2. Mãi mơ về tội lỗi của chính mình

2. Always Dreaming Of My Own Sin

Having once resolved to live, he could not simply stay as he was. If asked what exactly could not stay as it was, he had nothing specific to say — but he felt the urge to prepare, like a widow who sets a yellow flower on the windowsill each day for a husband who will return tomorrow.

He crept to the riverbank under cover of darkness, avoiding watchful eyes. The river, sunk in gloom, caught some stray light and rippled like a black serpent with white scales. The petal he had set adrift not long ago would have been carried by that current all the way to the sea. Perhaps it had met the two petals he'd sent before it.

He scooped the cloudy water and washed his face, washed his hair. He scrubbed his clothes — filthy beyond any hope of salvaging. His fingers, withered and strengthless, could barely knead the wet, stubborn fabric. No matter how many times he dunked and wrung it, the stains would not lift. He had never done laundry properly in his life.

Should have learned.

Regret crept in over the smallest things.

For now, making his clothes even slightly cleaner was what mattered, so he stayed in the cold water, naked, until his fingertips were wrinkled beyond recognition. Washing his body in a running river with no soap and no brush was utterly unfamiliar. He slipped on the mossy stones and fell more than once. He swallowed some water. But he scrubbed himself for as long as he could manage.

Oh — this is a disaster.

Bathing at night to avoid prying eyes had been a sound idea, but wearing soaked clothes at dawn was unbearable. Aeroc, shivering violently, rummaged through the rubbish heap in a back corner, searching for something — anything — to cover himself with. He found nothing.

If he stayed like this, his body temperature would drop to a dangerous level. With no fat left to burn on a frame pushed to its absolute limit, surviving the night was tantamount to suicide. He had only just decided to live, and already a crisis. After a long hesitation, Aeroc left his hiding spot and headed for another alley.

"Hey. Get up. Time to earn your keep."

A rough kick woke him. Aeroc opened his eyes inside a ramshackle shed — reeking, filthy, but at least proof against the night dew. The old, dusty blanket he'd been sleeping under was smeared with the semen he'd had to receive through the night. The man who had kicked him left the shed immediately. Aeroc's clothes, set out by his head, were nearly dry.

Before pulling them on, he pushed his fingers into his anus and scraped out the congealed semen, then wiped between his legs on the blanket. Ignoring the burning sting, he forced his cramping legs to carry him outside. The man who had provided a warm blanket and shelter last night — at the cost of three rounds of sex — now held out food.

"How many times?"

"You swallowed every drop I had in my sack last night, so I've got nothing left to feed you. Work instead."

The man pointed with a thick, hairy hand at a sack of flour. Aeroc stared blankly, not understanding. The man said, bluntly:

"Move those over there. Drop one and tear the bag or ruin the flour, I'll wring your neck. And don't set foot in the kitchen where the oven is. You'll spread disease."

He tied a white apron around his waist and disappeared into what appeared to be the kitchen. Aeroc did as he was told and tried to lift a sack of flour as big as his torso. More precisely, he tried, staggered, set it back down, and after several groaning attempts managed to hoist it onto the stone slab the man had indicated.

Every joint screamed from moving a single sack. He'd strained so hard his teeth were loose. Could anything in the world be heavier? While Aeroc caught his breath and rubbed his knees and wrists, the man glanced outside and bellowed:

"Move them faster or you won't get so much as a moldy crust!"

Aeroc flinched at the thunderclap of a voice and nodded. He hurried to the second sack.

That afternoon, for the first time in his life, Aeroc earned bread through honest labor: two loaves and a small measure of sugar. Converted to coin, it was cheap work — barely worth a single copper. When he stared down at the first thing he had ever earned with his own hands, the man barked that given the quality of the labor provided, this was already generous pay.

He was probably right. After a full day of hauling, his legs trembled and his arms had gone limp. Of roughly thirty flour sacks, he had dropped one, tearing the bag and spilling white flour across the floor. He'd been kicked hard in the thigh for that. But the man ran a bakery and was not entirely without decency — he'd handed over the promised wages.

Aeroc tore apart the white flesh of his hard-earned bread, dipped it in the soft brown sugar, and put it in his mouth. It was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. He wanted to savor it, to make this extraordinary bread last as long as possible, but when he came to his senses he had already devoured one whole loaf. His mouth watered, and the remaining sugar and second loaf called to him relentlessly, but he cinched the bag shut with a firm hand.

