RAMHM Chapter 138

The capital we reached was pitch dark, deep in the night.

The monsters kept appearing out of nowhere, with no warning at all—dodging them ate up a full week, and we only managed to reach the city on the eve of the investiture ceremony.

Seeing no movement from Doris's side the whole way here, it was clear: those maids must have lied, afraid of being punished.

Canulla split off near the outskirts of the capital to avoid drawing attention. By now she would have met Vincento, who had come to receive her, and the two of them would be making their way to his townhouse.

Epero, Rotsy, and I moved quietly toward Rhodness's private residence.

We'd minimized the escort in case anyone tried to track our movements, which had Epero in a state of extreme tension.

The residence walls were forbiddingly high—the kind of height that made sense for imperial family property.

To avoid giving Rhodness time to object, we had only sent the carrier pigeon once we were already within the city.

"My lady."

I stepped down from the carriage—Epero was standing guard outside, I was certain of it.

Then came the heavy thud of a door closing behind me, and a hand extended from the dark. A very familiar hand.

"Rhoan?"

It was Rhodness.

Before I could properly see his face, I was enclosed completely in arms gone cold from waiting outside.

With only his own people in the space, there was nothing restrained about how he moved.

Epero's mouth opened. Closed. He scratched the back of his head and disappeared. There was no one left to perform for.

The others read the room and filtered into the residence, scattering as they went. Rhodness walked me straight to the interior staircase.

The staircase was dark but kept meticulously. We climbed several flights. When we reached the floor he had cleared of everyone else, he lifted me without warning.

I grabbed his neck in surprise. He moved faster.

SLAM.

We entered the warm bedroom and he set me down.

"Rhoan—"

And then my back was against the closed door, and he swallowed my mouth before I could say another word.

Cold lips and hot, wet flesh—both at once. The heat that had forced my lips open moved through my mouth—slow, clinging—as though confirming I was really there.

The faintly bitter bite of mint spread through my mouth and nose all at once.

In the unlit room, a wet sound spilled from my mouth, swallowed up by his. The more I wriggled and twisted in his arms that smelled of cold wind, the deeper he pressed.

When the wet press of lips finally broke, I was looking up at him from very close.

"Rhoan—ah, Rhoan."

Breathless, I leaned on the arm he'd braced against the door and looked up at him.

Rhodness pulled me into him all at once.

"Why did you come. I told you to wait."

He'd hugged me tight enough to crack my ribs—and this was what came out of his mouth?

He'd kissed me without a word of greeting, held me without asking, and now he was asking why I came.

"I missed you till I thought I'd die."

Why did you come, and then—missed you till I thought I'd die. They didn't fit together. Didn't fit at all.

Longing thick in his voice seeped into my ear. Then his wet lips found the outer curve of my ear and bit down, and licked.

"Ah!"

"There isn't a single person in this whole world who doesn't listen to me the way you do."

"That's hardly something a steward should say to his princess, Rhoan."

Rhodness—who had been etching what seemed like a full set of bite marks around my ear—stopped abruptly and pulled back slightly.

I could picture it: the moment he'd gotten word I was coming, he'd bolted from the palace. He really had been waiting outside for some time. His cheeks were still cold from it, both of them flushed red.

"You're right. I forgot I was your faithful attendant."

I rested my hand lightly against his flushed cheek.

Cold, as expected.

"So you grumbled the whole time and waited for me anyway?"

"Of course. I ran for the north gate and then thought we might miss each other, so I came back to the residence."

His hand found the small of my back and began to move there. Large and warm, working at my buttons—one came loose—before I slipped free of his reach.

"We have a great deal to talk about, Rhoan. Things that couldn't go in the letters. How have things been here?"

Rhodness stared at the space I'd vacated, and then righted himself.

"I have enough leverage over the Emperor that he won't be able to oppose my investiture as Crown Prince. The problem is that Count Raelon and Count Syscamythn want me to play to their interests. Doris Castagna turned them so thoroughly to her side that they're becoming something of a nuisance."

He yanked his cloak off irritably and tossed it over a chair.

The moment Doris's name entered the room, something in the air shifted—a degree cooler.

His armor came off piece by piece and fell to the floor—thud. Thud.

He must have felt my silence. He stopped, still half-armored, and looked at me.

"What is it, Rienne?"

"…Will you take Doris as your wife?"

"What?"

Rhodness crossed the distance with the expression of someone hearing something that made no sense.

Without the monster blood on him, the scent that reached me was the lavender I always associated with him.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Sometimes I thought—from your position, taking Doris as your wife might be more—"

I let the sentence trail.

It wasn't that I doubted him. Only that Novian's words, spoken just before he'd vanished back through the window, had stayed with me for the entire journey to the capital.

'If dying for you is the most useful thing I can do, I'll do it gladly. But if the Second Prince turns from you and chooses Doris to become Crown Prince—then, could you pretend not to notice me hovering nearby?'

