10. Trapped In The Living Hell

10. Trapped In The Living Hell

Late at night.

He had come to the cottage again. Standing in the darkness, Kloff looked down at the unconscious omega whose breath came in fading wisps. His expression was grave. The bruises from the beating over the child were still visible — faint discolorations mottling the pallid skin.

He had grown terribly frail. Four children — of course he had. Even for an omega, male childbirth was not something to be recommended. Two, perhaps three at most — that was the limit. And Aeroc had not even been born omega. That he was still alive at all was due to an alpha's innate vitality. Which meant he had not died early, and had suffered all the more for it. Now even that stubborn life force was guttering out.

Aeroc bore a strong resemblance to the dead Rapiel. But at first, Kloff had not found them similar at all. His late wife had been thoughtful, attentive in temperament; this man was arrogant and insufferable. Yet now, watching the nearly dead husk, the two did seem to share the same blood. Particularly since repeated pregnancies had softened and rounded Aeroc's features — at times the resemblance was enough to make Kloff's heart lurch. Enough, sometimes, to make it race.

Lunatic.

That word was directed at himself. The self-loathing was immense. Revenge had been his own choice, but lusting after the enemy who had murdered his wife in cold blood was repulsive enough — and now, feeling something beyond lust when he looked at the man, was truly the lowest he could fall.

Kloff had a rough idea of what Aeroc had endured on the streets. To succeed with nothing, you sometimes had to join hands with men who had abandoned their humanity. He knew the brutal economy of the gutter — he had crawled through it himself. Every day had been agony; he had wept in secret. Aeroc, it seemed, had not.

When Aeroc had come back to the estate — in a shabby secondhand suit, no ornament at all, yet radiating an unbreakable nobility from every pore — the feeling that had risen in Kloff defied description. As if nothing in the world could defile him, Aeroc had lifted his chin with that same serene composure, spoken in that same refined way, and smiled that same faint smile.

The directness of those blue eyes had made Kloff flinch first. He had wanted, desperately, to wound that luminous, unbending thing — so he had piled on the sarcasm, Count this and Count that — but it was childish. Even as what little color the man had drained to a deathly white, Aeroc had responded with grace. He had offered an offhand critique of the young painter's work, sipped tea with elegance, and then — following the aristocratic protocol of a guest acknowledging a host's children — remarked on the child.

"He was beautiful."

Kloff had thought Aeroc was mocking him. To call them someone else's children when he had borne them himself. A creature truly devoid of feeling. The urge to shatter that unbreakable mask had been overwhelming.

"He takes after his mother."

He had meant it as a barb. Those children are no one's but yours.

And Aeroc had been visibly shaken. The man whose tongue had always been a blade — to see him rocked like that was a first. An unexpected but satisfying reaction. Yet even shattered, the illustrious Count had offered his impeccable thanks for the tea, left precisely the right degree of appreciation — neither too much nor too little — and departed.

Watching him walk away from the window, Kloff had felt something strange. Aeroc's gait had always been light, almost dancing — but now his steps carried no weight at all. As though a breeze might carry him off. The thin silhouette seemed about to vanish and never return. Kloff had sent Hagen, the gatekeeper, to follow him at once.

Late that night, Hagen returned with a drenched, unconscious Aeroc in his arms.

"I pulled him from the river."

Even in his faint, Aeroc's lips were blue, his body trembling violently. Kloff had taken the body into his own arms. He carried him to the bathroom adjoining the old count's chambers and lowered him into a filling tub. As he undressed the man, the skeletal frame was covered in scars and filth of unknown origin.

When the hot water enveloped him, the sudden temperature change made the unconscious body gasp and choke. Kloff pressed his mouth to Aeroc's and breathed air into him. The man could not sit upright and kept sliding under the water, so Kloff — without even removing his own clothes — climbed into the tub and held him.

In the sloshing water, legs thin as branches floated. Against his own dark-clad legs, the pale limbs drifted — boneless, weightless — along with two limp arms, dissolving into the hot liquid like melting wax. He caught one of the floating hands and laced their fingers together. The thin neck lolled against his shoulder, and the head tipped naturally back. A thread of breath whispered against his ear.

"I won't let you die easily."

That Aeroc had attempted suicide, Kloff could not believe. He had merely pointed out that the children were Aeroc's own, and that had been enough to make the man want to die? He could not fathom it. All he remembered clearly from that moment was a burning fury — an absolute conviction that this must not be allowed to end.

