer. It took a good moment for all of what he said to settle in, and for that little while, Lara kept staring at him in disbelief and at a loss of words.

Her right hand came down from her left hand, leaving a tint of red pigment on her sleeves. This time she wasn't afraid of dying, as dying seemed like a better option than marrying the man standing right in front of her.

"DIS...GUSTING."

"What?"- and finally, his eyes stopped wandering.

"YOU. ARE. DISGUSTING."- she repeated, loud and clear for him to hear it well.

"Princess Lara, you're crossing your limits."- his voice suddenly became stern, as if he had newly realized his position as the King.

"How easy it is for you males to disregard females as someone worthy of respect."- she finally let all the pent-up emotions in her come out flooding.

"But-" before he could interrupt, she continued.

"For you, females are just the means to fulfill your lust and once you are done with one, you move on to the other. Being a king allows you to marry more than one woman because your authority and gender put you in a beneficial position where you can treat women as your objects."

There was no fear, neither in her eyes nor in her voice. She was no longer a princess, abandoned in a palace away from her element. She was a woman, the one who'd have enough.

"We are even worse than the subjects you rule, as we are just meant to give you a descendant to carry on your name and nothing else. I feel disgusted. I feel DISGUSTED to be the fiance of a person like you and I feel disgusted about marrying you."

She continued while he kept looking at her with a straight face. If there was a word "remorse", it was clear that he had never heard of it.

"So yes, I'm not going to think about what could happen to me for telling you all of this because it is still going to be better than what might happen to me after tomorrow. I'LL ANYWAY LOSE MYSELF IN ORDER TO BECOME YOUR WIFE, SO BE IT TODAY ITSELF. KILL ME FOR OFFENDING YOU BECAUSE I'LL HAPPILY ACCEPT THAT." 

She lowered her head towards him, not out of respect but, due to the urge to stop looking at that expressionless face. The feeling of bursting anger in her cheeks and the shivering body was making it harder for her to keep standing, but she didn't budge.

Her heartbeats could be heard louder than the foot thumps of the horses at the entrance of the palace. It was too much noise for her to see or to hear clearly, but then suddenly... everything went silent.

She raised her head to see the King, sitting down on one knee in front of her, while his head hung low.

He looked up, a little at her, and said,

"It wasn't my intention to make you feel like an object. We have been engaged for the past 3 years and I never got the chance to have a chat with you in person."- was not what Lara was expecting him to say but to her surprise, she had not misheard a single word.

"Honestly, I didn't think that you would feel offended by my snarkiness. And as for my upfrontness about the talk of our wedding night, I was just stating the fact in order to make you feel comfortable, but I take it from your reaction that it resulted otherwise."- he paused for a while and looked at her.

For the first time, she could actually see the pain in his eyes. Though she was confused about whether it was emotional or physical by sitting on his knee in that skin fit, warrior pants and a royal red jacket, sequined with pure gold lining, making him look more royal than the royals she had ever seen.

She only realized it then, how much his dark, black hair had grown from the last and only time she saw him; on the day they got engaged. His eyes were golden back then too, but with a hint of green surrounding that gold as if it were the halo around the moon.

Forgetting what he said, her eyes wandered on his features which were too hard to ignore. The fact that he no longer had the mask to cover his face and those curls of his hair rested softly on his forehead made him even more beautiful.

The idea of marrying a person who might also be the most handsome face to ever exist in the five kingdoms and any of the world around hit the growing woman in her, but still, she didn't show the least bit of care and he turned his gaze to the floor again.

"I don't know what other kings have done or might do, but my life is dedicated to just one woman and that is YOU. The rule of marrying multiple women is to ensure the future of the kingdom, but my father loved my mother dearly."- she wasn't sure any longer if he was explaining himself or quoting a poet, but she listened to him nonetheless.

"My father realized how hollow it makes the relationship between a King and his Queen. He told me when I was a kid, how it broke the heart of my mother to see him with his other wives, even when she knew that his heart belonged to her."- he continued, not being interrupted by the Princess, who was still trying to figure out what he meant.

"He told me to marry one woman who I could love completely and be strong enough to break the rule."- He took another pause and lifted his head to see the expressionless face of Princess Lara, who suddenly shifted her gaze to the wall behind him not knowing what to respond.

"Can I stand up now?"- he asked, realizing that the fire he saw in her eyes a while ago has gone now.

With a reluctant, yet sharp nod she gave him consent and he stood up.

Taking a step closer to her, he looked straight into her eyes, and something in her made her take a step back again just to find her stumbling on the velvet clothing on the side of the bed, touching the floor.

And as if he really was her knight in shining armor, he held her once again to save her from falling. Closing the distance between them, he made her stand steady on her feet again but Lara had already lost the urge to revolt. 

That was the quality of his element. It was not in her hands to stay angry at him any longer, not when he was standing inches apart from her.

It was as if he was sucking out the negative emotions and feelings from her, but at the same time, she could feel something being added to her emotions.

She didn't know if it was the effect of those golden eyes or what he had just said, but one thing that became clear to her was that he was not the type of King she had always repelled. 

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