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“I will not allow you to love me.”
His whisper threads over the cleft of Secretive Plotter’s sword, worn at his side like a trusted friend, loved in the hands of an immortal.
Those eyes bore into him. Dark, high, tinged with the sickening gleam of obsession. Secretive Plotter thought he was good hiding it, but Kim Dokja was better at digging hidden things up.
“Does it bother you to know I do?”
“It bothers me to know the lengths you’ll go to to take my brother’s throne.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had meant it when he told his warning. A man dressed out of the moon’s shadow will come and infiltrate them.
“My love is no lie,” he replied, “Nor a ploy to steal something so worthless.”
Worthless? His brother’s throne? The man was a bold one. Dead. But bold. His audacity was impressive.
“That doesn’t matter. You have forgotten what I am. Who I serve.” Kim Dokja’s white robes swayed like a confession, hands clasped in respectable prayer. “I cannot allow your blasphemy to continue. You have done no wrong, so do not make me report back to my King.”
“A Saintess like you can do so much more. Why do you follow that fool of a king?”
“I made a promise to my brother. To be by his side. Always. “The bells have not tolled, but Kim Dokja could feel their thrum in his chest. They felt so much like old memories. “You cannot tempt me out of my fealty to my King.”
Secretive Plotter, a man with no real name, his identity lost to time, crept up the holy stairs in muddy boots. Kim Dokja frowned, internally wincing with disapproval.
“I cannot tempt you?” He parroted. They were five steps apart. The Plotter steadily made his way up. He shouldn’t be so close. He should be stopped. Yet the delegating spells surrounding the grand temple go unchecked. As if they couldn’t register the man’s presence. Not for the first time, Kim Dokja recognizes the danger this man is.
“Haven’t I done so already?”
“W—what?”
Taking a surprise step back, he unknowingly shows his weakness.
The Plotter smiled, or whatever that amused twist to his lips can be called. “The king… will take a wife. She will be the new pearl in his eyes. The beautiful Saintess, Kim Dokja, will take to her shadow.”
“I—“
“You will be cast aside. You will be nothing—no. You will not be nothing, but you also won’t be something. Did you know? A love between a man and a woman is very strong.”
’He’s trying to manipulate you. Don’t fall for it.’
Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly what the man was doing. Yet why was his heart beating like this? Why did that fragile organ squeeze?
Why did it ache like it knew it would happen?
Kim Dokja knew Yoo Joonghyuk would have to take a wife. He knew that. He wasn’t naïve. But he thought… maybe he’d have more time…
Yoo Joonghyuk was already talking of marriage, of a union between him and the lovely princess, Lee Seolhwa, the gem of the neighboring empire. The counsel were already making arrangements for a date. They would be powerful together. They’d strengthen the kingdom and their children would be… beautiful.
“What about it?” He shot back. He almost pinched himself when his tone wavered. Another weakness.
“Oh, my dear Saintess,” Secretive Plotter crooned, gently persuasive. They were chest to chest now, a hair’s breath from touch. Kim Dokja refused to take another step back. “I know.”
His brows furrowed in confusion. What did he mean?
“What do you know?”
He paused, then crept down. Kim Dokja was seized by those dark, eternal eyes. A life untold, stories wedged beneath the bottom of history. “I know you love him.”
Kim Dokja’s heart stopped.
No. That… how would he know? He couldn’t. There was no possible way. Kim Dokja has never once pursued his sinful thoughts, had kept them tightly locked under his control. “He, he is my brother.” Kim Dokja glared. He didn’t quite shake the cold dread. “Of course I love him.”
“Love, sweet one. Don’t act like you don’t understand me.”
His breath hitched. He knew. He definitely knew.
“So what?” Suddenly, he grinned. It was ridiculous. It was suicidal. “Will you tell on me? Will you go to the King himself, my brother, and spew ludicrous things and believe you be will taken seriously?”
“I don’t intend to do that at all.” It was as if he couldn’t be touched, be moved. It was infuriating.
“Then what will you do? You already know my secret.”
“I don’t want to destroy you, Saintess,” Secretive Plotter reassured, “I love you. I want you.”
This man…
“So that’s it? Blackmail?” It wasn’t the first time. He was royalty. Being the subject for blackmail was as common as having attempts on his life.
But what kind of blackmail was even this? The man had his sights pinned to him and not the King. He didn’t know whether to think him stupid or unmotivated.
“Even so… even so.” There was a subtle lilt of humor to Kim Dokja’s voice, beneath the self-hatred that smiled at him. “You can’t love me.” Like the thought couldn’t even occur. He was sworn to the temple, to purity. He is not someone to have. “You are a fool.”
It was a dig. Nothing but flash and meaningless goading from someone who has never won. Secretive Plotter didn’t mean it. Kim Dokja was not a lovable being. He was disposable waste anchored to life. By the mother, by the father, by… Joonghyuk. Who will marry, have children and… and…
Yet when his gloved fingers linger on his cheek, he responds—
“And yet, I do, Kim Dokja.”
