Chapter 29

A low, gravelly voice sliced unexpectedly through the quiet room from behind him.

Kosha jumped so violently that the bread slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor. At the same instant, the startled crow beat its massive wings and vanished into the pitch-black night.

“Hm?” the intruder hummed, each syllable agonizingly slow and laden with displeasure. “I asked who said you could leave.”

Unable to form a single coherent sound, Kosha spun around and blinked stupidly through the weak amber lamplight.

A tall, broad-shouldered blond man leaned casually against the bedroom doorframe. Kosha would have been considerably less astonished had a literal ghost materialized in his quarters.

“Your Highness…?”

Lucien looked incredibly, inexplicably disheveled. His golden hair was a tousled mess, complementing a loose, unadorned white shirt and dark trousers without any visible belt. Simple leather house slippers covered his feet, presenting the unmistakable image of a man who had been preparing for bed, which was perfectly reasonable at an hour when the rest of the castle lay fast asleep.

Perhaps this is a dream, Kosha thought wildly. Of course. That must be it.

The inexplicably friendly crow, Lucien’s impossible midnight visit, and the sheer absurdity of the entire situation would make perfect sense if Kosha were simply asleep. He saw Lucien in his dreams often enough, though the phantom version of the prince was always radiant, overwhelmingly warm, and deeply affectionate.

“Aren’t you going to answer me?” Lucien demanded.

His brow furrowed as he pushed himself away from the doorframe, visibly irritated that the mage had drifted into a daze instead of responding.

The prince’s movements appeared strangely slow and lethargic, yet his naturally long stride carried him across the room in five steps. He passed the bed entirely and cornered Kosha against the open window.

As Lucien closed the distance, a deeply pleasant and intoxicating fragrance drifted from his skin, reminiscent of delicate flower petals dried beneath warm sunlight.

Wait. Is this really not a dream?

Kosha looked up at the face looming directly above him. Lucien’s eyelids drooped with unnatural heaviness, and his sharp features were devoid of their customary tension, leaving him faintly sedated.

The prince normally carried the lethal, cutting presence of a finely honed blade. Seeing him so loose and utterly unguarded felt dangerously wrong.

While Kosha struggled to form a response, Lucien languidly lifted one hand. The movement was clumsy and obvious, yet Kosha remained too paralyzed by shock to evade the approaching touch.

“Ugh.”

A large, intensely warm hand closed ruthlessly around a thick fistful of his curly brown hair.

Lucien applied a measured yet inescapable pressure, dragging Kosha’s head backward until the smaller man’s frightened green eyes were forced to meet that heavy blue-gray gaze. Although the grip was not particularly painful, the dominating sensation of having his hair seized sent a violent flinch through his entire body.

Wait. Isn’t it nighttime? The strange love potion inside Lucien makes him dangerously volatile after dark…

“Don’t be frightened,” Lucien murmured.

He released a faint, almost derisive breath when he noticed Kosha’s rigid terror.

“It’s fine. I’m not going to hit you.” Leaning closer, he lowered his voice into a slow, husky register. “I don’t particularly feel like resorting to violence right now, anyway.”

Despite the startling gentleness of his delivery, Kosha did not trust the words for a single heartbeat.

He isn’t going to hit me? Why tell such a blatant lie? The potion is supposed to make him violently aggressive. The moment I irritate him, he’ll snap my neck.

“You said you couldn’t speak to beasts?” Lucien asked suddenly, his thumb brushing against Kosha’s scalp.

Kosha shivered helplessly beneath the restraint. “I… I can’t. What you witnessed with the crow was entirely one-sided.”

“Do you like geese that much?”

“Pardon? Oh, that…” Kosha swallowed against the dry lump lodged in his throat. “I’ve simply raised the flock for a very long time.”

“Can’t you teleport them here with magic, exactly as you did with that silver cup?”

The questions came in rapid succession, carelessly bulldozing over Kosha’s stammering explanations. Whether the prince genuinely cared about the practicalities of transporting geese remained highly doubtful, but Kosha diligently attempted to satisfy the interrogation.

“Th-They’re too large, Your Highness. There are too many of them, and the physical distance is far too great. Besides, using spatial magic to transport living creatures is somewhat…”

“Impossible?”

“Not completely impossible, but my current magical proficiency is still…”

“Ah, yes. Your ability.” Lucien cut him off with utter, dismissive indifference.

No further questions followed.

Lucien merely stood over him in the suffocating silence, his broad hand still tangled firmly in Kosha’s unruly curls while he stared down with a heavy, unwavering intensity that made the mage’s skin prickle.

Kosha had only just begun debating whether he should finish his interrupted explanation when a profoundly strange sensation washed through his nervous system.

His lips parted in silent shock. Unable to lower his chin against Lucien’s unforgiving grip, he could only flick his gaze frantically around the shadowed room.

His body felt… incredibly comfortable.

Having a dangerous royal clutching his hair was not physically relaxing in any ordinary sense, yet the volatile magic that rampaged beneath Kosha’s skin every night had abruptly flattened into an extraordinary, blissful calm.

It was as though his rebellious mana had been subdued the instant Lucien touched him. In human terms, the relief resembled having those eight rogue, flailing arms finally bound with heavy rope. In a mage’s terms, it felt precisely like the unruly power of a child being pressed into submission by a vastly superior elder.

