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The Prince of the North was born with frost on his lashes, many would believe he is a child of winter from how much it snows all year around. He’s so beautiful, the kingdom’s people whispered that he had been kissed by the moon herself and blessed him. His smile warmed even the coldest of hearts—and a kindness that he carried into every corner of his kingdom. Where his father, the king, saw subjects, Minhyuk saw people.
The queen once spoken to her king, “When your crown is set aside, it is he whom the people shall hold dear in their hearts.” She said, her voice reverent. Her words carried the pride of a proud mother, often the queen wished her son bore the ruthlessness in the handling of royal duty. Yet alas, he is not his father, nor would he ever be with a heart like that—and she still loved him all the more for it.
But, even the people’s most beloved crown prince kept secrets.
It began when the full moon rose, when the rest of the world laid to rest and the silence expanded across the snow-covered land, the prince would wait. Wrapped in his winter cape, his breath clouding the air. Minhyuk would stand by the open window until his fingers went numb from the cold. There was no wind tonight, just the snowfall covering every bit of the castle. The prince turns away from the window, so he could warm up properly and blow hot air into his hands. The fire place crackles softly from the other side of the room.
But the prince waited, always waiting patiently because he knew what or who was coming. And without fail—the faintest sound would reach Minhyuk’s ears.
The jingle of a chain.
The corners of the prince lips would quirk up, a guest has made itself present in his chambers. He knows who is standing there, even before Minhyuk turns around he isn’t surprised or shocked who stands inside—in front of the royal windows.
A man quiet as the shadows, a dangerous being known to his kingdom by whispers and rumors. More dangerous than anything his kingdom has ever faced—however—with the prince, the man is anything but dangerous.
Count Chae Hyungwon, son of Count Chae Alexander.
The vampire the world feared, son of the most infamous predator of their time. The people named him cruel, heartless, empty—a monster who is capable of drinking a man’s blood dry without flinching. Without second guessing anything, evil. Like father, like son.
But to the crown prince, Hyungwon was none of those things. Quite the opposite.
To Minhyuk, the vampire was the boy who lingered at his window with frost in his hair. Someone who touched him with gentler hands than the snowfall outside. Someone who spoke softly when the moon is there as witness, as if Hyungwon is afraid Selene would hear the words that are only meant for the crown prince.
To Minhyuk, he was love.
A prince and a monster that are bound by a secret only the moon knows. A lion who fell in love with the lamb.
The jingle of the chain lingers in the air like the clouds in the sky when Minhyuk finally turns around. The prince drew in his cape a little tighter around his shoulders, Hyungwon stood before him. Pale as the snow lit sky, standing inside his chambers as though he had always belonged there.
“Lord Chae,” he breathed, Minhyuk smiles fondly at the man. A smile the vampire has been given so many times. The way the prince said his name is enough for the vampire to be caught in a trance. “Did the winter’s snow delay your passage?” The prince asks, his voice always warm and welcoming.
Hyungwon came forward to close their distance in silence, his long coat trailing behind him across the stone floor. Without any warning, the vampire leaned in without any hesitation—brushing the most delicate kiss against Minhyuk’s cheek. They were cold—so deathly cold, it could carve ice itself—however the heat of Minhyuk’s skin welcomed it. The prince’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, reeling in the contact. “You’re freezing.” Though it didn’t sound like a complaint, there was this fondness to it.
When he pulls back, he doesn’t respond to the prince. He isn’t ignoring the inquiry nor the remark. Hyungwon is listening, he would never dare turn away from his highness. But the vampire is watching him, how the moonlight hits every slope and curve of the prince’s features. He could see the subtle hue of pink on Minhyuk’s lips. Then there eyes meet, Minhyuk’s expression still didn’t change. His smile only grew bigger, the corner of his eyes crinkle a little. Hyungwon is just mesmerized by how this human can look at the vampire without fear or hatred. He should be used to it by now, but it’s so foreign to him.