He had wanted to render the man wretched — to make him weep and scream and writhe in misery the way Kloff himself had. At first, the drug had been administered with the simple aim of demolishing Aeroc's pride and extracting a real child.

And then — the heat-glazed eyes, begging to be fucked. Realizing that this was one of the only moments Aeroc showed any emotion at all, Kloff had been drunk on a petty sense of victory and had raped and ravaged him, again and again. He knew the body — artificially remade — could not withstand repeated pregnancy and birth, and still he had not stopped. Suffer more. Scream louder. Driven by vicious hatred, he had pushed and pushed.

When he found Aeroc in the cottage after the first birth — starving himself to death in silence — Kloff had been enraged by the lightness of the decision. To give up so easily. He had lifted the ambiguous body — neither fully alpha nor omega — and carried it to the manor. Saving him was all that mattered. Midway, Aeroc had stirred, smiled that proud smile, and wound thin arms around Kloff's neck. The arrogance had made his blood boil.

After the second birth, he had cast Aeroc into the gutter — deliberately. And tried to forget. Tried to forget. His second child, unlike the first, was Kloff's spitting image, but the firstborn grew more like his mother with each passing year. Every time Kloff called the name he had stubbornly given — Rapiel — his heart felt pierced. That was when he understood. Consumed by hatred, stripped of reason, he had built his own hell and locked himself inside it.

He refilled the tub several times to keep the water warm. When at last the color returned to Aeroc's face, Kloff carried him to the cottage and laid him down. The manor was not permitted. He was not generous enough to grant this man comfort. Aeroc needed to suffer more. At least until he wept — wept uncontrollably, the way Kloff did — in bitter, bloody tears.

Whatever his reasoning, the man did not try to flee again once he woke. The cottage door had no lock. The estate gates did not stop anyone from leaving. Yet Aeroc remained — as though imprisoned behind invisible bars — always there. From the manor windows, Kloff watched the distant figure move in and out of the cottage.

When he saw Aeroc working the hand pump with water he had hauled himself — the Count, who had once commanded with nothing but a glance — something felt wrong. He had expected Aeroc to refuse food again, to dig in and demand to be treated with the dignity he felt he deserved.

But Aeroc did not leave the cottage boundary. He did not come to the manor bleeding between his legs as he had the first time. The anger rose, inexplicably. Kloff had deliberately sent vegetables — unpeeled, uncut, impossible to manage.

The next day, a thin curl of smoke rose from the cottage. Aeroc was still there.

On the hard bed, Kloff smoothed the damp hair clinging to the sleeping man's forehead.

However wasted, however wretched, the inborn nobility was inescapable. Naked on a crude bed, any observer would have known at once: this was an aristocrat. The blue eyes that always looked straight at you carried an untouchable dignity. Kloff had recently realized that his desire to destroy it was not only revenge — it was also conquest.

Whatever the motive — after sharing heat after heat, after four children — an omega who responded with nothing but a faint, unreadable smile provoked the alpha's deepest instinct. Which, tangled with old hatreds and accidental triggers, invariably produced a situation beyond control.

After repeated violence, even now — life draining away — Aeroc looked as composed as a porcelain doll. The only thing that made him look human was the occasional tremor at the corner of his eye. Whether he was even breathing was doubtful.

Kloff sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down, placing his ear beneath Aeroc's nose. A faint breath. As he turned his head, his lips brushed Aeroc's. Dry, slightly rough, cool lips. Similar in shape to Rapiel's, but entirely different in feel — where Rapiel had been moist and soft, this was cold.

Aeroc was cold. Cold breath, cold soul, cold hands and feet. The only thing alive about him was the haughty gaze — and even that was now sealed behind tissue-thin lids threaded with capillaries.

Kloff wanted to peel this inhuman shell away. To make the man cling and beg. Not from mere fear, but to cast off everything and expose the raw, ugly truth beneath — to fall lower than the humans he looked down on. To call Kloff's name with heat and ferocity and become an ordinary person drowning in a hell of his own making.

For that, Aeroc had to live. Dead, there was no point. Kloff lay down beside the cooling body and warmed it with his own. After years of sharing heats, their body scents had mingled. The irony. Even in sleep, knowing the hatred that seared his heart whenever he held this man, Kloff felt a deep, unaccountable calm settle over him. Proof that he, too, had become something ugly.

