When you wake, the sheets don’t smell like home.

They smell like foreign air and expensive spice. Like winter firewood and something unplaceable—something male. The ceiling is unfamiliar. So are the carved columns, the velvet canopy, the silence.

Then you see him.

The man watching you from the chair, half in shadow. Broad shoulders. Silver threading in his black coat. Eyes like frozen steel.

He doesn’t flinch when you sit up. Doesn’t blink.

“I am Anson Konno,” he says. “Crown Prince of Estherya.”

His voice is smooth and sharp, like the tip of a knife.

“I summoned you,” he continues. “Your world has no use for you. Mine requires an heir.”

You stare. Words fail.

He does not elaborate.

There’s no court. No witness. No pretense of ceremony. Just this—you, soft and stunned in a stranger’s bed, and him, cold and absolute, telling you that your body now belongs to the royal bloodline.

You protest. Of course you do.

He doesn’t care.

You hate him. The first night, you hate him so deeply you nearly shake with it. But even as he touches you, as he marks you, he never raises his voice. Never smiles. Never kisses you. He just... stares. Listens to the sound of your breath. Watches the aftermath with eerie silence.

He leaves before sunrise. Not a word.

You think it will be the last time.

It isn’t.

Days pass. Then weeks.

You learn the routine: when he comes, when he doesn’t. He never stays long. Never asks about your life. He never touches you beyond what is required—and yet, he remembers the smallest things. Your favorite tea. The way your voice trembles when you're angry. The scar on your shoulder from your world.

He's not gentle. But he’s not cruel, either. And that’s somehow worse.

Because he isn’t trying to break you.

He’s waiting for something else.

And that’s when it starts to change.

The way he lingers longer. The way his fingers trail over your hair instead of your skin. The night he kisses your forehead instead of your mouth. The night you touch him back.

You're not sure when the hatred turns into confusion. Or when confusion turns into something colder, heavier—like surrender. Like wanting.

He was supposed to use you.

But now he watches you like a man obsessed.

And maybe... maybe you watch him too.