“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Vitor, yes. Don’t worry like that, please. Everything will be fine.”

“I can’t,” said Kors, “I can’t…”

The fear of losing his love didn’t let him go.

He pushed Nik slightly away from him, peering into the faceless blackness of the mask and the narrow slits for his eyes. He saw how Nik was looking at him intently, how he blinked, and this made his light eyelids visible in the slits of the mask for a second, and the eyelashes almost rubbed against the edge and prevented him from blinking. Kors practically howled and inaccurately pulled off his mask, and Nik hissed barely audibly. Now Kors saw his white face, and the way Nick wrinkled his nose from the fact that Kors pulled off the mask from his face, involuntarily painfully pulled on his hair. Long bangs immediately fell on his forehead and eyes, obscuring them. Recently, Nik’s hair has always been clean and combed, and the bangs, cut by strands of different lengths, have become even more naughty.

The blonde strands that Kors loved so much were so thick and fluffy that they covered not only Nik’s right eye and cheek, as before, but literally the entire upper part of her face. And now Kors saw only his pierced lips with two thick carved half-blood rings.

“It seems like it’s time to cut your bangs,” Kors said with affection and as if thinking aloud, “or, maybe, leave it to grow some more…”

Slightly sliding it back, he ran his fingers into the roots of his hair, enjoying its color, softness and density, opening his bright devoted eyes, pressed his boy to his chest with force again and in despair began to sway from side to side, thus trying calm down and at the same time, as it were, rocking Nik. At some point, Kors very clearly heard Nik jerk sharply in his arms. This is what people do when they fall asleep, and Nik, from the affectionate hugs and rocking, fell asleep in Kors’ arms like a child. Kors felt how much Nik loved him. He was not worried or hurt by what Kors wrote about him. Nik trusted him, was not afraid of anything, he was with his tough and best father, and he was calm and happy. And, having caught these emotions in the head of his son, Kors, despite all the fears, felt boundless happiness. Nik considered him very brave, handsome, noble, true black, elite, the best. Nik was proud of him and the fact that he was his father. Kors couldn’t help crying again. Not daring to wake Nik, he awkwardly wiped away his tears and looked at Arel:

“Arel, I love you very much, you are also my son. Call me Vitor if you want.”

Arel got up and covered the stone flower jar with a rag. It became dark in the tent. The prince lay down next to Kors, and Kors, having neatly laid Nik down, hugged Arel. So he lay between them, hugging his boys to him:

“Everything will be fine, and a great future awaits us,” he said to Arel, apparently trying to convince himself of this not the prince, but himself.

Arel pressed closer to him, falling asleep, and Kors, hearing their measured breathing, also fell into a short and anxious sleep. Very soon he woke up. It seemed to him that he had dozed off for only a minute, but it was already dawn, and in the gray predawn haze Kors saw some terrible creature next to him. Very thin, like a skeleton, it seemed to consist of only sharp bones and ribs, tightly covered with shiny black skin with tightly attached scales, like a snake, and this vile creature, curled up into a ball, gently pressed against Kors. It lay next to him, very close, embracing him with several long, articulated appendages, like spider legs. Not yet fully awake, Kors involuntarily cried out, experiencing some indescribable deep horror, and, recoiling, he unconsciously pushed the abomination away from himself with force, also hitting the protruding ribs. At the same moment he heard a choked sob, and the darkness fell asleep. Kors looked at his boy with all his eyes, and he sat and looked at him. Yes, his body was thin and black from tattoos, but beautiful and not at all disgusting and his face was so familiar, and now it is also confused: