10. The bitter with the sweet

10. The bitter with the sweet

A month passed in a flash, and by the second the butler's intensity was finally waning — whether from exhaustion or because he'd run out of things to teach. Kloff's posture was flawless; he'd read dozens of humanities texts by now; and he'd played footsie with Aeroc under the table.

After posture, Hugo had attempted the lunacy of teaching Kloff an instrument, and only gave up after the near-destruction of a priceless antique violin. Table manners had been perfect from the start; riding, superb. He excelled at every sport and was nearly unbeatable with a blade. In the end, with nothing left to fault, they'd circled back to the original problem: status.

"Have you achieved anything of note? And do not mention money."

"Not yet."

"Then you'll have to wait."

Kloff ground his teeth, but there was nothing to be done. He'd half-abandoned hope of a formal wedding before the butler could even lay down the law. Instead he resolved to use the coming heat to establish Aeroc as unequivocally, irrevocably his. The butler wouldn't like it, but what could he do about a fait accompli? The ceremony might not be happening — and might not for the foreseeable future, a reality Aeroc had apparently registered — because, to Kloff's surprise, Aeroc looked faintly disappointed.

"If you want the full production, I could announce to the world that you're an omega and hold a grand ceremony at the cathedral."

He'd said it half in jest, but Aeroc considered the idea with genuine seriousness. He should have refused outright — his title would be at risk — but the fact that he couldn't brought Kloff a fierce joy, made him want to drop to one knee right there with an extravagant proposal. He held back. He was saving that for later. After a long pause, Aeroc shook his head.

"Not yet. But we can't just let this pass without marking it."

"Of course not. How about a simple dinner?"

"A dinner? Where?"

"Wherever you like."

Aeroc deliberated, then nodded. In that moment Kloff took his hand and kissed the back of it. He was about to go for the lips when coughing — the consumptive variety — erupted from the butler. The kiss was abandoned.

"I shall handle the dinner preparations."

"I appreciate that, Hugo. And to be clear — it's just an evening meal, not a formal dinner. Ideally something private."

"Leave it to me."

Hugo was terrifying and exacting, but equally meticulous, so Kloff left it at that and — for once without any grueling ordeal — was allowed to proceed to the office. Aeroc stood at the window, watching him go. Kloff looked up and smiled, and raised a hand; Aeroc raised one in return. The days of parting like this were numbered. After this heat, Kloff would stay by his wife's side to protect their child. At that point neither the butler nor anyone else would have the right to stop him.

The weeks before the dinner passed with occasional visits to the mansion but no major incidents. His energies went into the damnable project of climbing the ranks — winding down existing business by handing lesser clients to trusted colleagues, keeping only the key accounts, and pouring every remaining hour into the national fund.

It was still early days, with no major results to show, but he was confident the work would bear fruit before the year was out. The players in this arena occupied positions of real authority, and meeting them required a relentless schedule. His visits to the mansion had dropped off slightly as a result. Aeroc was doing well at home; there was no cause for concern.

As the date approached, Kloff developed an inexplicable case of nerves. His heart hammered at odd moments — especially when he touched the ring he'd had resized for Aeroc's finger. When he'd prepared the proposal for Rapiel, nothing like this had happened. He was restless, anxious. A faint dread crept in: what if something went wrong?

"Kloff Bendyke. If you're like this already, what'll you be later?"

Talking himself down didn't work; the grin kept breaking through. His secretary, watching his boss chuckle to himself for no apparent reason, gave him a look that plainly asked has he lost his mind? Kloff covered it with a cough.

On the appointed day, he dressed far more carefully than usual. He'd badgered Martha into helping him assemble a flawless suit, and even to his own critical eye the result was impressive. Martha sent him off with a plea to please come home successful this time, and he drove to the mansion — where the sight of the entrance jammed with carriages struck him dumb.

Inside, the butler greeted him in the foyer wearing an immaculate suit and a curt nod. "Good evening, sir. Your invitation, please."

"What invitation? And how is this a private dinner?"

"It was prepared privately. By the count's household's standards, of course."

