Chapter 222: And you... You can teach me that

Zane held out his hand.

"My offer wasn’t a trap, Master Julian. It was a mirror. I can teach you the Tether of the Sands. It is a way of touch, of breathing, of presence that makes a man forget he is a Duke, or a King, or a Mountain. It makes him remember he is loved."

Julian’s eyes slightly narrowed suspiciously, and then at Zane. He thought of Alaric’s tired eyes after he had come back from the mines the previous evening.

He thought of his own inability to provide the shelter Alaric deserved.

He thought of the Duke comforting him. He didn’t want to be comforted. He didn’t want to be the one comfortable but the one doing the comforting.

"Why would you help me?" Julian asked, his voice wary. "You want to take me to the South. Why would you help me tie myself closer to Lucien?"

Zane’s grin was unreadable. "Because watching a diamond try to be a lump of coal is boring. I want to see you shine, Master Julian. And besides... if you learn the Southern way, perhaps you’ll realize the South is where you truly belong."

Julian hesitated. He knew Alaric would hate this. He knew Alaric didn’t trust Zane.

He knew he shouldn’t even be talking to this southern peacock, but...

But as he thought about his failure the night before, the desperation to be more than enough for Alaric outweighed his caution.

"Show me," Julian whispered, the words slipping out like poison on his lips.

Zane’s eyes flared with a predatory triumph. "Follow me to the library, Master Astrea. Let the lesson begin."

Julian asked himself if this was the right thing to do. Yes, he wanted to learn, but... was learning from Zane alright?

What if he had impure motives? He definitely had impure motives.

I’ll be careful.

The library was secluded, the heavy doors muffling the sounds of the manor.

Zane didn’t start with a book. He didn’t exactly need one. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

He started by stepping into Julian’s personal space, his physical presence overwhelming.

"What are you doing?" Julian asked, but he didn’t answer and just went on with his lesson.

"Confessing won’t cut it, Julian," Zane said, his voice a low vibration.

He seemed to have dropped the formal speech in an instant, getting comfortable around Julian.

"In the South, we believe the body is the slate upon which love is written. To tether someone, you must first be hyper-aware of their every breath."

Zane reached out. His tanned fingers brushed against the side of Julian’s neck.

Julian flinched, a cold shiver racing down his spine. "Is this... is this how it is?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Yes," Zane whispered, his fingers tracing the line of Julian’s jaw, his thumb lingering at the corner of Julian’s lip.

Julian swatted his hand away in an instant.

This level of intimacy was too much. He didn’t like it.

Zane looked at his swatted hand and then laughed.

"I understand you’re wary,"

"I have every right to be," Julian shot back, dropping his hand. "If it’s about being intimate with Lucien, touching and kissing, I can do all of that. I do not understand how that is an expression of love."

Zane didn’t look offended by the stinging slap to his hand.

Instead, he smoothed his sleeve with a slow, deliberate grace, his amber eyes pinned on Julian with the patience of a predator watching a bird flutter in a cage.

"Touching and kissing?" Zane mused, his voice dropping into a dry, mocking tone. "You think love is just the collision of skin, Master Julian?"

"I didn’t—"

"You think it is merely the act of taking what you want from each other?"

Julian frowned. That was not what he meant.

He only meant that they already did a lot of intimate acts. So why was that some sort of special expression of love?

Zane took a step closer, and this time, he didn’t reach out. He simply stood so near that Julian could feel the desert heat radiating from his silk robes, a sharp contrast to the drafty, stone-cold silence of the library.

"What you do in the dark is instinct," Zane whispered. "What I am speaking of is intention. The Tether of the Sands is not about the kiss. It is about the breath before the kiss. It is about knowing the exact moment the Duke’s heart falters under the weight of his crown and stepping into that gap before he even knows he is falling."

Julian’s breath hitched. He thought of the soot-stained rug, the burnt wool, and the way Alaric had looked at him—not with the relief of a man being comforted, but with the weary patience of a man who had to comfort his comforter.

"You are a scholar," Zane continued, circling Julian like a golden shadow. "You read books to understand the world. But have you read Lucien? Do you know the tension in his shoulders by the way he holds his spoon? Do you know how to breathe in sync with him until his pulse slows to match yours? That is the Southern way. We don’t just love; we occupy the other person’s soul."

Julian’s hands trembled at his sides. "And you... You can teach me that?"

"I can show you the mechanics," Zane said, stopping directly in front of him. "But you have to be willing to let go of that Capital-bred modesty. You are so afraid of being ’intimate’ that you are keeping him at arm’s length even when you’re in his bed."

"I am not," Julian defended and then pursed his lips tightly together.

How would he even know what they did in their bed? At this point, he wanted to believe Zane was just trying to guess his life.

Zane’s gaze dropped to Julian’s tightly pressed lips, his expression shifting from tutor to a hunter in a heartbeat. He noticed the way Julian’s throat moved as he swallowed—the pale, vulnerable curve of him.

"You say that, but do you know the real meaning of intimacy?" Zane asked, but Julian couldn’t answer. "For example," he murmured, his voice becoming a hypnotic drawl. "If you wanted to show Lucien he is your entire world, you wouldn’t just swat a hand away. You would lean into the touch. You would make him feel that his presence is the only thing keeping you upright. Like this..."

Zane didn’t wait for permission. He moved with the sudden speed of a desert cat. He didn’t grab Julian; he simply leaned in, his frame looming over the scholar, one hand coming up to hover just a hair’s breadth from Julian’s cheek, the other wrapped around Julian’s waist.

He was close enough that Julian could see the gold flecks in his eyes—eyes that looked far too much like the late Empress’s in their cold, calculating depth.

Julian felt a mounting panic, a sense of ’wrongness’ that screamed louder than his desire to learn. He reached his hand up and pressed them over Zane’s chest, and was about to open his mouth to tell him to get back when—

CRASH.

The library doors didn’t just open; they were hurled back against the stone walls with a violence that made the floorboards jump.

It was as if a storm had rushed in.

A storm indeed. And that storm was the Duke himself.