"What do you an he never ca?" Helios hissed quietly, looking down at the trembling servant standing before him outside the palace gates.
He didn’t even bother rembering the man’s na.
Why would he?
The servant was supposed to do one simple task.
Wait for Ezra.
That was it.
"I-I’ve been waiting here all evening, Your Highness," the servant stamred nervously, nearly shrinking under Helios’ stare. "This is the only place where he could ride a carriage, but even then I asked around in case...you wondered, but nobody has seen him."
Helios’ jaw tightened imdiately.
"Then where could he have gone?" he asks sharply, though he wasn’t actually expecting the servant to have an answer.
The man swallowed hard.
"Uhm...well, I’m not sure, but could there be a possibility that he walked?"
"Walked?" Helios repeated incredulously, anger imdiately bleeding into his voice. "You think an oga at the start of a heat can walk seven kiloters on foot?"
The servant visibly flinched.
"He...he could be sowhere—"
"You’re absolutely useless."
Helios shoved him hard enough that the servant stumbled backward onto the ground with a pained sound.
Helios barely even looked at him afterward.
"He would be desperate," Helios muttered darkly as he turned away, his thoughts moving too quickly now. "But he wouldn’t be stupid enough to walk all the way back in his condition."
No.
Ezra wasn’t reckless like that.
Not during a heat.
Helios had planned this carefully.
Carefully enough to make sure Ezra would still be able to think clearly for a little while, just enough for instinct to guide him exactly where Helios wanted him to go.
Which ant—
If Ezra never left by carriage...
Then sothing happened.
And that realization made Helios’ stomach drop.
’He’s still inside.’
Helios slowly turned his gaze back toward the massive entrance of his father’s palace, where music and distant laughter still echoed faintly through the night air.
Earlier excitent vanished almost instantly, replaced with sothing colder.
Dread.
’Aurethys fucking damn it.’
Helios imdiately started walking again, his pace sharp and fast.
"Tell the others to look around the palace," Helios orders coldly over his shoulder without sparing the servant another glance. "Tell them the ’gem’ is loose and to look for any signs of him. Do NOT engage. Just send the signal if they find him."
"Yes, Your Highness," the servant squeaked out quickly.
And that was the last thing Helios cared to hear from him.
Helios couldn’t care less about the servant right now.
He only cared about finding Ezra.
Because Ezra was vulnerable right now.
Extrely vulnerable.
And Helios was supposed to be the one helping him through it.
That was the entire point.
The entire plan.
Helios and several carefully selected people around the ballroom had deliberately released pheromones around Ezra throughout the night, subtle enough to avoid suspicion, but concentrated enough to force Ezra’s heat to surface despite the suppressants he had been taking for years.
When Ezra finally left the ballroom, Helios thought everything was unfolding perfectly.
Ezra would leave by carriage.
The carriage would conveniently fail near Helios’ palace.
Ezra, overwheld and desperate, would instinctively seek out the one person he trusted most.
The one person who knew his secret.
Helios.
And Helios would conveniently appear at exactly the right mont.
Ezra’s savior.
Again.
Then Helios would help him through the heat.
And once he did—
There was a very high chance Ezra would beco pregnant.
That had always been the true goal.
To get him pregnant.
That child—
Their son—
Would beco the prince.
And Helios would beco king.
It was his mother’s idea.
Her suggestion.
Because originally, Helios planned to wait.
Wait until Samson chooses him officially as heir.
Then leave Alyce gracefully afterward.
Then confess everything to Ezra.
And that would have been enough for him.
At least before.
But then—
"Didn’t he pretend to be an Oga?" Circe says softly as she caresses Helios’ face that night years ago, her smile calm and knowing. "And though he’s well-loved as a knight, I do not think people would appreciate you marrying him right after Alyce. And I highly doubt Alyce would go down without a fight after being engaged for so long."
Helios rembered frowning slightly at that.
"What do you suggest I do?" he had asked quietly.
Circe smiled.
Slowly.
"Didn’t you...attempt to beco intimate with him all those years ago?"
The reminder imdiately made Helios tense.
That failed attempt.
That humiliating night.
The night desperation got the better of him because he wanted Ezra so badly it physically hurt.
The night he purposely made Ezra pass out, intending to finally have him all to himself.
Only for it to fail.
"Yes...?" Helios answered cautiously.
"Get him pregnant," Circe says simply, as though discussing the weather itself. "And at the sa ti..."
Her smile sharpened.
"...plan for Alyce’s untily demise. An accident, perhaps. Maybe involving Dark Ones. Anything you think of."
Her fingers brushed lightly against Helios’ cheek.
"Make sure the timing is perfect so nobody suspects you. Then once your little knight is carrying your child..."
Circe’s smile widened faintly.
"...he’ll be bound to you."
Helios rembered staring at her quietly after that.
Not because he was horrified.
He wasn’t above killing Alyce.
That part never bothered him much.
No—
What unsettled him was sothing else entirely.
"Isn’t that too much, mother?" Helios asks quietly.
