8. Blue Blooded

8. Blue Blooded

This time, if he was cast out, there was truly nowhere left to go. He took special care not to behave as imperiously as she had during the second pregnancy. She did not torment the servants who delivered her provisions, and she did not starve herself. She tried, as far as she was able, to live quietly and without fuss.

But nothing came easy when you had never done it before in your life. He cut his hands so often peeling potatoes that he might as well have been making blood soup. He tore his clothes in several places while doing laundry. It took an entire day to light the kitchen stove, and sometimes he cracked his head on something while cleaning and raised a lump. Even so — clumsily, haltingly — he managed.

Kloff came once a day. He said nothing, merely surveyed the cottage inside and out and checked that Aeroc was in reasonable condition. While the man inspected his property to confirm it had survived the night, Aeroc stood nervously, unable to speak, and watched him in return.

He was, as always, as beautiful as a hero from a northern myth. Ascetic in dress, intellectual in feature, yet powerfully built as an alpha should be — and when the heat came, he knew how to hold with passion. So much had happened that Aeroc sometimes felt afraid, sometimes sad — but still, he was happy. On the rare occasions their eyes met, he offered an awkward smile. Kloff would immediately knit his brow in displeasure and glare.

"No pride at all, you—"

What he had meant to call him was clear enough without hearing the rest. Aeroc had once, consumed by jealousy, told Kloff to his face that a person without pride was not human but vermin. That had been when Kloff, still Rapiel's fiancé, had stepped in to shield his beloved from a barbed humiliation Aeroc had aimed at her — and for his trouble had been publicly embarrassed. That must have been when Aeroc had said it.

To remember every last thing. You really do have a brilliant mind.

Aeroc simply smiled.

Living in the cottage, his body recovering somewhat with regular meals, mild heats began returning even during pregnancy. At the manor, he had thrown himself into the cold man's arms in a disheveled frenzy. That was no longer an option. Alone, Aeroc gripped his stiff cock and pushed his fingers into the slick, wet place, and endured.

But there was no relief at all. Already weak, the recurring fevers exhausted him quickly. He would collapse into sleep, then wake burning again, twisting and writhing, panting and moaning. It would last days.

One night, Kloff came. He stood in silence, looking down at the omega flushed with heat. Aeroc, belly large and body contorting, felt himself growing wetter under that gaze and could barely manage to breathe.

It was not until much later — when Aeroc, half-mad from the alpha's body scent, lunged at him — that Kloff shoved him down with some roughness. Instinctively shielding his belly, Aeroc rolled onto his side, and Kloff seized one ankle and spread his legs apart. Without foreplay, without a murmured word, the unbearably engorged cock was driven in to the hilt in a single thrust.

"Haahh—"

"Damn. Always tight. Always."

Pleasure strobed behind his eyes, and Aeroc's mouth fell open, his body trembling. Then the rough, splitting rhythm began. The delicate inner folds were scraped raw and swelling, and by the time a faint streak of blood appeared through the tears, Aeroc had been pinned at every limb and was being fucked mercilessly.

With each violent thrust, Aeroc's limbs fluttered like a butterfly freshly pinned to a board. Saliva ran from the corner of his mouth; sweat beaded on his forehead — born equally of agony and the corresponding, enormous pleasure. Like the thin legs of a pinned butterfly convulsing, Aeroc's left leg, hooked over Kloff's shoulder, swayed in the air.

Sex was intensely painful. The sex he'd had on the streets was not so different. But heat came only when Kloff was near. He knew this for certain now. No matter how many street men had spread his legs, no matter how many pregnancies had started and ended — his body truly responded to Kloff alone. The only children who survived were his.

No matter how many others shoved their cocks into him and sucked at his body, all he felt was a mechanical climax. Nothing like this — this sensation of dying between pain and pleasure. The pleasure was so intense it felt as though every nerve cell in his body was burning out.

"Aeroc."

Kloff — who rarely made a sound even during climax — sometimes called his name during heat sex. When he did, Aeroc looked at him as though spellbound and answered: "Kloff." The pleasure intensified; his mind drifted further. People said sex with the person you love was sweet, but how could anything this scorching possibly taste sweet? The question never lasted. His alpha would not let him think. Drowned in the alpha's body scent that poured out in thick, intoxicating waves, Aeroc inhaled — deeply, so deeply — like an addict drawing smoke into his lungs. His consciousness dissolved.

The next day, waking late, Aeroc gazed at the empty place beside him — predictably empty. He had been awake for some time but had not gotten up, running his fingers absently over the creased imprint the heavy body had left in the sheet. Pregnancy was not so bad. It was good, even. Because Kloff came more often. But part of him dreaded it too. Birth always hurt, and afterward the child was taken without even a farewell.

