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Chapter 23
Yeon ran as soon as she confirmed that no soldiers were following her.
But “running” was only so in name. To others, it was barely a fast walk. Her injured, limping leg still tormented her.
Then, as if the heavens collapsed, rain began pouring down in sheets. Every step she took turned the ground beneath her into mud that sucked at her ankles. Thunder struck violently overhead, startling her enough that she kept stumbling and falling.
As the thunder rolled—sounding like the furious roars of her father and brothers coming to seize her—Yeon spotted something: a patch of darkness nestled deep within the black forest.
It was a cave, its mouth gaping open between gaps in the rocky mountainside.
Without hesitation, Yeon hurled herself inside. Cold stone scraped her back, but what mattered was that she could hide from the storm and lightning outside.
But she had no time to relax. Her body began shaking uncontrollably. Her soaked clothes clung to her skin, draining away what little warmth she had left. Her fingers and toes were already going numb.
“Ha… hah…”
With every breath she exhaled, a puff of white mist appeared.
Yeon hugged her arms around herself and leaned against the stone wall, but the heat fled her body faster than she could keep it. The chill seeped all the way into her bones.
Outside, thunder continued to roar like war cries—then slowly drifted away.
Yet when the sound vanished, the silence made the cold even sharper.
Yeon’s vision blurred. Her trembling fingers failed to hold even her own clothing for long before falling limp.
With the last of her will, she curled herself up tightly against the stone wall.
The cold, rough rock bit into her skin, and her consciousness began slipping into the dim darkness swallowing her whole.
Hae-gon quickened his pace toward the bandit hideout. Ever since hearing the useless nonsense from Seo the innkeeper, he had been dying to see Yeon’s face again.
Crown prince, royalty—what did any of that matter? That nation had fallen ages ago. What mattered now was feeding the people in his mountain hideout and surviving this famine.
“What does it matter what I was in Hwangnak? It’s long gone anyway.”
He tried to soothe his tangled thoughts.
At that moment, dark, heavy clouds rolled overhead. It looked like rain would fall any second, and Hae-gon quickened his steps—but the rain caught him anyway, drenching him completely.
Wearing wet clothes in the mountains was dangerous; body heat dropped too fast. Hae-gon stripped off his soaked shirt, wrung it out, and hung it over his pack.
Inside the pack were the supplies he bought with the money from selling leather. It still wouldn’t last the hideout even five days, but it was better than returning empty-handed.
Then—
“A long-haired yin-type. Injured, and already a cripple—she won’t have gone far. Search the entire mountain!”
Hae-gon sensed soldiers scattering, searching carefully.
He quickly hid behind a rock.
“Injured… a cripple… and a yin?”
Who else but Yeon matched that? Injured, too? His vision spun.
Then the leader of the troop appeared—riding a glossy, fine stallion. The man was a full head taller than the rest. Hae-gon stiffened.
It was the man he had gambled with days ago.
He said his name was Hyun…?
Hae-gon had known “Hyun” was a fake. But the clothes he wore now—those were garments only royalty of this country would wear.
Why was he searching for Yeon? Why was Yeon running instead of staying in the hideout? Had the Chancellor found out where she was?
Hae-gon’s head grew even more tangled.
“Husband…”
Yeon’s breathless, trembling voice filled his mind.
Was it the alcohol finally hitting him? Or Yeon’s heat approaching estrus? His body felt hot.
Then the man’s amused voice echoed:
“I finally found a fun little toy, and she ran away. What a pity.”
“If you don’t return now, Your Highness, His Majesty will—”
“I know. He’s simply bored and wants to pick a fight with me.”
Hae-gon’s anger spiked.
This wasn’t drunkenness or estrus. It was the raw jealousy of a yang-type who refused to lose his yin.
A toy…?
He wouldn’t hand Yeon over to anyone—not even the Chancellor himself.
They treated her like prey.
The men approached dangerously close. Hae-gon held his breath like a hunted beast.
“When the Red Moon Day ends, I’ll return to this mountain and capture that yin.”
“You liked her that much, Your Highness? There are plenty of yin in the pleasure houses—”
The leader shot his subordinate a sharp glare. Hae-gon’s expression was no different—full of disgust.
The men kept joking, unaware a predator lurked behind them.
“No wife awaits me in these mountains. A yin like that would at least warm my lonely nights.”
Their crude laughter echoed through the ravine.
Hae-gon wanted to leap out and break their necks. But not now.
Yeon was injured and lost somewhere in the mountain. If she ran toward cliffs to escape, or slipped on wet rocks, she could die. Even he couldn’t fight an entire armed squad alone.
He held still, silent.
Never in his life had he hated being nothing more than a bandit as much as he did today.
Night fell, and the cave turned pitch-black. The heavy rain poured endlessly, water trickling down the stone walls and soaking the floor.
Yeon sat on the cold ground, drenched, clinging to her fading consciousness.
Her clothes clung to her skin, the cold burrowing into her bones. Her chest tightened, her hands and feet numb.
“So cold… too cold…”
Her lips trembled uncontrollably, teeth clattering. Her eyelids drooped, threatening to shut completely.
Far away, faint animal cries echoed.
Then—
A sound came from the cave entrance. Too careful to be human footsteps, too heavy to be a beast.
A tiger? A wolf?
Yeon squeezed her eyes shut.
Only a starving beast would come for her here. In this unprecedented famine, even humans were starving—how much worse must the mountain animals be?
She prayed, absurdly, for a large beast that could kill her in one painless bite.
“Wife.”
Someone called out in the darkness.
He said wife.
And only one person in the world would call her that now—Hae-gon.
Yeon forced her heavy head up.
It was him.
Hae-gon stood there, shirt discarded somewhere, bare-chested. At first, Yeon thought he was a hallucination. Didn’t they say hypothermia caused such illusions?
“S…seobangnim…”
Her trembling voice leaked weakly into the dark.
Footsteps drew closer—heavy, steady, belonging to someone accustomed to harsh ground.
“Wife…”
That now-familiar deep, low voice resonated near her.
Yeon struggled to keep her eyes open.
Even in pitch darkness, his face appeared clearly in her fading vision.
The eyes of a man who had lived rough.
Scars proving that life.
Yet warmth—directed only at her—glowed within them.
Not a hallucination.
When he exhaled, white mist appeared.
She wanted to see him clearly, but her awareness flickered like a dying flame. Her body shivered uncontrollably. She wanted him to hold her. To give her warmth.
Without realizing it, she whimpered:
“So cold… I’m so… cold…”
Yeon reached out with trembling fingers—only for them to fall limply to the ground.
Then a rough, hot hand caught her wrist.
So warm it almost burned.
Yeon instinctively clung to that warmth.
“So cold… so cold…”
“You’ll die like this.”
Hae-gon immediately began stripping off her clothes.
Even half-delirious, Yeon was startled and tried to resist, but she had no strength.
Her body had endured the icy cave for so long that it was a miracle she hadn’t passed out. Hae-gon’s heat touching her frozen skin nearly made her cry.
Perhaps that was why—
Even though she was embarrassed, some part of her craved the warmth of his skin, his touch.
“This is the only way you’ll live.”
His low voice pierced her ear.
He pressed his face into the nape of her neck, inhaling deeply as if searching for the hidden sweetness between petals.
Wherever he touched—
it burned, tingled, awakened.
Yeon’s ice-cold body warmed rapidly under his heat.
