The grand ballroom of the Royal Palace glittered as though someone had captured a piece of the night sky, broken it into a thousand shimmering fragments, and scattered them across every polished surface. Hundreds of candles burned within towering crystal chandeliers and gilded wall sconces, their warm flames reflected in marble floors, silver serving trays, jeweled hair ornaments, and the tall arched pillars wrapped in winter roses. Beneath that lavish glow, the finest nobles of the Asterian Empire drifted through the evening in embroidered silks and expensive jewels, smiling at one another with practiced elegance while concealing sharper thoughts behind every pleasant expression.
At the center of the ballroom, couples moved through the measured steps of a traditional court waltz, their sweeping garments turning in graceful circles as the palace orchestra filled the hall with the refined strains of violins, harps, and silver flutes. The music was sophisticated without being lively, beautiful without ever becoming passionate, and perfectly suited to an aristocracy that regarded excessive emotion as something best confined to novels, bedrooms, and public executions. Even the dancers seemed to understand this unspoken rule, maintaining polite distances between their bodies while exchanging glances that promised considerably less restraint once the ballroom doors were closed.
Near the western colonnade, several noblemen had gathered around glasses of aged amber brandy, speaking in low voices about grain tariffs, shipping routes, and the troubling increase in monster attacks along the northern trade roads. Their conversation remained outwardly civil, though every carefully chosen sentence carried the weight of a threat, an offer, or an attempt to discover precisely how much debt the other man was hiding. Marquess Hollander laughed as he discussed the declining value of southern vineyards, all while watching Count Bellrose over the rim of his glass with the patient attention of a creditor deciding when to tighten the noose.
Across the room, the noblewomen displayed no less political cunning, although their battlefields consisted of lace fans, silk settees, and seemingly innocent observations delivered behind jeweled fingers. They discussed the newest sleeve designs imported from the Kingdom of Vale, the sudden popularity of pearl powder among unmarried debutantes, and whether Duchess Merrow’s dramatically smaller waist was the result of a new corset or a remarkably discreet physician. Inevitably, the conversation returned to scandal, particularly the rumor that Lady Celestine had been discovered leaving the crown prince’s private hunting lodge at dawn while wearing the same gown she had worn to dinner the previous evening.
It was an ordinary royal ball in every respect—lavish, beautiful, and thoroughly infested with people who smiled while imagining one another’s ruin.
Then the herald struck the marble floor with the base of his silver staff.
The music continued, but something in the ballroom’s atmosphere shifted as conversations faltered and several curious faces turned toward the entrance. The enormous double doors, carved with scenes of the empire’s founding and polished until the dark wood gleamed, opened slowly beneath the hands of two uniformed attendants. A moment later, Amor Moons stepped through them with the expression of a man arriving at an event he had already decided was beneath him.
His long lavender hair had been gathered loosely at the crown of his head with delicate silver chains, though most of it remained free to spill down his back in smooth, shining waves. Beneath the candlelight, the pale strands appeared almost luminous, shifting between muted violet and soft lilac whenever he moved, while his eyes held the tender pink hue of flower petals floating in spring water. That delicate coloring, paired with his pale and flawlessly smooth complexion, made him appear less like the heir of an ancient noble family and more like some capricious spirit who had wandered into the palace after becoming bored with haunting moonlit gardens.
His attire did little to discourage that impression.
Amor wore a fitted ensemble in layers of blush pink, cream, and dusty lavender, the soft pastels chosen to complement rather than overwhelm his unusual beauty. The high-waisted trousers hugged the slender lines of his legs, while the embroidered bodice followed the narrow curve of his waist before opening into a short, flowing train that drifted behind him with each unhurried step. Most striking of all were the long bell sleeves, which widened dramatically below his elbows and fluttered around his hands like the sleeves of an extravagant noblewoman’s evening gown.