Dazed, he pulled the blanket — still carrying traces of the alpha's scent — close and breathed deeper.

After a while, he got out of bed. His stomach was howling, and the baby, apparently furious about it, was kicking up a storm.

"Just a little patience. You need to learn to wait."

There should be two roasted potatoes left from the night before last. Better eat them before they spoiled.

The moment he tried to stand on both legs, he collapsed straight to the floor beside the bed. His legs had given out — no strength at all. The hard landing jarred his buttocks and jolted his belly. The baby, startled, stopped kicking at once. Aeroc groaned and struggled back up.

Then something hot ran down between his thighs. Seeing the whitish, faintly blood-tinged slick, he flushed. Mixed with his own scent, the alpha's body scent drifted up again. His face heated for no good reason; he rubbed it with a hand, then reached for the rag he used as a towel, wiped between his legs, and ate the potato from the stove first.

"Especially good today. Don't you think?"

The baby answered with a flurry of movement. Aeroc laughed aloud before he could stop himself.

He pumped water from the well and washed. Losing Kloff's scent was a pity, but staying unwashed meant stomach pains later, so there was no choice. After washing, a faint heat — the last echo of the heat cycle — left him tired, and he climbed into bed. The sheets still smelled faintly of Kloff. Lucky. Aeroc closed his eyes, one cheek half-hidden in the sheet, flushed a pale rose, and slept. As the pregnancy progressed, all that grew were exhaustion and sleep.

Aeroc casually mentioned to Kloff that something felt off. His body was strangely heavy and he kept falling asleep. Even measured against considerable pregnancy experience, it seemed a little abnormal — he said it with a touch of humor, trying to dispel the awkwardness left over from their recent encounter. It didn't work. Kloff regarded him with a flat stare.

"And what is it you want this time, Count?"

The bitterly twisted voice made Aeroc flinch. He must have taken it as whining again. A rebuke beginning with "How dare you, knowing your place—" seemed imminent, so Aeroc shook his head hastily.

"I don't want anything. I was just making conversation. I'm content as things are."

Something flickered in the deep brown eyes. But when Aeroc smiled, it curdled instantly into displeasure. Kloff despised it when he smiled. The problem was that it kept happening reflexively, and every time, the temperature dropped. There was nothing to be done about it.

Kloff sometimes stared at him blankly. Without saying a word. When he did, Aeroc had no better response to offer, so he sat still with a faint smile and stared back.

Occasionally — so briefly it was nearly impossible to catch — a flicker of a smile returned. When it did, Aeroc's heart felt as though it were falling, drop by drop. His fingertips trembled, so he gripped his clothing to hide it. He wanted to keep watching, to not miss that smile, but his cheeks were reddening and he did not want to be caught, so he deliberately turned his head away.

"The one who's uncomfortable is me."

Leaving this cryptic remark, Kloff stood and left without so much as a parting glance. You could stay a little longer.

Left alone, Aeroc found himself stranded in a cottage that had turned to winter. He wriggled his cold toes, then got up and wandered the suddenly empty space for no reason. He picked up a potato from the table, set it down. He ran his hand along the back of the chair Kloff had pulled out and never put back. Then he caught sight of himself in the dusty mirror on the wall.

His hair, left to grow wild, had gotten quite long. When he'd first returned to the cottage, he had cut it short; now it brushed his shoulders. The golden luster that had once gleamed like the metal itself was dull and brittle and shabby. Looking at his face properly for the first time in a while, he saw the hollowed cheeks, the drained eyes. Without the haughty expression — wearing only a faint smile — Aeroc found his own reflection strange, and at the same time struck by an odd sense of déjà vu. It was a long time before he realized who the person in the mirror resembled.

Ah. That smile just now wasn't meant for me either.

His chest ached.

Time passed, and the third birth arrived. The same midwife from the second delivery came. Unlike the previous two, this birth took place in the cottage. Through pain that felt like dying, Aeroc delivered, and before the child had drawn its first breath, the midwife cut the cord and tied the navel. The baby was immediately wrapped in soft cloth.

Three births in, Aeroc had become practiced enough not to lose consciousness entirely. Exhausted, he watched. The midwife handed the child to the father waiting outside.

The third child — the second omega — was Kloff's first daughter. He was visibly overjoyed, smiling with genuine happiness. Aeroc, watching from a body drained of all sensation, found himself smiling in echo. Kloff pressed a tender kiss to the tiny, wrinkled, reddish head, then turned and looked at him. The same irritated glare that appeared whenever Aeroc smiled — by now so familiar it was almost welcome — and Aeroc smiled a little wider.