The people of this kingdom, from different areas of the northern region to the village’s people—they’ve always looked at Hyungwon that way. The prince didn’t, and Hyungwon had a hunger for it. Not the kind the world whispered about, no. Its the hunger of someone who craves for the beauty he found in a place Hyungwon never believed he could have. Something he aches and longs for, it’s almost painful.
Minhyuk tilts his head, curious to what’s going on in Hyungwon’s mind. What he could be thinking, but the prince knows. He is no fool, he just likes to hear it. His hands slips out from his cape, they reach up to gather Hyungwon’s face into his hands. Minhyuk’s hands were warm, alive. It contrasts Hyungwon’s frigid skin, but it was grounding and the vampire melts into it.
Then the prince spoke again, and it was gentle, “You seem lost in your thoughts again, Lord Chae. Might I ask why?” Minhyuk thumbs over the apple of the vampire’s cheek, encouraging Hyungwon to be open.
The vampire’s lip parted but no words came out. Instead, he let himself lean into Minhyuk’s warmth as a free hand carefully gathered around the crown prince’s wrist. His eyes closed into that simple, impossible miracle of being touched like this—as though he was not seen as a monster, but as a human being. Hyungwon would break into a million pieces if Minhyuk ever shunned him away.
The thought of it is devastating, but the second he felt those thumbs run along the soft lines of his cheeks. Hyungwon knows deep in his forever frozen heart, Minhyuk would never do such a thing. Minhyuk kept soothing Hyungwon with the pads of his thumbs, quietly insisting for the vampire to say what’s on his mind. And Hyungwon lets out a breath he didn’t realized he was holding, as if the weight of centuries finally left his back.
The prince waited, always patient with Hyungwon and ready to listen when the vampire felt ready. Hyungwon opens his eyes—his gaze flickered across Minhyuk’s face, always remembering to engrave the prince’s beauty so he would never forget any left out details.
“It’s you, Your Highness,” he whispers, voice always low and deep, “Every time I look at you, I find myself back there again.”
Minhyuk’s brows furrowed slightly, “Back where?”
The vampire’s gaze goes elsewhere, the memory going into that night where it all began. Back to the night he first met the crown prince.
The snow made it hard for Hyungwon to hide in the woods. However the trees were tall and thick enough to cover him, hunters were going after him. He had heard that the bounty on his head is hefty through whispers in a cavern.
His coat had been torn, streaks of dirt on one side of his face from a fall, and the loud voices echoing from behind along with the howling of hounds that carry into the forest. The hunters were eager to kill the son of the world’s most dangerous predator. For he too, is stained with the same evil. A danger to society, with a bounty high enough to make anyone rich into the hierarchy.
Hyungwon didn’t know where he was going, all he knew was that he just had to run. Escape from these hunters and make the hounds lose track of his scent. He pressed himself against the shadows of a crumbling stone wall, he didn’t know where to go. The surroundings unfamiliar to him, there was barely any moonlight able to shine through for Hyungwon to see what’s happening. The sounds of yelling were getting closer and he bared his teeth, ready to fight—to kill if he had to.
He has no joy in killing people like his father.
As a young vampire, he was made to witness his father’s killings. Once the old man dragged him before a bleeding hunter, demanding he bite. His neck, his wrist — didn't matter where, as long as Hyungwon sank his fangs into the useless creature that is gasping for air. Fighting to live while his body gave out. His father had enough of his son’s weakness, yet the boy wept at the sight of the dying human before him. Looking at him with fear and a breath away from death, but Hyungwon was so thirsty. The smell of blood wafts in the air, as the hunter weakly begged for mercy.
He just couldn’t do it.
“Feast child!” His father snarled, “You were made for this! This is who you are!” His father yelled. "Why must to defy your true potential?!"
A stag passed on the trail, and Hyungwon yanked himself from his father’s iron grip and went after the deer instead.
The memory is still fresh in his mind, he could almost taste the iron tang on his tongue. It dawned on the vampire that everything went quiet, Hyungwon no longer heard the voice of the hunters nor the howling of hounds.
Could it be he lost track of them?
Then the snap of a branch made him flinch and his muscles wound tight. Hyungwon stood still as the sound of snow crunching beneath someone’s footsteps got closer and closer. Hyungwon pressed himself even harder against to the stone wall yet there was nothing more for him to do so.
