Chapter 96: Avoidance

It had been three days since Darius woke to an empty bed. Three days since he had reached across the mattress expecting warmth and found nothing but cold sheets. Three days since he had opened his eyes expecting to find Basil curled against his chest, only to discover he had already vanished. In those three days, Basil had become a ghost in his own home. He rose before dawn, slipping out of the palace gates before the servants had even begun their morning duties, and returned long after midnight when the corridors were dead and silent. He navigated the palace like a fugitive, calculating every step to ensure his path never crossed Darius’s.

At first, Darius had tried to be patient. He knew the sudden drop from absolute intensity back into reality could be disorienting. He assumed Basil simply needed a quiet moment to process the sudden shift in their relationship, to make sense of everything that had happened between them. After all, that day had been overwhelming for both of them. Emotions had run high. For Darius, it had been years of tension finally breaking apart. It made sense that Basil might need time to process everything. Darius had consciously given him space, believing that once the initial shock wore off, once he sorted through whatever storm was raging inside his head, Basil would return, ready to speak, ready to face whatever came next.

Instead, the distance only stretched wider.

A bitter, restless knot tightened in Darius’s chest with every passing hour. He found himself pacing the quiet halls of their private wing, questioning every moment of that afternoon. Had he pushed too far? Had he misread the desperate, breathless way Basil had held onto him? To surrender so completely, to pour out every drop of devotion, and then run as if he had committed an unpardonable sin left Darius caught between cold fury and a quiet, hollow uncertainty.

He had believed they were finally on the same side of the wall. He had thought the quiet understanding forged in the aftermath was real, that the invisible barrier between them had finally dissolved. Looking back, none of it had felt forced. Nothing about it had felt unwanted. Yet now, watching Basil avoid him at every turn, Darius found himself questioning everything.

Watching Basil retreat back into his shell felt like watching ground he had fought so hard to gain suddenly crumble beneath his feet.

Had Basil regretted it?

The thought twisted viciously inside his chest. What was he supposed to do with all the hope that had exploded inside him that day? He had genuinely believed they were finally moving forward, that they had finally reached the same destination. That all his years of wanting a place in Basil’s life had finally amounted to something.

The strain was already showing across the entire household. Their parents had begun to notice the growing rift. The tension at the dining table was sharp enough to cut through, with Basil’s chair sitting conspicuously empty at every meal. Their father’s questioning glances and their mother’s quiet, concerned observations were becoming harder to dismiss with offhand excuses. They could sense the cold distance creeping between the two brothers, even if they had no idea what had caused it. Their mother, unable to ignore it any longer, had already asked twice whether something was wrong between the two of them. ⅇ

Darius had lied, claiming Basil was leaving early and returning late because of schoolwork he needed to catch up on after spending so much time looking after Darius during his recovery. But he knew their parents didn’t believe him, even though neither had voiced their suspicions outright. But Darius could see it.

They knew something was wrong. They simply didn’t know what. And Darius was done waiting.

He hadn’t spent years fighting his way back to his prince’s side, hadn’t survived a month trapped in a coma, only to watch the one person he cared about most slip away through sheer avoidance. He refused to let Basil hide behind quiet shame or pretend that what had passed between them could be erased by simply running away.

Tonight, the hide-and-seek ended.

Darius stood in the dimly lit corridor, leaning his shoulder against the wall beside Basil’s suite door. The hall was silent, broken only by the occasional distant footstep of a passing servant. He crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw set, his eyes dark as he fixed them on the far turn of the passageway. He wasn’t going to sleep.

He wasn’t going to move from this spot. He would wait right here until Basil returned, no matter how late the hour stretched, because tonight they were going to talk.

*****

The night sky stretched endlessly above the palace grounds, a vast sea of dark velvet scattered with silver stars. A pale moon hung high overhead, bathing the estate in a cold, ghostly glow. The fountains shimmered beneath the moonlight. The manicured gardens lay still and silent. Even the trees seemed asleep, their branches barely stirring beneath the cool night breeze. Basil’s dark sedan glided through the main gates, the quiet hum of the engine cutting through the absolute stillness of the estate. The guard who opened the gates immediately hurried to close them again once Basil had passed. He parked in his designated space, killed the ignition, and sat in the darkness for a long moment, staring through the windshield. His wrists were sore, his neck felt stiff, and his entire body ached with a bone-deep exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep.

Checking the dashboard clock, he saw it was past two in the morning. Good. Everyone would be asleep by now. Especially Darius, whose doctors had explicitly ordered him to get proper rest and maintain a strict sleep schedule to aid his ongoing recovery from the coma and lingering head trauma. Basil opened the car door and stepped out into the cool night air. Slipping quietly through the side entrance, he crossed the grand foyer. The marble floors echoed softly beneath his boots despite his careful steps, the high-ceilinged room swathed in shadow.

He moved toward the stairs, but the thought of dragging his heavy, leaden legs up two flights was unbearable. Instead, he slipped into the private elevator at the end of the corridor and pressed the button for their floor. The quiet chime of the lift felt unnaturally loud in the silence. For the past three days, his existence had been reduced to a desperate, calculated pattern of evasion. He had spent his mornings at a private shooting range, firing round after round into paper targets until his arms trembled and his mind went mercifully blank, trying to drown out the phantom touch of Darius’s hands. Anything was better than thinking and remembering. The rest of his time was spent holed up in quiet hotel rooms, lounges, and restaurants, nursing cups of coffee he didn’t need and meals he barely tasted, wasting entire afternoons staring out windows while trying not to think about a pair of blue eyes that refused to leave his thoughts.

None of it had worked.

The memories always returned. The guilt and the shame always returned, following him no matter where he went. The elevator doors glided open with a soft hiss. Basil stepped out onto the carpeted floor and froze instantly.

A few feet down the hallway, sitting directly against Basil’s door, was Darius. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his arms resting loosely across them. His forehead was lowered against his folded arms as though he had been sitting there for a very long time.

A cold spike of guilt and panic slammed into Basil’s chest, locking his lungs. The weight of his own actions hit him all over again. He considered stepping backward, retreating into the elevator, and going right back to the hotel. But running now, simply because Darius was physically blocking his door, felt cowardly and useless. Besides, how much longer could he keep running? Before he could decide what to do, Darius shifted, as if sensing his presence.

His head slowly lifted, his broad shoulders straightening as his gaze swept up the corridor.

Basil’s breath hitched as their eyes locked.

The air in the hallway instantly grew tight, charged with overwhelming tension. The corridor suddenly felt too small. Basil stood frozen, unable to look away, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Neither of them spoke for several seconds. Then Darius uncoiled himself, rising to his full height with a slow, deliberate grace that showed no sign of the fatigue he should have been feeling. "You’re finally back," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp in the quiet hall. "I was beginning to think you’d moved into that hotel permanently."

Basil didn’t need to ask how he knew he had been spending time in a hotel. Darius had men working under him, people who could find out where he went and what he was doing wherever he chose to hide. Basil had been foolish to think he could disappear without Darius knowing. If Darius had wanted to find him during those three days, he could have easily done so.