Kloff glared at the butler with murder in his eyes, but the damage was done and beyond repair. The rare, faint smile on the elderly butler's face confirmed it: Kloff had been had. I trusted you too easily. You conniving old fox.

Arguing with Hugo was pointless. Finding Aeroc was the priority. A footman led him through — and the affair wasn't even indoors. Tables were set up in the grounds, as lavishly appointed as the concert had been. Silk-draped tables, flowers, a garden transformed. Kloff's vision swam.

Thanks in no small part to Kloff's financial management, the count's household was in excellent shape and this was hardly a strain — but the point wasn't the cost. In what conceivable universe was this a private dinner? In particular, the tall alpha with silver eyes exchanging pleasantries with someone over there and now waving at Kloff — wasn't that the former fiancé? Kloff nearly fainted on the spot but resolved to find the culprit and throttle him first.

"Aeroc!"

He tore through the banquet searching. Several guests spotted him and extended hands — "I hear tonight is a special occasion. Your birthday?" — forcing practiced smiles and hurried handshakes. "Not a birthday, I'm afraid — there seems to be a misunderstanding. If you'll excuse me, I'm looking for the count."

"Teiwind? He was over that way."

He sprinted in the direction indicated. In the center of the enormous outdoor banquet, amid a crush of guests and servants, he found Aeroc — in a white suit so luminous it seemed to generate its own light.

He shone even more brightly than usual. The moment Aeroc spotted Kloff, the habitual mask-smile vanished as though discarded — and in its place, a smile so radiant it seemed drawn from a dream. In that instant, not only Kloff but every person nearby turned to stare.

"The count looks particularly charming tonight."

"My word. Has something happened? He looks so happy."

"Has he fallen in love?"

"Which omega has that kind of luck? Is it Westport's boy, do you think?"

That last comment snapped Kloff to attention. He caught the arm of the man who was smiling too freely at too many people.

"Excuse me. Urgent business — I'll be borrowing the count for a moment."

The blunt tone startled the guests mid-conversation, but they knew Kloff as the count's financial manager, understood the peculiarly informal relationship between the two, and didn't interfere. By now, Aeroc and Kloff were widely rumored among the nobility to be unusually close — though the prevailing view was that it was simply an inexplicable friendship between two eccentric bachelor alphas. So when Kloff seized Aeroc's arm and hauled him toward a quiet corner, people shrugged it off.

"That was rude — manhandling me in front of guests. People will talk."

Naturally, Aeroc was the one getting angry. But a public argument was out of the question, so Kloff dragged him to an unoccupied corner of the garden. Since the brawl at the soirée, no one approached any area where Kloff was present — but to be safe, he flagged a passing maid and asked her to keep people away. The maid, a member of the count's staff who knew full well the relationship was more than an "inexplicable friendship," nodded without a flicker.

The moment they were alone, Kloff grabbed Aeroc by the collar and snarled.

"How is this a simple dinner?"

"I cut the guest list in half."

Aeroc batted his hand away, annoyed. Even irritation looked blindingly beautiful on him, and Kloff wanted to throw him down right there — but fury deserved its turn first, so he restrained himself. He paced with his hands on his hips, arguing from a distance. Otherwise the arousal would be obvious.

"I expected no guests!"

"It's a dinner — how can there be no guests? Don't be absurd."

Communication had failed utterly. What Kloff had wanted was the two of them alone in a private setting — candlelight, a fine wine, whispered endearments. Not half the city's aristocracy packed into the garden with the former fiancé waving from across the room. Aeroc hadn't gotten the message at all. Kloff loosened the tie strangling him and sighed.

"After you've personally greeted all those guests, then what?"

"Then what?"

The blank look on a man pretending not to understand was infuriating.

"You're going into heat!"

"……It…… it hasn't started yet."

The shout made Aeroc stammer a denial. Kloff snorted.

"Don't lie. I can already smell the sweetness."

"Really? I put on cologne."

Aeroc lifted an arm to his nose and sniffed, then asked with genuine worry:

"Do you think anyone else noticed?"