If he ate it all today, tomorrow he would starve. On the streets, you learned that avoiding tomorrow's hunger mattered more than today's fullness. And so he saved the bread — the first act of thrift in his life.

While staying in the bakery shed, Aeroc spread his legs whenever the man demanded — he had no choice — but he told the man he would rather work. The man did not look pleased. But soon something changed his mind, and he nodded. In return, he asked whether Aeroc would consent to something a bit different at night.

"Fine. But from now on — not inside."

"Ha. A worn-out alpha whore, and now you get picky."

"If you won't agree, I won't do it."

"Hmph. Fine."

Fortunately, the man believed Aeroc was an alpha. There were no obvious heat symptoms, and no detectable omega scent. Aeroc himself could not tell when his heats came. He only knew a heat had passed — and another pregnancy had begun and ended simultaneously — when a bloody clot slid out between his legs. His body, remade overnight, was still foreign to him.

He learned quickly enough what the man's "something different" meant. One night the man appeared with three or four of his companions. Aeroc had taken two at once before, but never this many alphas at the same time. And these men were large. They seized Aeroc's limbs as he tried to shrink away, played with him like a toy, and violated his torn anus again and again.

"This is really an alpha? Clenching and dripping like this?"

"Smells like alpha. Mixed with some omega, but that's because this guy here's been real sweet to him."

The men took turns raping his wasted body, and when that was not enough, they penetrated him simultaneously and unloaded enormous quantities of semen. Aeroc, writhing in agony as his anus split, glared at the man who had made the promise and protested.

"Ngh — ah — I said not — inside — urk, hk!"

"I didn't. My buddy here did. Heh heh."

He bit down on his lips. His body had gone numb, and he could do nothing but surrender to their rough hands. Before long, he was drenched in semen from head to foot. After the men had sated themselves and left, Aeroc began to retch. The semen he hadn't managed to swallow came back up through his nose along with the bile.

After vomiting up the semen, he spread his legs and pushed his fingers into an anus so raw that the lightest touch drew a scream, scraping out what remained. Had he not been biting the blanket, he might have bitten through his tongue. He worked his fingers in again and again until nothing was left under his nails but blood. Then Aeroc pressed his ashen face into the blanket and collapsed.

Being taken by several men at once was agonizing beyond description. As his flickering vision dimmed, his dazed mind — against every wish to think of nothing — ignored its owner's command entirely. Associative memory kicked in, triggered by similar experience. Something several times more terrible than this, surely — the sin he himself had committed raised its head.

*   *   *

Rapiel Westport was, without question, quintessentially omega. He was short, and even for an omega — male though he was — so petite he fit neatly into the crook of one's arm. Few people, regardless of designation, provoked such an instinctive urge to protect.

Beyond being omega, however, there was not a single quality in which he surpassed Aeroc. He was not especially learned, nor possessed of any particular talent. In aristocratic society, he was as common as the stones littering the roadside — a perfectly ordinary person. He was not even especially beautiful. He had a certain charm, true enough — pleasant to look at — but he would never in a thousand years be called a beauty.

Despite the undeniable difference between alpha and omega, even if one relaxed the exacting standards of aesthetic judgment considerably, it was nearly impossible to call Rapiel more beautiful than Aeroc. Unlike the count — who, though perhaps a touch severe in expression, warranted the phrase handsome as a painting — Rapiel's small, round features, generously appraised, amounted to nothing more than "cute."

Moreover, his blond hair was paler than Aeroc's, and his blue-green eyes were flecked with grey — a far cry from Aeroc's irises, which gleamed like floris-grade sapphires. The Westport viscounty, a distant branch of the Teiwind line, was not disreputable but hardly the sort of house that could firmly support a son-in-law's ambitions.

Why would anyone choose such an unremarkable person? Had Kloff been seeing someone entirely different, Aeroc might have found it easier to accept. Kloff was not the kind of man to favor someone who was merely a lesser copy of Aeroc simply because that person happened to be omega.

It was an uncomfortable truth that — despite the gap in quality being so glaring Aeroc found it offensive even to acknowledge — the two were sometimes mistaken for siblings, so strong was their resemblance. There had to be another reason Kloff had chosen that Rapiel, of all people.

After much deliberation, Aeroc concluded it was a provocation — a device to deny Aeroc the upper hand. Childish, but devastatingly effective. Every time he saw the two of them together, Aeroc was consumed by a jealousy that felt like fire.