"Well done."

Aeroc blinked. The praise was so unexpected he wanted to react more, but his body would not cooperate. He blinked rapidly, and in the space between blinks, Kloff's gaze lingered on him — then he turned and carried the child away.

He had never expected to be shown the baby, but watching that retreating back was always sad. An omega son, an alpha son, and now an omega daughter. Aeroc had three children and did not know a single one of their names.

Even a ruined house — couldn't they give at least one of them Teiwind as a middle name? Probably not.

Aeroc closed his eyes, defeated by exhaustion.

The midwife, unlike before, showed the minimal courtesy of changing the soiled sheets. With the brusque woman's help, Aeroc washed and lay down. At the bedside were painkillers and water. She had not needed them before, but now she could not manage without them.

After the midwife cleaned the floor perfunctorily and left without a word, Aeroc — alone at last — was seized by encroaching dread. He was terrified that when he next opened his eyes, it would be on a freezing stone floor. He forced his fading eyes open again and again, but the body's need was irresistible.

Groaning, Aeroc lost consciousness. Much later, he woke with a start — realizing in panic that he had been asleep — and when he saw the familiar cottage ceiling above her, a deep sigh escaped unbidden. For an instant something surged upward, but it caught in her throat and stopped. Something hot ran down the inside of her throat and kept flowing.

From the day after the birth, Kloff's visits ceased entirely.

He's busy with the new baby. As a rising economic official, he has work. There's no particular reason to come here.

Aeroc repeated these things like a mantra, suppressing the pang of disappointment, and threw herself into cottage chores.

He peeled potatoes competently now. His mending had improved. He had learned to tend a flower bed outside the front door and how to clean the fireplace. Staying busy was better. It kept him from thinking.

He scraped soot from the fireplace and hauled out the ashes that had accumulated all winter, dumping them in the flower bed. He pumped water and scrubbed the dusty cottage clean. He was skilled enough now to split the bedding into two loads. He opened the windows, mended his worn clothes, and gazed outside. When rain came, he listened to the pretty sound of the drops and the day passed quickly.

As housework grew easier, free time grew longer. He was bored. He wished for books or an instrument, and then thought: With all this time, why not make something? The idea of producing something lifted his spirits at once.

"Let's see. I can't build a violin or an oboe with what I have. A piano is out of the question. Hm. If I had pen and paper I'd write something, but using blood as ink on the bedsheets is excessive. There's really only the one option. Hard to do alone, but not impossible."

He went outside and gathered pebbles of roughly equal size. With charcoal from the stove, he marked careful patterns on each, then scored a grid on the tabletop with a paring knife. Crude, but recognizably a chessboard.

"Simple enough. Don't you think?"

He was talking to the baby out of habit, hand on his belly — but the belly had deflated long ago and was flat under his palm. He withdrew his hand, chagrined, and set it on the table. The embarrassment passed quickly; Aeroc was soon absorbed in chess.

Shadow chess — playing against oneself — was a remarkably difficult game. It demanded intense concentration and could consume an entire day. The first pure pleasure he had felt in a very long time. Aeroc's chess was quite strong. Using a brain that had gone rigid from disuse was slightly painful, but the joy of play was so rare that he found himself humming. Between moves he traced violin fingerings in the air, pondering her next gambit.

"Aeroc Teiwind, you're quite formidable. Not easily beaten. Of course not. Don't forget — I was tutored by a chess champion."

Talking to herself had become a habit. With no one to hear, there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

After three children, he felt his skin had thickened — but so what? There was no face to save anymore, no duty to uphold. This much was fine.

Then, boldly, he collapsed forward onto the table. In a lifetime of holding his back straight, shoulders squared, head erect, this was an unprecedented act of abandon. Chess pieces scattered, and he did not care — he laughed, loud and free. Face buried in his folded arms, laughing, he lifted his head on impulse — and through the open shutters, met Kloff's eyes. He took in the crude chessboard, the pebble pieces, and Aeroc's bright expression frozen mid-laugh, and spoke.

"Do you even have a heart? What exactly has to happen to you — what has to be done — before you'll be devastated and weep?"

Aeroc was deeply shaken. And baffled. What has to happen before I'll be hurt? That was something Kloff himself knew better than anyone. He had inflicted every method, beyond anything Aeroc could have imagined, upon his body, his mind, and his very soul — until all were reduced to rags. Enough, once, to mistake the debt as paid.

