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Join the Server“Your Highness, Your Highness, ah… Y-Your… Highness…”
“Call my name. Call my name for me.”
“Ahh… ha… A-Aaron. Lord Aaron…”
It was his father’s name.
The silhouettes of the two men tangled together like beasts painfully stabbed into Owen’s blurred vision.
As the man pinned beneath him panted and wrapped his arms around the Crown Prince’s neck, the Crown Prince laughed softly and stroked his hair.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“How could I be? You’re warming me so thoroughly.”
“Doesn’t your back hurt?”
“I’m perfectly fine. I’m only worried your knees might be hurting, Your Highness.”
His father burst into loud laughter and, without separating their bodies, lifted the man onto his thighs.
Startled, Owen quickly hid himself behind a tree.
The man seated atop the Crown Prince’s lap soon threw back his head and let out breathy cries.
Owen trembled with rage. He felt miserable for having such a man as a father, and tears welled in his eyes for Arthur’s sake alone.
Just as Owen turned to leave…
“Your Highness, Your Highness, whom do you cherish? Whom do you cherish most in this world?”
“You. Only you, Yonnana.”
“Who belongs to Your Highness?”
“You, Yonnana. Only you.”
“Do you truly mean it?”
“Have I not already told you? As long as you remain by my side, I need nothing else.”
“Would you even abandon your position as Crown Prince?”
“I would.”
“Would you abandon the Crown Princess as well?”
“You already know. You alone are my beloved.”
“And your children? Would you abandon them too?”
“I would. I already have. I never wanted them to begin with.”
“Desire only me. I alone shall be Your Highness’s beloved, your woman, and your child.”
“You are my wife and my child. Yonnana… Yonnana…”
Kissing the top of the man’s foot, the Crown Prince trembled.
Held in the Crown Prince’s embrace, the man turned toward the tree behind which Owen hid and smiled silently.
****
The bells announcing the death of the First Imperial Grandson rang throughout the palace.
Every court official stopped where they stood and offered a silent prayer.
Less than a full day later, the bells rang through the palace once more.
This time, they heralded the birth of a new life.
Like a flower blooming amidst despair, the sorrowful cries of a child born without a father echoed through the prince’s palace that had lost its master.
Rain fell on the day of the funeral.
The entire palace was thrown into chaos searching for the imperial grandson, who had disappeared from the procession.
For three days and three nights, Owen neither ate, slept, nor moved, driving the head attendant to despair.
When the imperial grandson locked himself inside his chambers and refused even to answer, the Emperor himself came and knocked upon the door.
Fear gripped him that he might lose the Second Imperial Grandson as well.
Nor did the Crown Princess’s words sound like empty threats when she declared she would rather bite off her own tongue and die than bear another child.
Even the newborn imperial great-grandson was frail, making the line of succession uncertain.
After vomiting, Owen slowly raised himself upright.
“This is a dream.”
He desperately wished it were one.
He wished with all his heart that, upon opening his eyes, his gentle brother would once again take his hand and invite him to see the blooming hydrangeas.
When he closed his eyes, Arthur appeared so vividly before him.
Then why did everyone look upon him with such pity?
“The First Imperial Grandson is dead. Arthur is dead. You are alone now.”
It felt as though everyone in the funeral procession was saying those words to him.
Regret crashed over him like a flood.
If only he had not insisted on going to the ruins that day. If only he had been more careful.
One thought led endlessly into another until finally…
If only I had never been born.
His thoughts reached all the way back to their very origin.
“I never wanted them to begin with.”
The moment he recalled the sight of those two entwined together, nausea surged up his throat.
He fled the procession and ran aimlessly. Bursting into the first building he saw, he lowered his head.
With nothing in his stomach, only bitter bile spilled onto the floor.
It seemed to be an abandoned palace.
The moment relief washed over him at the absence of onlookers, someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder from behind.
Owen glared murderously and shoved the person away.
The man dressed in black merely curled up the corners of his lips.
There had once been a time when Owen, deceived by this man into believing it was all for the sake of those he loved, silently endured abuse that had merely been misplaced rage.
But as he grew older, he realized that a mere concubine like this man held no power to truly harm either his brother or mother.
From then on, the man ceased to be frightening. Instead, he became the most vile and filthy existence in the world.
“The Crown Prince said it would be better if I didn’t come.”
‘Not worth listening to.’
Owen turned away and began walking, but the man hurried after him and grabbed his arm once more.
“There’s something I wanted to say to the Second Imperial Grandson.”
The man whispered like a serpent.
“Let go!”
Owen struggled to wrench himself free, but he could not overcome the man’s strength.
After starving for three days and nights, not a shred of energy remained in his exhausted body.
Even if he dressed like a woman, spoke like one, and lay in a man’s embrace like one, the strength gripping Owen’s arm made it painfully clear.
This person was still a man.