He had attended a tedious dinner at the Derbyshire viscounty for the sole purpose of seeing Kloff. Late that evening, after the party broke up and guests were preparing to leave, Aeroc waited in the lobby for the count's carriage to arrive. A crush of departing carriages had caused a bottleneck, and Aeroc paced the colonnade with a slightly tightened expression.

Over there — at the far edge of the garden, where almost no light reached — two figures were pressed close together. For young nobles of marriageable age, formal gatherings at the homes of distinguished families were the only occasions where they could openly court. Unless a couple were formally engaged, being privately invited to the other's home implied a heat-sharing arrangement or some equally intimate relationship — cause for vicious gossip. Since Aeroc had not yet heard any report of Kloff visiting Rapiel privately, their relationship was surely still nothing more than innocent courtship.

And yet — to cling to each other like that in the open garden of someone else's estate, however secluded, however unlikely they were to be discovered? Had they taken leave of their senses? The sight was repellent, and he considered ignoring them entirely. But since Rapiel was his relative, they shared a public reputation, and a word of caution was in order.

The two were so absorbed they did not notice someone approaching. They whispered to each other with soft laughter close to the ear. Revulsion surged. Aeroc drew closer still and saw Kloff gathering Rapiel's small hands in both of his, pressing his lips to each bandaged fingertip in turn. The shock struck Aeroc speechless. Kloff held the small omega in his deep, unwavering gaze and murmured against the fingertips:

"No matter how rough and scarred they may be — to me, these are the most beautiful and beloved hands in the world."

At those words, Rapiel flushed to his ears and could manage nothing but his name — "Kloff." That was all. This was no pretense. By every measure, this was an omega helplessly in love, and the alpha who drew him close with a long arm, who tilted his head to press their foreheads together as though the creature before him were unutterably precious — he was real.

That was all Aeroc could bear. He was not possessed of the shameless vulgarity required to stand and watch two people kiss.

His legs trembled as he crossed the short colonnade. His fists were clenched tight. His heels struck the floor far faster and louder than usual. Had his father still been alive to witness the scene, he might well have dragged his grown son to the study and taken a cane to him even now.

The carriage was ready. Aeroc barely draped the coat offered by Derbyshire's footman over his shoulders before vaulting inside. The carriage departed at once, and at Aeroc's signal accelerated further. In the jolting cabin, he could finally let the corners of his spasming mouth fall.

The belated thought came: perhaps it had all been his imagination. His pride, mortally wounded, nearly unseated his reason.

Kloff had accepted the count's invitations — but only when Rapiel was included. If Rapiel was not invited, Kloff did not appear, so there was no option but to invite her. Watching the two of them stroll together, sheltering each other with tender intimacy, Aeroc was so blinded by jealousy he could not think straight. How could this be happening?

Using as a pretext a fashionable trend he privately despised — casual, no-strings affairs between same-designation pairs — he had made Kloff a proposition no better than a pig in heat. Of course he'd expected rejection. But he had believed such an abject appeal would at least draw some measure of sympathy. Even that had cost him the last shreds of his pride — that was how desperately he wanted the man.

But the merciless Kloff had crushed the offer with devastating words, leaving no room at all, and Aeroc experienced something he had never felt before: the skin beneath his eyes twitching, the corners burning. He had imagined he could administer a small, elegant humiliation, but he had never dreamed he would be condemned so nakedly.

The situation was beyond comprehension. Aeroc despised both Kloff and his lover for inflicting this wretchedness upon him. He swore never to acknowledge either of them again. He walked the cedar path, trying to quiet the jealousy boiling unbidden inside him, but it did nothing for his peace of mind. If anything, the sharp, cool scent of the cedars resembled the body scent of the person he did not wish to recall, and it only tormented him further.

For a long while he barricaded himself inside the manor and threw himself into everything that might occupy his mind — music, books, riding, chess. He read the classics over and over in the study with strong tea, and in the end even devoured the gardening manuals he had barely touched. After months of near-seclusion, the things he had crammed into his head finally managed to crowd out the memories he did not wish to revisit.

When he could smile smoothly again, Aeroc held the tea party he had been putting off. It seemed better to fulfill his aristocratic duty among a manageable crowd, exchanging pleasant conversation, than to be alone. Light greetings, talk of affairs at home and abroad — before long it felt as though he had returned to the way things were.

