Chapter 61

For Elwin, the events of the previous night were etched into his memory as a singular, transformative experience. He had never dared imagine he possessed the capacity for such profound, adult intimacy.

Upon opening his eyes, he found himself in an unfamiliar inn room. Early morning sunlight cascaded through the threadbare curtains, bathing the humble surroundings in a golden hue that felt entirely magical to him.

More exhilarating still was the sight of the man he had kissed the night before, resting mere inches away. Though an intense shyness made him hesitant to study Leon’s features, his yearning won out, and Elwin watched him with an expression that softened into unadulterated tenderness.

Leon appeared striking, his eyes heavy and deep even in the nascent light of dawn. As his dark brows knitted together, Elwin suddenly understood the source of the man’s unusual, brooding atmosphere: he had barely slept a wink.

“You’re awake? You slept remarkably well.”

The tone was deceptively gentle, yet a sharp barb of irritation hid beneath the surface. Elwin sensed he had committed some unseen social transgression. Struggling for a composed response, he faltered, “M-Mr. Leon… did you sleep well?”

“I wonder. I spent the entire night keeping watch.”

Elwin nearly offered a foolish retort about the locked door, but the biting subtext caught him, and he clamped his mouth shut. He had meant no harm, yet he realized that drifting into sleep immediately after such an intense, tangled embrace was perhaps a breach of etiquette.

As he debated whether to offer an apology or risk making the situation more awkward, Leon reached out to lightly pinch the tip of his nose, the contact so feather-light it stung not at all.

“You should get ready. It will be time for the train soon.”

“Ah, yes.”

Elwin sprang from the bed, but at that exact moment, a peculiar throb pulsed through his core. A sudden, scorching heat surged from within, and he barely managed to force his roiling scent back down before it could spill into the air.

Huh? My pheromones… why are they reacting like this?

Elwin was usually a master of his own biology; his pheromones rarely spiraled into chaos without cause, save for the inevitable arrival of his heat.

No. It cannot be. My cycle is still weeks away.

Suppressing the alarm bells ringing in his mind, he hurried to the washroom. The reflection staring back was flushed, his face radiating a soft, lingering warmth. He brushed off the mounting unease, convincing himself that his flushed skin was merely the lingering effect of the night’s passion.

This was no moment to succumb to vague anxieties. Today marked the pivotal start of their journey to the capital to pick up the trail of Dwight. They were already trailing behind schedule, and haste was essential.

It will be fine. It is nothing.

He splashed frigid water over his face until the heat subsided, but the sensation of wrongness intensified upon his return. Leon, who had been methodically packing their belongings, froze the moment he saw Elwin’s face, as if he sensed the subterranean shift in his constitution. Elwin tightened his control over his pheromones and feigned a calm he did not feel.

“We should hurry, shouldn’t we?”

“…Yes. We should.”

Under Leon’s searching, uneasy gaze, they finalized their preparations to depart. When they reached the ground floor, the innkeeper greeted them with a curious, warm smile.

“You had a comfortable night, I hope? Oh, was the room perhaps too warm for you?”

The innkeeper peered at Elwin’s reddened complexion with visible confusion. Flustered, Elwin shook his head in a desperate scramble to preserve his composure.

“No. We rested well. Goodbye.”

He fled the inn as though pursued by ghosts. Outside, the winter air was crisp and biting, yet despite the frigid breeze that forced passersby to cinch their collars tight, Elwin’s cheeks burned hotter by the second. His preoccupation with his physiological turmoil was so absolute that he began to pace in the direct opposite direction of the train station.

“Sir Elwin. The train station is this way.”

“R-Right.” Elwin’s response to Leon was barely a whisper, undermined by a traitorous tremble. He inhaled sharply, attempting to steady his fraying nerves, but as his gaze locked with Leon’s, a high-pitched ringing pierced his eardrums. A wave of vertigo crashed over him, blurring the world into an indistinct haze.

“Sir Elwin!”

