Provoking a Graceful Bloom Novel

---- Chapter 175 Nathaniel didn't react at all. He simply lowered his gaze, studying the fire in her eyes. Selena's face flushed red in anger. "Even if you are a prince of the highest rank, you have no right-" "Do you truly care for him so much?" he cut in suddenly, out of nowhere. Selena furrowed her brows, caught off guard. "Care for whom?" "The entire city has been set aflame by your daring rescue. They say that your devotion to Prince Frederick could move heaven and earth." He sounded angry, his words cold and cutting as ice. Selena paused, weighing her options.

If she didn't admit it, the Demon Lord might continue to pester her. But if she pretended to confess, would he take the hint and back off? No, she didn't know him well enough to rely on that. If she confessed, he would erupt in a fury beyond control, or perhaps even act recklessly. "| don't love him, Your Highness," Selena said calmly. "| went to save him for my own sake." ---- Nathaniel's eyes remained locked on her, glinting with an unsettling, frigid light. "Explain yourself." "|... very well.

| did it to make a name for myself, to achieve something remarkable," Selena admitted reluctantly. "Don't be foolish," he growled. "No one remembers names or deeds. All they await is your reunion, your wedding, a tale for the ages!" For Frederick's sake, she had risked her very life! How terrifying that place had been, where fifteen thousand soldiers had marched, only to become trapped within the chaotic stone labyrinth, left to await death. Selena was just a single, fragile lady, yet she had ventured alone into that peril. What force had propelled her forward? Love, perhaps?

Nathaniel's anger was palpable. The massive weight of his body pressed against her, chest heaving violently, his entire frame radiating heat like a furnace. Yet, his words cut colder than ice "And what if | make it perfectly clear that | will never marry him?" Selena asked. Feeling him leaning closer, she immediately pressed her hands against his chest, keeping him at a distance. He was a bit... dirty. ---- Dust clung to him so thoroughly she could feel it with a touch. "Your Highness, | have bathed and changed. Could you step back a little?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

For some reason, Nathaniel's fury abated slightly. "Do you find me filthy?" "Not merely filthy, but rather foul as well." She couldn't tolerate a man who was both dirty and smelled bad. This was a wretched ordeal already, and the thought of having to bathe again exhausted her. "Your Highness, you are positively filthy, and you've dirtied my nightgown," she added, her expression of disdain impossible to conceal. Nathaniel drew a slow, measured breath, his anger still simmering beneath the surface. "Explain yourself!" he demanded coldly. Selena bristled inwardly. What was there to explain?

Why should she account for her actions to him, who was no one to her? But it was the dead of night, and his power was a thing she couldn't gauge. His skill was such that it exceeded anything she could measure or anticipate. If she truly enraged him, who could say what the consequences might be? ---- She pressed her lips together and forced herself to continue patiently, "Once it's known that | will not marry him, everyone will understand that | didn't go for his sake.

The story of a great prince needing a frail woman to come to his rescue will spread just as wildly as the tale of a thousand-mile journey to save a beloved. "When that happens, his reputation will be ruined, and mine will be established. So, | didn't ride to save him. | went to undo his fame as a Warbringer." She looked up into the dark and met Nathaniel's keen eyes.

"Are you satisfied with that explanation, Your Highness?" He regarded her in silence for a long moment, then asked, "How do you intend to make everyone see that you are resolved not to wed him?" "By entering the Autumn Hunt under my family's banner, claiming the laurel, and outshining him. In doing so, | will not only humiliate him but also sever the ties between us. Will that suffice, Your Highness?" Selena answered without hesitation.