And that’s when he saw him.
The crown prince, Hyungwon hadn’t known then. He stood there with curious wide eyes and hair as white as snow, there was no fear nor terror in his eyes. There was something else that contradicts the inimical in those round dark orbs.
Inquisitiveness and empathy.
Why would a human ever look at a monster like that? It didn’t make sense.
Hyungwon should have lunged, silence him. Get rid of any witnesses and maybe finally put his father’s discipline into use, but he didn’t. He froze, undone by the gentleness of a human observing a predator.
The vampire’s gaze comes back to the present, they land back on the prince, his warm hands still caressing his ice-cold face. Hyungwon’s thumb brushed over Minhyuk’s wrist, as though to ground himself in the present. “Your eyes, the way you looked at me as though I'm not some heinous monster in your presence,” Minhyuk watched the vampire turned his head slightly to press his lips against his palm, then look back at him, “To society, I am nothing but a product of my father’s savagery. A beast.”
The prince tightens his hands around Hyungwon’s cheeks.
“That night, I was ready to bare my fangs on you, your highness. To give the people the proof they wanted, but then you—“ Hyungwon’s voice cracked and he stops himself. His Adam's apple moved slightly. “You pitied a creature you should have feared—and by Selene's mercy, I did not know what to do with that. I had no idea what to do with a heart that delicate in a world this sharp.”
Then there was that smile again, that same soft smile the prince gave him when Hyungwon flinched back at the hand that reached out to him that night. As the prince whispers gentle words to the vampire like he would to a child, “I’m not here to hurt you.” A smile the vampire learned to ache for, one that had stopped the creature in his tracks.
“I didn’t pity you because you were a vampire, Hyungwon. I was devastated that you believed you had to turn yourself into a weapon at the world for a crime you never committed.”
The vampire scoffs lightly, of course the prince drop the formalities the moment he had a chance, eyes closing briefly as he recalls once more how the moonlight hit Minhyuk’s face perfectly. When he opens them, the same moonlight caught the prince’s raw beauty.
It is then he realized what the people meant by the prince being kissed and blessed by the moon. For he was certainly breathtaking — a beauty so powerful it gleamed like the first sight of sacred moonstones under a full moon. A kind that makes a stranger forget how to breathe.
Anyone who crossed Minhyuk's path fall to their knees without a second thought, open their hands to the sky as though they has come across a miracle and ask for his blessing.
A crown prince truly blessed by Selene.
“At times I have a hard time believing you’re real. There are many times you could have turned me away, and yet—you still don’t.” Wrinkles form in the space between Hyungwon's brows as he frowned, the prince caught the slight movement of the vampire's throat.
Minhyuk’s laugh was gentle, tender. He moved forward until their temples touched, brushing away the brood from Hyungwon's face, warmth pressed against cold. “I've never planned to.”
For a moment, Hyungwon let himself believe in Minhyuk’s words. Inside the crown prince’s chambers, under the glow of the full moon, and the monster felt something entirely human.
Hope.
They lingered there for sometime, temples pressed against each other. Hyungwon had no beating heart. No pulse to steady, no warmth to chase the cold, yet being held like this settled something inside that was as quiet as snowfall. Forehead pressed against the vampire's, his breath held no heat against Minhyuk's warm lips. Only the crackle of the fire from the hearth kept the room from its silence, and a distant hollow from the wind filled the prince's chambers.
He tipped his head just slightly to meet Hyungwon's lips, and he place a peck on those plush lips.
It was quick, innocent-seeming, something the prince liked to do when it came to closing the small distance between him and the vampire. A kiss stolen in passing, because the prince was, without remorse, a tease.
"There," The prince whispered, pulling back enough to meet Hyungwon's eyes. "Proof that I'm real."
Hyungwon blinked, bewildered by the crown prince's actions and the snickering grin on his lips told the vampire that Minhyuk must find this entertaining for some reason. "Must you always play the fool?"