Because truthfully—
He didn’t think pregnancy alone would ever be enough to make Ezra stay.
There were monts, small monts over the years, where Helios genuinely felt like Ezra loved him back.
The way Ezra looked at him sotis.
The way he listened to him.
Stayed beside him.
There were monts where Helios could almost convince himself that Ezra’s devotion was more than loyalty.
More than admiration.
But then there were other tis—
Tis when it didn’t feel the sa at all.
Ezra undoubtedly admired him.
Respected him.
Was loyal to him to a fault.
But love?
Real love?
Helios wasn’t sure.
And that uncertainty terrified him more than he wanted to admit.
Because if Ezra truly loved him—
Wouldn’t he have shown it by now?
Wouldn’t he have looked at Helios the sa way Helios looked at him?
With want.
With desperation.
With obsession.
But Ezra never did.
Not completely.
"Do you want to lose the love of your life to soone else, as I did?" Circe asks suddenly, grabbing Helios firmly by the chin and forcing him to look directly at her.
Her eyes held his sharply.
"There was nothing I could do when I lost mine, Helios," she whispers, her voice lowering into sothing quieter, sothing more dangerous because of how calm it sounded. "But there is still sothing you can do with yours."
Helios stayed silent.
His mother’s grip against his chin tightened slightly.
"You get two things you want," Circe continues softly. "Revenge on your father..."
Hatred flickered briefly across her face at the ntion of Samson.
"And the love of your life."
Her thumb brushed slowly against Helios’ cheek.
"Why are you hesitant?"
Helios’ throat tightened slightly at the question.
Why was he hesitant?
’Because Ezra might not want enough to keep the baby....’
The thought ca imdiately.
And Helios hated himself for it.
Because the idea alone made sothing uncomfortable twist inside his chest.
He planned to woo Ezra once he was the crown prince, dedicate ti after his revenge to make sure Ezra fell for him hard.
If he ends up getting Ezra pregnant...wouldn’t he hate it?
Hate Helios?
’No,’ Helios imdiately corrected himself internally, jaw tightening. ’Ezra could never hate .’
Could he?
The uncertainty lingered anyway.
Because Helios knew Ezra.
Knew how loyal he was.
How stubbornly good he could be despite everything.
If Ezra found out the truth behind everything one day—
Would he still look at Helios the sa way?
Or would he look disgusted?
Afraid?
The thought alone made Helios’ stomach twist unpleasantly.
And Circe noticed.
Of course she did.
"You’re overthinking," Circe says softly, almost amused now as she studies his face. "That knight adores you more than anyone else in this kingdom."
"He trusts ," Helios says quietly.
But even to his own ears, it didn’t sound like enough.
Circe smiled faintly.
"And trust becos dependency very easily if handled correctly."
Sothing about the way she said it made Helios look at her again.
"You already made yourself his savior once," Circe continues calmly. "You simply need to remind him again and again that nobody else will ever protect him the way you do."
Her nails brushed lightly against his jaw.
"Especially once he carries your child."
Helios’ breathing slowed slightly at that.
A child.
His and Ezra’s child.
The image ca back instantly.
Ezra was standing beside him.
A child with golden eyes like Helios.
But with pale blonde hair like Ezra’s.
A family.
The kind Helios never truly had.
And suddenly—
The hesitation didn’t feel as strong anymore.
’Ezra would stay,’ Helios thought slowly, the idea settling deeper into him the longer he imagined it. ’He wouldn’t abandon his child.’
Ezra wouldn’t abandon him.
That wasn’t the kind of person Ezra was.
And if Ezra stayed—
Then eventually, surely eventually—
Ezra would love him properly, too.
Wouldn’t he?
"And who’s to say your loyal pup wouldn’t happily carry your child just so you could be king. Hm?"
That’s where it started.
The long ga.
The planning.
Making sure that Ezra...his Ezra, would officially beco his.
At so point, Helios stopped caring whether he beca king through inheritance or not.
At first, he wanted the throne properly.
Wanted Samson De Luxaelian Sunthyr to hand it to him willingly.
Because Helios wanted the satisfaction of it.
Wanted his father to realize,e too la, te that the son he trusted most was the very reason the kingdom had started rotting from the inside.
That Helios himself was the source of Luxaelis’ despair.
All of it traced back to him.
And by the ti Samson realized it, Helios wanted it to be impossible to stop.
But now?
Now Helios barely cared about the crown compared to Ezra.
The throne was no longer the end goal.
Ezra was.
Everything else was just sothing Helios had to remove to get there.
"Hey."
A familiar voice suddenly called out the mont Helios stepped back inside his father’s palace, imdiately making him stop mid-thought before turning his head slightly.
’Not now.’
Dread settled into his stomach instantly.
Because there was only one person who sounded that casual while approaching him like this.
Kaelis.
Helios slowly turned fully toward him, already forcing his expression back into sothing calm before Kaelis could notice anything off.
"Kaelis," Helios says smoothly, despite the irritation already creeping under his skin. "What’s wrong?"
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