336: Lift Your Hips

Lift Your Hips

He opened his eyes and looked at her. "How are your legs? Be honest."2

"Only the knees and that sprained ankle...then a few minor scratches…"

"Can you really treat those on your own?"

"I will try…I mean, I can reach them so…" she answered, hoping he wouldn't force her. 

In the end, Arlan gave in to the stubborn woman's wishes.

"Suit yourself."

Her eyes showed gratitude, and then a hint of hesitation.

"Uhm, but then, do you mind? My bag and clean water, can you bring them to me…?"

It was embarrassing. After refusing his help, she still ended up asking for help.

Arlan wordlessly fetched the clean basin of water and her bag from the table, placing them on the empty space next to her. He also arranged the washcloth and the herbal paste on her side.

"Anything else?" he snapped, obviously unhappy.

Oriana awkwardly smiled. "Thank you, Your Highness."

Who was the master and the servant in this situation? Oriana could only act shamelessly. The displeased prince turned around, his back facing her, but his tall figure did not stray far from the bed. 

She wanted to ask if it was possible for him to leave, but she swallowed her words back. In the first place, this was his room, not to mention, he gave into her requests, albeit reluctantly. Such a considerate act from him was impossible to imagine in the past. 

To think the overbearing and impatient Crown Prince of Griven was tolerating her to this extent… 

Today was a good day, if not for her body racked with pain.

Trusting he would not turn around, Oriana started to remove her belt and then unbutton her pants. If it were only her ankle, all she needed was to roll up a pant leg. However, her knees also needed treatment, and it would be counterproductive to remain in dirty pants.

'Can I stand?'

Hesitating, she chose to remain seated on the bed. Merely moving her arms was pure torture, and she could not imagine how worse it would be if she moved her legs. 

She struggled to squirm her hips out of the dirty garment. All her muscles ached in protest. Every time she would use force on her right hand, it was as if she was tearing the wound on her palm open. 

'I should have asked His Highness to bandage my hand first,' she regretted, but it was too late now. 

After several minutes, she managed to bring her pants down to her thighs. She bent her knees, struggling to remove the rest of her pants past them.

By then, her forehead glistened with a thin layer of sweat, gasping for breath as if every second was a chore. Even the slightest movements sent a wave of pain through her body. 

Removing that single article from her body had exhausted her energy. At this moment, she was tempted to just give up and go back to sleep.

Meanwhile, Arlan was glaring at the door, his arms crossed over his chest as he begrudgingly counted the seconds passing by, the occasional grunts and muffled swear words escaping Oriana's lips making him exasperated. 

'How stubborn!'

It was this quality of hers that made her equally amusing yet frustrating.

However, Arlan refrained from offering her his help a second time. It was her decision to do it on her own, and he wanted to respect her pride and choice. 

Soon, the exhausted Oriana fell back onto the bed with closed eyes, frustrated tears glistening down her eyelashes. At this point, all she could hear was the ringing in her ears and her loud gasps for breath. Her body lay limply, covered in a thin layer of sweat. 

She successfully removed her pants!

A small feat, but the effort it took her was akin to climbing a mountain.

'Next is cleaning my knees…' The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. Oriana could no longer muster energy to sit up, much less wring a washcloth. After much thought, she decided to surrender. 

Since she was pretending to be a man, of course, she wore braies under her work pants. The white undergarment covered her body from her hips down till mid-thigh. Although it was shameful to be seen like this as a woman, she would just convince herself that she's a young boy wearing a knee-length trouser, not an undergarment.

"Your Highness…?" 

Her shy voice was clear to him in the silent room. 

Arlan did not react, until she called out a third time.

"What?"

"I need your help."

Arlan initially wanted to mock her, but the moment he looked over his shoulder and found her slender figure lying in bed, he no longer cared about anything else. He hurried to her side, concerned about the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes and the beads of sweat rolling down her forehead.

"You fool."

His jaws clenched, but in the end, he could only let out a sigh of frustration. It seemed like he had been sighing every day since he met this troublesome woman.

Arlan picked up the freshly wrung cloth from the basin and sat at her feet, proceeding to quickly clean the abrasions on her slender legs. 

As she claimed, aside from the knees and the ankle, there were no other injuries on her legs. Her braies were clean, implying there were no wounds on her thighs. On her knees were deep gashes, and massive bruises could be seen on the area surrounding them. Touching them would cause her to flinch, but he had no choice but to clean those wounds thoroughly lest dirt be left behind.

Wiping her knees caused his fingers to sometimes unintentionally brush against the edge of her braies, lifting it and allowing him a peek of her white thighs. 

He looked at her and could see she had closed her eyes out of shame.

Arlan focused on his work. His concentration did not waver even after he thoroughly wiped clean her shapely calves, his eyes fixated on ensuring not a single dirt or bloodstain remained on her skin. Fortunately, the wounds on her knees were not bad enough to leave scars.

He did not even realize how swiftly he worked through her wounds until he reached her swelling ankle, and it was only because the second his fingers brushed against it, Oriana almost kicked him.

When he raised his head, he saw Oriana still pretending to be dead to the world. He then carefully applied the herbal paste on her knees and the rest of the scrapes, before grabbing the bandages from the table. 

The only injuries that required dressing were her right hand and her knees, while her right ankle needed to be wrapped to keep the swelling down. Although her left shoulder was bruised, it was not dislocated, while the other scratches would  heal faster on their own.

Arlan was not unfamiliar with dressing wounds. He ensured that the bandages were snug but not too tight. Despite having her eyes closed, Oriana could tell that he put genuine effort into securing the fresh dressings in place. There was nothing she could nitpick on. 

She was about to open her eyes when the rustling of clothes alerted her. Arlan had grabbed her clean pair of pants and scooted near her feet to help her put them on. The familiar yet foreign sensation of the fabric brushing up her legs caused Oriana's face to grow flushed once more, but she didn't show any other reaction as she had surrendered to her fate. She merely kept her eyes closed, praying in her heart for this ordeal to be over soon. 

When he managed to move pants up to her thighs, he stopped and spat the words with an indifferent expression. 

"Lift your hips."

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A/N- Keep voting for Oriana. Few hours are left to determine the winner of quarter final round. You can gift your points as well as coins to Oriana instead of gifting them to chapter. We have to make Oriana win. <3<3

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