Chapter 60: His person.

Lorcan’s sudden move sent Colm sprawling to the floor, and the room went silent.

Oisín looked up, startled, and his eyes locked on Lorcan.

Lorcan stood in front of him like a shield, blocking Colm’s view of him completely.

Oisín was stunned. "Your Highness..."

But Lorcan ignored him. He kicked the edge of the table, and Colm flinched. Lorcan sneered. "Is it your place to punish my person?"

Oisín’s fingers twitched.

...His person?

In Lorcan’s head, the System blared an alarm. "Ahhhhhh! What are you doing? There are still lines left in the plot!"

Lorcan told it to stay calm. "Calm down." He glanced ahead quietly. "Here it comes."

The commotion had drawn attention, and the guests nearby turned to look. Someone hurried over and said in surprise, "Goodness, Fionn, what are you doing?"

The newcomer looked gentle and refined, in a black dinner jacket of fine cloth, clearly an invited noble.

Lorcan straightened up and made his face more obedient. "Brother."

It was the empire’s first prince, Tadhg.

This character appeared only in this scene. Lorcan had no real bond with this "brother." He was just playing the part as the novel described it, where the three princes were friendly and respectful, and the Third Prince was especially obedient to his two older brothers.

Lorcan lowered his eyes and looked at the floor like a good boy, though his face stayed cold.

He hadn’t forgotten that in the novel, after Oisín died, the Third Prince was killed in a power struggle. The text was vague about it, but in a power struggle, apart from the other two princes, no one else wanted the Third Prince dead.

Tadhg was surprised. His eyes swept over Oisín, rested there briefly, then moved to Colm. "Fionn, Colm, what’s going on?"

Lorcan sneered. "Tell Colm to stay out of what isn’t his business."

The novel described the Third Prince as moody and unpredictable, so this outburst didn’t break his character at all.

"...Isn’t his business?"

Tadhg’s eyes passed over Oisín again, and then he smiled. "Why spoil the mood? We all move in the same circles and will see each other often. There’s plenty of fun to be had without fixing on one female, don’t you think?"

He helped Colm up, smiling. "Fionn has always had this temper. He hates it when others touch his things. Please be patient with him."

Colm quickly agreed. "Yes, yes, yes."

Tadhg then pulled Lorcan up and advised him. "Our Fionn is an adult now. He can’t be so wilful any more, especially..."

He glanced at Oisín again and said coolly, "A female who turns on his former fiancé with clear evidence against him, shows no regret, and then flatters an imperial prince is not worth cherishing, is he?"

"..."

Oisín bowed slightly. "Your Highness is right to scold me."

The first prince didn’t look at him. He stepped in front of Lorcan and coaxed him. "Come on, don’t be angry. I’ve prepared a coming-of-age gift for you."

He was playing the perfect gentleman.

This scene was in the novel, so Lorcan wasn’t surprised. He pretended to be excited and grabbed Tadhg’s arm. "What gift?"

Tadhg smiled faintly. "Made especially for grown males. You’ll like it."

He led Lorcan into the side hall and waved to a corner. A waiter quickly brought a black leather case and laid it flat on the long table.

Tadhg’s fingers brushed the case, as if by chance. "The females of the Collins Family are nothing but trouble. You’ve been too close to him. What has Oisín done to win you over, that you’d protect him like this?"

This was the original plot, word for word.

Lorcan took the cue and said lazily, "What else? He has a pretty face, and I want the Collins Family’s money. It really is that simple."

The first prince nodded, satisfied.

Lorcan looked at the case. "Enough of that, Brother. Where’s my gift?"

Tadhg handed him the case. "Here. A new high-end product from the pheromone research centre. I only have two."

Lorcan undid the clasp. Inside, on velvet, lay a cherry-pink drink. The liquid was crystal clear, almost dreamlike.

Bright colours like that are rare in food, and when they do appear, it usually means poison.

Lorcan took it. He already knew what it was, but he read the label and pretended to be curious. "What is this?"

"Just a little something to add some fun," Tadhg said with a knowing smile. "Oisín is a bit difficult, isn’t he? Let him try this, and he’ll depend on you completely. Once he’s cut off from your pheromones, it’ll be worse than death. I promise he’ll be begging and screaming for your attention."

Lorcan calmly admired the liquid, but his right hand tightened on the bottle’s neck until his fingertips went white.

In the first half of the book, Oisín’s suffering came from the Third Prince and Colm. But what finally led to his living death and his end in a faraway land was this small bottle of pink liquid.

It was a pheromone-based addiction drug.

Zerg pheromones had always been a major research field. They could bring down the strongest military female and put him through hell, or heal hidden wounds and calm a troubled mind. Because there were so few males, most females relied on artificial pheromones. That made the pheromone research centre the empire’s top scientific institution.

It developed pheromone substitutes and, with approval from above, ran profitable experiments. Addictive formulas were among its products.

In a normal pairing, there were ups and downs because of pheromones, and Oisín, for example, especially liked being close to Lorcan. But being apart was only uncomfortable, not deadly. With an addictive drug, it became agony that crushed the soul.

And like the banned drugs in humanity’s past, this one badly damaged the nervous system. After drinking it, Oisín would become a shadow of his old self, unable to even hold a gun steady.

The first prince seemed almost eager to see Oisín fall.

Lorcan thought for a moment, then asked quietly, "016, is this the same stuff Oisín seized in the 23rd District?"

When they visited the Third Army, they had seen black-market samples, and 016 had taken a drop for analysis.

Where Tadhg couldn’t see, the liquid in Lorcan’s hand rippled slightly. A tiny drop evaporated, and its full chemical formula appeared on the System’s screen.

016: "It’s not the same. The effects are different, but the way it’s made is very similar. What you saw in the 23rd District looks like an early version of this."

"So someone, in order to make this, ran experiments and produced a huge batch of early versions, which are illegal pheromone drugs. And those drugs flowed into the black market of the 23rd District and were used by innocent females?"

016: "Yes."

Lorcan: "Can we find where it’s made? Is it in the 23rd District?"

Fake pheromone drugs had always been a cheap, very profitable, illegal business. The huge cash flow from fake injections was enough to tempt the empire’s high officials. Mass production needed advanced factories, which couldn’t be on the capital planet. They had to be on remote, empty planets.

016: "I can’t tell yet if it’s made in the 23rd District. I need air samples from there to analyse."

Medicine factories need to be sterile, but they don’t filter out the air completely. Air differs from planet to planet. With a sample, 016 could work it out.

Lorcan: "I’ll figure that out later."