"Not to that degree. I'm the only one who can pick it up. Everyone else probably just smells the cologne."

He'd meant it as a mild jab, but Aeroc stared blankly at him, blinked, and offered a single observation:

"So you're not a person — you're a dog?"

"……"

A dog. Kloff smirked. Then gave him a reality check.

"If I'm a dog, you're the bitch. Come on — let's go make puppies."

Aeroc, flustered, resisted as Kloff seized his hand and turned toward the house. Looking back, Kloff found a crimson-faced man gesturing incoherently, struggling to form words — before finally exhaling a measured sigh and trying again.

"Wait. What about the guests?"

"They'll eat and leave on their own. Hugo will handle it. With that many people, one missing host won't make a difference."

"But as the host, I should at least——"

Kloff caught the waist before Aeroc could retreat, locked him in place, held his gaze, and spoke with the force of a warning.

"When exactly do you plan to greet a hundred people? If you've got that much stamina, I'd rather you devote it to the sex."

"Kloff!"

He strode forward, and Aeroc stumbled along behind him. No amount of calling his name, no hastily invented excuses, slowed Kloff down — he went straight for the bedroom. Whether or not Aeroc fully understood the significance of this evening, his room had been prepared with a romantic touch. A subtle fragrance hung in the air; pale flowers were arranged throughout; the table held light refreshments and drinks.

"You're always thoroughly prepared, I'll give you that."

"That wasn't me, actually……"

Aeroc, unable to meet his eyes, trailed off as Kloff pushed him inside and locked the door. Then the other door. Then the windows — curtains drawn, every one, just as Aeroc had done in the parlor.

He'd tipped off the maids and footmen on the way in; short of war breaking out, there would be no disturbance. Hugo, too, would surely refrain this once — not even that formidable butler would want to witness his beloved young master flushed and undone in the arms of an alpha.

Aeroc looked back at Kloff with a trace of anxiety. The sharp-tongued provocateur, the occasional seductress — neither was visible now. Whenever Kloff took the lead sexually, Aeroc turned compliant, which was both baffling and, in its way, endearing.

He seemed to be slightly afraid of sex that he didn't initiate. After the parlor seduction there had been one other occasion — a hurried encounter in the study, under Hugo's nose. Aeroc had been rigid and lost. From behind, especially once Kloff pinned his wrists against the bookcase, the tear-edged plea to let go had been almost pitiful. Afterward, he'd collapsed to the floor, and Kloff had to hold him for a long time. Stroking the trembling back, whispering it's all right again and again, while Aeroc — perched on his lap, face buried in his neck — wept quietly. Kloff had learned that pushing when Aeroc wasn't actively willing was a poor idea.

Now it was a heat, so Aeroc would certainly not refuse — that was why Kloff had brought him. But seeing that look again gave him pause. He had no desire whatsoever to force it. He'd already waited; two more months, four more — it made no difference.

"Does spending a heat together make you anxious? We can put it off until you're ready."

He tried to say it as gently as he could. Aeroc hunched his shoulders slightly, then raised his head and met Kloff's eyes. Anxious and at a loss though he was, he shook his head. It didn't look sincere, so Kloff pressed: "I mean it. Postponing is fine. As long as you don't leave me and run."

"No. I've been waiting for today, too. It's just…… nerves."

"Really?"

Instead of answering, Aeroc came to him and leaned in. Kloff wrapped his arms around the slightly stiff body, and Aeroc settled against him without resistance — though the tension didn't entirely leave.

He always had to be held gently, tenderly. Even later, when Kloff inevitably lost some grip on rationality — and he always lost it — roughness was absolutely forbidden. If Aeroc simply disliked sex, that would have been understandable. Kloff had his suspicions about things the man had experienced, things he never wanted to hear confirmed. But it was strange. The anxiety wasn't about the act itself — it was about what came after.

The beginning had to be gentle, but the end had to be gentler still — suffused with love. He gazed into the blue eyes trembling with excitement and a faint edge of fear, and touched his lips to theirs. As he drew closer, the golden lashes descended slowly, trembling, blurring his vision.

