Read Novel Full Chapter 865: You are not Kraven, are you?
Chapter 865: You are not Kraven, are you?
The words were not boastful. It was a reflection, the one that he had never gotten a chance to.
Vanessa remained silent for a few seconds, absorbing what he had said. The playful edge from earlier had faded, replaced by something strange. Her hands tightened on the railing and her breathing had suddenly gone faster.
Julian, still caught too deeply in his own reflections, did not immediately notice the shift in her.
Vanessa turned away from him.
“You are not Kraven, are you?”
The words jolted Julian back to reality.
Everything he had just spoken washed through his mind at once.
In trying to answer her honestly, he had subconsciously made himself look suspicious. Vanessa had always carried doubts about him after he returned from exile. Recently those doubts had softened, and she had begun to open up again. Now, in a single unguarded conversation, he had dragged all of that suspicion back to the surface.
Should I kill her?
A cold thought rose in his mind.
The idea formed and was discarded almost in the same breath.
It was not a practical solution.
Her death would create more problems than it solved, especially on the eve of the King’s arrival. He needed another way.
Julian forced a natural-sounding chuckle.
“Vanessa, what are you saying?”
She remained facing away from him.
“You are too different to be the real Kraven.”
Julian’s smile stayed in place.
“I will take that as a compliment,” he replied.
“But I am being honest here. If we were talking about the past, then yes, I would say there were many things I kept hidden in my heart. The weight of being the Duke’s son. The pressure of meeting everyone’s expectations. My own ambitions. My own desires. All of it stacked on top of each other until it became too much for me to handle.”
Vanessa did not turn around, but he could tell from the stillness of her posture that she was listening closely.
“I agree that the obsession I had with you and Mother is something I could never truly obtain,”
He continued.
“And yes, you might think that some part of me still wants that. You would not be wrong. Some corner of my heart still does.”
At that, Vanessa finally turned to face him.
The truth in the statement seemed to cut through part of her suspicion. Her expression was complicated. There was confusion in it, and guilt, and something that looked almost like a sympathy.
Julian held her gaze without looking away.
“Yes, Vanessa,” he said. “My feelings for you go beyond what a brother should feel for his sister. That is something I will not hide from you. And yes, in some corner of myself, I may still want us to be more.”
Her lips parted slightly, but no words came out at once. The night wind moved between them, tugging lightly at her hair. For a moment she looked younger somehow, less like the composed future queen and more like someone caught between old memories and an uncomfortable present.
“But that being said, I have learned to accept things as they are. No matter what I want, you are my sister. That fact remains. And once I accepted that some things in this world are simply not meant to be, I realized there was really nothing left that I wanted and did not eventually receive. The rest… I learned to live without.”
Vanessa searched his face for a long time.
The suspicion had not completely disappeared from her eyes, but it had been tangled up with something else now.
The confession of lingering improper affection was ugly and familiar enough to sound like the Kraven she remembered. At the same time, the calm way he spoke did not fully match the reckless brother of the past.
“But…” Vanessa muttered, her voice barely holding together, “you have changed too much. How can someone change so much in such a small period of time?”
The moment her words finished, Julian closed the fragile distance between them.
It was not abrupt in a violent way. It was quiet and inevitable. One step, then another, until there was almost no space left.
Their eyes locked.
Vanessa’s breath caught as she finally registered how close he had come. Before she could fully process what he intended, he leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her lips.
It was brief.
But it was gentle, strangely comforting and conveyed emotions that could not have been said in words.
Vanessa’s eyes widened immediately. Her body went still, caught between shock and something far more complicated. Her hands flailed helplessly, unsure what she could even do in a situation like this.
Then, just as sudden the kiss was, Julian pulled away.
Only a little. He remained still close enough that his breath brushed her skin when he spoke.
“I have not changed,” he said quietly.
Vanessa could not speak. Her thoughts had short-circuited, and her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. A warm blush bloomed across her face, and in that stunned moment the suspicions from earlier seemed to fade all at once.
“What are you doing…?” she murmured in a shy, unsteady tone.
“Proving to you that I am the same old younger brother, Kraven.”
“You… you didn’t have to… um… kiss…”
“I know,” Julian said. “But I could not resist. You look exceptionally beautiful today.”
Vanessa’s blush deepened. She did not utter another word. More accurately, she could not.
Whatever reply she might have formed stayed trapped behind the rapid rhythm of her breathing and the lingering shock of the contact.
step step
Then, finally, Julian created a little more distance between them. His gaze shifted toward the darkened duchy beyond the balcony, where only scattered lights marked the sleeping estate.
“Remember this, Vanessa. Everyone suffers. But not everyone is blessed in the same way, and even among those who suffer, weight of those suffering is never identical.”
He rested his hands lightly on the stone railing.