There were already whispers following him across the ballroom, some admiring, others disdainful, and none quiet enough to escape his notice. More conservative nobles regarded his feminine clothing as a deliberate insult to decorum, while several younger gentlemen stared with such open fascination that their dance partners were forced to tug them back into step. Amor neither acknowledged the attention nor attempted to alter his graceful stride, because he had long ago—or, more accurately, three days ago—decided that the opinions of background characters were of no importance to him.
A painted folding fan rested within one slender hand, its pale silk surface decorated with silver moons drifting through lavender clouds. He held it open before the lower half of his face, concealing the plump pink lips that had inspired an unreasonable number of love poems, marriage proposals, and one spectacularly embarrassing duel between two intoxicated viscounts. Only his eyes remained fully visible above the fan, and despite their naturally soft color, there was nothing gentle in the way they swept across the ballroom.
Amor was searching for someone.
He passed beneath the chandeliers without pausing, his bell sleeves swaying elegantly around him as the crowd parted with varying degrees of reluctance. From behind his fan, he ignored the murmured greetings of acquaintances he did not remember, the curious stares of people whose names had never appeared in the original novel, and the increasingly frantic gestures of an elderly countess who seemed to believe Amor ought to join her circle immediately. His attention remained fixed on the far end of the ballroom, where a group of military officers and high-ranking nobles stood beneath an enormous imperial banner.
And there, surrounded by men eager for his approval, stood the male lead of this ridiculous world.
Duke Alphonsins Solaris was impossible to mistake, even among the empire’s most distinguished aristocrats. He stood taller than every man around him, broad-shouldered and severe in a midnight-black formal coat embroidered with threads of dark silver, while a ceremonial sword rested at his hip as naturally as though he had been born wearing it. His hair was silver enough to absorb the candlelight, his features possessed the cold and sculpted perfection favored by dramatic romance novels, and his steel-blue eyes carried the distant, faintly contemptuous look of a man who had never once been told something he did not wish to hear.
The surrounding noblemen laughed at something Alphonsins said, although his own expression did not change, and Amor felt his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the fan.
Three days earlier, Amor had awakened in an unfamiliar bed beneath an embroidered canopy, surrounded by sobbing servants who had apparently believed their young master would never recover from a mysterious fever. Within an hour, fragmented memories that did not belong to him had flooded his mind, followed by the far more horrifying realization that he had transmigrated into The Duke’s Captive Love, an infamously melodramatic romance novel he had abandoned halfway through reading only to pick it up again as a form of comfort during harsh times. Unfortunately, he had not transmigrated into a wealthy spectator, a harmless side character, or even one of the novel’s many decorative villains.
He had become Amor Moons, Alphonsins Solaris’ beautiful, obsessive, and catastrophically doomed villain lover.
In the original story, Amor Moons had been an easily bored man who drifted from one noble lover to another, never keeping anyone for more than three months regardless of their status or devotion. That pattern shattered the moment he laid eyes on Alphonsins during his duke’s title ceremony, when he was called the newly revealed nephew of the king and stepped into the spotlight. Amor became immediately and irrationally obsessed, resorting to blackmail, manipulation, and carefully laid traps to force Alphonsins into a relationship he neither wanted nor understood, as the duke had no interest in men. Amor clung to him regardless, stubborn and relentless, until his suffocating presence drove Alphonsins to confront feelings he had long ignored—feelings for Lady Celestine, whose rumored involvement with the crown prince only deepened the scandal. Amor’s role in the story was never meant to last; he was a disposable villain whose schemes caused endless trouble for Celestine and hardened Alphonsins’ hatred. In the end, Alphonsins destroyed House Moons without hesitation and killed Amor with his own blade, severing the final obstacle between himself and the woman he truly loved. Alphonsins, meanwhile, pretended to mourn him for approximately two paragraphs before chasing the heroine beneath a flowering magnolia tree.
Amor had no intention of dying for a man whose love would not let him survive even the end of a Chapter.
As though sensing the weight of his stare, Alphonsins turned his head.