“You looked pretty shocked. It seems our imperial grandson knew absolutely nothing about carnal relations?”
He knew the basics.
But he had never imagined that such acts were truly carried out with movements so beastlike and revolting.
“Don’t look at me like I’m disgusting. If you think about it, if people didn’t do things like that, neither you nor the brother you loved so dearly would ever have been born.”
“How dare you compare marital relations to filthy perversion?! Do not dishonor my late brother!”
The man laughed openly, as though genuinely amused.
“Marital relations, hm… His Highness the Crown Prince cannot perform before women. So who do you think was able to make that noble thing of his rise?”
Pointing toward Owen’s lower body, the man snickered.
“If you think about it, I’m practically the benefactor who allowed Your Highness to be born. Though there’s no need to thank me.”
The man continued while gazing at Owen’s furious expression.
“People call me a filthy whore. But I swear, not once did I ever willingly sell my body. Not once did I enjoy it. Every time I shared a bed with your father, all I wanted was to die.”
“You want to ask why I moved my hips like I was enjoying myself? Here. Look.”
Grabbing Owen’s hand, the man pulled it toward his waist.
No matter how Owen resisted, his hand was dragged beneath the man’s clothes.
There was nothing there.
Nothing that should have been between his legs.
The man lowered his garments and revealed the scorched, ruined flesh beneath.
“Your father took everything from me. Even after reducing my body to this, he dragged me into the Crown Princess’s chambers because he needed an heir. After making it impossible for me to ever hold a lover or father a child, he bound my hands and feet, locked me away in the detached palace, and violated me whenever he pleased.”
“Carnal pleasure? It was torture. I swear to you, not for a single moment was it pleasurable, nor did I ever love your father.”
‘Did Father truly commit such cruelty?’
‘No. You are the wicked one. You seduced Father. Because your nature is depraved. Because your body desires men.’
‘If only you had never existed, Father would-’
As though reading Owen’s thoughts, the man smiled delightedly.
“Still too young to kill someone, are you? Your Highness, once you grow older… will you set me free?”
****
Someone was pressing down upon his body.
The loathsome sensation buried deep within distant memories resurfaced, jolting Owen awake in an instant.
“So you’re awake? Since you seemed far from ordinary, I was starting to worry you might be a eunuch with how little reaction you gave.”
Through his blurred vision, he saw someone.
‘…A man. A man with golden hair.’
“Did the drug work too well? What kind of dream did you have to make that expression? When I first drank that stuff, I bawled my eyes out thinking my dead father had come back to beat me again.”
Even while half-undressed by another person, the Emperor showed little reaction. Only his eyes remained frozen.
Titi clicked his tongue.
“Maybe it’s because you’re such a ridiculously noble person. You’re too quiet. Makes this boring. Hey, are you really awake?”
Titi reached out and lightly slapped the Emperor’s cheek.
In that instant, the Emperor recoiled violently and shoved Titi’s hand away.
The force sent Titi stumbling backward. Wearing an awkward expression, he stood up.
After a brief pause, he bent one knee as though imitating a formal bow.
“Is this how you’re supposed to do it? Anyway, Your Majesty, I’m a pretty vulgar bastard, so I don’t know much about etiquette.”
Having delivered his clumsy greeting, Titi approached the Emperor once more.
This was troublesome.
The Emperor neither screamed hysterically nor cried for his mother like a child.
The degenerates peeking from behind the walls, eagerly waiting to witness the Emperor disgrace himself, needed something entertaining to watch.
“I don’t know what kind of dream you had, but I can comfort you real well. I heard you’re especially fond of men’s asses?”
He had serviced more than ten men in a single night before.
Even the most arrogant young noblemen would become utterly devoted after spending one night with him.
No matter how beautiful or refined the Emperor’s consorts might be, none of them could compare to him in bed.
“Maybe there really is such a thing as bloodline perversion? They say even the Crown Prince was obsessed with his male concubine. Ah, but not my father. I’m just unusual. I was born this way.”
Proud of his own abilities in that regard, Titi slyly reached toward the Emperor’s groin once more.
Still nothing.
That shouldn’t be possible.
Could he simply be resistant to aphrodisiacs?
“Well, whatever the case, when it comes to taking care of what’s below, I’m definitely better than those precious imperial consorts-”
Titi abruptly stopped speaking and stared suspiciously at the Emperor.
Something was wrong with his expression.
His eyes were neither clouded by drugs nor trembling with fear from hallucinations.
Killing intent.
Cold sweat trickled down Titi’s spine.
He had heard that sometimes people who encountered the monster within themselves during nightmares awoke as murderers.
“…Yonnana.”
After staring at Titi for a long while, the Emperor finally spoke the name like a sigh.
The excitement doesn't stop here! If you enjoyed this, you’ll adore The Aloof Immortal Wife Pushes Me Away, The Yandere Girl Longs for Me to Stay. Start reading now!
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