FMY 17
by soapa“Have you arrived, Your Highness?”
Nikola, the loyal attendant who always faithfully followed Raphael, spoke as he trailed behind his master, who had just returned from an outing.
“Indeed.”
A short reply came from the man striding down the corridor of the Second Prince’s Palace with wide, resolute steps. Raphael, with an impassive expression, untied the cravat around his neck and handed it to Nikola.
“Did everything go well with your plans?”
“Smoothly. As expected, Duke Arthur will make a perfect ally for our plans. We’ve come to an agreement on that.”
“That’s excellent news. He seemed like a rather difficult person, yet you managed to find common ground quite skillfully.”
Recalling Serge, who, contrary to rumors of being bear-like and unrefined, had a polished appearance and sharp gaze, Nikola took the garments that Raphael had removed.
“Thanks to luckily discovering his weakness.”
Raphael smirked, thinking back to the moment in the Queen’s salon where Serge was secretly bickering with Gabriel.
To have stumbled upon such a thing. It was nothing short of divine luck. It wasn’t exactly the behavior of a refined gentleman considerate of an omega, but that discovered weakness had undeniably made sealing the deal much easier.
As a loyal attendant, Nikola led Raphael to the bathroom, as was his master’s habit. Raphael always made it a point to cleanse himself thoroughly after returning from an outing.
“Good. I’ve prepared the bathwater. Please rest well.”
With that, Nikola closed the door to the bathroom, lined with intricately engraved blue tiles, and left.
Raphael tossed the remaining clothes onto a chair prepared in one corner of the bathroom. Then, without hesitation, he submerged himself in the steaming water.
Splash!
The amount of water that spilled over the edge of the tub revealed just how solid and muscular his seemingly slender frame truly was.
Raphael leaned back languidly in the tub, relaxing his body.
“Phew…”
He had always had the Arthur Duchy in mind, but he hadn’t expected things to progress this smoothly. To think that Serge d’Arthur had been hiding such a true nature. He had transformed so drastically that it was still hard to adjust to his new persona.
“But thanks to that, things have become much easier.”
Raphael quietly thought of Serge.
At first glance, he seemed like just a robust young man, but upon closer inspection, his slightly delicate jawline and the graceful lines of his overall form… and that playful smirk when he squinted his eyes in amusement. In those fleeting moments, there was a peculiar, almost feline allure. Despite his large, toned body made of lean muscle, those subtle details clearly marked him as an omega.
“And that acting ability…”
Even if he had been that bespectacled bear of a man from before, Raphael had planned to bring him in and have him pose as a fiancé. But to think he’d become such a skilled collaborator, working alongside him like this. It almost felt as though the gods were finally starting to favor him. Everything seemed to align with his plans.
Raphael picked up a sponge and began scrubbing his body.
“…It’s bad today, too.”
He muttered to himself, wrinkling his nose at the stench. It was the pheromones of the socialites clinging to his body.
In truth, the Second Prince had a secret known only to his closest attendant, Nikola.
He suffered from pheromone aversion. It didn’t matter whether they were alpha or omega pheromones—they were all the same to him.
This was Raphael’s greatest weakness and secret, one he hid from everyone.
It was a common phenomenon across the continent, and indeed the world, that the higher one climbed the social ladder, the greater the proportion of phenotypicals. If you were to stop commoners on the street and ask, “What is your phenotype?” nearly all would say they were beta. But at a social gathering of high-ranking nobles, if you asked the same question, there was a fifty percent chance the person would be a phenotypical. Presumably, this was because, since ancient times, phenotypicals with superior physical abilities and appearances had held positions of power for generations.
The implication for Raphael was clear. Whenever he entered a room full of nobles, he was always plagued by the foul stench of pheromones. For someone as sensitive to others’ pheromones as Raphael, this was a particularly harsh reality. It had been that way since he was born a dominant alpha, and even more so after his secondary manifestation, when he became able to precisely detect sexual pheromones.
He had always found others’ pheromones repulsive. Of course, thanks to his strict upbringing, he had never once let this secret slip in front of others.
“When did it start, exactly…?”
It hadn’t always been this way, this obsessive aversion to others’ pheromones.
As a child, he had merely thought that others’ pheromones made him uncomfortable, setting his nerves on edge. The palace physician who tended to him during his youth had simply diagnosed it as an unusually sensitive pheromone receptor, a result of his exceptional phenotype.
But that discomfort had escalated into full-blown aversion due to a specific incident.
