I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 20: The Investigative Interview

"Good day, Your Grace! I hope I’m not interrupting any brooding or high-level plotting!"

Cherion didn’t wait for an invitation. He practically bounced into the room, the door swinging wide behind him as he marched in with a level of confidence that was, quite frankly, bordering on suicidal. He had just finished his grueling marathon tour of the castle, and after bumping into Flio and Elios in the hallway, he’d managed to wiggle his way into an audience.

Zarius sat on his sofa, looking like he’d been carved out of the very stone of the North, pale, sharp, and exhausted. He blinked at the intrusion, his hand hovering near his teacup. "You... certainly have a high volume for a guest," Zarius remarked, his voice like gravel. "I was told you had something to discuss?"

"Not something, but three things, actually."

"That is quite a lot."

Cherion grinned. "I like to be efficient."

"Do you intend to deliver all three while standing?" he asked dryly. The duke gestured with the slightest tilt of his cup toward the seating across from him.

He didn’t wait to be asked twice. He marched over to the sitting area and plopped himself down on the chair across from the Duke, leaning back with a satisfied huff.

Zarius raised an eyebrow. No one simply sat in his presence without a three-minute ritual of bowing and scraping. "Well? I’m waiting. Number one?"

"First, I wanted to see how you are doing," Cherion said, his eyes scanning Zarius’s face with a clinical, almost unnerving intensity.

Zarius shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. "I am still ’cursed,’ if that is what you are asking." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

He reached into the hidden folds of his tunic and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook, a quill, and a tiny glass vial of ink. He set them on the table.

"Point number two," Cherion announced, dipping the quill into the ink. "I need data. The novel, uh, you, I mean you, don’t tell me everything, and if I’m going to fix this mess, I need the full medical history. Now, when exactly did this whole thing start?"

For the next hour, the room was filled with the scratching of a quill and Cherion’s relentless interrogation. He didn’t just ask about the pain; he dug into the details that the author had never bothered to write.

He asked about every doctor who had come to check on him, their names, their origins, and the specific ingredients of the foul-smelling tonics they’d prescribed. He noted down the dates of the full moons, the seasonal changes in the curse’s intensity, and even what Zarius ate on the days he felt "slightly less like death."

Zarius, for his part, found himself answering. There was something about Cherion’s blunt, no-nonsense energy that bypassed his usual defenses. No one had ever asked him if the curse felt "more like a burn or a sting." Everyone else just treated him like a ticking time bomb or a tragic martyr. Cherion treated him like a puzzle that needed solving.

After filling several pages with frantic, loopy handwriting, Cherion finally capped his ink vial and blew on the wet pages.

"Well?" Zarius asked, leaning forward despite himself. "Did you find out what curse it is? Have you managed to diagnose my soul with your little scribbles?"

Cherion looked up, blinking. "What? No. I’m not a psychic, Your Grace."

Zarius paused, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "A... psy-chick? What in the world is that?"

Cherion waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind, forget what I said. The point is, I have a lot of information now, but I need to check it first."

He leaned forward, his expression turning serious as he tapped the cover of his notebook. "The new guy you pointed to me gave me the ’grand tour’ earlier. He showed me the library. It’s huge. Honestly, it’s a bit of a flex, Your Grace. But he also showed me a section that was locked. He said it was for ’rare and fragile’ books."

Zarius’s eyes darkened slightly. "The forbidden wing. Yes. It is not a place for casual reading."

"Which brings us to point number three," Cherion said, his eyes locked onto Zarius’s. He leaned even further forward, his voice dropping into a whisper. "I need your permission to go in there."

Zarius’s eyes sharpened. "Why?"

"I need to scour the whole library and eventually that forbidden room, too. So I ask your permission beforehand."

Zarius studied him. He looked at the ink-stained fingers, the messy notebook, and the sheer, stubborn hope in the his eyes.

"Fine," Zarius said quietly.

Cherion’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He let out a small, ecstatic "Yes!" and actually clapped his hands together, a sound that echoed sharply in the quiet room. "Thank you!"

Zarius watched him for a moment longer, then spoke, "And when do you intend to begin?"

Cherion didn’t hesitate. "Tonight."

How eager."

Cherion shrugged, already gathering his notebook and quill. "Well, we both want this curse to go away as quickly as possible, right?"

He stood and gave Zarius a brief, almost casual bow, more sincere than formal. "That said, I should get out of your hair. You’ve talked quite a lot for someone who’s supposed to be resting."

He was already imagining himself finding a "Curse Lifting for Dummies" book in the forbidden section.

Zarius scoffed softly. "Now you sound like my physician."

"Good," Cherion replied, backing toward the door. "That means I’m doing something right.

He was halfway out of his seat when Zarius spoke again.

"However," the Duke added.

Cherion froze, one hand on his notebook. "Uh-oh. There’s a ’however.’ Why is there always a ’however’?"

Zarius stood up, slowly as he looked at Cherion with a faint, dangerous shadow of a smile playing on his lips.

"I am granting you access," Zarius said, "but I am not letting you out of my sight. If you are going to go digging through the skeletons of my library, I’m going with you."