# Chapter 51
However, the act couldn’t continue to the end. Whether from a headache coming on, Luke grabbed his hair and let out a groan. Then with a harsh curse, he shoved Asher away forcefully and moaned in pain. To anyone watching, he seemed to be struggling between reason and instinct.
“Damn it…!”
Despite the murderous curse, Asher didn’t react. Rather, his unfocused eyes were wet as if yearning for him, and his body squirmed as if begging to be held. Having completely let go of his remaining reason, Asher called his name.
“…Luke.”
At Asher’s voice, Luke stopped his painful movements and stared at Asher. Unsure if he himself had gone mad or if this was still a dream world, Luke called out his full name with a confused look, as if to confirm once more.
“Asher Anest?”
Asher gave no answer to Luke’s words. Instead, he was panting as if unable to control his wet lower regions, and he seemed unable to recognize who was in front of him. Seeing Asher like this, Luke let out a hollow laugh and roughly ran his hand through his hair.
“Of course…, it couldn’t be real.”
If the person before him had been real rather than an illusion, the room should have been filled with peach scent like when the heat had hit. But there was no scent coming from him, and he didn’t respond to his name. Even though Luke might have gone mad with rut, he didn’t want to stop this act. He wanted to believe the illusion before him was Asher. Without a trace of guilt, he stripped off the clothes he was wearing and lunged at Asher. Having let go of his last thread of reason, he mounted Asher and devoured him like a beast starved for a long time.
One day passed, then two, and the bed was filled with nothing but wet sounds. Without even knowing how the sun rose or set, the two explored each other without even sleeping, focused solely on the act, and the room was filled with Luke’s pheromone, the scent of mint. After about three days of being entangled like beasts, Asher gradually began to regain his senses as the heat seemed to end. Though he clearly hadn’t recognized him before, now Luke was calling his name while embracing his lower back.
“Asher.”
“Hngh…!”
He hadn’t felt the pain until he regained his senses, but once he did, pain shot through him as if his body were being torn apart. His heat that had matched Luke’s rut had been so intense that he had no memory of what had happened. But now that he was conscious, the person before him was in such a state that he could be described as a beast who had lost all reason.
“Ah, it hurts…”
Despite Asher’s words, Luke didn’t stop moving. Rather, he firmly gripped Asher’s thighs and bit his earlobe while exerting strength into his body. Through the skin contact, his emotions were conveyed, and Asher felt that he was still consumed by instinct.
“…Please!”
Though he begged him to stop, the other pushed him to the extreme like a merciless tyrant. The sensation transmitted through his body, the emptiness in his eyes was so eerie and frightening that Asher crawled toward the bed’s headboard and grabbed the rail, but he was helplessly pulled back down by the other’s strength.
“Asher.”
Whatever their coupling during heat had been like, the violent touch of the one who had lost his reason approached Asher as terror. But unlike his rough hands, Luke’s voice calling his name was infinitely tender, and he just called his name as if unable to do anything else, biting into his flesh. Each time, Asher felt an ache in one corner of his heart.
“…Hah.”
While an alpha’s rut was said to last a full five days, Asher, unlike the energetic Luke, began to grow tired bit by bit. Then, after passing out due to the alpha’s characteristic ejaculation, he was gently woken by Luke’s tender tone, and the act was repeated. His body ached all over from how much he had been bitten and nibbled, leaving no spot unpained.
“…It hurts, …hng.”
Unable to bear it, Asher shed tears. But those tears disappeared under Luke’s tongue, and Asher was finally able to escape from him after five days had passed. Having finally spent all his energy, Luke fell asleep holding Asher tightly, like a midsummer night’s dream.
“…Haah.”
Letting out a painful moan, Asher pushed him away while pressing his heavy stomach. In a situation where they were so tightly locked together that it wouldn’t easily separate, Asher pushed him away once more with effort and curled up his body like a shrimp.
“Haah…”
He couldn’t exert any strength, barely able to breathe properly. The only reason he had been able to endure was because Luke had continued the act while calling his name in a tender tone. After all, whenever they had met and touched before, he had sensed Luke’s affection toward him. Asher slowly turned his head to look at the unconscious man.
With his straight nose bridge and neat eyebrows, Luke’s beautiful appearance was sleeping so quietly that he might as well have been half-dead. He probably wouldn’t wake up even if Asher made noise beside him. Asher slowly said to him in a voice tinged with tears:
“How did you and I end up in this accident… You’re not mine, yet how did things get so tangled up?”
Asher slowly traced Luke’s face with tear-wet eyes, unable to actually touch it. As if this really was the last time, Asher engraved his face in his memory again and again.
“…I’m sorry. I’ve ruined things again.”
He hadn’t wanted to interfere with the original work anymore, but the guilt of having taken Luke’s virginity tormented Asher. Aria’s death, Braden’s resentment, everything seemed to have gone wrong because of him, and Asher felt like he was going crazy.
“Even so, I don’t intend to regret it. Because I… you…”
Asher couldn’t continue his words, covering his mouth and swallowing his tears. After staying like that for a while, he carefully raised his body. But due to the pain shooting up his spine, he bowed his head and let out a painful moan. Then, seemingly having made up his mind, he stood up once more, and when he did, he felt something warm trickling down between his thighs.
“Wh-what should I do?”
Since this was his first time experiencing such a situation, Asher hurriedly wiped it with spare clothes on the table, showing signs of confusion. Each time he did so, he frowned and panted at the stinging sensation.
During the five days, all he had consumed was Luke’s. Though even using strength was difficult, Asher left the room and picked up clothes scattered by the door to put on.
“…Toms.”
Thinking that Toms would have noticed something strange and be waiting outside the door, he called out. Sure enough, Toms’s answer came, and Asher quickly grabbed the doorknob, opened the door, and then collapsed.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“…Your voice is very hoarse, Young Master.”
Hearing Asher’s broken voice, Toms looked at him with pitying eyes. Only then did Asher realize how damaged his voice was, and rubbed his throat once.
“I’m fine. More importantly, I’d like you to clean up after me. Make sure no one knows I was here.”
“Yes, understood.”
Though he hadn’t given a long explanation, Toms seemed to understand, entering the villa and placing an outer garment on Asher’s shoulders. Then, leaving the words “It’s quite cold outside,” he went into the room where Luke was sleeping.
The villa was indeed quiet. He had felt it when he first visited, but there were no servants in the villa, nor even the Saint who guarded Luke.
“…I should have remembered that he spends his rut at the villa.”
He had heard that during heat or rut periods, servants are not kept nearby. He had heard that even though he was a beta, he sent away even his guards and let no one in. Asher recalled his empty red eyes that had lost all reason and shook his head slightly.
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
From his appearance, it seemed like he wouldn’t remember having slept with him. He had heard that when concentrated pheromones explode due to accumulated rut cycles, one doesn’t remember what happened that day. Asher sniffed his own pheromones, which emitted no scent, with eyes that hoped it would be so, and then asked Toms who had finished cleaning up.
“What about the favor I asked?”
“Actually, I have something to tell you about that. I was going to inform His Grace the Duke as you instructed, but Young Master Shaki said he would handle it himself and told me to return. He also left orders not to leave your side for a moment.”
According to Toms, Shaki had probably not told the Duke that he was staying here. Maybe it really was fortunate, Asher thought with a sigh of relief.
“Take me to where Shaki is. Make sure the coachman keeps quiet.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
