* * *
The man’s gaze remained fixed on Chaeyi as he muttered in a calm voice.
“You slept for quite a while.”
“You’re the one who made me sleep.”
“Yes, but you’re the only one I’ve ever seen sleep so soundly for three hours straight without waking up.”
…Three hours?
That was surprising.
Given the situation, it was indeed true that Chaeyi had slept without any sense of danger, and feeling slightly guilty, he decided to change the topic.
“What happened to my companions?”
“Who knows.”
“……”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t kill them.”
The man hopped down from the pile of stones, stepping out of the shadows and into the dim light.
Chaeyi felt a strange sensation.
The resemblance to Leonard was striking.
“…Who are you?”
Chaeyi asked.
The man hesitated, lowering his gaze as if considering his question.
Then, he spoke softly.
“Aelan.”
He looked at Chaeyi with a faint smirk.
“Aelan de Lancaster. Although it’s hard to still call myself a Lancaster now.”
At the mention of that name, Chaeyi recalled the story Oscar had told him before.
– Even though Aelan lost the succession fight to Leonard, Leonard didn’t kill him. He merely exiled him from the family.
Aelan de Lancaster.
‘So, that’s him.’
He was the eldest son of the Lancaster family, exiled after losing the succession fight to Leonard…
He should have been executed long ago, but his name had been erased instead.
Meanwhile, about two hours earlier.
Not long after Chaeyi and Aelan disappeared, Enoch, who had regained consciousness earlier, realized something—he now knew where Chaeyi and Aelan were headed.
It was an unfamiliar place that had been imprinted in his mind after Aelan touched him, a place that was forced upon him through language.
It was all due to the Enoch’s ability, a power unique to Dominant Omegas, which could interfere with and manipulate the mind.
To think, that man was indeed Aelan de Lancaster.
‘Why in the world…’
Seeing Aelan again after so many years stirred complicated feelings within Enoch. But he quickly pushed aside his emotions. The priority right now was to find Chaeyi’s location.
Enoch immediately used his own ability.
His power allowed him to remember a person’s scent and track it wherever it lingered.
Since it wasn’t based on pheromones, he could track Beta individuals like Chaeyi just as easily.
That was also why Leonard had always kept Enoch by Chaeyi’s side.
Even though Aelan had revealed Chaeyi’s location, Enoch used his ability anyway, just in case Aelan’s ‘favor’ was a trap.
After all, Aelan had always been cunning and couldn’t be trusted blindly.
Soon, Chaeyi’s scent formed a glowing trail in Enoch’s mind.
‘To the south. Chaeyi’s location matches exactly with the place Aelan mentioned.’
While this confirmed it wasn’t a trap, Aelan’s true intentions were still unclear.
At least one thing was certain—Chaeyi was alive. After all, the dead don’t leave behind a scent.
Having confirmed this, Enoch sprang into action.
He woke up the still-unconscious knights, and after ensuring that Vivi was alive, sent a message.
The message quickly reached Lawrence, who, upon reading it, realized the gravity of the situation and immediately sought out Leonard.
“Young master! Something terrible has happened!”
At those words, Leonard, recalling a previous incident involving Chaeyi, furrowed his brow.
“What is it?”
“It’s a letter from Lord Oliven.”
Sensing something bad, Leonard quickly snatched the letter and read it in silence. With each passing word, anger and fury darkened his face.
“Aelan…”
Why was it that bad premonitions never failed?
The realization that Chaeyi had been kidnapped by the very person he had spared on a whim made Leonard’s vision swim with rage.
As he rubbed his temples, Lawrence cautiously asked,
“What will you do, sir?”
After a brief silence, Leonard stood and grabbed his uniform hanging on the rack.
His expression was cold and ruthless.
“I’m going there myself. Prepare everything.”
This was Leonard’s true nature, the side he had always kept hidden from Chaeyi, just as a beast conceals its instincts from its master.
Back to the present.
As Leonard set off, Chaeyi, who had been confronting Aelan, repeated the familiar name on his lips.
“Aelan…”
Hearing Chaeyi’s calm voice, Aelan suddenly sneered.