"Must you always be sappy?" Minhyuk's tone is light and joyful. His laugh is airy yet so clear, clearly pleased to taunt the vampire the way a child would giggle when a cat swishes its tail away from being grabbed.
Count Hyungwon is heartbroken, his expression shifted before the vampire could stop himself. His eyes becoming glassy, hurt at having his heart mistaken for a joke.
"Your Highness…"
The prince couldn't believe what he was witnessing, his laughter caught in his throat.
"Oh my — what is this?" He reached for the side of Hyungwon's neck, then shifts the hand to cup the back of the vampire's head. The prince has made the vampire teary eyed and is taken back, but his smile was still there. "Oh — no, no, come here."
Minhyuk brings the cold creature into his embrace, and Hyungwon lets him, though any form of Minhyuk's tender affection, he leans into it, like following the light at the end of the tunnel. Coaxing the sulk away with soft, encouraging words. As one might gentle a wounded animal. In this case, the wounded animal is in the shape of a tall vampire who wished the prince took him sincerely.
But a soft smile escaped him anyway, it was helpless. He pulls away, fondly wiping away any tears of vampire's outer corners. Far too charmed by Hyungwon's demeanor.
"By Selene, you're an easy thing to taunt." He spoke so warmly, so tenderly that the vampire's mind couldn't believe just a while ago the royal in his arms spoke in jest.
He scoffs and instead of answering, he captures Minhyuk's lips. Slowly catching the prince's bottom lip, his fangs brush harmlessly against the inside of the lip. It dragged a noise from Minhyuk's throat, opening his mouth to let Hyungwon slip his tongue inside. The kiss was graceless with a hunger that was filled with too much want, not enough care, but neither of them cared. Forgetting everything in the kiss, shunning the problems that awaits beyond the chamber doors.
The danger was always there, in the whispers of hunters prowling beyond the castle walls, yet here, in the royal chambers, all of that dulled to a hum.
Minhyuk is the first to pull back, and he smiles at Hyungwon who tried to chase his lips, unwilling to let it stop. The prince breathed heavily, cheeks pink from more than just the cold.
Lightly, he brushed Hyungwon's hair away from his eyes. "I confess, I like it when you do this." His hand absently played with the ends of Hyungwon's hair. "You climb to my window in the dead of night, and kiss me until my head spins."
Hyungwon gnawed at the inside of his lip, "Forgive me, your highness, but shouldn't we be worried that His Majesty might discover that I am here?"
Minhyuk's laughter rings through the chamber, and he felt the hands on his waist tense at the sound. Hyungwon did not find this amusing in the slightest. "Quiet! Someone might hear us." he hushed.
When the prince at last calmed from his fit of laughter, he sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Such a little cloud of worry, aren't you? Do you not trust me?"
"I trust you, it's the rest of the palace I don't." Fair.
No one within the palace knows that the crown prince kept ties — relations, rather — with the most wanted vampire in the kingdom. Yet, Minhyuk had seen to the matter numerous of times than he could count, sending the guards on their away from the hall outside his chambers, who stared at him as though he'd grown a second head at the request. But the prince excels in the art of persuasion, and it took little to convince them he would be perfectly safe without their watch.
His father would nagged him endlessly for such "reckless" decisions — that he would not have his son left unguarded while Count Alexander's son remained a fugitive.
Oh Father. You clueless man…
Minhyuk's fingers slipped into Hyungwon's cold hand, warm skin coming around them as though to anchor him in place. "Come," he whispered, with gentle insistence, guiding the vampire toward the bed, their steps soft on the stone floor.
Hyungwon listened, following the prince, eyes never daring to leave him. He was left at the edge of the bed, his heart ached a little when Minhyuk let his hand go to cross back to the window, shutting the glass doors against the cold night air. The latch clicked softly, the room now silent but for the crackling fire.
He made his way back to Hyungwon, slipping off his cape and letting it drop to the floor carelessly.
"Sit," He coaxed, patting the bed.