"Kloff, Kloff."

A person glazed with pleasure, eyes half-lidded and unfocused, reached blindly into the air and called his name with desperate urgency. Already joined as one, and still he sought constant reassurance — as though he might vanish at any moment, like foam on water. During the first heat, Kloff had been consumed by his own desire and hadn't truly seen the man beneath him. Now was different. The alpha responded to his omega's call on instinct. He caught the flailing arm and guided it around his own shoulder.

"I'm here, Aeroc."

"Ah. My alpha. Don't go anywhere."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right here beside you."

The heat had overwhelmed Aeroc's senses entirely. Even this close — even with a part of Kloff inside him — he was afraid. He clung like an infant, refusing to leave Kloff's arms, and every round had been the same: face to face, bodies wound together. When even a momentary separation was more than he could bear, Kloff pressed their sweat-slicked bodies flush.

Chest to chest, each could feel the other's heartbeat. The reassurance seemed to ease something in Aeroc; a fraction of the tension left his body. As it did, the join shifted fractionally deeper, and Kloff felt a small gap that hadn't been there before. The blunt head of his thick shaft grazed past that opening, and Aeroc let out a breathless sound.

"Ah…… mm……"

"Does that feel good?"

He was in no state to answer, but the response was unmistakable. When Kloff pressed against that spot, Aeroc writhed as though in agony — even as his legs clamped around Kloff's waist, refusing to let him retreat. A short withdrawal, then a sharp thrust into the gap — and Aeroc cried out, voice fracturing.

"Hah…… ahh…… nn…… aah."

They'd had sex countless times, knotted more than once — but never once had Kloff found the true opening and entered it properly. For the first time in his life, he experienced the dizzying bliss of his partner's body opening for him. He kissed the man he loved down to every last strand of hair and, with patience, knocked at the entrance. Gradually, it yielded. The impossibly hot, stinging interior accepted him by degrees. When the tip finally breached and sank in, Aeroc went rigid with a piercing cry.

"Ah…… ah……"

The sharp intellect had fled; the sounds that poured out were those of a creature beyond thought. After two deliberate strokes, the thick shaft seated fully inside that deepest place — and Aeroc couldn't even scream. He shook in silence. Tears beaded at the corners of wide-open eyes. Kloff licked the sweet liquid away and drove deeper, tearing through the thin membrane that had never admitted anyone. The pain must have been excruciating — Aeroc's legs locked tight, fingernails raking Kloff's shoulders. And simultaneously, the inner walls clenched with crushing force.

The searing pain across his shoulders, the grip so tight it hurt, and at the same moment a scent so dense it made his skull spin — Kloff peaked immediately. He emptied himself into that warm, drenched place. Several waves later, spent, he felt the body beneath him go boneless — Aeroc had fainted from the combined onslaught of agony and ecstasy. Taking the slackening as his signal, Kloff released the breath he'd been holding and let himself collapse.

"Aeroc?"

He called out between ragged breaths and lifted his head, but Aeroc was unconscious, panting in shallow, rapid draws. Kloff brushed the sweat-dampened hair from his forehead and kissed it. Then — before they locked together as before — he carefully laid Aeroc on his back, straightened the limp legs, and held him from behind.

Where the inner tissue had torn, it must have stung even in sleep; Aeroc's brow creased and tears fell, bead after bead. Each time, Kloff's heart ached even as the tenderness swelled, and he held tighter, pressing kisses into every surface his lips could reach.

* * *

"This isn't like you. Why are you suddenly acting this way?"

Inside that fear-saturated air, inside that dry and husk-like soul — a bud of hope pushed up, tender and green as a dew-laden shoot. I ripped it out with sharpened fingernails. Not knowing what end it would bring. I destroyed the last hope that had taken root in his heart.

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

"Aeroc?"

I seized the person who had already gone with blood-soaked hands. Waiting for an answer that would never come, calling his name without cease.

