When he went to the grand dining hall for lunch, Nile had already arrived and was seated in his place. Chaika hesitated desperately at the entrance, shifting his feet, before finally walking in on his own and taking his seat. Once Mihail was seated as well, the servants brought out the food. Mihail’s and Nile’s meals were lavish and dazzling, but Chaika’s, as always, was nothing more than that same familiar soup.
“If the walk is too long, won’t Chaika get tired?”
Nile spoke quietly.
“Was the walk tiring?”
Instead of responding to Nile, Mihail turned his head and asked Chaika directly. Aside from walking a little at the beginning, Chaika had spent the entire time cradled in Mihail’s arms, so he couldn’t quite answer one way or the other. He glanced back and forth between Mihail and Nile, uncertain.
“Take a walk with me after lunch.”
Nile made the first move. Mihail, who had planned to leave the first walk at that anyway, said nothing and began eating. Luring was best done one slow step at a time. If you pulled too hard, the prey would only grow wary and run.
Still watching Mihail’s expression, Chaika finally replied to Nile with a quiet, “Yes.”
The three of them began an odd, awkward meal.
After the meal ended and Mihail made sure Chaika took his medicine, he fed him a honey-soaked date and left the dining hall first. Nile, who had been watching warily as if afraid Mihail might scoop Chaika up and carry him off again, finally relaxed.
“We’ll just walk quietly, the two of us.”
Nile dismissed everyone who tried to follow and headed into the garden with Chaika. Chaika followed behind him with a polite, deferential air.
Nile walked ahead, Chaika trailing two steps behind in silence. Without exchanging a single word, they continued on until they reached a secluded part of the garden where few people passed. When they entered a hedge maze made of low trees that only reached knee height, the atmosphere between them subtly shifted. At the center of the maze stood an observation pavilion open on all sides. From beneath its pentagonal roof, the surrounding scenery spread out at a glance. It was the perfect place to talk while making sure there were no listening ears.
“I’ve already heard the rumor that you’ve been carried around in his arms nonstop since breakfast.”
Slowing his pace, Nile came to walk beside Chaika as he spoke. Chaika said nothing, merely curling one corner of his lips upward.
“He looks completely taken with you already.”
“To some extent, yes.”
Chaika replied quietly.
Nile recalled the Duke Mihail Castiya he had seen so far. To Nile, the man had always been cold, ruthless, heartless, and ill-mannered—a man who didn’t even bother to hide his disgust for others. The look Mihail gave Nile was pure revulsion, like he was staring at something filthy and crawling.
Even knowing all of that about Mihail before coming here, it was still difficult for Nile to face him. To be owned by a man who looked at him like an insect was nothing short of horrifying.
The stories Nile had heard while living in the castle painted the Duke of Castiya as even worse than the rumors. Aside from his extreme hatred of omegas, he was exclusionary, cold, merciless, and treated all but a very select few as less than human. A man who seemed to embody nothing but the worst traits of an alpha.
And yet, the way that duke treated Chaika was astonishing. Even without listening to the servants’ chatter, the duke’s attitude toward Chaika was remarkable in every detail when measured against what was known of his character.
“Beyond everything I’ve seen and heard, the duke I’ve observed myself is a man who wouldn’t show even half that level of care or kindness to anyone else in the world. That Duke of Castiya watches you eat until the very end at every meal, gives you your medicine himself, assigns a personal physician to manage your health, and can’t take his eyes off you as if even watching you eat is too precious to miss. Carrying you around the garden for hours under the excuse of a walk—it’s obvious he just wanted to spend time with you. What man would act like that without being in love?”
Nile paused, rolling the word love over in his mind after saying it aloud. Yes. To Nile, the Duke of Castiya looked like a man in love—just as Chaika had intended.
“Love?”
Chaika, who had been walking slowly, stopped and murmured the word. Then he turned his gaze to Nile and repeated it.
“Love?”
Open disgust surfaced plainly on Chaika’s face.
“Do you really think alphas are the kind of creatures who know how to feel something like genuine love?”
Chaika asked—or rather, accused—with an expression like something foul was rising in his throat.
“Wasn’t that your goal? To make the duke fall in love with you.”
“Hah—!”
Chaika lifted his chin and laughed lightly. When he looked back at Nile, the corners of his eyes curved as he smiled. It was a cold smile—mocking, or perhaps not, but unmistakably frigid.
“My goal, Nile, is to provoke the duke’s sense of ownership toward me as much as possible and get pregnant. To carry his child. Alphas make children when they need heirs, sure—but more than that, they force omegas to carry children when they want to solidify their ownership. It doesn’t matter whether the omega wants it or not. They plant their child in the omega’s belly to put them completely under their control. Even if it’s the child of an alpha they despise, once an omega is pregnant, they give up. With a weakened body, they can’t run. Even the protection of an alpha they loathe becomes something they need. And once the child is born… they take the child hostage and bind the omega that way. Omegas always tremble at every threat an alpha makes using the child.”