Hyungwon sank onto the mattress, moving toward the center, long limbs folding with an elegance Minhyuk always noticed. Minhyuk climbed onto his lap the moment Hyungwon settled, straddling his hips with ease, hands coming to rest around the vampire's neck. He nuzzled the tip of his nose against Hyungwon's, hands unable to stay still, coming instead to cradle his face — a touch so unbearably gentle, a gaze so full of fondness that could undo empires.
"Your Highness…" Hyungwon breathed, a plea that he didn't know what he was pleading to. All he knew was that he wanted.
"Shhh," Minhyuk smiled faintly, closing the small gap until their lips met again — still just as slow, just as reverent. "Enough of that," he breathed between kisses, "just say my name."
He pulled back only enough to reach up, fingers finding the cool metal resting atop his head. The crown came away easily, the jewels gleaming under the moonlight like morning dew, and Minhyuk set it aside without ceremony — discarded it on the bed as though it weighed nothing.
Minhyuk now had no crown to adorn his head.
Here, in this room, with this man, he was not a prince. Nor His Highness. He was simply Minhyuk.
"There," he murmured, cupping Hyungwon's face again. "That's better."
Hyungwon tilted his head ever so slightly, angling himself carefully, afraid his fangs might break such mortal skin. Cold lips trembling against warm ones. There is a slight grip on Minhyuk's waist, cautious to not dig his sharp nails into the fabric. It was such a small thing to worry over; Minhyuk couldn't have cared less if Hyungwon pricked him. But Hyungwon would never forgive himself if it caused the prince harm. It was a small, caring gesture that sent a warm blooming feeling in Minhyuk's chest.
Being treated as though everyone must walk on eggshells around him, simple for being royalty, could be exhausting, bothersome. To everyone else, he wanted neither protection nor to be handled as if he couldn't manage on his own. Yet, with Hyungwon, it felt different.
In the creature's eyes, they looked at the prince as if he'd hung the moon and the stars in the sky. It's devastatingly overwhelming, how one person could look at another and see their entire world in them. It felt that way, and the prince had fallen in too deep to deny what he felt for this man.
Hyungwon opened his mouth hesitantly, "Minhyuk," he tried, testing the syllables and the shape of them as they fell from his lips, "It feels… improper."
"Why is that?"
"If I forget what you are… I forget that I could lose you."
The prince frowned, "Lose me?" He lets out a hollow laugh. "Hyungwon, where would I go? I am practically bound to the palace—"
"I am the Count's son." Hyungwon said abruptly. "That is all I am to this kingdom. That is all the hunters see when they read my name. Ready to mount my head somewhere fitting as some prize possession. They do not ask if I've fed on man or beast. They do not care that I have never once taken a life to sate myself. No."
Hyungwon shook his head gently. It pained the vampire to say these things because they're true. And he knows the prince understands this too. Minhyuk was simply too occupied in focusing on the good of what they have and not the consequences of their bond could lead to, should the people ever learn that the northern prince had been in rendezvous with the son of Count Chae Alexander.
The people would be at a loss, betrayed by their beloved prince's choices.
Hyungwon did not want that for the prince. He did not want to be the reason for ruining his reputation, even though the man wanted, selfishly, to keep Minhyuk to himself. To love him until his immortal being disintegrates from heartbreak when the prince to died of old age.
"I'm so afraid, Minhyuk, that one day the hunters will succeed where they have failed, and you will remember me only as the monster they always said I was."
"You're cruel," Minhyuk's voice wavered, "I would never do such a thing."
"You don't understand." The vampire said, exasperated.
"No, I may not understand what it is like to flee from a crime I never committed. But I would be utterly distraught if you never come back to me, and I'd have to learn of it in some calamitous way."
Hyungwon leaned in, their temples touching with a soft thump. "My father's crimes are sewn into my name, and no number of years spent starving myself of what would come easiest will ever unpick that thread."
"That is not true." Minhyuk placed one last peck before he finally pulled back, lips ghosting over Hyungwon's, "I will see the damage undone, I promise you that."
Hyungwon doesn't respond, but he heard the prince, and held onto his words.
"Have you fed?" Minhyuk murmured.
Hyungwon's throat worked around a swallow he couldn't quite finish. His eyes flickered away from the prince to his own chest, ashamed. "I'm fine."