“You don’t seem too surprised.”
“……”
“Did someone already spill the beans to a mere Beta like you?”
There was a sharpness to each of Aelan’s words, and his heavy pheromones filled the air, suffocating.
Yet Chaeyi could tell that Aelan wasn’t truly intending to harm him.
His pheromones, while intense, lacked the edge of murderous intent. It was more like an emotional outburst.
He wasn’t the type of person you couldn’t reason with.
To learn more about what Aelan was really after, Chaeyi calmly decided to engage him in conversation.
“What’s your purpose for bringing me here?”
“Do you really want to know your role?”
Elan responded with a dark laugh as he gazed at Chaeyi.
The most obvious guess would be something like this:
“You want to use me to reclaim your place as the heir, don’t you?”
Elan would threaten Leonard into surrendering the succession rights, taking them for himself.
But that didn’t seem to be the case.
“…That’s not it. I don’t really care about inheriting the title.”
Then what was his reason?
After pondering for a moment, Chaeyi clapped his hands as if he had come up with an answer.
“Oh! I get it. You want to reconcile with Leo, don’t you? I mean, how long can brothers stay mad at each other?”
Elan raised an eyebrow in disbelief at Chaeyi’s absurd answer, but Chaeyi remained resolute.
“You’re in a tricky position, so you want me, as someone close to Leo, to act as a mediator, right? Isn’t that it?”
For Chaeyi, it was something he could acknowledge, but not fully understand—the idea that someone could lose their life and even have their name erased over a succession dispute.
And since Aelan had already said he wasn’t interested in power, Chaeyi couldn’t think of a reason why the two brothers shouldn’t just reconcile.
It would put an end to their unnecessary animosity. Leonard might need to be convinced, though.
“…Reconcile? That’s impossible.”
Aelan’s face twisted, as if he was at a loss for words.
The confident look on Chaeyi’s face seemed to annoy him even more.
“Stop pretending.”
“Pretending?”
“What you’re doing now.”
Aelan’s sharp gaze locked onto Chaeyi.
He believed Chaeyi was merely acting unafraid, pretending to be tough.
His heavy pheromones bore down on Chaeyi, making it hard to breathe.
Suddenly, Chaeyi doubled over, his head bowed in silence.
‘Of course.’
Aelan smirked, certain that Chaeyi was now terrified.
He envisioned Chaeyi groveling for mercy, which would only make Leonard’s eventual humiliation all the sweeter.
Though the thought didn’t bring him joy, the image lingered.
Then, out of nowhere, a growling sound echoed.
Elan blinked, surprised by the unexpected noise—it was Chaeyi’s stomach.
Despite the situation, it was a biological reaction.
‘What a carefree guy,’ Aelan thought.
Chaeyi, embarrassed, rubbed his stomach and laughed sheepishly.
“Um, I’m a bit hungry. How about we continue this conversation over a meal? It wouldn’t help if I starved to death, would it? Oh, and if possible, could we have something with meat?”
At the audacity of the request, Aelan pressed his fingers to his forehead.
He should have been the one in control, but somehow the roles felt reversed.
Still, despite Chaeyi’s shamelessness, Aelan understood all too well the pain of hunger.
He hadn’t intended to starve Chaeyi, so he quietly left the room.
As if reflecting his own subconscious trust in Chaeyi, he didn’t even bother to lock the door on his way out.
Chaeyi quietly stared at the door that Aelan had left open as he walked out.
No matter how much he thought about it, he wasn’t a bad person.
“What does he really want?”
Though he had said that reconciliation wasn’t his goal, he couldn’t help but wonder about his true intentions.
…Creak.
After waiting for a while, Chaeyi poked his head out of the door.
It was then that he realized this place was not only a workshop for local carpenters but also their dormitory.
In other words, there were plenty of workers casually wandering around.
“I thought it would be somewhere secluded… But why here of all places?”
He was growing more uncertain whether Aelan was being bold or if he had never intended to keep his locked up in the first place.
* * *
Aelan probably will fall for chaeyi too lol