CHAPTER 381: YOU GOT ME SIPPIN’ ON SOMETHING

[TAMIKO]

[A Few Hours Ago]

Tamiko hated the life he had been living.

For ten years, they had insisted that he never get close to Kosta.

Yilena had given him the strangest ultimatum when Tamiko had offered to kill her, and now, ten years later, Tamiko was still the one suffering for a mistake he should have fixed.

Maybe if he had agreed that evening and come back to take her out, then he wouldn’t be this miserable and depressed.

It had been the cruelest thing that Tamiko had ever heard, and he hated it. He hated his father for agreeing to mess. He hated his uncle, his best friend, but most of all Yilena for lying got him.

Ten years without Kosta had been crueler than the twenty-five years he had lived with the Grealors. He never thought there would be a pain worse than the betrayal by Grealor, but he had been forced through it.

For ten years, he had watched his Erasthai suffer without him. He had watched his baby try to take his own life on the battlefield more than once. For ten years, Tamiko had been forced to resign to be the perfect prince.

He had asked why they didn’t want Kosta around, but their answers were never straight. There were days they talked of the omega being busy with being the Lycan Chief and serving the nation.

On some days, they insisted that it was what was best for Kawai. On others, they dared to even say that Kosta was an omega who had refused to embrace himself. And that too was the most dangerous thing for Tamiko.

They had talked him into a kind of pain he never thought possible.

And so when he chose to abandon the ideas for Kosta, they had threatened to take out Kosta.

Actually, Yilena Sidorova had told Tamiko that he would erase all the memories Kosta had of him, and that she would snap the mate bonds so badly that they would never be fixed.

The way she talked made Tamiko wonder if this was the same thing she had told him in the first year. Tamiko remembered Kosta being so distant in the first year that he had been shocked.

In rebellion, Tamiko said he would let the Lycan Chief free, something that he never did, because for Tamiko, Kosta was worth murdering for. Kosta was worth everything. He had been patient with Yilena.

He didn’t want to break his father’s heart, but today, he was done.

"You heard the same rumors, didn’t you?" Tamiko asked his father, who was seated in the throne room, watching a whole lot of nothing. It had been the routine, and Tamiko wondered if there was anything that his father wanted to say to him.

He had seen regret on his father’s face a few times, but Tamiko never dared to ask. He worried that asking would result in his father and the others coming up with the craziest reasons why he and Kosta needed to be a part.

He just didn’t have the energy for that bullshit. He couldn’t accept that anymore.

"I don’t know what you are talking about," King Zaffuto said, even though he knew what this was. He had watched his son be undone for years because he didn’t have Kosta by his side, and Zaffuto’s heart ached for Tamiko.

He wanted to tell his sister to stop, but Yilena’s hold on Kosta wasn’t just a normal hold. They were bonded, so if he told her to stop, then Tamiko would never see Kosta again. It was something that King Zaffuto hated more than anything.

But he was powerless for the first time. He didn’t want to be the reason his son lost an Erasthai. That was too cruel a fate. So, he let Yilena string them along and try to come up with better reasons.

Zaffuto knew that his sister wasn’t ready to let Kosta go. She had tried to come up with every excuse to disqualify Tamiko’s intentions for the Omega Chief, but Tamiko was a devoted Erasthai; each time, he was fighting for Kosta.

He rejected everyone who didn’t have a caramel scent, and today, even the king understood why this was the last straw for his son.

"Him. The love of my life. With Sanjiro. The traitor. Was that what you wanted for me, Papa? For me to lose the one man who fought for me long before I knew to fight for myself? The man who loved me and gave me a reason to keep going?

"The man who made me come home just because I was too much in love with him to let him go? You want me to lose him to a traitor, the man who everyone hates? Is that why you all kept me away?" Tamiko asked, his tears making a show.

But today he wasn’t going to cry.

He had told himself that he wouldn’t let his father see his tears.

He was strong.

He was a prince.

He had been trained for the past ten years to be one.

Sure, he had managed to be a cold prince without his Erasthai, but he couldn’t take it anymore. And he couldn’t keep killing people, being Kosta’s back, and even letting him know that it was him.

Because even if he did come out to Kosta and admit it, what the fuck was Kosta supposed to say to him? Thank you? And for what? The same thing that he was the one who had forced Kosta into?

He had left his Erasthai.

They had lied to him, and for ten years he had waited.

Not just because he wanted to be a good son and good nephew.

But because he had been making plans.

Strategizing.

He was not going to let Kosta go anymore.

And Tamiko had been planning a rebellion against his father, his uncle, and that god-awful aunt he had been cursed with. He was not going to stop, but then, with the whispers for the past few weeks, Tamiko knew he just couldn’t take it anymore.

There was no point in being a sitting duck when the person he wanted was on the other side of the realm, happier without him. Fuck he hated fate.

"Tamiko..." king Zaffuto trailed off.

He had no excuse for his son this time. He alone knew what if the roles had been reversed and Liana had been taken away from him, Zaffuto would have set the kingdom to the torch just to get to his Liana.

He would have pushed everyone for it. And they wouldn’t have had anything to come home to. He would have brought down the realm and made the moon goddess choose between insanity and even worse intensity.

Perhaps that was what made the prince different. Tamiko was understanding. He was careful. Strategic. He was not ruled by his emotions. He was a man who watched and plotted in silence when no one was expecting.

But seeing his son here like this, tugged at the king’s heart and he felt like a dick for all that his son had gone through. When Kosta had brought Tamiko home and Sadako said the kid was his, King Zaffuto had promised to be a good father.

Did that include this harsh phase of life?

Was this what the kingship was about?

And did he truly want this for his son?

"He is coming to the meeting."