Or so he deceived himself. From one gossiping alpha in heat, he heard the news: Kloff and Rapiel were engaged. The smile that had stiffened slightly deepened further.

He should have stopped then. If he could not bear the sight, he should have left — taken a long journey abroad, put the whole thing out of view. But Aeroc could not do that. The ugly jealousy had not been purged by months of seclusion. On the contrary — as though resentful of the attempt to suppress it — what had been a smoldering ember erupted into a roaring blaze.

The newly married couple, having wed before the year was out, were invited everywhere. Kloff, now responsible for a household, had started a private investment management firm, and building connections was a natural part of the work. And many people were genuinely taken with the young pair. Aeroc had to endure the agony of watching the happy couple while his insides burned to ash.

Rapiel had never been unattractive, but after the marriage she glowed with a radiance that even Aeroc had to acknowledge. Her cheeks perpetually flushed as though in a dream, she leaned naturally into the arms of a husband who held her with exquisite tenderness, and people called her not brazen but lovely. A devastating sense of defeat and humiliation rose in Aeroc. Even if he had been omega, even if he had become Kloff's lover — he knew with absolute certainty that he could never do what Rapiel did so effortlessly.

Something he could never have.

It was the first time he had known true failure. A disappointment in himself, a fury at himself. Every first is unfamiliar and difficult to manage.

The monstrous emotion he had barely been holding at bay finally began to consume him when, at one of Derbyshire's tea parties, he saw Rapiel — belly now too large to conceal — surrounded by well-wishers offering blessings. It shattered the dam of reason he had desperately maintained and burst through in a torrent.

The alpha who would soon be a father pressed a kiss to the crown of his seated omega, then turned to fix his gaze on the man standing a short distance away — a man whose face must have been deathly pale and ghastly. Kloff gave him a mocking sneer. The runaway emotions had already flooded every inch of the count, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

When a man who had believed with absolute certainty that he had never once been wounded discovers for the first time a torn place in his chest — and when that man possesses a pride that borders on arrogance — the unfamiliar wound incites a violence he never intended.

Whether by chance or guided by the unconscious, Aeroc found himself standing in the gutter — a place he had never set foot in his life. He threw gold coins to the packs of dogs with their craven eyes and crushing jaws, and demanded they tear apart the most beautiful bride in the world.

*   *   *

The dogs' rough teeth had mauled him, but not enough to kill. The next morning his limbs creaked, but Aeroc was unmistakably alive. Perhaps not enough dignity remained to warrant death. Or perhaps it simply was not yet his time. He could not say.

The men had taken a liking to Aeroc. At intervals neither frequent nor especially rare, they descended on him in a pack. Rolling in the gutter, the terror he had not felt since his first miscarriage surged back. He did not want to go through that again. With no pride left to protect, Aeroc fawned and cajoled and did his best to take their loads in his mouth so they would not finish inside him — but two or three times, he had to swallow them from below.

Too exhausted to fall asleep at once, Aeroc staggered up to find somewhere to wash. He had been staying in the bakery shed for some time now, but he was still not permitted inside the house.

There was nothing to be done. Even in the gutter, no one would gladly let a street-used whore into their home. The shed was just an old tool storage — nothing more than a dusty, cobwebbed warehouse — so there was nowhere nearby to wash. Aeroc had to limp the considerable distance to the river.

The great black serpent glinted with silver scales tonight as well. Its cold tongue climbed from his skeletal ankles to his calves, his knees, his thighs, washing away filth that was not his own. Since the night he had nearly died of hypothermia from bathing too late, he had resolved to wash only what was necessary.

Aeroc shuddered as the cold water bored into his body. He wanted desperately to get out, but if he didn't wash thoroughly, something might happen again. He could never tell when his heats came and went, and repeated miscarriages did not mean he could not conceive. Please let nothing come of this. Praying, Aeroc stayed in the water until he had nearly lost all sensation below the waist.

A long time later, shivering from crown to sole, he dragged his deadened feet out. With nothing proper to dry himself, he shook off the water and pulled on his trousers. The thin fabric clung to his wet legs. Aeroc rubbed his thighs, trying to suppress the ceaseless gooseflesh, but it did little good. He wanted nothing more than to get back to the shed and rest.

