The Lycan King's Muse

Ep 51: Hearts Unveiled

–Lyall–

I let out a big puff of smoke in the night air. It is dark, still, and quiet. The smoke travels beyond my window. It hits Naver's magic shield, lighting up those golden vines that cover my entire room.

This is the seventh time this has happened. When my adrenaline is high, I can force myself to transform, but transforming back to my human self is always so painful. Only Naver, Ganesh, and Athena know about this. And they have been helping me to cover this fact up. Whenever danger comes, they help me make excuses on why I don't transform.

I turn to the bed inside the room, where a small, fragile figure sprawls so peacefully. I don't think I can get bored seeing her chest rise and fall when she is sleeping.

'You are not your darkness, Lyall,' she said to me.

The smoke gets stuck in my throat as soon as I realize cigarette smoke can be bad for the baby. It's a struggle to cough silently while trying not to let out too much smoke in my room.

How can I forget Mars is pregnant? Stupid.

I felt so in need to smoke, to calm myself down, that the fact Mars is heavily pregnant escaped me. Now that I know, I jump out from the window, through Naver's shield, and land on the ground below effortlessly.

Only then do I let out the smoke and cough I've been withholding on my throat. "Goddess damn it," I curse. My throat burns. I shake my head to let the pain slip away before taking another deep breath of my cigarette, then exhaling beautifully into the air.

I thought I could smoke freely once I am outside of my room, but of course, that doesn't happen.

"I knew from the very moment I laid eyes on Mars that she would be the answer." Naver walks slowly to me. My ears perk up and my nose sniffs the air. He is alone, with no sign of Athena and Ganesh.

"Princess Athena and my brother are sleeping," he answers my mind. He does that almost all the time when we are alone, which is why it is futile to keep secrets from him.

"Answer to what?" I let out another heavy puff of smoke. My eyes are drawn to the moon in the night sky. It's almost a full moon.

"To your darkness."

I look at Naver, then I let out thick smoke on his face. The Oracle doesn't flinch. "You mean to say she is my light?"

Naver takes steps toward me through the heavy smoke. Despite his cataract eyes, he seems at ease to find his way. "No," he says, "But she's someone who can see through your darkness."

Inhaling deeply, I tell him, "It'll swallow her. Like it did Adina."

Surprisingly, Naver shakes his bald head, then takes the cigarette from my fingers. He inhales and exhales smoothly, creating heavy circular smoke on my face. "This time it's different."

The smoke makes me cough. "Different how?" How am I coughing when Naver, with over a hundred years in his belt, wasn't even bothered the slightest with the smoke?

"Adina loved the idea of you," he says, "That's why she became obsessive about you when she realized you were slipping away from her grip. She tried to hold on too tight that she lost you completely. But Mars..." The Oracle takes another step toward me. His eyes glow white, as white as the lone moon in the night sky. "That girl sees through you, cursed or not cursed. She sees the scared, vulnerable boy inside."

His words sound annoying to me. So I grab the cigarette from Naver's hand and drop the cigarette to crush that rolled paper on the ground with a loud scoff. "That's rich coming from someone who told me to use her to get to Adina."