Chapter 576: Sexually Secure

When Damon arrived back in the Imperial Palace, a couple of days had passed. After all, the distance between the capital and where Bessa lived was just a bit more than half a day’s journey for the fastest horse out there. But that wasn’t the only reason Damon took his time.

Damon, riding in his carriage, refused to stop by the inns along the way because of a certain white feathered fellow.

After the last inn visit from that albino crow, Damon knew the inns were where that man would inevitably appear again and attach himself to his side.

So Damon had taken the carriage. The slow carriage. The "we’ll get there when we get there" carriage. It should have worked.

They arrived just as the sun rose. The sky was painted in shades of gold and rose, the birds were singing, the dew was glistening, and for one brief, beautiful moment, Damon allowed himself to believe that perhaps he might make it to his chambers without incident.

Just that... the white feathered fellow was so destined to meet him again, he could no longer avoid him.

"Your Majesty!"

Damon’s left eye twitched.

He knew that voice. He knew that voice the way a sailor knows the sound of a ship’s hull splintering against rocks.

Bessa, walking beside him, turned toward the sound with innocent curiosity.

Magnus strode toward them. His white hair, brilliant, eye-searing white that made him look like an angel who had fallen from heaven and landed in a vat of milk, flowed behind him. His red eyes blazed with the kind of intensity that made lesser men check their pulse.

Bessa was struck by how handsome the white haired man with red eyes were. He walked straight at Damon, and only when he was close enough did Bessa see the white feathers mixed in his white hair, and even jutting out of some of his body parts.

"I missed you, Your Majesty," the man came up to Damon and before he could react, he hugged him and kissed his cheek.

Bessa gasped in shock, her face immediately turned red. Two handsome men—cheek kissing!

Damon meanwhile, had given up reacting at all. He ignored the court’s shocked eyes, his eyes turned dull as if his soul had vacated his body.

Magnus pulled back, his head tilting in that unsettling bird-like way he had. That was when his red eyes finally swept over Damon’s companion.

"Huh!" The white haired man turned to Bessa. "Who is this woman? Are you cheating on me, Your Majesty?"

"Y-Your Majesty...?" Bessa was unsure how to respond to this, so she turned to Damon, who looked every bit like a statue forged from millennial cold iron.

When she turned to the man again, she flinched when she saw the cold red pupil staring at her. Those eyes... he looked... scary!

And he did. Magnus’s eyes had gone flat, the warmth of his earlier greeting evaporating into something far more dangerous. He was looking at Bessa the way a hawk looks at a particularly plump mouse, with detached interest and the vague sense that she might be delicious.

"Your Majesty," Magnus cupped Damon’s cheek with one hand. Although his movements were soft, the strong aura of manliness from him shone brighter and brighter, making Bessa wonder—"Don’t you want to explain our relationship to the lady?"

Bessa’s heart started to beat loudly. To the suggestive words, even men would blush red hearing it. Not to mention, these two were some of the people she deemed most handsome in the world.

And here they were, standing in front of her, radiating the kind of sexual tension that could power a small city.

Preventing the situation from spiralling further and further, Damon finally looked up at Magnus. And with the same smile that made Bessa blush, he turned his lips lopsidedly.

His eyes slowly looked down at a certain spot, and then up at the man, before looking away with a sneer.

Magnus froze.

What—

When Damon pulled Bessa, the woman he had been escorting, away from him, Magnus was still standing at the same spot. Then, slowly, he started to blush.

Bessa’s eyes, although her body was already being led away, still stayed at Magnus’ beautiful visage and saw it too.

The man was blushing!

She sharply turned at Damon with shocked eyes only to see Damon looking casually forward at the corridor in front of them.

She gasped again, blushing even harder.

"Oh my God!"

The Emperor’s charm surpassed the convention of genders!

"Y-Your Majesty...?" Bessa blushed. Her voice was small, barely above a whisper. "W-what is your relationship with... t-t-that man?"

Damon didn’t break stride. His expression remained perfectly neutral.

"He slept on my bed sometimes," Damon answered.