“…Chaika.”
“He’s a man who despises omegas to the core. To get pregnant with the child of someone like that, you don’t just poke at his possessiveness a little. You have to dig deep—until it’s unbearably deep.”
“Is it really worth shaving years off your life?”
Nile asked calmly. Chaika lifted one corner of his lips and answered with a smile.
“It is. One of the few Dominant Alphas on the continent. And I’m trying to steal the child of an alpha who loathes omegas that much. If that’s my goal, then I need to be bait worthy of it. Nothing in this world comes without a price.”
Nile knew Chaika hadn’t embarked on this plan lightly or carelessly. Still, it was far beyond what he’d imagined. He knew Chaika’s body was deteriorating, but he hadn’t realized it was to the point where people spoke of ten or fifteen years being carved away. Even if the physician had made that diagnosis under the assumption that Chaika was a beta, it still meant his condition was dire.
“A beta already has a short lifespan to begin with, and even that remaining life is only about ten years. That alone would make anyone anxious. And yet, for some reason, I keep rejecting him—while still leaving enough room for him to believe I might care. Of course he’d grow restless. He wants to have me. To own me. When you can’t have something you want, obsession only grows stronger, doesn’t it? Limited time—and even that time not being fully his. The regret, the yearning, the unquenched possessiveness.”
Mocking himself as he spoke, Chaika fixed his gaze on the distant mansion in the garden. The direction of the duke’s bedroom.
“Your heat cycle should be coming up soon.”
“Yeah.”
“You can hide it normally, but during heat, no matter how much of that poisonous herb you swallow, it’ll be hard to conceal.”
“I know.”
“He could kill you.”
“Maybe.”
Chaika nodded calmly. From the start, the fish he’d tried to catch had been far too big. Instead of catching it, he might be swallowed whole. He’d begun this with that much resolve.
When the truth came out—that the one he’d poured affection and possessiveness into was an omega—what would a man who loathed omegas do? He would feel betrayed, disgusted, hateful, furious. The possibility that he’d kill Chaika was more than real.
“If… he kills me, that wouldn’t be so bad. Whether he kills me or lets me live, Mihail will never forget the wound I leave behind. I’ll be the only person who could ever scar him that deeply.”
“Chaika.”
Nile grabbed Chaika’s shoulders and turned him to face him. Despite the extremity of his words, Chaika’s expression and gaze were eerily calm.
“When you asked me to join this plan, if the outcome had been your death, I would never have agreed. Even if my freedom—and my child’s—were at stake.”
“Don’t get so serious. I won’t die. Probably.”
Chaika shrugged lightly as he said it. Then, before Nile could respond, he turned away and started walking again, as if to end the conversation. Nile watched his back for a moment before following after him.
Chaika’s back was very small. Yet Nile knew well just how fierce and venomous a soul resided in that compact body—and just how deep the hatred it carried ran.
An alpha who loathed omegas to the core, and an omega who hated alphas with equal intensity.
Why, of all the alphas out there, had Chaika chosen Duke Mihail Castiya? It was probably hatred. Hatred toward alphas. If he could deeply wound an alpha who had everything and still despised omegas—if he could inflict betrayal and humiliation on him, sell his child like livestock the way alphas did to omegas…
You must’ve thought that would ease your hatred and thirst for revenge against alphas, Chaika.
As Nile looked at that small but resolute back walking ahead, he recalled the scenes of Chaika with Mihail. The duke kneeling without hesitation before Chaika. Chaika pressing a tender kiss to the duke’s lips. The faint smile Chaika wore whenever he met the duke’s eyes—shy, almost troubled. The arms looped around the duke’s neck for hours as they circled the garden. The way Chaika rested his face comfortably against the duke’s chest, eyes lowered. The look in his eyes whenever he gazed at the duke.
Chaika was exactly the kind of person he claimed to be—poisonous, cold, ruthless, merciless, cynical, exclusionary, and selfish. He could be vile when needed, lied easily, and could act without hesitation. But…
“Chaika.”
At Nile’s call, Chaika stopped and turned around. The slanting afternoon sunlight made his face hard to see.
“Did you ever… even a little… have feelings for the duke?”
Chaika was silent for a moment. Whether the question struck him as absurd or caught him off guard, it was impossible to tell. The sunlight was too bright to make out his expression. A cold gust of wind swept past them both.
“…Feelings?”
Chaika murmured softly.
“Give my heart to an alpha?”
After saying that much, Chaika burst out laughing as if he’d heard the funniest joke imaginable. His expression remained completely hidden in the glare of the sun.
