By Zephyria 
“Hnngh, ngh…”
The crown prince finally satisfied himself, not releasing me from my labored breathing until I felt dizzy.
It was around the fourth cycle, wasn’t it? Since making the foolish choice to trust Kyle one more time, this was the first time I had kissed someone else. Even with Kyle, I hadn’t kissed him more than a handful of times throughout all my regressions, so my knowledge of physical intimacy was extremely shallow, but one thing was certain.
“I’ll visit you often from now on. Don’t be too surprised when I do.”
The skill of this crown prince’s tongue, entering between my lips, stealing my mind completely before slipping away, was clearly on an entirely different level from Lord Kyle’s from the start.
I managed to dissuade the crown prince who wanted to accompany me to the main gate and barely escaped the crown prince’s palace alone. With his mind gone after just one kiss, if he had come all the way to the gate, he would have likely locked the carriage door and not let me go until my lips were swollen beyond recognition.
It hadn’t even been that long, but my lips and corners of my mouth were all sore and painful from how much he had bitten and sucked. If someone asked if it just hurt, well… the fact that it wasn’t just pain was the main problem.
Running my fingers over my lips, I could feel they were quite different in volume from usual. I could tell they were swollen even without looking in a mirror.
Wondering what excuse I would give if Nicole asked what happened, I opened the Hamilton carriage door that was waiting at the main gate’s carriage depot.
However, inside the wide open carriage…
“Noah Hamilton.”
“B-Brother Andrew? You didn’t leave? Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting all this time?”
“Get in and close the carriage door right now. Before I shove you in myself.”
Another Alpha whose eyes were about to roll back, no, whose eyes had already rolled back, due to the lingering traces of the kiss heavily remaining on my body.
‘Say hello, Andrew. This child is our ‘Noah’ from today.’
That day was still vivid in Andrew Hamilton’s memory. It was less than a year after the youngest brother, the light and joy of the entire family, had disappeared without a trace.
It was the day when his father, unable to bear seeing his mother who had almost lost her mind after the youngest disappeared, brought in a stand in for his brother.
Now that they were grown, a year or two difference might not be visually significant, but back then, the missing youngest was only four or five, and the fake who took his brother’s place was six or seven. Though remarkably similar, anyone could see that the fake could not possibly be ‘Noah Hamilton.’
‘Andy. Why that expression? Aren’t you happy to see your brother after so long?’
‘…Mother.’
In front of the eldest son who couldn’t hide his mixed feelings, his mother burst into an excessively bright smile with eyes that still seemed half out of her mind. When he, still young then, tried to object with some words, his father’s hand gently pressed down on his shoulder. He had to keep his mouth shut, sensing the situation.
‘I think your brother is shy seeing you after so long. Noah, would you greet him first?’
It seemed the stand-in hadn’t taken on the role voluntarily either. Not realizing that the name “Noah” was calling him, he awkwardly bowed his head a beat late. With everything and everyone unfamiliar and frightening, his blue eyes were moist with tears.
‘What’s wrong, little one? Hmm? Tell mommy everything.’
It was paradoxical. The mother who showed the most merciful and loving attitude toward the young stand in was the very one who brought the greatest sorrow to his eyes.
Later, when he had someone look into it, he learned that the stand in was a collateral family member two years older than the youngest. Not only did he look exactly like the real ‘Noah Hamilton,’ but his elderly grandfather who had been his guardian was also nearing the end of his life, so various calculations aligned, and under his father’s guidance, he came to the Hamilton main house.
As time passed, the stand in perfectly became ‘Noah’ and completely melded into the count’s family, and accordingly, Andrew gradually became uncomfortable with the substitute who had taken his brother’s place.
It wasn’t a foolish feeling of blaming him for his brother’s disappearance.
Rather, it was close to being unable to comprehend how the subject’s consciousness, which initially questioned and felt uncomfortable about having to live wearing another’s name, age, and status, was gradually crumbling.
The child who whined annoyingly, crying that he missed his grandfather and asking if he could go back home, was much easier to face.
If they needed someone who resembled the lost youngest and reminded them of him, if they needed someone to attach their hearts to in place of the youngest, adopting from a collateral family wasn’t an issue. But thoroughly implanting that adoptee into the identity of ‘Noah Hamilton’ was another matter entirely.
After all traces of dissatisfaction or longing for his previous life were completely bleached from the fake’s face, Andrew Hamilton always felt awkward dealing with him. At some point, the fake truly seemed to think of himself as ‘Noah Hamilton.’ No one in the mansion found it strange. Andrew felt like screaming. It was horrifying.
As they grew older, his fake brother, or rather, one who could no longer even be called a fake…
‘Brother! Brother Andrew!’
…became so beautiful that he couldn’t take his eyes off him.
As his brother’s beauty bloomed as brilliantly as a rose with poison, a quiet whirlpool raged within Andrew.
Everyone predicted without a shred of doubt that his brother’s trait would be omega. His brother also seemed to think so, as he began to gently flirt with any alpha in the house after entering puberty. Whenever Andrew saw this, sparks flew from his eyes.
Indeed, that fellow should not be my brother. Cannot be my brother. That fellow absolutely must not be ‘Noah Hamilton.’
All he could do was clutch the slender collar of my neck in one hand and kiss me until I gasped in disgust, instead of lashing out at my deeply wounded insides with his clever words, which he obviously did.
‘Andrew.’
‘…Why are you calling me.’
‘Can you take me to my room, I’m feeling a bit dizzy.’
At some point, he became different. Something must have come out of him, something he had been keeping secret.
She would bat her eyelashes and smile and call his name, sometimes carelessly scattering her uncontrollable pheromones all over the mansion. On those occasions, Andrew Hamilton was given a script of behaviour that was as unspectacular as it was lousy.
He was simply to play with his brother’s toys and bend them to his will.
‘I was not expecting you to accompany me on my way to the palace, but I am honoured.
A dozen times a day, his emotions fluctuated as he watched his brother call his name, sometimes in a meltingly sweet voice, as if in mockery, and then turn and run away with his tail between his legs. His brother, Noah Hamilton, was someone he hated enough to want to tear apart, but also loved enough to want to protect him from anything in the world.
Between intense hatred and deep affection, Andrew Hamilton swung back and forth on a pendulum that wasn’t funny.
Meanwhile.
His mind seems to have broken down somewhere along the way.
Judging by this violent urge to grab his brother’s white hair, which had been drenched in the pheromones of another alpha without realising he was afraid of his eldest brother, and this time, to squeeze him to death, to strangle him so he couldn’t scream.
‘Get up here and close the carriage door, before I throw you in with my own hands.’
Unbeknownst to his brother, it was Andrew Hamilton’s way of giving him a final consideration, or opportunity, or something of the sort.
But his brother, not knowing whether to be clever or stupid, dared to run away in the presence of his eldest brother, whose rage was barely contained by his iron reason.
Noah Hamilton let go of the carriage door he was holding, and as soon as he saw him start to stumble backwards, his tongue snapped with a snide remark.
‘Ouch, Bro, Brother!’
He decided to hold back no longer. He grasped the slender wrist that had always been so eager to grasp him and yanked it away, then slammed the carriage door firmly shut behind him.