As expected, the omega found stability in a bonded alpha's scent. As Kloff held him and stroked the cold arms and legs, color slowly returned to the ashen face. Even unconscious, Aeroc sighed languidly and burrowed into his chest.

It was always like this. Behind the cold eyes and cold manner, Aeroc never raised a hand to strike, never screamed abuse — never offered the ordinary human resistance that anyone else would have. His composure was infuriating precisely because it never cracked.

By the time of the second pregnancy, when he was still living in the manor, Aeroc had imperiously issued orders as though he were the viscountess of the house. But after being returned to the cottage, he was markedly changed. Kloff had assumed the bottomless well of aristocratic self-assurance had finally run dry. But the core was unchanged.

Now Aeroc asked Kloff for nothing. He lived in silence, as though nothing were the matter — his manner seemed to accuse Kloff of being the only one still wallowing in the past. If he had at least wept and fawned and groveled, Kloff might have sneered but would not have left him this neglected.

Years passed, seasons turned, two more children arrived — and still Kloff could not free himself from Rapiel's death. He was still thrashing in fury and revulsion while Aeroc moved forward. Aeroc cooked for himself, did his own laundry. No matter what humiliation was heaped on him, he answered with a faint smile and threw himself into the business of staying alive.

Had he let go of something at the brink of death? Or had everything simply become meaningless? No matter how brutally he was raped, the only sounds were panting moans; when impregnated, he delivered without protest. To want nothing meant there was nothing left to fight for. He was alone — and smiling — and happy.

No. That is absolutely unacceptable.

As much as Kloff suffered and agonized and despised himself, Aeroc should have done the same. Kloff drew the faintly breathing body into a crushing embrace.

"Do you want to have sex?"

After all that effort to keep him alive, the first thing out of his mouth upon waking. He had forgotten that there were wretched creatures in this world whose rotting brains cared for nothing but rutting — and that Aeroc was among them. Even after everything he'd endured, Aeroc showed unfailing interest in Kloff.

The unshakeable consistency was almost funny by now. Every time, regardless of the pain, if the act was sex, Aeroc ended up panting with heat and pleasure. The mask of composure came off only then. The key to shattering that poise had been in an absurdly obvious place. Kloff laughed — hollow — and climbed onto the bed.

It was the first time they had coupled outside of either rape or heat. The fury that usually drove him would have killed a body this frail, so he deliberately loosened his grip. He held the thin frame with something closer to care. He touched, even kissed, the body whose scent had faded to nearly nothing — as though sharing what life remained. Coaxing the dying ember to burn a little longer.

Aeroc was painfully awkward. He acted as though he'd never been touched with tenderness in his life — like a virgin who had never been caressed. This, from a man who had survived years on the streets, who had borne four children — and yet, when Kloff licked and sucked at a sensitive spot, Aeroc's face went scarlet and he clapped a hand over his mouth. Bewildered blue eyes stared up at Kloff.

At which Kloff smiled, deliberately, and made it worse. Licked everywhere, touched everywhere, kissed everywhere — and finally, a slow, thorough kiss on the mouth. They had never kissed before. Aeroc had no idea what to do with the tongue in his mouth. The pretense of not knowing how to breathe was absurd enough to make Kloff laugh. He broke the wet kiss, licked the burning ear, and whispered softly:

"A worn-out whore pretending to be innocent. Spare me. It's revolting."

The dazed gaze fixed on him turned away. The fine trembling told him this sort of thing was a weakness. Was it unwelcome — or welcome?

Kloff touched Aeroc without restraint. Once he set his mind to it, it was easier than expected — nothing about it felt dirty. When he took the cock into his mouth and sucked, Aeroc nearly came apart, twisting and writhing. The rough, gasping breaths said he was overwhelmed.

"Klo... ff... ah... stop..."

Hips lifting, body trembling, one hand pushing Kloff's head away while thin thighs wrapped around it — Aeroc came shortly after. Kloff swallowed half and kissed the rest back into Aeroc's mouth. The taste of it made him grimace, but he did not break the kiss. Instead, thorn-dry fingers gripped the shoulder of Kloff's shirt.

Fingers worked the slick, open body. At Kloff's direction Aeroc turned face-down, curving his upper body low and lifting his hips, and clutched the worn pillow with ragged breaths. Kloff spread him and licked the scarred, ridged flesh — honest enough to admit it was not beautiful even as a courtesy — tongue pressing deep, and Aeroc made a sound like he was about to cry. Just a little more, Kloff urged himself, but the pillow stayed dry. He clicked his tongue and pushed inside.

