Ch#90
Loic stirred awake, groggy and sluggish.
He must have slumbered deeply—his eyelids weighed down like lead.
Had the frenzy finally ebbed?
Eyes shut tight, he sifted through the haze of the previous night.
He had been strolling lakeside with the Grand Duchess when they crossed paths with the daughter of Avoir. Then came the abrupt surge of agitation and vertigo.
Unmistakable harbingers of a rampage.
Why now? Mere moments earlier, he had clasped Annette’s hand.
No matter the reason, once the onset gripped him, probing for answers was futile.
He couldn’t bear to confess the truth to Annette.
If he admitted a rampage loomed, how terrified she would be.
—“Forgive me, but I must depart alone from here. Are you all right on your own?”
Ultimately, he abandoned Annette, spurred his horse back to the castle, and barricaded himself in his chamber.
Securing the manacles around his wrists always left a bitter aftertaste—but that night, the metallic rattle echoed with particular shame and humiliation.
Only instants before, he had wandered hand-in-hand with Annette amid the throng.
Like any ordinary fellow, savoring her touch.
Now, thrust back into his cage like a beast unmasked after a fleeting masquerade as man, he lay shackled in this frigid space, bracing for agony.
—“Odd. My spells aren’t taking hold.”
Even as Enolius’s features tightened during the healing incantation, Loic sensed a reckoning unfolding.
Hadn’t Annette eased his torment for months on end?
After such prolonged respite, maybe this suffering was his due.
“But surely, Your Grace the Grand Duchess might…”
Whitley appeared poised to plead for Annette’s aid, yet Loic forbade it.
Once a rampage ignited, an ill-timed caress could prove perilous.
He dismissed them all, then raked at his chest amid the throes… before darkness claimed him.
And now? He felt… whole.
No rasp in his breaths. No rending within.
Evidently, it had subsided with surprising ease this time.
A strange levity filled him.
Eyelids fluttering, he pried them open at last—and beheld a shimmering golden haze.
What?
Silken blond tresses entwined his fingers.
As he shifted to rise, he halted, transfixed by the petite figure curled with her cheek pillowed on his arm.
Annette slumbered, her face tucked against his torso, respiring in soft rhythm.
Loic’s eyes widened in shock.
Annette—nestled in his embrace?
His pulse hammered wildly. He held his breath, lest the thunder of it rouse her.
What had transpired?
Once his chest’s tumult steadied somewhat, he grappled for clarity.
A dream?
Too blissful for reverie—and far exceeding the timid scope of his fantasies. He had never ventured to envision such intimacy.
They lay entwined beneath the bed’s canopy.
The downy coverlet they shared had drifted to their hips.
Manacles binding both wrists, yet his arms enfolded the Grand Duchess, cradling her perfectly within.
Cascades of golden locks draped his limb.
Annette must have intervened.
Whitley, pained by his master’s ordeal, must have implored the Grand Duchess’s presence.
Mere hand-holding wouldn’t suffice, so…
Gazing at Annette burrowed against him, Loic pieced together the unspoken.
He had yearned to shield her from this truth above all.
Yet now she knew.
She served, in essence, as his balm.
His sole redemption.
What verdict would dawn with her awakening?
Fury at his concealment? Resentment toward his brooding reticence?
Or perhaps a demand to revise their pact, leveraging her newfound leverage—like a shrewd haggler?
No.
The Annette he cherished would ache for his anguish.
Her spirit brimmed with tenderness.
Would she pity him?
Such compassion from Annette? He welcomed it.
If it tethered her to Blenheim a while longer, all the more reason to cherish it.
He studied her serene, pallid features, unguarded in repose.
She slept soundly.
Exhaustion, perhaps?
Her lips bore dry cracks—yet last eve, they had seemed lush.
His rampaging visage must have unnerved her.
Terror, no doubt…
Still, he could easily envision her steeling herself to approach.
She possessed true mettle.
Her nightdress suggested haste—summoned at once upon hearing of his plight.
With each inhalation, the gossamer fabric swelled and subsided over her form.
I urged her to don at least a robe…
Mindful of the chains’ jangle, he tugged the quilt to her shoulders.
Uncertain of her stirring, he resolved not to shatter this singular treasure prematurely.
Savoring her radiant warmth, he twirled a lock of her hair with exquisite care.
After last night’s inferno, this seemed a fitting recompense.
In this instant, his malediction lost its sting.
Inhaling her subtle scent, Loic smiled, suffused with tranquility.
The finest dawn he had ever known.
Click.
The chime of porcelain rang sharp in the hushed parlor.
A belated midday repast lay untouched; we merely nursed our tea.
My uncharacteristic silence—me, the habitual babbler—drew Loic’s faintly worried scrutiny.
“You’re truly well? Even the slightest malaise…”
“I’m fine, as I said.”
“Yet your lips require care.”
Heat flooded my ears as his eyes lingered on my abraded mouth.
He likely chalked it up to market exertions and a sleepless night, leaving me fatigued and parched.
“It’s minor. Enolius advised letting it mend on its own.”
Last night, I entered his quarters to quell the rampage—then he yielded to instinct, and we… well, suffice to say, he drifted off with me in his hold.
Drained as I was, that soothing embrace coaxed me under swiftly.
The trio beyond the door must have noted the crisis abated yet lingered vigilantly in the corridor.
We slumbered till noon’s blaze.
Enolius, shadowed by fatigue, entered at Loic’s behest, examined me meticulously, then relented.
Muttering about mages ill-suited to physic, he chided Loic’s fretting over my lip’s gash—insisting natural healing sufficed—and departed.
“But the mark could linger…” Loic murmured, crestfallen.
Pardon me—who split my lower lip, pray tell?
The memory scorched my cheeks aflame.
Does he truly blank on it? Or feign amnesia?
“Loic.”
“Yes?”
“Do you honestly recall nothing of last night?”
“…”
“Not a fragment?”
“Was I… grievously improper?”
His complexion blanched.
“In that state, reason flees me… Did I utter cruelties?”
“Well…”
“D-Don’t say I menaced you…!”
“No, nothing of the sort.”
I shook my head, then cradled my face in my palms.
Haah.
My skin blazed.
I had rehearsed countless post-dawn exchanges, but amnesia topped none.
How could he erase that?
My pulse still raced at the thought!
I stifled a soft exhale.
Perhaps a mercy.
Tallying faults, I ignited the spark.
Remembrance might complicate matters worse.
Why, oh why, did I act so brazenly sans consent…?
Though truthfully, afterward, he—!
Ugh, enough.
His pallor now foretold catastrophe if truth emerged; he’d shun me eternally.
Besides, lesser intimacy wouldn’t have quelled it.
Our kiss unleashed mana in a torrent—like drawing from a well with rope and bucket, not cupped palms.
The true enigma: why trigger at all?
Since my arrival, I vented his mana daily.
Does it merely postpone the tide, not vanquish it?
Or was my touch too tepid?
He ought to have confided!
Lips compressed, I flicked a sidelong glower at Loic.