* * *

A terrible nightmare. So vivid he'd wept in his sleep, gasping awake. His eyes stung — too raw to open properly. He raised a hand and wiped the drenched cheek. Even as his palm scrubbed back and forth, something ungovernable kept streaming down. He couldn't breathe; he drew several harsh, shuddering breaths.

At some point the tears had run down into his nose and dampened his lips. No amount of wiping helped. The tear ducts had broken, or the heart had melted. Why this crushing remorse, this self-loathing?

He opened his eyes at last. The pillow was soaked through. His limbs were leaden, his body hollow — he felt as though he were dying. Through blurred vision he saw a room he didn't recognize. A room he'd certainly never been in, yet its atmosphere wasn't unfamiliar. He inhaled, and a known scent reached him; the inexplicable regret began, slowly, to subside.

He couldn't breathe and pushed himself upright. Someone lay beside him, dead to the world. Blond hair, a face white as a dream. Aeroc. He was sleeping so deeply it was hard to believe he was alive.

He can't be dead — can he?

Sudden terror struck. He couldn't say when, but there had been a time — hadn't there? — when Aeroc had closed his eyes like this and never opened them again. In a dream, perhaps. He couldn't let go. He never wanted to be left alone again.

He pulled Aeroc close and checked for breath. Ear to nose, then hand to skin — confirming warmth. Still not enough — he pressed his ear to the chest. The heart was beating strongly. Lungs rising and falling in steady rhythm. He was alive. Healthy.

Kloff exhaled in relief and held Aeroc tight. The restless stirring must have disturbed the sleeper; Aeroc's brow furrowed, surfacing toward waking. Normally Kloff would have told him to go back to sleep. Right now he wanted the eyes to open. He wanted to see himself reflected in those deep blue irises.

"Aeroc?"

The name came out in a tear-thickened, absurd voice. No answer. Even in that brief silence his blood ran cold, and the panic surged.

"Ae…… roc?"

He couldn't even pronounce the two short syllables properly. Tears fell, striking the golden lashes below. They trembled finely. Then a voice, scraped utterly raw: "Mmm."

Relief. The grimace that singlehandedly routed the terror of death — it was so precious, so dear. The lips, pursed in displeasure at being disturbed, mumbled something unintelligible, and Kloff stole a kiss from them mid-murmur.

The victim of the stolen kiss resisted feebly, and by the time it ended, a tear that had slipped free clung to the abundant lashes. Slowly, Aeroc opened his eyes. In the deep, lake-blue irises Kloff found his own foolish reflection and smiled. Still not fully awake, Aeroc stared at him blankly.

"……I can't do any more."

"Not tonight, I promise."

"Then why, Kloff?"

Belatedly registering the tears, Aeroc's eyes widened. He raised one hand to wipe them, sitting up at the same time, then cupped the soaked cheeks with both hands and rubbed with his thumbs. Deeply confused, he asked, "What's wrong?" The words came out stifled, almost a groan — and to Kloff they sounded as though someone's heart were being ripped apart. He caught the hands cradling his face and pressed his lips to one palm.

"It's nothing."

"Crying like this and it's nothing? Unless……"

Aeroc trailed off, bit his lip, and then offered a thin smile. A smile free of all pretense — painfully sad. Kloff's chest lurched and several more tears fell.

"If you want to take it back, even now……"

"Shut up. No matter what happens, you're mine. You will never get away from me."

The threat dissolved halfway in tears and carried no force whatsoever. But Aeroc said nothing. He simply held the man weeping like an abandoned child.

In most settings, the count could be haughty, imperious — perfectly capable of looking down on people. But when it came to Kloff, Aeroc was strangely lacking in confidence. When he'd pushed Kloff away before, saying he couldn't go through that again, he'd trembled like someone wounded by love.

What had happened in a past that should have been nothing but light — Kloff didn't know. Only that the wound was immeasurably deep, and healing would take a very long time. He should have been the one holding Aeroc; instead, it was Kloff who clung.

The lack of confidence meant a lack of certainty — which meant a deficit of trust in the other person. Aeroc was as bound to Kloff as Kloff was to him, yet for all that brilliant mind, he seemed to memorize without comprehending — always leaving room for doubt. Or perhaps he wanted confirmation.