"Haahh—"

A moan — not high, not low — broke free. His own arousal surged; blood rushed downward. He wanted to lose control and pound mercilessly, but those bone-sharp hips really would crumble, so he held back. Instead he moved slowly, deeply, and then gradually faster. Face buried in the pillow, Aeroc's moans climbed until he was crying out — but even at his most desperate, the sound was so faint it was like a bird shot through with an arrow, fluttering its last.

When Kloff came deep inside, Aeroc came a second time simultaneously. The body that had spent its last reserves went completely limp. Kloff turned him over, pulled him close, and kissed him — long and wet. Through the haze, Aeroc's slack face found Kloff and smiled, faintly.

"This isn't like you. Why the sudden change?"

The wavering eyes seemed to hope for something. Kloff smiled, and in a tender voice, whispered:

"I despise you. You disgust me. I loathe you. I hope you meet the same wretched end as the person you destroyed."

The pupils dilated into blank shock. A petty, contemptible satisfaction welled up. Kloff kissed the dry cheek and laughed, low.

For a while after that, work kept him busy. Days passed after his last visit before Kloff could cross the rose garden alone. The path to the cottage was by now so familiar he could have walked it with his eyes closed.

After the first time — the first time it had been something other than rape — Aeroc's expression had changed. The faint smile had not vanished entirely, but the moment sex began, his face would crumple as though he were about to cry and he would cling to Kloff. When cruel words were whispered at the right moment, the flinch was exquisitely satisfying.

Each time, Kloff found himself pulling the trembling omega closer without meaning to, stroking the back, the legs. Now the man was even triggering a protective instinct. Holding the shivering, wasted body, Kloff smiled bitterly — and often.

Today, too, he anticipated the rain-soaked-bird fragility and felt something close to anticipation. Aeroc was pregnant. The fifth time. His body was too weak; several miscarriage scares had apparently come and gone. He did not report them properly, so Kloff could only guess.

After this birth, he had planned to bring Aeroc into the manor for the winter. The man's body temperature was dropping steadily; leaving him in the cottage risked death by cold. After delivery, the weakness would be extreme — better to keep him close for a good while. The cottage bed was hard and uncomfortable; if they were sleeping in the same room anyway, his own bed made more sense.

Or perhaps he should bring him before the birth. If the baby came early, being alone in the cottage could be dangerous.

Imagining the surprise on Aeroc's face brought something close to a smile. His pace quickened slightly.

But when he stepped into the dark cottage, every trace of that feeling evaporated.

"Aeroc? ...Aeroc!"

The cottage was empty. The instant Kloff registered the absence, a violent fury erupted.

Running away? Now? The devious wretch.

To escape alone from the hell they had built together — that was unforgivable. Roaring, Kloff stormed back to the manor and dispatched every servant to search. When he demanded to know when the escape had happened, no one could answer. Even Hagen had not noticed — it must have been under cover of darkness.

It was the first time Aeroc had fled. Kloff had always been the one to cast him out; Aeroc had never left of his own accord. During the second stay at the cottage, he had lived as though nothing were wrong. The possibility of flight had simply never occurred to Kloff. Aeroc had always come back — had found Kloff on the streets and walked straight toward him. The suspicion had never formed.

The cottage did not even have a lock. After all these years, with a body this broken, there was no reason to run. Especially not this close to delivery.

I should have locked him in. Broken those thin ankles and chained them. Kept him inside that wooden box, and if he hid in the dark, dragged him out by the chain.

The belated regret was bitter.

A full day's search finally located him — deep in the lowest depths of the gutter. When Hagen, ashen-faced, came running to Kloff on the far side of the district, the feeling was infinitely worse than the first time. Learning that his child's parent had been found in the gutter had been sufficient once. That single time had been more than enough to drive him into a wound that would never heal. So why was he hearing it a second time?

Why... why...

His thoughts could not form, but his body moved with brutal efficiency. Before long, in a back alley near a filthy brothel, he found a heavily pregnant omega surrounded by three or four alpha men, being gang-raped.

"Man, a pregnant one grips this tight?"

"You have any idea how long I looked for you after you vanished? Today I'll treat you real nice — and feed you all the raisin bread you want."

"Where'd you go and get knocked up? Thought this one was an alpha. We've been fooled."

"Who cares. Long as the hole grips. And if an omega comes out, even better. Alpha's fine too."