"You lie."
The vampire said nothing, that on it's own was a confession.
"Tell me the truth," Minhyuk whispered, thumbs caressing along the vampire's cheekbones.
There was a stillness that came over Hyungwon. If he were human, a slow exhale would have left him, no breath to hitch, no pulse to race. Just a silence stretched taut between them. But Minhyuk coaxed him to look at him when Hyungwon dared to look away. His eyes pleading him to speak with the truth.
His voice cracked faintly, but it was quiet. "I have lost count of the days. Longer than I should have allowed."
The prince let out a sigh, his hands fell from Hyungwon's face to rest in the space between them, balking at Hyungwon's lack of care of his own person. Even an immortal could be as negligent as a human. "Must you be so careless?"
"I did not mean to be thoughtless, I swear it." The words came out tumbling quickly before Minhyuk could press on. "The winter has driven most creatures into hiding. I cannot control that."
It was true — he could not control the workings of nature's cycle. Though Minhyuk wished he came to him sooner. He would have found some way to help. Alas, the damage is done and soon that frustration ebbed as quickly as it had come, and Minhyuk's heart ached at the admission. At the restraint this creature carried around him like some ball and chain.
He put his hands on Hyungwon's face again, his eyes softening like melting snow. "Feed from me."
Hyungwon's body went taut, his eyes grew wide. "No," he rasped. "I could hurt you."
"You won't." Minhyuk's thumb brushed over Hyungwon's lower lip, lingering where fang met flesh. "I place my trust in you." He smiled softly at the creature. "You have given me your trust. Allow me to give you mine."
The vampire's eyes burned with a thousand things he could not say, and he shut his eyes tightly. His hunger slowly becoming more aware to him, along with his terror and restraint. "I could be your death."
"I am not afraid of you, Hyungwon." Minhyuk guided Hyungwon's hand to rest over his own steady pulse. Letting the vampire feel how calm he was. "You have starved yourself for weeks rather than take a life to sate yourself. Do you truly believe you'd hurt me?"
Hyungwon faltered, eyes still shut. His entire being fought with his desire to sate his hunger, battling to listen to his instincts. With the prince here in his lap, his fingers flexed around the fabric of Minhyuk's nightwear. Unaware that he had a strong grip on it, tugging on the shirt as to not touch the prince. Afraid of his own strength.
"Please look at me."
And when he did, something inside Hyungwon unraveled like a knot too tightly wound. Here was Minhyuk, looking at him with all the things he wished the prince wouldn't give so freely. In those eyes, the vampire could see that Minhyuk does not view him as some monster — he never had. He saw fondness there instead, a warmth he ached to feel, a love that he'd never believed himself capable of receiving. And yet here was the prince, proving otherwise.
"Drink." he pleaded. "You won't hurt me."
His voice was fragile thing, nearly hidden beneath the crackling.
How could a human look at him like that? Given him love, shown him tenderness he had never once known — not even in the dark, hollow halls of his father's castle, where all he'd known was torment, where all he'd known were the screams of his father's victims, where Hyungwon had believed since childhood he would forever remain?
It still made no sense. The possibility of Hyungwon ever being blessed with anything good, when Selene herself must surely be punishing him for what his father had become. Yet, here was Minhyuk, showing him that he was worthy of these things after all. It made Hyungwon want to weep, and fall apart in ways he never allowed himself to.
So he caved.
He buried his face into the crook of Minhyuk's neck, hiding in the warmth the prince possessed, hiding into the safety of the one person who ever offered it to him, who felt like home. His pale cold hands let go of the shirt and steadied them on Minhyuk's waist, still careful to not let the curve of his claws pierce through the royal skin.
He felt a hand slide up to cradle the back of his head, drawing him closer to his embrace, and felt Minhyuk tilt his head towards him. Resting his cheek on top of Hyungwon's hair, quietly urging him to drink.
Hyungwon's breath shuddered against the skin. He didn't move at first, but eventually, slowly, his lips parted.
