“How was it?”
Nile asked.
“How do you think it was?”
Chaika lifted the hand he’d been scrubbing with all day, forcing a crooked smile. He could barely raise his arm to chest level, and his arm and hand trembled violently. On top of that, having been exposed to the chill of an autumn night in thin, miserable clothing, his skin had gone beyond pale, tinged almost bluish.
Nile frowned, lifted the blanket covering himself, and patted the empty space beside him.
“Come in and warm up a bit. You’ll feel much better.”
Chaika silently shook his head. Then, staggering, he walked over to the table, grabbed a single piece of biscuit kept there and swallowed it with a few sips of water to stave off hunger. After that, he spread out the makeshift bedding used by the on-duty maids in the corner of the room and crawled inside.
Nile’s blanket, which had been warmed beforehand with heated stones, was filled with comforting warmth. But the makeshift bedding spread on the floor only barely blocked the cold seeping up from the ground and the frigid air.
“Chaika. Don’t be stubborn—just come in for a bit and warm up. At this hour, no one’s going to come in.”
Nile tried to persuade him in a low voice, but Chaika didn’t budge. Or perhaps he’d already drifted off, nearly unconscious.
“Ha… I knew you were harsh, but you’re really merciless.”
Nile muttered while looking at the small bundle of blankets wrapped around Chaika. His voice carried a mix of pity and resentment. He watched Chaika’s back for a moment, then lay back down. The bed was soft, cozy, and warm.
“Everything has to be perfect.”
Just as Nile was about to close his eyes, Chaika, buried beneath the blankets, murmured in a voice so small only Nile could barely hear it. Nile turned his head on the pillow, looking toward Chaika. Chaika had wrapped himself tightly in the blanket, exposing only his eyes as he stared at Nile. His eyes were mostly hidden behind his shaggy brown hair, but Nile, who had known Chaika’s intense gaze for years, could clearly imagine the look burning behind it.
“What I’m trying to catch isn’t just any alpha. It’s one of the few Dominant Alphas on this continent—Duke Mihail Castiya, infamous for his extreme hatred of omegas.”
“…….”
Chaika’s whisper was slightly hoarse. Perhaps because of that, it sounded especially cold.
“Everything has to be carried out perfectly, without the slightest deviation from the plan. A single moment of carelessness can ruin everything. Giving in to some shallow desire to rest this exhausted body, or crawling into your bed even for a moment just to warm skin that feels like it’s about to fall off from the cold… things like that. It’s always the same. Big plans usually don’t fail for grand reasons. They fall apart because of one small, trivial mistake—one moment of carelessness. Do you understand, Nile?”
His tone was icy and sharp. Even in the darkness, Chaika’s piercing gaze felt like it could slice Nile apart. It was the look of someone who would never forgive even a single mistake that ruined the plan. And Chaika held Nile’s greatest weakness firmly in his grasp. Nile could never afford to defy him.
“…I understand.”
When Nile answered quietly, the cold gaze pressing in from the darkness softened as if it had been a lie.
“The timing will start coming again soon. I don’t know when, but make sure it’s etched into your mind so you can act properly when it does.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t forget, Nile. I’m the child of your mother, and your mother, as punishment for giving birth to me through an affair with a beta, was sold to the filthiest brothel and couldn’t endure it for long before taking her own life. I’m the only family she left behind… and…”
“…the younger brother who’s both dear to me and hateful, the one who drove my mother to such a miserable death.”
Nile finished the sentence. Chaika smiled faintly—a satisfied smile.
“Good night, Nile.”
Chaika spoke softly.
“Good night, Chaika.”
Nile closed his eyes.
***
Cough. Cough.
A fit of coughing burst out from the corner of the room. When Mihail looked over, the creature was crouched there, hands clamped over its mouth as if guilty. Soon, muffled coughs—khk, khk—broke out again from behind its hands. Its already tiny body bounced as if it might lift off the ground every time it coughed.
“…I’m sorry.”
When the coughing finally subsided, the creature murmured an apology in a hoarse voice and went back to its work. But only for a moment—
Cough. Cough. Cough.
It covered its mouth again as another coughing fit spilled out.
“Wouldn’t it be better to dismiss him for the day?”
The butler suggested mildly. Setting aside how hard it must be on the creature itself, listening to that coughing all day wasn’t exactly pleasant either.
Cough. Cough.
Between scrubbing, coughing, and anxiously gauging Mihail’s mood for daring to cough, the creature was a mess. It seemed to have caught a proper cold; every cough made its body jerk so violently it looked as if its ribs might shatter.