"It's bleeding."

"Won't die. Hey! You're not dead, right?"

Snickering voices punctuated by the slap of flesh. The smell of blood mixed with a foul reek. The men shifted the unresponsive white legs this way and that, and between their grotesque heaving bodies, Kloff caught flashes — the enormous belly, an arm wrenched at a sickening angle, a neck and face mottled with bruises, a mouth hanging slack, and blue eyes emptied of all light. As the men's movement jostled the lolling head, those dead eyes swung to meet his, and for an instant, everything went black.

When he came to, two headless bodies lay on the ground, and in his hand was a sword slick with blood.

"Murder! Murder!"

The remaining two — still too panicked to cover their grotesque, exposed cocks — scrambled to flee. Kloff fixed his gaze downward and issued a command, ice-cold:

"Kill them all."

"Yes, sir."

Hagen and another servant drew their swords and gave chase. The men could barely run with their trousers around their ankles; around the first corner came the wet, ugly sound of throats being cut. But none of that mattered to Kloff.

He kicked one headless corpse aside. Beneath the blood, Aeroc was far worse than he had imagined. The naked lower body was covered in bruises and grime. One leg was broken — the ankle bent outward at a wrong angle. The worst was between the legs. The flesh, torn beyond what it could receive, bled not red but near-black, and semen was caked over everything.

Kloff set down the sword. With trembling hands he removed his coat. He knelt beside the body amid the filth and gathered the upper half — corpse-white against the ravaged lower body — into his arms. As he wrapped the coat around him, the unconscious form lolled like a broken doll. Kloff carefully lifted the dislocated arm and placed it across the chest. In a voice that shook, he called the name.

"Aeroc?"

He wanted to scream, to shake the man awake — but he could not raise his voice. If he did, it seemed the body would shatter into pieces and scatter. He could not bring himself to touch the bruise-covered face, could not draw an easy breath.

"Aeroc? Try to stay with me."

His throat had closed without his noticing. There was no response at all — but then, beneath the sealed lids, a faint tremor. He pressed his ear to the nose. A choked, feeble rasp.

"...Thank you. Truly... truly, thank you."

He did not know to whom the thanks was directed. He only repeated it, again and again.

The two servants returned, bloodied. Kloff directed them to the remaining corpses with a glance. Hagen nodded without a word. The other ran for the carriage.

Kloff lifted Aeroc into his arms. Emaciated as he was, a full-term pregnancy made the body heavy, but he would not accept another's hands. He would not let anyone touch so much as a hair. Cradled against him, the broken leg or the dislocated arm or some other ruined place must have hurt — Aeroc's face twisted and a faint sound escaped. Kloff pressed his forehead to the damp brow and spoke.

"It's all right now. This time I won't let you or our child die."

Back at the manor, he laid Aeroc on his own bed. The amniotic fluid had broken during the carriage ride, soaking Kloff's clothes. The baby was not due yet — the gang rape must have triggered it. He cursed himself for not killing those men more slowly.

"Martha! Help me. You — fetch the doctor!"

After sending one maid running, Kloff examined Aeroc. He had been moaning throughout the ride; his color was deathly white. Martha arrived, took one look at the filth-covered body, froze for a moment — then rushed out.

"Hot water, towels — every one we have! And fresh sheets and a nightgown! All of it!"

She barked orders at the other maids, then shouldered Kloff away from the bedside.

"Step back for now. Holding his hand won't help."

"Martha."

"We have to save him, don't we? Then let me do my job."

Kloff was pushed from the bedside. Until the doctor arrived, Martha cleaned Aeroc's wounds. Seeing the state of Kloff's clothes, the experienced housekeeper recognized the ruptured membrane and began slapping Aeroc's cheeks to rouse him.

"Don't lose consciousness. Stay with me! Here — another towel."

Under her crisp commands, maids ferried blood-soaked towels back and forth. One maid approached Kloff to suggest he change, but he refused. He would not leave this room until he knew Aeroc was safe.

The doctor arrived in a state of horror at hearing a full-term omega had been gang-raped.

"When did the water break?"

"Not long ago."

"Lord — what a mess. This is going to be difficult."

After Martha's briefing, the doctor lifted the white sheet covering the lower body and clicked his tongue.

"The bleeding won't stop. If we don't get the baby out quickly, we'll lose them both."

Rolling up his sleeves, the doctor looked at Kloff.

"You're the alpha?"

Before the man could say more, Kloff spoke first.