Their eyes met across the crowded ballroom, and for the first time that evening, the duke’s composure visibly fractured. His cold gaze sharpened with immediate recognition, then traveled over Amor’s lavender hair, fitted pastel garments, and fluttering sleeves with an intensity that would have seemed romantic to anyone who did not know how disastrously this relationship ended. The men surrounding him continued speaking for another moment before gradually falling silent, each of them following Alphonsins’ attention toward the delicate figure approaching from across the room.
Amor felt dozens of nearby guests turn to watch him, anticipation stirring through the crowd like wind through tall grass. Their interest was understandable, because Amor Moons had built a notorious reputation for pestering the duke at every public gathering, showering him with affection regardless of how coldly Alphonsins responded. No doubt they expected him to lower his fan, brighten with adoration, and rush into the man’s arms with all the dignity of an abandoned puppy.
Instead, Amor continued forward at the same measured pace, his pink eyes flat with unmistakable displeasure.
Alphonsins excused himself from the surrounding nobles and stepped away from them, meeting Amor near the center of the ballroom just as the orchestra began another elegant waltz. Behind them, silk skirts swept across polished marble, jeweled shoes turned in perfect rhythm, and hundreds of candles burned with unwavering brilliance, transforming the moment into precisely the sort of romantic tableau the original author would have adored. Alphonsins looked down at him, his severe expression betraying the faintest flicker of concern before immediately turning cold as steel.
"You should still be resting..."
The duke said, his deep voice carrying easily beneath the music.
"I was informed that your fever nearly killed you."
Amor tilted his head, allowing one lavender curl to slip over his shoulder, and regarded Alphonsins with the detached scrutiny one might offer an expensive object discovered to be badly made. The duke’s face was admittedly impressive, and Amor could understand why the original owner of this body had thrown away his fortune, reputation, and common sense in pursuit of him. Understanding such foolishness, however, did not mean Amor intended to repeat it.
Alphonsins’s gaze narrowed when Amor failed to answer immediately.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Behind the safety of his fan, Amor’s concealed lips curved into a smile that contained no warmth whatsoever. He had rehearsed this conversation during the carriage ride to the palace, refining his words until they were sharp enough to sever every romantic thread binding him to the plot. There would be no tearful confession, no desperate plea, and certainly no opportunity for the duke to misunderstand his intentions.
Amor lowered the fan.
A subtle ripple of surprise traveled through the spectators nearest them, for his revealed face was even more arresting without painted silk obscuring it, but Amor did not spare them so much as a glance. His soft pink eyes remained fixed upon the man whose hatred was destined to destroy him, while his plump lips parted with calm, deliberate finality. Alphonsins watched him with an unreadable expression, unaware that the obsessive lover he knew had vanished forever.
"Duke Solaris..."
Amor said, his voice sweet enough to disguise the blade beneath every word.
"I have come to end our relationship."
The orchestra played on.
A violinist missed a note.
Alphonsins stared at him in absolute silence, and around them, an entire ballroom of nobles remained ignorant; only a few who dared to be close by collectively sneered. They were the past lovers Amor dated, gleeful to have another comrade in their ranks now.
For several long seconds, Duke Alphonsins Solaris did not respond.
He merely stared down at Amor as if the delicate man before him had abruptly begun speaking an unknown language, his steel-blue eyes fixed upon those soft pink ones with an intensity that would have unnerved someone less determined to escape a predetermined death. The faint sneers worn by the few nearby nobles widened behind lifted wineglasses and ornamental fans, particularly among the men who had once occupied the very position Alphonsins now held. They had all been discarded by Amor after a handful of passionate weeks, and judging by their poorly concealed delight, they appeared thrilled to welcome the empire’s untouchable duke into their humiliating little fraternity.
