The Golden Duke’s Forbidden Lover

The Iron Fret and the Alchemist

"Incompetent wretches," Harley spat. "You call yourselves the elite vanguard of Valerius, yet you offer only ignorance."

The clatter of iron links signaled their arrival, and the stone door was aggressively thrown inward. "Expeditiously! Consign his person to the Animus Stone!"

Shielded by the layers of velvet drapery, Ares obtains a fractured view of several guardsmen maneuvering a towering form into the chamber. The individual exhaled heavy, tortuous respirations, evidently enduring an extreme physiological agony. The retinue retreated with frantic haste the moment the Duke was deposited upon the dark monolith, sealing the portal behind them. The stone sanctuary transformed into a dark cage, inhabited only by the low, agonizing groans of the master.

Ares realized the true purpose of this cancerous vault: it was engineered to confine no common beast, but rather the sovereign lord when possessed by the blood-curthest inheritance of his line. Garrick remained insensible to the hidden observer, his low utterances entirely incoherent. A second later, the carved matrix on the stone erupted with a blinding, white luminescence. Within the glare, the Duke's gold-and-sapphire eyes grew vacant, a milky film obscuring his irises as the magic systematically dismantled his sensory perception. It was a desperate, self-inflicted hex that only a desperate man would employ; a single errant current in the spell would exact his sight as the minimal tribute.

As the sensory deprivation took effect, Garrick's breathing stabilized, his massive frame relaxing against the stone as he drifted into a synthetic trance.

Surveying the defenseless lord, Ares swallowed hard, his gaze darting toward the stone exit. This was his solitary opportunity; if he failed to clear the threshold before the Duke reacquired his faculties, his survival was forfeit. Bracing his sinews, he executed his initial stride. The room remained still. He took a second step, looking upward—only to find himself locked in the heterochromatic gaze of Garrick Valerius. The milky film had vanished, replaced by a green, predatory fire that burned within his golden iris.

The Duke rendered no vocalization, yet his posture carried an implicit, terrifying demand: 'Who invades my redoubt?'

Ares's lips trembled, an acute terror seizing his vitals as he realized he was staring into the eyes of a leviathan shorn of its reason. A dark silhouette fractured his vision; before his faculties could process the trajectory, he was violently borne down against the flagstones by the Duke's immense weight.

"Ah—!"

The brief shriek was instantly stifled as Garrick's ringed fingers pinned his arms, wrenching his wrists outward with bone-crushing force. The agony was absolute; the shifting shadows twisted before Ares's eyes until the Duke's form morphed into the likeness of a fire-breathing dragon. 'Deliver me...' The plea remained trapped in his throat.

Garrick's consciousness was being consumed by the internal furnace of the Golden Fret, his skin radiating a scalding heat as he pinned the preceptor beneath him, exposing Ares's fragile throat to the air. Ares's frame shuddered as a cold, heavy hand clamped around his neck. Forgetting his strategic cover, panicked words tumbled from his lips: "No—desist! I can render an accounting for my presence—"

The words failed to penetrate the Duke's sensory oblivion. In his unhinged perception, there existed only the delicate movement of the thyroid cartilage, the hyoid bone, and the furious pulsing of the carotid artery beneath the skin—a hot, vital pearl resting within an oyster, commanding his entire primal focus. The hallucination whispered to his madness: 'Claim the rare treasure; reduce it to absolute possession.'

"Ugh—!" Ares's respiration was completely arrested as Garrick's hands forced their way beneath his overcoat, pinning him to the stone while his fingers dug deeply into his flesh, leaving dark contusions across his breast and flank. It surpassed mere violence; it was the systematic subjugation of prey, forcing tears of physical agony from the scholar's eyes.

As Garrick's hands descended toward more intimate sectors, Ares stared upward in absolute horror. The Duke's focus remained entirely decentered, his hot, heavy breath scorching Ares's face, causing his own skin to flush with a desperate warmth. Ares realized with dark certainty: if he failed to break this embrace, the lord would claim his life.