"Save them both."

"I can't promise that. As you can see — premature, and far too much blood lost already."

"If you fail, there will be consequences."

"Threats won't help. I'm a doctor, not God. But I'll do everything I can."

The doctor ignored Kloff's fury, turned back to Aeroc, and gave Martha rapid instructions. She prepared clean scissors, silk thread, warm towels. Throughout, there was nothing Kloff could do. As always. His only task was to wait. The doctor worked with quick hands.

"The mother is unconscious, so we'll have to force the delivery. Stop standing there — come hold him down."

Kloff obeyed. The doctor folded a towel, placed it between Aeroc's teeth, and had Kloff press down hard on both shoulders.

"That's too weak. Press harder."

"The shoulder is dislocated."

"Compared to what's coming, that's nothing. He'll convulse — hold him."

"What are you going to do?"

"The baby has to come out before anything else can be done."

With that, the doctor leaned deep over the bed, placed both hands on the swollen upper abdomen, and glanced between Kloff, the space between the legs, and Martha on standby. He nodded.

"Beginning now."

He bore down with his full weight. In that instant, unconscious, limp Aeroc's eyes flew open and every muscle in his body seized. The force of him trying to rise was so violent that even Kloff was startled and had to slam down on the shoulders.

A scream — muffled by the towel but still horrific — tore through the room in staggered waves.

Kloff, white-faced, pinned the convulsing body with his whole weight and shouted:

"Are you sure you're doing this right? He's dying!"

"The mother can't push, so we force the baby down. Hold him. If you let go now, both of them die."

The doctor's reply was ruthlessly calm. He continued pressing — upper abdomen to middle to lower. The sheet hid most of it from Kloff's view, but Martha's face was draining of color, and the maid beside her looked ready to faint.

"Doctor — I can see the head!"

"Good. When it crowns, take hold and pull. Ready!"

"Yes!"

Several more convulsions. Sweat beaded on Kloff's forehead. The agonized screams rang in his ears while no one spoke. Then Martha, using more towels than before, looked at the doctor, reached both hands beneath the sheet, and drew out a very small child. Simultaneously, the doctor lifted his hands from the belly. The convulsions stopped. Aeroc went slack, draining of all tension. Kloff held him, breathing hard. It's over — and the thought of looking at the baby did not even cross his mind.

The doctor cut the cord, tied the navel, and handed the infant to Martha. She exhaled a shuddering sigh of relief and wiped the tears from her eyes. She moved to present the child to Kloff, but he shook his head.

"Save him first."

The body in his arms was barely breathing.

"It may not be too late. Once the wounds are sutured and the bleeding stopped, he should survive."

The doctor took needle and silk from his bag, sterilized them in boiling water, and lifted the sheet to begin suturing the tears. He blinked several times, then set the forceps back on the tray with a deep sigh. He began probing with his hands instead.

At that, Aeroc's eyes opened halfway. Too weak now even to scream properly, he made a deflating sound — a face neither crying nor laughing, indescribably anguished — and clawed at Kloff's arm, writhing. The desperate, wordless plea chilled Kloff to the spine.

"What's happening?"

"Twins. This complicates the bleeding considerably."

The doctor's grim face turned to Kloff. He shook his head. Kloff's mind went blank. His mouth moved without sound. While he groped for words, Aeroc screamed again. The second child was coming.

Eventually the remaining baby emerged. Far smaller than the first — the doctor had to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before it breathed. It survived, but Kloff had no time to hold the fragile thing. Aeroc was dying.

"The body was far too weak, compounded by severe physical and psychological trauma. Even without this incident — five pregnancies in a male omega. This was inevitable. I did advise contraception from the start."

The doctor clicked his tongue and added:

"I've done everything I can. Frankly, there's no hope. If he survives, it will be a miracle. I'd suggest you prepare yourself."

Kloff said nothing. Martha and the servants were consumed with the unexpected twins. The doctor, his work done, soon departed. Kloff alone remained in the now-quiet room with Aeroc.

The body in his arms was already corpse-like. Whether it was still breathing was doubtful. Kloff took the limp hand and placed it on Aeroc's chest, brushing the hair from his forehead. The lids trembled; a small sigh escaped.

"Aeroc?"

Slowly, Aeroc opened his eyes. The vacant gaze drifted through the air, then the pupils narrowed and turned, with aching slowness, toward Kloff. A very slow blink. The split, ruined lips barely moved. A voice too faint to hear without leaning close.

