The Poison Master Knocks Every Night With the Antidote novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Hour of the Rat

Seol arrives with the first cup and eleven needles, and under his gloved hands the lord's fear turns into something else; he refuses to be kissed, and shakes on the roof tile as he leaves.

Jae-ryeong opened the window, and the poisoner stepped over the sill.

Seol carried a small black lacquer box and a roll of silver needles.

He had come over the roof, and a leaf was caught in his silver hair.

"You're alive," Seol said, and looked him over. "Good. Sit."

"You're late. It's past the hour of the rat."

"It's the middle of the hour of the rat.

"I walked in through your garden and past six guards, my lord, and you're complaining about my manners."

Jae-ryeong sat on the edge of his father's bed.

His teeth had started to chatter, and he hated it.

Seol took a little white cup from the box and held it out in his gloved hand.

"Drink."

"Taste it first."

"You think I'd poison you twice in one day?"

"I think you're a liar by trade."

Seol smiled, a quick, crooked thing.

Then he drank half the cup, handed Jae-ryeong the rest, and watched him over the edge of his sleeve.

It tasted of iron and cold ginger, with something sweet underneath.

The cold behind Jae-ryeong's ribs loosened.

He breathed out, and the breath shook.

"Better," Seol said. "Take off your robe. Lie on your stomach."

Jae-ryeong should have asked why.

Instead he stripped to the waist in front of the man who had tried to kill him, and lay down.

The bed dipped as Seol knelt beside him.

He heard the needles unroll.

"Eleven points," Seol said, close above him. "Don't flinch. If you flinch, I start over."

The first needle went in at the base of his neck.

It stung, and then it ran down his spine.

The second slid in between his shoulder blades.

Seol's gloved fingers pressed on either side of it, light and exact.

Healers had touched Jae-ryeong before.

None of them had made his skin remember it was skin.

"Third," Seol murmured. "Fourth."

Each needle drew a line of heat down Jae-ryeong's back.

By the seventh he had stopped shivering and started doing something worse.

He was lying face down on his father's blankets, getting hard against the mattress, and he could not make it stop.

Seol couldn't see it.

Jae-ryeong told himself that.

Eight.

Nine.

"You're holding your breath," Seol said.

"I'm fine."

"Your heart is hammering. That's bad for the dose."

There was a pause, and then, drier, "It isn't the cold, is it?"

Heat climbed Jae-ryeong's face.

"Don't flatter yourself, Poison Master."

"I'm not flattering anyone. I'm taking your pulse."

Seol's fingers slid down to the small of his back, to the tenth point, and stayed there.

"My lord's blood is saying something very interesting."

Jae-ryeong turned his head on the pillow.

From the corner of his eye he could see Seol kneeling, sleeves rolled to the elbow, silk gloves damp with Jae-ryeong's sweat.

Seol's face was perfectly composed.

The tip of his ear was red.

That did it.

Jae-ryeong rolled over, needles or no needles, and caught Seol's wrist.

Seol gasped, a small sharp sound, and the last needle fell from his fingers and rolled across the blanket.

"You hurt me," Jae-ryeong said, and his voice was wrecked. "You poisoned me. You came in through my window."

"Yes."

"And you're blushing."

"I'm not."

"You are."

Seol stared at him, grey-eyed and silver-haired in the lamplight.

Then he said, so low Jae-ryeong almost missed it, "You didn't let go of me at the feast either."

Jae-ryeong was shaking.

He put Seol's gloved hand on his own stomach, and he moved it down, and he watched Seol's pupils spread.

"Tell me to stop," Jae-ryeong said.

"That's my line, my lord."

"Then say it."

Seol didn't.

His hand closed around Jae-ryeong through his trousers, and Jae-ryeong made a noise he would deny in court.

"The gloves stay on," Seol said, hoarse, and his thumb dragged slowly along the length of him.

"They aren't there for show."

"I don't care."

"You will." Seol's voice cracked on a laugh. "Lie back."

Jae-ryeong lay back.

Seol loosened the cord of his trousers with two fingers.

Then the silk-covered hand wrapped around Jae-ryeong's cock, and he swore at the ceiling.

The silk was slick and cool, and his whole body leapt into it.

Seol stroked once, slow, from the root to the head.

The second stroke was tighter.

Seol watched his face the whole time and did not look away once.

"You shake when I go slowly," Seol whispered, watching him.

"Then go fast."

"No."

He went slower.

Jae-ryeong put his forearm over his eyes.

Seol took it away and pinned it to the bed with his other hand.

"Look at me."

Jae-ryeong looked.

He had never been watched like that, carefully.

"That's it," Seol said. "There. Good."

The word hit Jae-ryeong low in the belly.

His cock throbbed in the silk, wet at the tip, and his hips began to push up into Seol's fist.

"Seol."

"I know."

"Don't stop."

"I won't." Seol's thumb rubbed across the head, once, twice. "Come for me."

Jae-ryeong came with his fists knotted in the blanket and his mouth open on Seol's name.

Seol stroked him through it, patient and unhurried, until he was empty.

For a while the only sound was Jae-ryeong's breathing.

Seol took a cloth from his sleeve and wiped Jae-ryeong's stomach clean, with great care.

Then he eased the last needle out from where it had fallen.

His face was close.

Jae-ryeong looked at Seol's mouth.

Seol looked at his.

"No," Seol said softly, and drew back.

"I don't kiss."

"You just did that to me."

"That's treatment." Seol's voice was steady, and his hands, Jae-ryeong saw, were not.

"I'll be back tomorrow at the hour of the rat. Drink the cup. Stay away from the east cliff."

"Why the east cliff?"

Seol had already gone to the window.

He stood against the dark with his hair lifting in the night wind.

"Because somebody in this house wants you to have an accident," he said, without turning.

Then he was over the sill.

Jae-ryeong went to the window and leaned out.

Seol was on the roof tile, going away along the ridge.

At the edge, he stopped.

He put his gloved hand flat on the tile.

His shoulders were shaking.

It was not cold and it was not fear.

He looked utterly drained.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend