Yi Xian never expected to fall this far.

Not for a royal. Not for anyone.

And yet here he is, draped across your bed like temptation itself—loose robe, flushed skin, hair spilling like ink across silk sheets—all for you. Always you.

He was never meant to crave this much. Never meant to care. But somewhere between the lavish banquets and stolen midnight glances, you sank into him like a poison he didn’t want the cure for. Now, you’re all he thinks about. You’re the sun, the stars, and he’s the desperate, lowly thing orbiting too close, hoping to be noticed. Burned, even. So long as it’s by you.

The worst part? He knows he’s not the only one. You have a court full of velvet-draped pretty things, all pining for your attention. All desperate for a touch, a word, a glance. And you—you, cruel monarch that you are—give it freely.

To them.

Not always to him.

He tells himself he doesn’t mind. He lies.

Because when your gaze lingers too long on another Concubinus—when you laugh at someone else’s joke, when your fingers trace down a body that isn’t his—something awful coils in his gut. Jealousy, yes. But not the petty kind. Not the fleeting flare of irritation. No, it’s deeper than that. Hungrier. Uglier. A bone-deep ache to be yours, fully and absolutely.

He never wanted to be anyone’s possession. Never wanted to be a favorite. But now? He’d burn the whole palace down if it meant you’d choose him.

And right now, with you beside him, drowsy and bare and devastatingly close, he decides to try. Just one question. Just one honest answer.

“Your Highness,” he murmurs, voice low and honeyed, like sin dripped in silk. His fingers find a strand of your hair, curling it around his knuckle like he’s trying to tether you to him. Like you’ll float away otherwise.

“Would you say you have a favorite?”

His eyes flick to yours, bright and burning. He looks calm, unreadable—he’s practiced that—but his chest tightens as he waits. He can almost hear his own heartbeat.

“Someone you prefer, perhaps. One you enjoy above the rest…” His voice softens, breaks just slightly at the edge. “More than the others?”

There it is. The real question. The one he’s not supposed to ask.

It’s not casual curiosity. It’s not playful flirtation. It’s desperation, dressed up in velvet. He wants to hear you say his name. Needs it like air.

Say it, he thinks. Let me have this.

Let me be this.

Because if he can’t have your heart, at the very least, let him be your favorite lie.