Alphonsins’s expression remained controlled, yet the silence gathering around him grew increasingly heavy as the moment stretched beyond what could reasonably be dismissed as surprise. His gaze moved over Amor’s face, searching for the mischievous curl of his lips or the subtle gleam that usually revealed one of his elaborate schemes, but there was no playful triumph to be found. Amor simply stood before him with his painted fan resting against one palm, looking neither nervous nor remorseful, and certainly not like a man preparing to beg forgiveness once his lover’s patience ran thin.
"You cannot be serious."
Alphonsins finally said.
His voice was quiet enough that only those who had drifted scandalously close could hear him, but the disbelief beneath the words was unmistakable. It was not the disbelief of a heartbroken lover, Amor decided, because the original novel had made it painfully clear that Alphonsins had never loved this body’s owner. It was the disbelief of a man whose understanding of the world had been challenged without warning, whose unwanted admirer had somehow stepped outside the role assigned to him and refused to explain how such a thing was possible.
Amor raised the fan once more, allowing its silken edge to conceal the faintly impatient curve of his lips.
"I assure you, Your Grace, I have never been more serious."
One of the nearby noblemen released a poorly muffled laugh into his glass, while another leaned toward his companion and whispered something that made both of them glance toward Alphonsins with delighted malice. The surrounding dancers continued to turn beneath the chandeliers, but those closest to the confrontation had begun slowing their steps, dragging out each elegant rotation so they might remain within hearing distance. Even the orchestra seemed quieter from where Amor stood, though perhaps that was only because every shameless aristocrat nearby had collectively decided that witnessing a duke’s public rejection was worth missing several measures of the waltz.
Alphonsins’s steel-blue eyes narrowed.
His gaze shifted beyond Amor’s shoulder, taking in the not-so-conspicuous crescent of nobles forming around them, and the hard line of his mouth tightened as realization settled over his features. Several of Amor’s former lovers looked positively radiant, their expressions carrying the smug sympathy of men who had endured precisely the humiliation now being inflicted upon the duke. A few noblewomen had also wandered closer under the pretense of admiring the winter roses wrapped around the pillars, though the flowers had apparently become interesting only after Amor announced his breakup.
Before Amor could decide whether to repeat himself for the third time, Alphonsins reached forward and seized his wrist.
The movement was so sudden that the painted fan snapped shut between Amor’s fingers, its silver ribs striking one another with a sharp little click that vanished beneath the music. Alphonsins’s hand engulfed his delicate wrist with effortless strength, the duke’s gloved fingers closing tightly enough to pull Amor off balance before he had the opportunity to protest. His bell sleeves billowed behind him as Alphonsins turned and strode away from the gathering crowd, dragging him across the polished marble with long, impatient steps.
"Your Grace..."
Amor said, struggling to maintain his dignity as he was hauled past two startled servants.
"I am capable of walking without being transported like an inconvenient parcel."
Alphonsins did not answer, nor did he loosen his grip.
Several heads turned as they crossed the ballroom, yet no one was foolish enough to step into the duke’s path when his expression had become cold enough to frost the candles. Amor was forced to quicken his steps to keep pace, one hand gathering the short train of his pastel coat while the other remained trapped within Alphonsins’s punishing grasp. He could already feel the pressure blooming beneath his pale skin, and he suspected that by morning, the duke’s fingers would be perfectly preserved around his wrist in shades of blue and violet.
Alphonsins led him through a pair of glass-paneled doors at the edge of the ballroom and onto an empty balcony overlooking the palace gardens. The night air met Amor in a cool rush, lifting the ends of his lavender hair and causing his loose bell sleeves to flutter around his arms like pale banners. Before the curious nobles inside could maneuver themselves into a better position, Alphonsins released Amor long enough to shut the doors with unnecessary force and draw the thick velvet curtains across the glass.
The ballroom disappeared behind a wall of dark fabric, taking its glittering candles, sophisticated music, and disappointed spectators with it.