Cutting through one alley after another, too busy peeling the fabric from his legs to look ahead, he raised his head to find himself on a strangely bright street. He blinked and shielded his eyes against the artificial glare. He had wandered to the front of a night café without realizing.

Startled by the stares of people examining the beggar who had appeared from nowhere, Aeroc spun around. Outside the gutter he was nothing but vermin — merely being seen was enough to earn a beating that could kill. He had learned that in his bones during his first year on these streets.

Aeroc checked again and again over his shoulder for anyone following as he ran toward the darkness. He didn't need to watch where he was going — the stench of the sewers guided him. But that smell was suddenly blocked by something else. His legs, moving blindly, failed to register the change and carried him several steps further, straight into someone's path.

"Hk."

He clapped both hands over the startled sound and crouched down, making himself small. An instinct beaten into him — the smaller the target, the lighter the blows. But no kick came, no fist. The person he had collided with merely spoke in a curt, displeased voice:

"Watch where you're going."

His tightly shut eyes flew open. A cool sweep of fabric brushed past his crouching body. Like a sunflower drawn helplessly toward its sun, he turned toward the trailing hem, rose to his feet of his own accord, and followed as though spellbound. His thin fingers reached out and caught the fabric — a cloth so fine it gleamed richly even under the faint gaslight. The figure stopped dead and looked back. Dark irises. A creased brow. Lips pressed shut.

"What? Do you have something to say?"

A voice of deep resonance. Aeroc stepped closer. His haggard face, half-hidden in shadow, slid into the orange lamplight. The man who saw it grimaced.

"Kloff."

The name came out surprisingly easily. Only then did the man open his eyes wide, as though startled.

"Aeroc?"

Kloff stiffened for an instant, seemingly shocked, then the corner of his mouth curled up. He knocked Aeroc's hand from his coat with a brusque swipe. He smoothed the barely wrinkled fabric a few times, then tossed out his familiar sneer.

"Still alive, are you."

Ah. What was there left to hurt? Aeroc was faintly surprised that any capacity for inner pain still functioned. He'd thought it all dead, but apparently not. At the same time, every faculty that might have spun wildly out of control had been lost too, so he managed a smile with relative ease. He had no answer to the question of whether he was alive, so he offered a simple greeting instead.

"It's been a while."

He had already glimpsed Kloff and the child from a distance some time ago, and that brief sighting had peeled back yet another layer from his tattered heart — so he was not caught off guard. As though this moment were something he had been waiting for, Aeroc studied Kloff with unhurried attention. He had no firm sense of how many years had passed, but however many, they had not been enough to alter this formidable alpha. Kloff was still as unyielding and magnificent as a hero from myth. And on the lips Aeroc had once believed incapable of feeling — a naked, unmistakable sneer.

"Well, it has been a while. I never imagined I'd run into you in a place like this."

"I happened to be passing through."

"Ah — an evening stroll, I see. Such a light outfit I didn't recognize you at all."

With an exaggerated show of delight, Kloff looked pointedly down at Aeroc's bare feet. Following his gaze, Aeroc shifted his feet together, coloring faintly, and slipped his hands behind his back. Kloff smiled — softly.

"The Count of Teiwind must have much on his mind of late, to step out for a nighttime walk and forget his shoes. As someone who once enjoyed your fine tea and cakes, I'm ashamed not to have noticed sooner. I'd strip off my own shoes and coat this instant, but the size wouldn't fit — and it would only be an affront to a man of the count's refinement."

"That's—"

He tried to refuse. More than the mockery, the thought of receiving a coat drenched in Kloff's body scent terrified him. His body, born alpha, had been remade into omega for Kloff alone. After so long without proximity, that scent would be all the more seductive, and even a body too broken to cycle through heat properly might react in ways he couldn't predict. The thought of going into heat in the gutter was too horrific to contemplate.

What little color he had drained from his face entirely. Kloff let out a small huff of laughter, then drew something from the inside of his coat and tossed it at those filthy feet.

Clink.

Even in the dim light, it glittered fiercely — a silver coin. Aeroc looked up at him, uncomprehending. Kloff met his eyes with a gaze that held not a trace of amusement and hurled his contempt like a stone.

"Go buy yourself some clothes. Who would believe you were ever a count, looking like that."

Before Aeroc could form a reply, Kloff turned without the slightest hesitation and strode toward the light. His long shadow, cast by the tall frame, thinned and faded until it vanished entirely. Aeroc stood rooted to the spot the whole time.