No matter how meticulous my plan. A hundred percent success—that I couldn't promise.

The reason Novian was holding onto that empty hope was probably because he'd already accounted for the possibility that my plan might fall apart.

I was still thinking about it when, all at once, I felt the heat of him land on both my shoulders.

Rhodness's face was inches from mine, and his face was terrifying.

"Rhoan."

"Why are you saying that?"

Resentment was thick in every syllable. I opened my mouth and closed it and found no answer.

It wasn't the kind of thing I had any right to say. Not when I had been so certain I would help him.

"…You're not going back to Novian Trovika now, are you, Rienne."

"!"

"What did that bastard say when he came to you?"

I stood there with nothing to say, lips barely moving.

Rhodness knew about Novian's visit.

Epero really had told him.

My silence must have been answer enough, because Rhodness's jaw set—and he pulled me into him and held me there.

A force incomparably different from before.

"After all this—if you're going to say you're leaving me, don't say anything at all."

"Rhoan!"

"I don't want to hear it. Doris Castagna." Each word bitten off. "Worth less to me than a stone rolling around on the trailside. Don't bring up a name like that and try to slip away from me."

"I'm not trying to pull away."

"Then why would you say something like that. Making a person anxious like this."

The pressure of his arms tightened with every word.

"An easy path to becoming Crown Prince?"

His whole body, trembling, came straight through to me—I felt it in my own chest.

"You think I'm going through all of this just to become Crown Prince?"

"Rhoan. This is your rightful place—the one that was always yours. Ah!"

His trembling lips came straight to my ear and bit down, like punishment.

Trapped in his arms, unable to move, my ear caught between his teeth and chewed—chills kept running down my spine.

After a long while of that, he soothed it with a single lick.

Then his lips, still worrying at my ear, slid across my cheek and swallowed mine.

Despite how furious he seemed, the breath stirring through my mouth was slow, lingering, sweet enough to dissolve me.

Through my half-lidded eyes, I could see his face, utterly absorbed in me.

How much time had passed.

The breath that had been roaming through my mouth went still, and at last his wet lips pulled back.

Bent nearly double, his forehead against mine, Rhodness finally opened his eyes and looked at me.

Close enough that I could see each ripple of his pupil clearly.

"I'm becoming Crown Prince so I can have you without anyone getting in the way, Rienne."

His voice, still carrying the warmth of his breath, drifted at the corner of my mouth.

A laugh—the kind that says you still don't understand—dissolved at the corner of my mouth.

"So that no one would ever dare touch you. Rienne. I said I would do anything to protect you—even you, who never listens to me—and by now you should know I mean it."

"Rhoan…"

"The news that Novian crawled into your bedroom had me out of my mind for the rest of that day."

His grip on my waist pulled me flat against him. When I tried to step back, both hands held me fast, refusing to let go.

"I'm the one who's anxious, and then you say something like that, and I—"

"I'm sorry."

"…"

Rhodness held my gaze, his forehead still pressed to mine.

I dropped my eyes.

If I was honest—I had probably been a little petty about it. I'd wanted to hear him say Doris Castagna means nothing with his own mouth.

Everyone around us kept insisting that Doris was the ideal match for him.

"You won't even let me be angry. You know perfectly well what that expression does to me."

"No, I mean it."

"Rienne. I'm anxious."

His still-wet lips sank slowly to my throat. He bit down, drawing at the skin—bit again, and drew again.

Everywhere his lips moved, a faint redness bloomed with the ghost of teeth.

"Having you—having you—and I'm still anxious. Always. Is it the same for you?"

I had been clutching his collar, flinching each time he marked me, and finally managed to gather myself enough to nod. It felt necessary.

"No matter how many times that bastard Novian comes crawling to you—think only of me."

"Uh… yes."

"Those sweet words—'die for me'—say them only to me."

He heard every word I said, then.

He seemed to take die for me as the most natural declaration of love in the world. Before I could respond, he swallowed my mouth again.

Hot and wet, parting my lips, moving through the soft inner skin.

An overwhelming heat filled my mouth again, and urgent, burning hands tore roughly at the buttons that had been left half-undone before.

Pulled this way and that by where he led, my back found the cold face of the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.

"…Rhoan."

"How is it?"

The lips that had just barely separated bit lightly at my index finger in question.

I screwed up my eyes at the sudden sensation and turned my head to look down.

Below was a garden full of winter camellias in bloom.

It was a beautiful sight, almost incongruous with the stark surroundings.

And further away—a vine tunnel. Like a piece of the entrance to our little forest at the palace, transplanted here exactly as it was.

"That's…"

"Once the capital is cleaned up. Once you came back to the capital—I wanted to show you—I was still building it when…"

Rhodness—who had been biting each of my fingers one by one and watching my reactions—appeared suddenly at my back, wrapping both my arms from behind.

"Rhoan?"

He laid both my hands against the cold glass and placed his own over them.

Cold on my palms. His heat on the backs of my hands.