He pressed an open kiss to the hollow of Minhyuk's throat. Light as snowfall, his lips traced gently along the curve of the prince's neck. Until he found the place where warmth pulsed the strongest beneath the porcelain skin.
He lingered there, suckling softly, almost lightly as he dragged airy moans from the prince. Memorizing the taste of untouched life, the thought of it was dangerous. The vampire's fangs grazed against the skin once, twice. Teasing back for Minhyuk's playing the fool earlier. Then with a sharp hesitant intake of breath, he gave in.
The tips pricked the skin, and there was a faint jolt from Minhyuk. A gasp caught at his throat as his head moved away to give Hyungwon more access. Hyungwon's hands maneuvered to the shoulder blades and the smallest shiver rippled through the prince at the sudden bite.
The canines sank just enough to break the skin.
The vampire took his first drag and the taste of hot iron invaded his tongue like waves crashing against the shore as he tried not to drown in the taste. The rush of warmth hits him in a way he has never felt before, it burn yet it was sweet. Nothing like the animal blood he intakes.
And for the first time, Hyungwon fed from the prince.
Minhyuk gasped, the grip on Hyungwon's head tightening, and it caused Hyungwon to unconsciously dig in his claws into the shoulder blades. The prince whined at the feeling of the sharp nails pressing into him, and the vampire relaxed his hands, running them in slow soothing motions up and down his back.
"It's alright," Minhyuk whispered, his pulse fluttered wildly beneath Hyungwon's mouth. "Don't hold back."
But he had to. Each inhale tore something loose in him, hunger clawing and loud, demanding more, drink more.
Take, take, take.
But the thought of taking too much was unforgivable. Even if Minhyuk said to trust himself, he simply could not. His hands pressed firmly at the prince's waist, claws held in trembling restraint. It took everything in him to not ravage the prince entirely.
For Minhyuk, the sensation was nothing like what he'd imagine. Sharp pain came first, like the quick sting of an accidental cut. But as Hyungwon's tongue lapped at the wound, the sting ebbed, melting into something else entirely. The pull left him feeling lightheaded, every nerve humming faintly in his ears.
It was fatal, in its own way — but wrapped in the arms of someone whose heart ached with loving him too much to truly cause real harm.
Hyungwon groaned softly against the skin, pained by the act of drinking from Minhyuk as much as it healed him.
"Minhyuk." His voice muffled against the prince's throat
The prince's hand loosened, fingers threading into his hair, grounding him. "I am here." His own voice was hoarse and thick. "I am right here, beloved."
Hyungwon drank carefully until he was sated, then pulled away before his control could falter. His lips were wet with crimson, and he pressed his mouth closed over the tiny punctures he'd made. Licking the wounds soothingly until the holes closed.
He raised his head, pressed him forehead against Minhyuk's, listening to the prince's heavy breathing. His heart hammered wildly against his chest. Hyungwon held on to his human until Minhyuk could finally speak, arms tightened around him, allowing himself to hold Minhyuk as though he might vanish. Slowly, he shifted them onto their sides, settling close, helping the prince ease from the weight of having his blood taken.
"Are you well?" The prince asked, dazed.
"Should that question not belong to me?"
Minhyuk chuckled softly, opening his arms for Hyungwon to come closer. The vampire moved into his embrace, watching Minhyuk gaze at him with endearment, flushed skin warm beneath the hand that now cupping his face.
"When I become king, I shall protect you from all harm. No one shall ever raise a stake against you for as long as I live."
Hyungwon brushed the back of his knuckles against Minhyuk's cheek, "That is quite the statement." he whispered.
The prince only smiled at the vampire, "Will you stay?"
Hyungwon felt the corner of his lip rise, "I offer you no warmth, and still you'd have me stay?"
"You always leave after you kiss me breathless." The prince protested, his spoiled streak showing. "Is that a yes?"
"You know I cannot. I must leave before sunrise." As much as Hyungwon wished to stay, it would not be wise to remain at the palace once the world began to wake.
Minhyuk pouted. "Then will you wake me before you go? I cannot bear to open my eyes and find you've vanished."
"I would not dream of leaving without a word."