Bessa’s face, down to her neck and shoulder, reddened, burning red like coal. She suddenly imagined it. Wait, why could she imagine it? Did it look natural at all? These two men, in the emperor’s bed, tangled in silk sheets, doing—

The Emperor smiled at her, the same lopsided smile, and slowly approached her face with his.

He sighed, chuckling to himself. "Perhaps it’s a predicament that I’m a little bit too straight. No matter what he does, he can’t get me hard. So what bothers me is his pride, not his advances."

Ba-dum!

Bessa’s heart leapt a somersault.

She had never met anyone more manly than this—

"A-amazing..." she looked at him with sparkling eyes. "You truly don’t mind people with different sexual orientation at all... so cool..."

And she meant it. Here was a man, an emperor, no less, who could be propositioned by a devastatingly handsome bird-man and simply... shrug it off.

No awkwardness. No discomfort. No homophobic or sexual orientation panic. Just a confident acknowledgment of his own preferences.

"DAMON IONDORA!" Magnus, listening to everything from a bit far away with his impeccable bird beast hearing, blushed so red from embarrassment and anger. His voice echoed through the corridor, startling servants and guards alike. "SAY THAT AGAIN! SAY YOU DIDN’T GET HARD AT ALL!"

Damon chuckled. "See? It’s his pride."

Bessa was choked, looking away shy. How could she not? She was caught between two impossibly handsome men who were, for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom, having a very public argument about whether or not one of them could get the other hard.

This was not how she had expected her morning to go.

"You know what? I’ll cry. I’ll cry in Ivy’s embrace and tell on you! Just you see, Damon Iondora. She’ll avenge me." Magnus growled, his frowning face looked even more handsome than his normal one, as he leapt to the sky.

His white hair and feathers catching the morning light, his silhouette cutting a dramatic figure against the golden dawn. It was the kind of exit that would have looked absurd on anyone else. On Magnus, it looked like art.

What kind of man with big pride said something that pathetic unironically? Saying that with his chest, even?

When Damon turned to the direction of him leaving, he knew far too well that Magnus had no such arrogance or pride. He was such a good man who didn’t care at all about his own image. That confidence... only real man who was secure in his own skin could do things Magnus did.

That was why Magnus Karas was such a difficult foe to defeat.

He was insane.

Magnus’s insanity was the kind that made him free. The kind that let him say and do whatever he wanted without a shred of self-doubt. Perhaps only that man was impossible to shame in this world.

But while Magnus didn’t pretend to be sane, Damon still had to maintain some semblance of sanity. Just enough for people to see a glimpse of his madness inside. That was why...

Damon sighed, running a hand through his hair. The morning was already exhausting, and it wasn’t even breakfast yet.

"Our engagement hadn’t been officially announced yet," Damon said as they arrived at Bessa’s assigned chambers. His voice was gentle now, the teasing edge gone. "Please think everything over for one last time. If you want, schedule more meetings with people you trust, and ask their opinion."

Bessa looked up at Damon’s gentle eyes. The shift in his demeanor was almost jarring. One moment he was trading barbs with a feathery madman, the next he was... this. Impossibly considerate.

"I... don’t have people like that..." Bessa said, a bit embarrassed.

"I think you do," Damon said. "Lady Sees seems to cherish you very much."

Bessa blinked up at him, surprised. She did...?

"Go to her," he gently urged. "In the meantime, I’ll discuss some contingency if you choose to step back from this plan with Angela."

This kindness again. He just made it even harder for her to even think of backing away.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Many thanks for your consideration, truly," Bessa curtsied.

"Rest first," Damon said.

"Yes. I’ll take my leave."

"Take care."

"You too."

Bessa walked away.

After that, Damon left for his sister’s palace. He walked through the corridors to check on Angela, making sure she was well.

He opened the door and saw his sister.

With the Warden.

And that was how he ended up lifting a large vase as high as his chest before lowering it back down that morning.

"Your Majesty, please—"

"—please let me have the Princess’ hand in marriage."

Haa...

Fucking finally.