His house had been destroyed. He had been made Kloff's omega, impregnated — and already his pride had been demolished. The reality he'd been forced to accept had been excruciating; every birth afterward had made him question whether life was worth living. Selling his body for bread had been so wretched he thought he would lose his mind. And when he believed there was no hope left, he had tried to let go of everything. Aeroc's smile faded. He looked at Kloff — who appeared, himself, on the verge of despair — and spoke.

"I was hurt too."

"Where? Smiling like that — having a grand time — where does it hurt? My wife is rotting in the ground, weeping bitter tears day after day, and you sit here laughing and playing!"

Aeroc was even more bewildered. What — should he sit in a stupor instead? Not knowing what to say, he glanced around aimlessly and clasped his hands lightly.

"If chess bothers you, I'll stop."

"It's not about the chess! Do you even have a heart? Is there a heartbeat in that chest? Your children taken from you, living in misery — how can you just keep smiling? Was the river a scheme too? To manipulate my sympathy?"

Kloff had closed the distance in an instant and seized the startled figure by the collar, snarling. Aeroc was at a loss.

"It wasn't a scheme. I really meant to—"

Nothing he said would reach him. In those blazing, ferocious eyes, he could see his own slack, bewildered face reflected. Aeroc's expression went involuntarily soft. At that, Kloff sneered — packed with revulsion — and lashed out.

"You always flash that arrogant smile and look down on people. How noble — the aristocrat. A blue-blooded devil who doesn't even know how to shed a tear."

It was not that he wanted to smile. It was restraint, or perhaps unconscious reflex — nothing more. But Kloff did not see it that way.

As the heir of the venerable Count's household, Aeroc had been drilled in aristocratic deportment from earliest childhood. Hold your head straight. Never show excessive emotion. Wear a faint smile at all times.

Never cry. It was as natural as breathing, eating, sleeping. He attached no great significance to it. It was simply custom. Simply manners. Commoners sometimes called nobles cold-blooded devils for it. But he had never expected Kloff — himself a nobleman — to hold it against him.

He and Rapiel had been conspicuously un-aristocratic in how freely they showed their feelings. No matter what anyone said, they chose blunt, honest declarations of love over polished indirection. Even with people watching, the two whispered with the sweet intimacy of commoners — and that was what made them so endearing, and what drove the unrequited aristocrat deeper into jealousy.

Even when Aeroc — swallowing every last shred of pride, using the fashionable pretext of a casual same-designation fling — had asked Kloff to spend just one night with him, Kloff's response had contained no aristocratic sarcasm. Instead, a bluntness that bordered on cruel:

"Save your decadent, degenerate games for your own reeking estate. You pig in heat."

Then he had gone to find Rapiel. Another noble had been watching. Aeroc's face was ashen white — and wearing a faint smile — as he left.

Now, too, smiling was all he could do. But Kloff's expression was growing more savage by the second, and a blow seemed imminent. Collar still in his grip, unable to resist, Aeroc asked in a small, trembling voice:

"If I cry — will that prove it? Will you believe I'm suffering too?"

"What?"

"If I shed tears and weep — will you see that I'm in pain?"

At that, Kloff bared his teeth in a grin. How dare that word come out of your mouth — he mocked at length, then let the cold laughter trail off into a taunt:

"Go ahead and try. You who didn't shed a tear even giving birth."

Simply looking at Kloff was enough to make Aeroc's chest ache, his throat swell, his eyes burn. But no matter how long he waited, no tears fell. Instead, his face twisted. He tried something like a sob — but in the end, nothing came. Despair.

"Playing games to the very end. Devil."

The vicious word hung in the air as Kloff released his collar. He swept the pebbles from the table in a single swipe. With nothing but a frigid glare left behind, he walked away.

Without picking up the scattered stones, Aeroc spent the entire afternoon trying to cry. Strangely, the tears would not come. His chest hurt this much — why wouldn't they fall? In the end, he poked his own eye until a few drops of reflex tears squeezed out and trickled down. He did not understand what was wrong.

Why can't I cry?

When you are sad and in pain, tears should come as a matter of course. Until now, he had believed he was holding them back. That the burning behind his eyes was suppression — forcing the liquid down his throat. Now he saw: it was not suppression. The function itself was gone. Left unused for so long, the tear ducts had simply broken. And now he thought about it — even in his deepest despair, even when he had resolved to die, no tears had come. As Kloff said, if tears had not fallen through the bone-splitting agony of childbirth, they were not going to fall now. He tried. He failed.

Had he truly become a blue-blooded devil? He could not say.