His jaw snap shut from sheer disbelief. Raging denials and stuttered protests crow behind his teeth, and he hates the swell of—of something that shouldn’t be there, that burns like acid. He hates the spread of warmth. He hates that it’s not Yoo Joonghyuk.
He hates, even more, how those words are a straightforward, horrific confirmation of his most deprived wish. Was he this low? To want love from anywhere?
“Since the moment I met you, you were in possession of my heart. I could never look away.”
It was so… casual. Said easily. With no barbed wires to cut the flesh of his throat. Worst, still, is the sincerity; a sickening gentleness that should’ve never been reserved for him.
Secretive Plotter’s words made him fall into a tailspin—again—and—and he could see it too. It glinted wicked and fond on his face, how much he knew, and how much he enjoyed Kim Dokja’s childish refusal.
He whimpered. Any possibility of being brazen crumpled.
“You shouldn’t.”
To love the enemy is even worse than to love your brother!
“Have I not demonstrated it clearly by now?”
“Demonstrated what?” He nearly shrieked. “You—you come into my temple, you confess your love to a worker of the lord and repeat my worst sin to my own face! What have you demonstrated exactly?!”
“That I will not give up. No matter what.”
“Leave,” he hissed. “Leave now.”
“Not without you.”
He restrained a little shiver of awe shock. Secretive Plotter was a man of few words. Nothing he said was without intent. When he moved into a room, he had a dominating presence; swift and confident, with battled wits and was an unstoppable tirade of force. He was someone built for the battlefield. It truly was a shame then, when he introduced himself as an opposing force.
“My place is here. And here is where I will stay.”
“Then you will wither. You will never grow beyond what you are now, and you will forever be left wanting.”
The presumption of this man. It was enough to set fire to Kim Dokja’s heart.
Secretive Plotter tipped his chin, brought himself closer. He was proving to be brave. To be unabashedly unafraid. Kim Dokja could strike him down, at any moment.
Why didn’t he?
“With me, you will be loved. With me, you will be eternal. Never again will you be alone.”
Gods, he was persistent.
Their lips were brushing. The Plotter, unblinking. Kim Dokja was steadily breaking.
“It would be treason,” he whispers, shaking. A pain pulled in his throat.
“It would be surrender,” Secretive Plotter corrected. “To me. To someone who would not give you a choice.”
He blinked, frowning. That wasn’t right. The man was giving him a choice. Why would he say otherwise?
He leaned down to whisper. “An enemy in the midst of the fold. Who would dare to think the lamb willingly walked beside him?”
His eyes widened. It felt like his mind was fracturing. The holy devoutness he held himself from sliding out of place.
“You… are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“No one else has to know I gave you a choice.” His hands wound around him. From the outside it would seem like Kim Dokja wad being caged. Inside those arms, Kim Dokja can only call it an embrace.
Only he and the Plotter would know the truth.
Was he really thinking this?
Secretive Plotter held him, stared down until his name slid into the shape of desire.
“Kim Dokja.”
Whether these arms were to kill or to kiss, or to burrow under the skin of the man who was entertaining betrayal, Kim Dokja couldn’t say.
A shiver ran down his spine. It was torture.
Kim Dokja grit his teeth and made the decision for him.
Their teeth knocked together in a violent dance. His lips were rough, taking Kim Dokja’s surrender with possessive arousal. Kim Dokja melted down and reformed into something harder, something that was connected to the hand that won’t let go. (And now never will.)
Kim Dokja was a man of bad faith.
Why did he ever think that his deference would win out his unlawful greed to be loved?
He smiled in the kiss, laughing brokenly. His tears were already falling.
’I’m sorry, Joonghyuk-ah. Looks like I’m breaking my promise after all. I can’t stay here if I can’t have you. I’m sorry.’
The Plotter yanked him off his feet, blasted the temple Kim Dokja grew up in, and ran from the guards that were following them.
“Your turn,” Secretive Plotter rumbled, smiling.
Kim Dokja took a deep breath and screamed.
“Help me! Someone! Joonghyuk-ah! Please!”
“Kim Dokja!”
Ah. That voice.
Another blast from his captor. The wall was breaking and crumbling down. Yoo Joonghyuk escaped, glorious and untouched.
“Brother!” He cried pitifully, pulling out a hand.
’Please, Yoo Joonghyuk, when you marry, be unhappy. Please be haunted by me.’
Joonghyuk reached for him, the tips brushing.
’Please… suffer.’
Kim Dokja pulled his hand back, just enough for Yoo Joonghyuk to stumble and miss. His expression was painful. Kim Dokja savored the guilt it brought him.
“No—! Kim Dokja!”
The Plotter whisked him away, gone, gone until Kim Dokja couldn’t even see the outline of his most precious person anymore. He closed his eyes and turned his cheek.
Some things could be cruel even without a means to hurt.