Alphonsins remained facing the closed doors for a moment, both hands braced against the gilded handles as though he required the solid resistance beneath his palms to steady himself. His broad shoulders rose beneath his formal coat as he drew in one slow breath, held it, and then released it through his nose with the deliberate control of a commander resisting the urge to unsheathe his sword. Amor watched him from several steps away, his initial irritation giving way to mild confusion as the duke continued standing there in silence.
Then understanding arrived.
’Ah—of course...’
Amor lowered his gaze toward the red marks already circling his wrist and resisted the urge to laugh, because the explanation was so obvious that he should have recognized it immediately. Alphonsins Solaris might never have wanted their relationship, but he was still the king’s newly acknowledged nephew, a celebrated military commander, and one of the most powerful unmarried nobles in the empire. Being pursued by Amor had been inconvenient; being discarded by him in front of half the court was evidently intolerable.
’The male lead’s ego had been wounded.’
Amor’s expression softened with condescending comprehension, as though he had just solved a particularly simple puzzle. He could almost sympathize, since those former lovers would spread the story before the final dance concluded, transforming the duke’s rejection into the most entertaining scandal of the social season. By breakfast, every noble household in the capital would know that the man Amor Moons had once blackmailed into accepting his devotion had somehow failed to keep it.
Alphonsins turned sharply.
His silver hair flashed beneath the balcony lanterns, and the intensity of his glare might have frightened a soldier caught abandoning his post, though Amor merely adjusted the edge of one flowing sleeve.
"Why?"
Amor blinked at him.
"I believe I explained myself quite clearly."
"You announced your decision..."
Alphonsins replied, advancing one measured step.
"You did not explain it."
His voice remained low, but the anger within it had escaped the careful barriers of courtly restraint, roughening each word as it left his mouth. Alphonsins stopped close enough that Amor had to tilt his chin to meet his eyes, the disparity between their bodies becoming especially apparent without the surrounding crowd to soften it. He looked every bit the novel’s fearsome duke now, broad and imposing in black and silver, while Amor appeared almost offensively delicate in comparison.
"You were the one who demanded this relationship..."
Alphonsins continued, his gaze hardening.
"You pursued me after my title ceremony despite being told repeatedly that I had no interest in you, and when persistence failed, you resorted to deception..."
Amor’s fingers tightened around his folded fan, though his face remained politely disinterested.
"You bribed one of my household servants to place you in my private carriage..."
Alphonsins said, each accusation delivered with increasing precision.
"You fabricated correspondence suggesting I had made promises to you, arranged for witnesses to discover us together, and threatened to release information concerning the eastern campaign unless I publicly acknowledged you. You lied, manipulated, and blackmailed your way into my life because you insisted that you could not bear to exist without me..."
There was no denying any of it, unfortunately.
The original Amor Moons had possessed the wealth, audacity, and moral flexibility necessary to become a truly formidable villain, yet he had wasted all three qualities on forcing an unwilling man into a relationship. The inherited memories were incomplete, but Amor had seen enough fragments to understand that Alphonsins’s anger was not entirely unjustified. There had been forged letters, purchased witnesses, compromising situations, and one particularly elaborate scheme involving a broken carriage wheel that the original Amor had considered the height of romance.
"And now..."
Alphonsins said, his jaw tightening as he stared down at him.
"After six months of making my life unbearable, you walk into a royal ball and declare that you are finished with me?"
Amor met the duke’s fury with unimpressed eyes.
When framed in such a judgmental manner, his actions did sound rather unreasonable, but that was hardly his problem. The man who had committed those offenses was effectively gone, and the person inhabiting his body had no intention of accepting responsibility through execution. Alphonsins should have been grateful that his tormentor had abruptly developed the good sense to release him.
"Yes."
Amor answered. Alphonsins stared at him. Amor stared back.
The duke’s expression darkened further, and for the briefest moment, Amor wondered whether he had somehow misunderstood the question.
"That is all you have to say?"
"I could apologize for the inconvenience, though I doubt you would find it sincere."