"Release me..." his respiration rattled, sounding like the inhalation of sparks. In the frantic struggle, his fingers brushed against the steel fountain pen within his waistcoat pocket—any sharp implement would suffice to break the chokehold. Biting away the cap, he drove the steel nib toward the Duke without hesitation.

Yet, at that exact instant, Garrick executed a violent compression against the soft flesh of Ares's flank, his nails piercing the skin. The sudden agony ruined the scholar's trajectory; the steel point missed the lord entirely, scoring a jagged, three-inch laceration across Ares's own forearm.

'All is forfeit; I perish within this vault.' The realization of his imminent demise crystallized with terrifying clarity as he looked into the face of his oppressor.

But Garrick suddenly froze.

He seized the wounded limb, his features shifting into an expression of uncanny captivation as he approached the welling crimson. 'Ah.' The sweet, nectareous aroma of the blood—resembling lily-of-the-valley—acted as an immediate sedative upon his fractured reason. He resembled a wild predator hypnotized by a rare, blossoming flora.

Ares suspended his breath, watching in stunned incredulity as the Golden Duke lowered his head to taste the blood. The wet, rasping surface of the tongue scraped across his skin like a wire brush, evoking a sharp, tingling ache that raised gooseflesh across his arm. Garrick consumed the crimson stream with absolute devotion, as though feasting upon a celestial vintage. As he swept away the remnants, the vivid stain against his lips lent a temporary, warm vitality to his pale features, transforming him into the likeness of a satiated vampire.

The sudden equilibrium, though monstrous, afforded Ares a brief respite. Mastering his terror, he suppressed the impulse to wrench his arm away, whispering in a low, trembling lisp: "Do not rend the flesh... excellent... softly now."

Before the sentence could conclude, a sharp gasp escaped him. "Ah—"

Garrick's sharp canine had pricked the margins of the wound—a sensation less painful than it was profoundly horrifying. Ares felt like a portion of venison upon a lord's trencher, systematically dissected and consumed.

"...Cold," Garrick muttered, his voice a broken fragment.

"What is your utterance?" Ares stammered, long moments passing before he comprehended the Duke's words. The lord's flesh was scalding, yet his madness cried out for warmth; to offer solace to a monster that had nearly slaughtered him was a dark, satirical inversion of his purpose.

Yet, mastering his revulsion, he passed his hand across the Duke's broad back as though soothing a maddened stallion, his cadence low and rhythmic. "Relinquish your hold, and the chill shall depart. All shall be restored; therefore, yield your grip."

Garrick continued his fevered delirium: "It must be my charge... the lineage... the honor of Valerius." The obligation to restore the glory of his house was an obsession etched into his marrow, a decree that even the madness of the Fret could not dissolve.

Ares brushed away the sweat-dampened locks from the Duke's brow. "Indeed, the dynasty remains your solemn charge. Yet you have acquitted yourself honorably; now, close your eyes and seek sleep..."

Under the soothing influence of the preceptor's cadence, the frenzied currents of the Duke's blood began to recede, lulled by the sweet floral fragrance of the wound. Slowly, his eyelids closed.

The proximity to his own destruction left Ares profoundly shaken. Ensuring the lord was entirely insensible, he exerted his remaining strength to displace the massive frame, unlocked the stone mechanism, and fled toward his sanctuary.

Safe within his quarters, he bared his forearm, inspecting the self-inflicted wound; it spanned three inches, still weeping bright crimson. He cleansed the skin with clear water, leaving the margins to form a natural crust. Gathering the wooden implement, the lexicon, and the remaining timber fragments, he committed them entirely to the hearth until they were reduced to ash.

As the first grey streaks of dawn fractured the horizon, Ares stared out into the winter waste, his spirit taut with uncertainty. He was entirely ignorant of when the Duke would reenter consciousness, and more terrified still of what memories the lord would carry from the dark. It was a hazardous wager whose outcome he could not calculate, and the price of failure surpassed his capacity to pay.