Pherenike - Chapter 33

Pherenike awoke from a brief dream. Morpheus’ wings had passed her by, yet the man was still above her.

When this happened, she unwittingly searched his face for Deucalion’s. The face she saw, touched, and kissed in her dreams.

Once she achieved her purpose, the differences between Deucalion and Actor became glaringly apparent, like being hit by cold water.

Deucalion’s silver hair, which had draped softly around her like a gentle curtain, was replaced by short, black hair, under which gleamed his blue-gray eyes. She suppressed the now familiar disgust.

“You fell asleep again, did you?”

His words sounded like a quiet soliloquy or a gentle question to a young sister. However, she was not his sister, and what he was doing to her was far from what a brother would do to his sister.

Ung. Responding languidly to him, Pherenike frowned slightly under the force of his lower body pushing her from below and turned her head away. He was smiling a little. The man’s movements made her view wobble, as if she were lying in a lascivious cradle.

“Kybellaune, did I dare bore you?”

They had returned late at night to the palace, the two of them riding just a single horse from Geotil.

Thus, his question was somewhat inappropriate. The journey had been arduous and exhausting. She was already very tired before they even coupled.

But the man had desired her since riding together.

He had patiently waited a long time. Their return journey took a full day. Such prolonged restraint made his face change fiercely. The man who had politely protected his wife all the way back from receiving the goddess’ oracle was nowhere to be seen.

The king, having barely tied the horse in the stable, pushed the queen against a pillar and took her in front of the animals.

Then, returning to the room, he bent her over the table, grabbed the back of her neck and held her face down. It wasn’t new. Previously, she had often received him from behind.

She had told him it was better that way. Better to be taken like an animal, without seeing his face.

Perhaps this was around a year after their wedding night, a time when his touch was gradually becoming somewhat tender.

During the day, they would pass by each other without even glancing. But she disliked how he lifted her onto his lap at night, the way he would with a mistress. The routine of softly lifting her skirt after silently kissing her neck and chest like following a series of consequences felt tedious.

She couldn’t stand the few tender words he offered as if to soothe and console her. She just wanted to spread her legs. When their affair was over, she grew tired of his eyes looking after her rather than leaving immediately.

Actor listened to her words with an expressionless face then. He acknowledged her wish and, for the first time, made her kneel on all fours like a dog.

The man took Pherenike as if he were punishing her for her every word. However, words often fade. Time passed, many words were exchanged, but both the man and woman eventually became numb to it all.

After that, Actor occasionally became sadistic in his affairs with her, and that was all. Effectively, it just meant more varieties in their affair.

Following such sadistic acts, he would embrace her, who was so weak that she was now unable to give even the slightest resistance. Then, as he was doing now, he always gently toyed with her. He pressed his lips to her neck and touched their foreheads together.

As if all the actions before were merely a prelude to this moment.

Pherenike didn’t respond. The fatigue from the affair and the lingering effects of the journey dragged her body down like a swamp.

To take advantage of her now, in her mentally and physically exhausted state, and then ask if she found their bed boring.

Her displeasure was evident in her twisted lips. Actor smiled darkly. This was already their third affair since leaving the stables.

“Did you have a good dream?”

“It was alright.”

“You were smiling in your dream.”

Actor thrust powerfully, gesturing lightly with his chin towards the corner of her mouth, as if to trace a smile she had worn in her dream.

“Did no one bother you in your dream?”

“Ung…”

“Was I not there?”

He asked again, as if conforming to a young sister.

“No.”

You weren’t there. Her voice trailed off weakly as she shook helplessly.

“Thank goodness. Thanks to that, you were happy for a brief moment.”

Yes. She was happy, because she saw Deucalion in her dream.

Actor had no obligation to please her. To Pherenike, their affairs were akin to deliberately standing in a fierce rainstorm. Similar to waiting on a windy shore for the wind to pass.

From the time they married and spent their first nine nights together, it had always been like this.

No one measures how enjoyable or tedious it is to stand in a rainstorm. Sometimes it might be less or more dreadful, but that’s all.

Pherenike simply surrendered her body and waited. She observed how the man who seemed incapable of shedding a single drop of blood even if he got injured would occasionally lose his mind.

And on days like today, when he ravaged her to the core, she escaped into her dreams.

*Morpheus*: One of the *Oneiroi*, the gods of dreams in Greek mythology, who shapes the human form in dreams.