"...The baby?"

"Twins. Both alive."

"...Good. I'm glad."

A voice so weightless it might have been air itself. Kloff could barely hold back what was rising inside him. If he didn't, everything — every inexplicable thing — would come flooding out at once. He bit his lip, looked at the ceiling, and had to steady his breathing. That this man, after everything he had endured, woke and asked for the children first — what threatened to overflow was beyond his power to contain.

Was he conscious through all of it? Through that — he knew a child was being born? What are you?

He swallowed down what kept rising. He needed to make Aeroc talk. Otherwise he himself would die.

"Why did you run? If you hadn't run, none of this would have happened."

Even trying not to, only accusations poured out. Aeroc closed his eyes slowly, opened them, and spoke again.

"...It hurt. They weren't human. That... wasn't sex."

"You idiot. You were gang-raped. Raped."

Impossible to listen to. When Kloff snapped, Aeroc blinked again.

"I can't feel my body."

The rambling — consciousness clearly flickering. That he was speaking at all was a miracle. No amount of anger or accusation would help.

"You've lost too much blood."

Aeroc regarded him with faintly trembling eyes, then let his gaze drift far away.

"Am I dying?"

"...Probably."

"Ah."

Aeroc blinked again. Told he was at death's door, he produced no frenzy, no resentment, no tears. As though hearing someone else's news, he closed and opened his eyes. Then he turned to Kloff and smiled, faintly.

"Did Rapiel die like this?"

Was there still enough spite left to mock him, even now? Kloff was crushed under a despair so vast he could not breathe. How far did this devil intend to carve into his soul before being satisfied? What sin had Kloff committed against him to deserve such relentless cruelty? He wanted to go mad. Perhaps madness would let him forget these feelings that defied all description. What he could no longer hold back began to break through.

"What did I ever do to you — from the very start — why... what reason did you have to—"

Bitter tears fell from the devastated man's eyes. This devil — even dying — inflicted unbearable wounds. And still Kloff could not summon a single curse. He could only hold the fading body and weep without restraint. Cold tears fell onto the white cheek and ran downward. Aeroc's gaze wavered. The ruined lips trembled.

"...I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare lie to me now."

"I'm sorry. For everything. I understand now what Rapiel must have felt. I meant to die quietly. I'm sorry for tearing your wounds open again..."

"Shut up!"

He would go mad at this rate. Kloff screamed it. In a flash of blinding hatred, he wanted to end this devil's breath — reached for the thin throat with both hands. But the moment his fingers closed around it, he froze. The blue eyes — the ones that always looked straight at you, like blown glass — were brimming.

Ah.

The strength drained from his grip. In that instant, a single, crystalline tear rolled down the wet golden lashes and traced a path along Aeroc's temple.

"At first I planned to just take it. My punishment — that's all it was. Like before, I only had to endure. But... the baby was in danger, so I couldn't just lie still. I fought back... and they beat me."

What had been done could not be called merely a beating. The arm was torn from its socket, the ankle was broken, and the body had been ravaged beyond recognition. And yet, without a single bitter curse, Aeroc recounted it all — flatly, matter-of-factly. As though unaware of his own tears.

"Rapiel must have done the same. Trying to protect the child. Because it was the child of the person she loved."

Kloff wanted to demand how those words could come from his mouth — but his throat had sealed shut. Aeroc looked at him and smiled. Tears streamed without ceasing. So much blood had been lost — where did the tears come from? As though a dam long sealed had finally broken, releasing everything stored across a lifetime.

"My eyes feel strange. Ah — I'm... I'm crying, aren't I?"

Aeroc lifted the corner of his mouth as though it were a joyful thing. His limp fingers stirred faintly — as though he wanted to touch the tears and confirm them — so Kloff wiped them with his own thumb instead. The soaked back of his large hand made him swallow hard, as though something had caught in his throat.

"Will you believe me now? I have a heart too. I can be hurt. Even though my sin can never be washed away."

After a moment, in a trembling voice, Kloff nodded. The wet blue eyes widened slightly, then curved, gently.

"I wanted to beg forgiveness — from you and from Rapiel. But now that I've been through it myself... I don't think forgiveness is mine to ask. She's in heaven, and I won't be, so we'll probably never meet. But—"

He smiled and blinked. The pooled tears fell in a rush.