But there are no other mages in this room, Kosha realized, panic steadily mounting. There is only Lucien. Why did the mana raging inside my core suddenly retreat?

Bewildered, Kosha’s gaze fluttered. If this strange intimacy continued, he feared he might inadvertently remember the repressed events of that one horrific night he had worked so tirelessly to forget.

“What are you thinking about with your pretty mouth hanging open like that?” Lucien mumbled.

He had stood in silence for so long that he appeared ready to fall asleep on his feet. Even his refined royal pronunciation had begun to deteriorate, the lazy syllables slurring together.

Is something seriously wrong with him?

Kosha parted his lips wider, intending to ask whether the prince was suffering some sudden medical emergency, but before a single sound could escape his throat, Lucien closed the remaining distance between them.

The movement felt less like an intentional approach than a complete physical collapse, dragging Kosha helplessly into his overwhelming orbit. There was not even a fraction of a second to register the dangerous proximity before their mouths collided.

Lucien did not strike him with violence. Instead, he caught Kosha’s lower lip lightly between his teeth and tasted the tender flesh as though savoring a piece of candy softened by body heat.

He held the gentle bite for one breathless second, released it with a wet sigh, then captured Kosha’s upper lip and repeated the slow, sensual motion. Again and again, he settled into the same mesmerizing rhythm until slick dampness gathered at the corners of their mouths.

Kosha’s mind thoroughly short-circuited. He endured the entire intimate exchange without even remembering to close his eyes.

The suffocating kisses gradually lengthened, each agonizing slide of friction lingering longer than the one before it. The hot tip of Lucien’s tongue swept softly across the seam of Kosha’s lips, grazing the tender flesh just inside before retreating, only to return and claim his mouth in the same intoxicating rhythm.

Kosha’s ragged breath caught in his throat as his panicked thoughts dissolved into a thick, buzzing haze. Flustered and entirely adrift, he blindly clutched the broad shoulders of the man pinning him against the bedroom wall.

Lucien made no attempt to knock away the defensive hands. Instead, he shifted his grip, sliding one broad, searingly warm palm around the vulnerable nape of Kosha’s neck.

Their mouths sealed completely, shutting out the rest of the world as Lucien’s tongue slipped effortlessly between Kosha’s parted lips and invaded the wet heat beyond.

Their tongues met and slid slickly against one another, retreating only to tangle again in the dark. Kosha had never possessed enough imagination to conceive of such an overwhelming violation. Lucien moved with devastating expertise, coaxing him like a deeply reluctant lover who needed to be thoroughly undone.

The prince’s tongue teased the sensitive lining of Kosha’s lips without mercy, tracing the ridge of his teeth before brushing the delicate tip of his tongue and sweeping possessively across the roof of his mouth.

Slrk.

A soft, helpless whimper tore from Kosha’s throat, only to be swallowed immediately by the greedy pull of Lucien’s mouth as the prince sucked fiercely on his bruised lower lip.

Kosha’s racing heart felt ready to detonate against his ribs. Lucien was using no physical violence, yet the sheer force of the kiss felt infinitely more devastating than any brutal beating Kosha had ever endured.

His chest might rupture. His trembling legs might dissolve into useless jelly and melt straight through the floorboards. Some terrifying and irreversible transformation seemed to be rewriting his entire physical existence.

For one blinding, fleeting instant, a rogue arc of emerald magic leaped from Kosha’s clutching fingertips into the exposed skin at the nape of Lucien’s neck.

Crackle.

“Mm…” Lucien grunted.

The heavy, muffled sound remained trapped between their joined lips, never fully escaping into the chilled air.

Then, without warning, every ounce of Lucien’s terrifying strength vanished.

The power left him in stages. First, the wet mouth that had been devouring Kosha lost its ravenous force. Then the warm palm cradling his neck went slack, followed by the long fingers tangled so securely in his hair.

Lucien slumped forward like a marionette whose strings had been severed, his massive dead weight collapsing completely against Kosha’s slender frame.

Caught off guard by the sudden burden, Kosha staggered backward. His heels skidded across the floorboards, and he nearly lost his footing before his spine slammed hard against the stone wall.

Only then did he manage to brace his legs and support the unconscious prince.

Deep, steady breaths puffed warmly against the shell of Kosha’s ear. Lucien had fallen into an unnaturally silent sleep, one so still that it closely resembled death.

Kosha’s frantic instincts immediately recognized the distinct magical residue lingering in the air. It was a potent sleeping spell, although judging by the traces it had left behind, it was unlikely to keep a man of Lucien’s constitution unconscious for more than three or four hours.

“Ugh…”

A belated, pathetic sound finally escaped Kosha’s thoroughly kissed lips, the feeble remnant of a breathless groan he had failed to release during the assault.

He desperately and fiercely wished that the entire encounter had been nothing more than a hallucination brought on by insomnia. Yet the swollen dampness coating his mouth and the searing weight of Lucien’s solid body hanging limply in his trembling arms were far too vivid, far too undeniably real, to dismiss as a dream.

“I must have completely lost my mind…” he breathed into the silence, no longer certain whether he was whispering to his own shattered sanity or to the slumbering prince collapsed heavily against his chest.

[END of VOLUME 1]