"Amor!"
The warning in his name rolled across the balcony like distant thunder, but Amor merely lifted his fan and tapped its folded edge thoughtfully against his lower lip. He had prepared several explanations during the carriage ride, ranging from a sudden desire for spiritual enlightenment to the claim that his fever had altered his memories, yet all of them carried the risk of inviting questions he could not answer. The simplest explanation was also the one most consistent with the original Amor’s notorious history.
His soft pink eyes sharpened then his plump lips curled into a wicked smile.
"I grew bored."
The words slipped between them with almost delicate ease, made all the crueler by the pleasant tone in which they were delivered. Alphonsins’s expression did not immediately change, though something behind his steel-blue eyes seemed to halt completely. Even the cold night wind appeared to quiet, leaving the balcony suspended within a silence so profound that Amor could hear the muffled rhythm of the orchestra through the curtained doors.
"You..."
Alphonsins began, then stopped. Amor’s smile deepened.
There it was—the perfect wound, delivered directly to the pride of a man who had spent six months behaving as though acknowledging Amor’s existence was an act of extraordinary generosity. Alphonsins had expected manipulation, perhaps, or another dramatic test designed to force some declaration of jealousy. He had not expected to be informed that the obsessive nuisance who once claimed he could never love another had simply become tired of him.
"This should please you..."
Amor continued, opening his fan with an elegant snap.
"In fact, considering the methods I used to obtain your... cooperation, one might reasonably expect gratitude."
Alphonsins’ gaze fell to the painted silk obscuring the lower half of Amor’s face, though his own remained strangely blank.
"Gratitude."
"You have complained about our relationship from the moment it began, have you not?"
Amor asked, peering at him over the fan’s silver edge.
"I pursued you, cornered you, and forced you into an arrangement you never desired, while you made certain I understood that my presence was tolerated rather than welcomed. Now that I have graciously corrected the situation, you appear offended that your freedom has arrived without requiring a duel."
Alphonsins did not answer, and the silence only confirmed Amor’s suspicions.
The duke should have foreseen this outcome, at least if he knew anything about the man whose body Amor now inhabited. Before Alphonsins, the original Amor had treated romance like a succession of seasonal wardrobes, delighting in each new lover only until another face or personality caught his wandering attention. No one—not the son of a count, a decorated knight, or even the charming second prince of the neighboring Kingdom of Vale—had managed to keep his interest beyond three months.
Alphonsins had already lasted twice that long.
Amor’s thoughts drifted toward the timeline of the novel, arranging the half-remembered events within his mind. By the time he awakened in this world, Amor and Alphonsins had been publicly involved for approximately six months, which meant this royal ball marked the beginning of the central romance. Tonight, beneath these very candles, Alphonsins was supposed to encounter Lady Celestine properly for the first time.
The original novel had devoted nearly an entire Chapter to that meeting.
Overwhelmed by rumors surrounding her involvement with the crown prince, Celestine would flee the ballroom and seek solitude in the moonlit garden. Alphonsins, escaping Amor’s latest possessive display, would discover her beside a fountain surrounded by white magnolias, where a stray petal would become tangled in her hair. He would remove it with surprising gentleness, their eyes would meet, and the empire’s coldest duke would supposedly fall in love before the orchestra completed its next song.
Amor’s lips twitched behind the fan.
He still found it difficult to reconcile the ferocious man standing before him with the embarrassingly romantic figure described in that passage. Alphonsins had been written as cold, ruthless, and nearly impossible to approach, yet one encounter with the heroine beneath flattering moonlight had apparently transformed him into a man capable of remembering the exact shade of her eyes for the remainder of his life. The power of predetermined romance was truly frightening.
Fortunately, Amor had no intention of obstructing it.
Once Alphonsins met Celestine, the narrative could continue without its disposable villain clinging to the duke’s arm and provoking unnecessary conflict. They could fall madly in love, exchange meaningful glances beside as many fountains as they pleased, and chase one another beneath flowering trees without involving House Moons in their melodrama. Amor would preserve his wealth, his beautiful face, and—most importantly—his head.