“The weather’s grown quite cold. Perhaps we should have him change into thicker clothing?”
The butler offered another careful suggestion.
“Hm.”
Mihail rested his arm on the desk, propped his chin on his hand, and scanned the creature’s pitiful state. If he put it in thicker or new clothes, there’d be no more fabric riding up and slipping down with every movement. But if he sent it away for being noisy, it wouldn’t be in sight at all. Neither option was what he wanted.
After a brief consideration, Mihail came up with a solution.
“Light the fireplace.”
“The fireplace, Your Grace?”
“Yes. Pile in enough logs to make it so hot that you’d be drenched in sweat even if you were stark naked. Burn it fiercely.”
“…Understood.”
The butler bowed, wearing a subtly conflicted expression.
It was still autumn, and unless it was deep into the night, it wasn’t cold enough to warrant lighting a fireplace. Alphas—physically far hardier than ordinary humans—only started complaining about the cold when lakes froze solid in midwinter. And Mihail, a Dominant Alpha, was naturally even more resistant to the cold.
Still, winter preparations had already begun, so there was no shortage of firewood. When the servants carried in logs and lit the large fireplace, warm heat soon began spreading through the bedroom. Mihail alternated his gaze between the blazing fireplace and Chaika working in the far corner of the room, then gestured to the butler.
“Add more logs. I said pile them in—burn it fiercely.”
“Yes.”
At Mihail’s command, the butler threw more logs into the hearth. After adding a couple and turning back, Mihail motioned for more. He added a few more, turned again, and this time Mihail scowled deeply. Only then did the butler seem to fully understand. He stuffed in as many of the reserve logs as the fireplace could hold. Stuffed with dry firewood, the fireplace burned less like a hearth and more like a blacksmith’s forge.
The butler sighed, wiped sweat from his brow, and stepped back. Standing behind Mihail as always, beads of sweat continuously formed on his forehead. Heat from the crackling, roaring fire filled the room. Mihail, far less sensitive to both cold and heat than a normal human, loosened his shirt buttons as if feeling slightly warm.
The boiling warmth finally reached the corner of the room. The constant coughing that had echoed there faded at some point and eventually disappeared altogether. Seeing this, Mihail let out a faint scoff.
When the creature finished cleaning, it approached Mihail with cautious steps.
“I’m done.”
The same single line he heard every day. Instead of gesturing dismissively as usual, Mihail stared at the creature. Under that gaze, the creature’s shoulders flinched.
“Warm, isn’t it?”
When Mihail asked casually, the creature finally turned to look back at the fireplace blazing like hellfire behind it, then nodded.
“…Yes….”
A voice so small it crawled along like an ant slipped out.
For some reason, his chest felt itchy. Mihail pretended to adjust his loosened shirt buttons and lightly scratched at his chest. Meanwhile, the creature, head bowed low, nervously working its lips—unusually red from the cold—spoke up hesitantly.
“…Thank you.”
Thump. It felt like a solid blow had landed square in the center of his chest. An unexpected ambush. Mihail unconsciously held his breath and blinked slowly. Only one word echoed in his mind.
What?
When Mihail didn’t react, the creature hesitated, then added in a voice barely above nothing,
“I thought… maybe you lit the fireplace because of me… so I wanted to say thank you….”
“…Ha!”
Mihail let out a hollow laugh, as if incredulous, and twisted one corner of his mouth upward.
“You thought I’d light a fireplace because of a worthless menial like you? You really have no grasp of your place. Didn’t Nile teach you that much?”
“I made an impertinent misunderstanding. I’m sorry.”
The creature’s voice trembled as it bowed deeply in apology. Was it frightened? Or embarrassed? Ashamed?
Mihail, who had spent his life utterly unconcerned with what others thought or felt, strained his mind in his own way. Whatever the creature took Mihail’s silence to mean, it bowed again and turned to leave the room. Once it disappeared, only the roaring fireplace, the butler drenched in sweat with a flushed face, and Mihail—still rubbing his chest as if he’d been struck—remained.
“…Shall I put out the fire?”
The butler asked cautiously. The heat had grown intense enough to affect even Mihail, turning the room into something like a furnace. Only then did Mihail slowly nod. When the butler extinguished the fire and flung all the windows open, the stifling heat rushed outside in an instant.
Mihail pressed his hand to his forehead and rubbed it. Watching the creature squirm and tormenting it had certainly been enjoyable. But now that he thought about it, it didn’t feel that simple anymore. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with that thing he’d caught. What should he do? Mihail rubbed his brow, thinking—thinking about what to do with the creature.