Was it when he used to sneak into the Crown Prince’s Palace to meet his older brother, who was undergoing strict heir training? Like any mischievous child, young Raphael, with his ever-improving stealth skills, would dart around the palace. It was during those innocent boyhood days that he noticed a fishy, enigmatic omega pheromone emanating daily from the King’s private chambers.
It must have been one of those days when he was freely exploring the palace. The people young Raphael encountered were courtesans emerging from the King’s chambers, tasked with entertaining high-ranking nobles.
Scantily clad, high-class omega courtesans reached out to him, chattering excitedly, their seductive pheromones wafting around.
“Oh my, where did such a handsome, fresh alpha come from…?”
The tattered clothes he had borrowed from a young servant cleaning the floors of his prince’s palace likely caused the misunderstanding. Mistaking Raphael for a palace servant, they spoke brazenly to the alpha boy.
“Ah, so fragrant. Not like the scent you’d get from the wrinkled bodies in that room, right?”
“Come here, kid. Have you ever seen a body this voluptuous? You can touch it if you want.”
“Showing your bare skin to a child, Emma? What are you doing?”
“Shut up! Stop acting all high and mighty and fix your trousers, Matthias! I started selling my body at that age, you know.”
Teasing and being teased was their profession and daily life, and they shamelessly exchanged crude jokes among themselves. As they giggled and pulled at him, even trying to kiss the young boy, Raphael fled with all his might.
But that day was truly an unlucky one. Even after escaping that scene, he encountered a similar situation in the deep recesses of the Queen’s Palace.
“Gasp, hah! Ah! Your Majesty!”
It was the panting of an alpha lover pleasing the Queen. Mingled with it were the delicate, high-pitched moans of the Queen, leaking out from behind the door.
Who could have imagined? That the ever-dignified Queen harbored such a sordid, raw secret. To others, she appeared flawless, especially to her second son, Raphael, to whom she was particularly cold. Yet her voice could be so lascivious…
And the lascivious, debauched pheromones seeping through the cracks…
The boy couldn’t bear it.
Unable to hide his trembling eyes and racing heart, he ran, and ran, and ran.
As soon as he escaped, everything in his stomach—deep in his gut—came pouring out. Until there was nothing left to expel.
No matter how much the King and Queen mutually ignored the goings-on in their private chambers, for a young boy to discover this was unjust, dirty, and tragic.
But is life always so just and happy? Similar incidents continued to haunt him as he grew up. The relentless repetition dulled his emotions but deepened his disgust.
“Pheromones, no matter the kind, are utterly repulsive.”
As he matured, Raphael’s aversion to pheromones, especially those of a sexual nature, became uncontrollably severe.
Not a single one was clean. Day after day, for over a decade… didn’t they ever tire of it? Or was the lascivious gene running through the royal family just that strong? Should he just accept that it’s natural for those with power and a jaded view of the world to indulge in lust?
Even after many years, the situation hadn’t changed much. No, now it wasn’t just the King and Queen’s palaces but also his older brother, the Crown Prince’s palace, where debauched pheromones flowed daily. Raphael found it revolting.
He now knew all too well that the glamorous, decadent nobles of Blanche entered strategic marriages and kept lovers on the side, but knowing didn’t mean he considered it a perfectly natural phenomenon.
Of course, Raphael didn’t want to judge or meddle in how others lived. To be honest, even pondering such matters felt somewhat tiresome.
In a way, those experiences had turned him into a bitter cynic when it came to romance or love. It was as if his environment had deliberately pushed him into a pit of depravity and sin. The boy could only become numb and lifeless, soaked in the filthy mud of that abyss.
Now, years later, it was undeniable that the sordid sights of his childhood had made him both a pheromone-averse and emotionally detached person.
Raphael lifted his hand and gazed quietly at the chastity vow ring, engraved with a cross and lily emblem.
“Foolish.”
With a small scoff, he slipped it off and tossed it onto the low porcelain dish holding the sponge.
Clang!
The tarnished silver ring rolled with a clatter, looking pathetic amid the soap suds.
In truth, that ring was nothing more than a shield to him.
A final barrier to keep those with foul pheromones or those seeking romance or affairs from getting too close.
“I am sworn to the Lord and the Cardinal…”
How many times had he uttered those words to fend off omegas and beta women? When he placed his hand near his heart and spoke with a serious expression, the looks of piety on others’ faces mirrored his own, and the memory brought a wry chuckle.
That ring had certainly done its job well.