He lowered the fan just enough to reveal the condescending curve of his smile.
"You should be flattered, Alphonsins..."
He said, deliberately abandoning the duke’s title.
"You lasted three months longer than any man I dated before you."
The statement struck harder than Amor expected.
Alphonsins’s face remained composed, yet the muscles along his jaw tightened so sharply that a pulse became visible beneath the skin. His gaze searched Amor’s expression once more, perhaps looking for evidence that this was another trick, but Amor offered him nothing beyond faint amusement and unmistakable finality. Whatever the duke hoped to find, it was not there.
"I believe that concludes our conversation..."
Amor continued, closing his fan against his palm.
"You have received your explanation, and I have a ball to tolerate."
He turned before Alphonsins could respond, lavender hair sweeping across his back as he crossed the balcony toward the curtained doors. The matter was settled as far as Amor was concerned, and every additional moment spent alone with the future murderer of his character felt unnecessarily reckless. There were other nobles to avoid, expensive refreshments to inspect, and a heroine somewhere inside who needed to wander dramatically into the garden before the night grew too cold.
His fingers had nearly reached the curtain when Alphonsins caught his wrist again.
Pain flashed up Amor’s arm.
The duke’s grip closed over the same tender place as before, tighter now, crushing the delicate bones beneath his glove with enough force that Amor’s breath caught despite himself. The folded fan shifted between his fingers, nearly slipping free as red pressure marks deepened beneath the edge of his flowing sleeve. By morning, there would unquestionably be a bruise, assuming Alphonsins did not break the wrist entirely.
Amor’s eyes chilled.
He turned without alarm, expecting to find the duke furious, insulted, or perhaps wearing the coldly contemptuous expression that had accompanied so many of his scenes in the original novel. He had already prepared a cutting remark about military men confusing strength with manners, and he intended to demand his release before Alphonsins caused lasting damage. Yet the words vanished before reaching his tongue.
Alphonsins’s expression was unreadable.
The anger remained, but it had changed somehow, tightening into something strained and disordered beneath the severe perfection of his features. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and his steel-blue eyes held Amor’s with an intensity that no longer resembled wounded pride alone. For one strange moment, the duke looked less like a man enraged by public humiliation and more like someone struggling to understand why an object he had never wanted suddenly felt impossible to surrender.
Amor studied him in silence.
He could not identify the emotion buried beneath Alphonsins’s rigid control, and that uncertainty sent the faintest thread of unease down his spine. This was not how the scene was supposed to unfold; the duke should have accepted his freedom with cold relief, then walked into the garden and met the woman destined to become his true love. There was no reason for his grip to remain locked around Amor’s wrist, and certainly no reason for his face to look as though the breakup had cost him something.
"Release me."
Amor said, his voice quieter now. Alphonsins did not move.
His thumb pressed unconsciously against the rapid beat of Amor’s pulse, and the faint change in his expression suggested he could feel every startled flutter beneath the skin. The ballroom music continued beyond the drawn curtains, distant and elegant, while somewhere below the balcony, the palace gardens waited for a romantic encounter that had not yet begun. Between one breath and the next, Amor experienced the deeply unpleasant suspicion that he had already disturbed the novel’s plot far more than he intended.
"Duke Alphonsins Solaris. Let. Go."
He repeated, each syllable sharpened into a warning.
The duke’s gaze dropped briefly to the wrist trapped within his hand, finally noticing the reddened skin beneath his fingers. His grip loosened by a fraction, though he still did not release Amor completely. When he raised his eyes again, the strain within them had been buried beneath a familiar layer of cold authority, but Amor had already seen it.
"You do not get to decide this is over."
Alphonsins said. Amor’s brows lifted. Then, very slowly, his surprise hardened into disbelief.