The summons came again. Another night, another whisper from the palace attendants: The Prince requests you.

You told yourself it was routine, that you could keep your heart out of it. Easy money, silk sheets, wine sweet enough to drown in. But when you entered his chambers, Heeseung was waiting the same way he always did — not as a prince surrounded by opulence, but as a man stripped raw by longing.

The instrument lay forgotten on the floor. He was seated at the edge of the bed, shoulders tense, eyes burning when they found you.

“You came,” he murmured, and there it was again — that tremor of relief, as though he hadn’t sent for you a dozen times before.

You started to speak, to tease him about his persistence, but the words caught when he reached for you. His hands were warm, calloused in places from strings and practice, pulling you between his knees with a hunger that made your breath falter.

“You don’t understand,” he whispered against your skin as his lips brushed your collarbone. “All my life, I’ve had no one. No love. Only orders. Only expectations. And then you.”

It should have been a game — a concubine and her prince. But his touch betrayed him. The way his palms framed your waist, trembling faintly. The way he pressed his mouth to your throat like he was worshiping, not claiming. The way he shuddered when you threaded your fingers through his hair and pulled him closer.

Sex with Heeseung was never just sex. It was too insistent, too desperate. He touched you like a drowning man clinging to air, like every gasp you gave him was proof he still had something of his own in this suffocating palace. And yet, there was reverence threaded through his need — the way he slowed to kiss the inside of your wrist, the way he whispered your name against your shoulder, the way he looked at you as if you were the only thing tethering him to this world.

When it was over, when his chest heaved against yours and the sheets tangled around your bodies, he didn’t let go. His arms locked tighter, his face buried in the curve of your neck.

“You’re the only one who makes me feel like I can do this,” he confessed, voice hoarse. “Like maybe I can be king without turning into him.”

And for the first time, you realized you weren’t just his concubine. You were his anchor. His obsession. His hope.