I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 58: The Frost That Follows

If it weren’t for the very real threat of getting killed, or worse, sold off into some miserable life of slavery, Cherion might have actually enjoyed the view. Specifically, the view of Soren and his two bumbling henchmen flailing about in the snow, shrieking as if their eyeballs were being marinated in battery acid.

He didn’t feel bad. Not even a little bit. Call it a lack of empathy, but when a group of people starts debating whether you’d be more profitable as a corpse, a slave, or a high-end male prostitute, you tend to lose your appetite for the high moral ground.

But God, the North was miserable.

Cherion stumbled through the underbrush, his breath coming in ragged, freezing hitches that felt like swallowing shards of glass. This was a disaster. Somewhere back by the wagon, he’d lost his left silk slipper, a dainty, expensive thing that was absolutely not designed for trekking through prehistoric-looking snowdrifts. His toes kept switching between that annoying pins-and-needles feeling and just total dead numbness. He was pretty sure he was nearing frostbite territory

His thighs burned. His lungs felt like they were collapsing. He really, truly should have spent more time on the treadmill back in his old life instead of binge-watching survival tutorials he was currently too panicked to implement correctly.

Just as his eyes snagged on what looked like a legitimate deer trail, the world suddenly tilted.

A hand, cold as the grave and twice as heavy, snagged the back of his collar. Cherion didn’t even have time to yell "rude" before he was yanked backward with bone-shaking force. He hit a snowbank hard, the impact knocking the wind out of him in a dull woosh.

He scrambled to sit up, spitting out a mouthful of slush, only to find Soren looming over him.

The man looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie. His face was a swollen, red mess, his eyes tearing uncontrollably from Cherion’s homemade pepper-and-alcohol mix. He looked manic. He looked wild. Completely unhinged. All that "civilized servant" crap was gone, replaced by straight-up, fiery rage like he’d finally snapped.

"You... you little leech," Soren muttered, his voice cracking like dry wood.

He lunged with his bare hands.

The "cat fight" that followed was anything but elegant. There were no flashing blades, no poetic exchanges of dialogue, no dignified martial arts. It was an undignified, messy, mud-and-snow scuffle. Soren tackled him, and Cherion, fueled by a spike of pure "not today" energy, started swinging.

"You enchanted him!" Soren shrieked, his fingers digging into Cherion’s shoulders as they rolled through the freezing dirt. "You came from the Capital with your pretty face and your soft hands and you took everything! Ten years! I gave him ten years!"

"Ten years of what? Stalking him?" Cherion snapped back, managing to get a knee up between them. Cherion pressed his palm hard against Soren’s face, shoving it away, forcing him to turn his head. "Get a grip, Soren! I didn’t steal Zarius! You can’t steal something that was never yours to begin with. Your ’devotion’ isn’t romantic, it’s a creepy, one-sided obsession that belongs in a restraining order!"

"You know nothing!"

"I know you’re a psycho who flips out over rejection you never even bothered to ask for!"

They thrashed in the brush, a blur of tangled limbs and heavy breathing. Cherion used his elbows, his knees, and every dirty trick he’d ever seen in a bar fight movie. It was absurd. Here they were, in the middle of a lethal Northern wilderness, arguing like two people fighting over the last seat on a bus, except one of them was trying to kill the other.

Cherion saw an opening. He grabbed a chunk of snow and shoved it toward Soren’s wounded face, gaining just enough leverage to scramble away. He tried to bolt, but his luck had officially run dry. His bare foot slammed into something, maybe a sharp root or a bunch of frozen thorns, and pain shot up his leg like a hot needle.

He stumbled, his knee buckling. He ended up backed against a massive, ancient pine tree, his breath hitching as he tried to put weight on his injured foot. He was limping, trapped, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off, leaving him cold and shaking.

His fingers hovered over the wound, but he couldn’t even feel the magic coming to him the way it usually did. He forced himself to concentrate. His hands trembled as he pressed them to his foot, trying to push healing energy through the pain. But when he tried to release the healing magic, it came out weak and flickering.

Everything about the night changed. The petty crap faded out, and what replaced it was a heavy silence, like things were about to get serious.

Soren stood up slowly, wiping the slush and blood from his cheek. With a smooth motion, he dug into his boot and pulled out a narrow, dangerous-looking knife. The blade caught the moonlight, shining like it was thirsty for something.

"It’s already come to this," Soren whispered, his voice oddly calm now. That was the scary part. The screaming was fine, the calm was terrifying. "I can’t have him, and now, neither can you. You just need to go away. Forever."

Cherion smirked. "Really, Soren? You think this is how it’s gonna end? You’re gonna kill me and then... what, expect a medal?" His voice was low, mocking. "Zarius will find out. And you’ll be lucky if you’re not on the run for the rest of your miserable life."

"He’ll never know," Soren said, stepping forward.

Ok, that’s a lot of confi...

He lunged.

Cherion tried to scramble, to throw himself to the side, but his injured ankle gave out completely. He slumped against the roots of the tree, his eyes instinctively squeezing shut as he braced for the cold, sharp bite of the blade. He held his breath, waiting for the impact, waiting for the end of a life that had only just started to get interesting. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

SHHHK

Cherion braced himself for the cold, sharp sting of the knife. But... nothing.

There was no pain, no sting. He was certain, like a thousand percent sure, he’d been stabbed. But if it wasn’t him... then who?

Wait. What?

Cherion opened one eye, then the other.

In front of him, blocking the moon and the wind and the entire world, was a wall of black fur and towering presence. The scent of pine and old leather flooded his senses, unmistakably familiar and terrifying.

Zarius.