Startled by the sight of Elwin teetering, Leon caught his shoulders with both hands. The contact was his undoing. As those large, calloused hands anchored him, Elwin’s last line of defense collapsed. The pheromones that had been roiling beneath his skin, precariously contained, finally breached their threshold.

A dull, throbbing ache blossomed in his lower abdomen as a heavy, concentrated surge of pheromones erupted from Elwin’s pores. The potent, intoxicating scent assaulted Leon’s senses instantly. From the nape of Leon’s neck to the delicate tips of his ears, his skin flushed a deep, vibrant crimson, as if scorched from within.

Leon faltered, his expression curdling into one of bewildered distress. He clenched his jaw, swallowing hard. The rhythmic bob of his Adam’s apple was agonizingly seductive to Elwin’s unraveling mind, as was the cautious, low tone Leon used to address him.

“Sir Elwin. Forgive the intrusion, but… could you, by any chance, be…?”

There was no concealing the truth any longer. Elwin’s heat had arrived. As the realization settled, a bitter sense of injustice washed over him, weighing on his heart as heavily as the primal instincts rampaging through his nerves.

“I don’t know. Why? Why is this happening? Why now, of all times…?” Elwin murmured, his voice thick with unbidden tears. His cycle was notoriously precise; the next arrival should have been weeks away. Perhaps the medication Dwight had administered had induced a chemical imbalance, or perhaps the persistent proximity to Leon’s own pheromones had accelerated his biology.

“Did you bring your medicine?”

Leon’s sharp inquiry jolted Elwin back to the present. There was no luxury in diagnosing the cause. Elwin nodded, his fingers fumbling frantically through his satchel. Leon anticipated his movements, deftly retrieving the vial. Elwin swallowed the tablets as quickly as his trembling hands allowed.

Whether the pills would suffice remained a gamble; once a heat took hold, pharmacological intervention often lost its potency. His breathing grew ragged, his very fingertips spasming with the effort of containment, yet Elwin feigned composure. He clutched his luggage, determined to continue toward the station.

“We must hurry. The train is departing.”

“What? Are you insane? You intend to board a train in this state?”

“If we miss this connection, the seal and the estate will be lost…”

“No. I understand your desperation, but I cannot place you on a train in such a condition.”

Leon was correct. Unless Elwin wished to lure every Alpha passenger into their compartment, boarding was impossible. Yet, missing this train meant losing ground against Dwight. What was to be done? In any other circumstance, Elwin would have calculated a tactical retreat, but his cognitive faculties were currently drowning in desire.

What am I to do? Right now, I can only think of…

If they could not travel, they had until tomorrow to wait. An entire day of enforced idleness, stranded in a foreign town with the very Alpha he secretly craved, all while his body incinerated from the inside out.

Without conscious intent, Elwin’s gaze drifted over Leon—tracing the amber intensity of his eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, the solid strength of his arms. He lingered, watching him with a hunger that bordered on shameful, before he finally grasped the transparency of his own expression. Startled, he flinched and ducked his head.

“Y-You are right. Today… departure is impossible.”

Leon appeared relieved by the concession, though a restless, uncontainable tension radiated from him. There was no question he had registered Elwin’s predatory appraisal. His face and neck remained suffused with a deep, betraying red, and the veins on his hands stood out in harsh relief as he battled to maintain his composure.

“Indeed. For now… you should rest until the fever subsides. Once you take the medicine, how long does the recovery typically take?”

“Usually, about a day,” Elwin replied, his voice laced with anxiety. This heat felt fundamentally different—erratic, violent, and saturated with thoughts that terrified him. Given the intensity of the onset, he feared the cycle might endure far longer than his usual threshold.

Then perhaps, after all…

He had heard whispers that sharing a heat with an Alpha could truncate the process, far more efficiently than enduring it in medicinal isolation. Until now, raised as the pristine scion of a noble house, he had never entertained such an impudent solution, but as he stood there, watching Leon, the temptation proved nearly overwhelming.