* * *
Joel practically devoured a whole roasted veal leg by himself and helped himself to multiple servings of pie topped with assorted fruits.
All the while not forgetting to shoot Benjamin constant death stares.
Before he knew it, the banquet was winding down.
Rubbing his full stomach and wondering if it was time to leave, Joel suddenly realized something—he couldn’t see the Crown Prince anywhere.
Had he looked away for too long, distracted by the unexpectedly delicious fruit pie?
No matter how much he scanned the room, there wasn’t even a glimpse of him.
What was even more unsettling was that no one else seemed to care.
Everyone was too drunk to notice anything.
Even the Crown Prince’s attendants and his party partner, Benjamin, were red-faced and wobbly, needing help from their knights just to stay upright.
In this entire grand banquet hall, it seemed like Joel was the only one worried about the Crown Prince’s whereabouts.
‘How can no one notice he’s gone?’ he thought irritably as he stood up from his seat.
He had promised himself he wouldn’t care anymore, but old habits die hard.
Worrying about the Crown Prince was something ingrained in him.
And if—just like before—he had collapsed in the forest during his rut…
And if some random omega found him like that…?
The moment that possibility crossed his mind, Joel was already dashing out of the banquet hall.
His first destination was the Imperial Academy’s security station.
But to his shock, the guards were completely wasted—even though they were supposed to be on duty.
The party had been one of the grandest events in the Academy’s history, and even the guards—who were supposed to be protecting the place—had gotten swept up in the festivities.
Faces flushed with drink, the guards ignored Joel’s urgent pleas to search the forest for the missing Crown Prince and continued their own little celebration.
“Hey, Young Lord. Do you really think His Highness is as much of an idiot as you? You think he doesn’t even know his own rut schedule and just keels over on the street?”
Even the head guard mocked him.
Drunk and emboldened, his usual disdain for Joel finally slipped out into the open.
“Just wait until you’re all sober tomorrow,” Joel fumed as he stormed back into the banquet hall.
The guards might ignore someone like him—an adopted son from an insignificant family—but they wouldn’t dare disregard the words of high-ranking nobles.
He planned to ask his peers for help.
But the others were no different.
They dismissed Joel’s plea to find the Crown Prince as drunken nonsense.
In the end, the only one who might have helped was kind Benjamin—but by then, he had already left for his estate.
With things as they were, Joel had no choice but to search for the Crown Prince himself.
Clutching a vial of suppressants he always carried, Joel dashed into the forest in a frenzy.
“Your Highness, this time… I’ll be the one to save you.”
He whispered the words to himself again and again.
He couldn’t quite remember where exactly he’d found the Crown Prince in his previous life.
Honestly, he’d been far too drunk that night to recall much at all.
He barely even remembered their first night together.
That said everything.
All he could recall was following an intoxicating pheromone scent through the forest and finding the Crown Prince collapsed on the ground—and himself, overwhelmed by those pheromones, pouncing on him without a second thought.
Ah, and while he couldn’t remember the details, he did remember one thing—it had been unbelievably good.
Still, Joel did his best to retrace his steps using what little he remembered.
If the Crown Prince had gone into rut again like last time, the pheromones he gave off would serve as a trail.
That gave him some hope.
Alphas in rut emitted pheromones several times stronger than usual, and Joel—being a dominant Omega—was extremely sensitive to Alpha pheromones.
How long had he wandered through the winter forest?
Suddenly, a seductive scent of bergamot brushed the tip of Joel’s nose.
There was no way he wouldn’t recognize that scent.
During his fake pregnancy in his past life, he’d spent an entire month drunk on it.
Joel’s face lit up with relief as he turned toward the direction the pheromones were coming from.
The heavy, heady scent was unmistakably from a rutting Alpha.
As in his past life, the Crown Prince must’ve gone for a walk in the woods—only to fall into rut mid-way.
When an Omega was exposed to the pheromones of an Alpha in rut, they went into heat—and when that happened, they became just as frenzied and feral as the Alpha.
Joel’s reaction in their past life hadn’t been just because he was drunk.
It was largely because the Crown Prince’s pheromones had triggered his heat, catching him off guard.
If he approached without any precautions again, he’d likely end up entangled with the Crown Prince like a wild animal.
To prevent that, Joel swallowed three suppressant pills and resumed walking.
Pushing through sharp branches toward the source of the pheromones, Joel finally spotted him—just as expected, the Crown Prince was collapsed in the snow, panting heavily.
He was on his stomach, gasping for breath.
His hands raked through the piled snow like claws, showing just how much pain he was in.
Sensing someone nearby, the Crown Prince slowly turned his reddened eyes toward Joel.
But those dazed, unfocused eyes had already lost all clarity.
“Your Highness!”
Joel rushed over without hesitation.
Dropping to his knees in front of him, Joel gently swept the Crown Prince’s face clean.
Seeing that handsome face dirtied and disheveled tore at his heart.
They said the more dominant the trait, the worse the heat—and even as he lay there on the cold snow, the Crown Prince’s body was burning with fever.
Relief at finding him was brief.
Anger quickly followed as Joel grabbed the Crown Prince’s cheeks and scolded him.
“Your Highness, are you seriously this stupid? You’re a dominant Alpha—how do you not know your own rut cycle? Even if it’s annoying, you should at least carry suppressants! Do you know how—how much…”
I worried about you.
But Joel couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.
Because just then, the limp Crown Prince shot up like lightning and lunged at him.
“W-Wait! Your Highness!”
“Don’t move.”
The Crown Prince tackled Joel, his hands frantically tugging at the buttons of Joel’s shirt.
“Tugging” was generous—he was practically tearing it open.
His eyes were completely glazed over.
He had clearly lost all sense of reason.
The pheromones of a dominant Alpha poured over Joel like an assault.
Pinned beneath the Crown Prince, Joel tried desperately to suppress his dizziness.
He’d been through this once before and thought he was prepared—but being smothered again in the pheromones of a rutting Alpha made it nearly impossible to resist.
It felt like drinking strong aphrodisiacs mixed with hard liquor—his body flushed hot, his breathing became ragged.
Then Joel noticed, to his horror, that he was already soaked in the back.
At this rate, he was about to repeat the exact same mistake from his past life.
Clinging to the last shreds of his fading sanity, Joel fumbled for the cap of the suppressant vial with trembling hands.
“Damn it, why won’t—won’t this open?”
Something was wrong.
No matter how hard he tried, the cork wouldn’t budge.
It had been fine earlier—had he tightened it too hard after taking the pills?
This was madness.
Joel had never wanted to be here.
If the guards and his peers hadn’t ignored him, he wouldn’t be lying under the Crown Prince now, at risk of losing everything.
And yet not only was he forced into this situation—now even the vial wouldn’t cooperate.
How could he be this unlucky?
Joel felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes from sheer frustration.
Meanwhile, the Crown Prince was practically tearing his clothes apart.
His shirt had long since been ripped open, and now hands were yanking at his pants, trying to strip them off.
Panicking, Joel clamped the vial in his teeth and started trying to bite the cork out.
“What’s that?”
Just then, the Crown Prince—who had been single-mindedly focused on undressing him—suddenly growled and grabbed the vial in Joel’s hand.
He was so far gone he couldn’t even tolerate his Omega focusing on anything other than him.
Joel struggled to hold onto the suppressant, but the Crown Prince forcibly snatched it from him—and with all his strength, hurled it far into the distance.
“N-No…!”
Joel reached out in vain toward the vial that flew far, far away.
* * *