Kloff turned his face away so Aeroc would not see, and wept — a stifled, shuddering sob. Tears whose meaning he could not name — everything simply melting out of him at once. The tears that ran down his jaw fell onto Aeroc's white face and mingled with the ones already there. Aeroc did not look away, as he usually did. He held Kloff's gaze steadily, with the faint smile, and spoke.

"I apologize for the trouble I've caused. If I could be reborn and repay you someday, that would be nice. Next time, I'll stay far away from anyone you love."

"...That's all you have to say to me?"

Even at the very last, the aristocratic barb slipped out — and Kloff could only manage a hollow, exhausted laugh.

You cruel, cruel devil.

Kloff took Aeroc's hand in both of his and pressed his forehead to it. What should he say?

Farewell? That he should go on alone in this wretched world, cursed for eternity? You worthless—

Then, in a voice going out like a candle:

"I love you."

At first he thought he'd misheard. He lifted his head — "What?" — stupidly. Aeroc smiled and said it again.

"I've always loved you."

Kloff did not know what to say. Mouth opening and closing, he heard himself blurt, without thinking: "What you did wasn't love."

Aeroc seemed faintly hurt, then smiled — rueful, helpless.

"Maybe not. You're... the only one I've ever loved, so... I might not know what it looks like..."

After that, Aeroc let out a long, deep sigh. His thin breath caught, and the voice came now in fragments, barely strung together.

"Still... even a lie... would be fine, so... just once... would you say... you love me...?"

But Kloff could not bring himself to say it. A lie — those common, easy words — there was no reason he couldn't say them, and yet they would not come. Aeroc left a bitter smile behind and said no more. The blue eyes — unmoving — held the shaking brown ones for a long moment. Then, very slowly, they slid behind their lids.

"Aeroc!"

At the urgent call, the lashes lifted once, barely — then fell again and closed for good. No matter how Kloff shook and called, Aeroc did not open his eyes again.

He did not die at once. The doctor, incompetent as he seemed, had managed the bleeding after all — and unconscious, Aeroc held on for three days. In the clean, dressed bed, held in Kloff's arms, he only slept — and on the third day, on a bright, clear morning, he stopped breathing.

Kloff did not understand why he had held the enemy he so despised in his arms, pressing kisses to the brow, until the very last heartbeat. He only knew he could not abandon the body as it slowly cooled. Kloff did not leave the room — not once — until the faint breathing ceased entirely. Now and then he took water into his own mouth and pressed it between the unconscious man's lips. Dry, rough lips met and parted, and a wisp of breath slipped out.

Sinking into a sleep from which he would not wake, Aeroc sometimes moved his lips and shed tears — dreaming of something. When that happened, Kloff would pull him closer and brush the tears from the lashes with his lips.

Absurdly, the tears had a taste. They should have been nothing but salt water, yet they carried something seductive, almost indescribable — not bitter, not salty, but a sweetness so intense it numbed the tongue. He thought, at last, that he had gone mad.

But soon he understood. Aeroc was dreaming a deeply happy dream at the end of his life, and the happiness was overflowing as sweet-tasting tears. To anyone else it would have been salt water, but to the alpha who had shared body scent with this omega across years of heats — the tears were like a drug. Kloff licked them and held the cold body and stroked the back with tenderness. The limp form stiffened slowly.

From time to time, he took the hand and kissed the forehead and called "Aeroc?" — but the man never woke from his happy dream. When the sluggish heart finally stopped, Kloff — who had drunk the last tear — pressed a short kiss to the dry lips. Wrapped in white sheets, Aeroc, departed as though dreaming, looked utterly peaceful.

Now Kloff was alone in the living hell. He could not, like Aeroc, cast his own life away. There were children. The jewel-like children Kloff had created by raping Aeroc and wringing the last life from his body. For them, he would carry a torn soul that would never heal, and live in this terrible place. Alone. Forever alone.

Unlike Rapiel, who lay in the family cemetery, Aeroc was buried in a sunny spot near the cottage. The headstone was simple: dates of birth and death, and a name. No epitaph. No flowers were brought — but the garden Aeroc had tended so carefully burst into riotous color around the lonely stone. To the last, he had been a creature who shone by his own light.

From time to time, when bringing the growing children near the cottage, Kloff would stand before that headstone for a very long while. Belated remorse consumed him.

If only, even as a lie, he had said what the man wanted to hear.

He ran his fingers across the top of the stone and tried, belatedly, to say the words. But in the end, they would not come.

After a while, Kloff walked toward the children calling him from the distance.