Each time, Kloff made it absolute. Repetition worked on even the slowest learner; he held this conviction as gospel. You are mine. I will never let go. Between the ceaseless tears he recited it again and again. Eventually Aeroc's voice began to dampen, too.

"Then why? Why are you crying?"

A nightmare he didn't want to recall. Aeroc wrapped around him, resting his nose in Kloff's hair, whispering gently — tell me what happened. He should have been Aeroc's anchor, but the voice, the hand stroking his back, were so warm that he let himself be indulged.

"In the dream, you — my wife — drove Rapiel and our unborn child to a horrible death. I went mad. And I cursed you to die just as wretchedly. Over and over. Until you really did."

The body holding him froze solid, as though turned to ice. Breathing stopped; the heart began to pound violently. The hand that had been tenderly stroking his back trembled. He raised his head: Aeroc had gone white with shock.

Kloff regretted it instantly. He'd done exactly what an alpha should never do to an unstable, heat-stricken omega. The one he should have been showering with love — and instead he'd delivered a curse, dream or not, and reported it. Needlessly cruel. Aeroc was already fragile and anxious; those words should never have been spoken. Stupid.

"I'm sorry. I didn't need to say that."

He sat up and this time gathered the violently trembling Aeroc in his arms. He stroked the back slowly, the way Aeroc had done for him a moment ago. The shaking hands touched his chest — not reaching toward him but pushing away. Kloff wanted to sew his own mouth shut.

"That was thoughtless of me."

He tightened his hold, and Aeroc's forehead rested against his still-damp cheek. He kissed it naturally. Still Aeroc said nothing. The silence made Kloff talk more.

"They say dreams go by opposites — maybe a nightmare brings good luck."

He grasped at anything to thaw the frozen body.

"Six children — that must be my subconscious desire leaking through. In the dream you were an alpha who'd been forcibly changed to omega. In reality, it was a natural medical anomaly. Reality getting mixed into the dream. Rapiel and I are already over; my wife is you. Just a nonsense dream. Good things keep happening, so of course I'd have a bad dream to balance it out. Don't worry about it."

No matter what he said, the trembling didn't stop. He could hear faint crying. Kloff cursed himself for terrorizing his almost certainly pregnant omega with a single careless remark during a heat.

"Shh…… It's all right. Nothing is going to happen. I would never do that to you."

He murmured low and soothed for a long time. Eventually Aeroc seemed to try to master the tears on his own, drawing several wet breaths, forcing deep inhales. And still a long time after that, a voice so wrecked it was barely intelligible:

"In the dream…… after I died."

"Stop thinking about a stupid dream."

He tried to draw the line firmly, but Aeroc wouldn't stop. He pressed his damp eyes against the alpha's neck to hide them, and forced the words out.

"……Were you happy?"

"What?"

The question made no sense. Kloff asked again, and through a sniffle Aeroc managed, in a voice almost extinguished:

"After you got your revenge…… were you not suffering anymore?"

"You want to know that?"

Slowly, he nodded. Kloff let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh. Is he asking me, sarcastically, how well I lived after he died? Endearing and heartbreaking in equal measure. Kloff repositioned the already-crying omega onto his lap, tucked the blond head against his own neck, and stroked the small of his back. And, to console him, he took more blame than was his due.

"Happy? Tormenting you was already unbearable — after you died, it was the worst."

"……Why?"

The question came as though from someone who truly didn't know. Kloff smiled. So he wants to hear it. He didn't particularly want to lay all his cards on the table, but right now the crime was his — so he'd say it as many times as needed.

"Killing an imprinted omega with my own hands and living on alone is hell. I promise you — if that dream had been real, I'd already be dead."

Aeroc, who had been swallowing his tears, jerked his head up and stared at Kloff with the frozen expression of someone struck by lightning. He looked utterly incredulous, so Kloff licked the tears from the upturned eyes and confirmed it once more.

"In the dream, the children you bore were the only reason I couldn't die. Right now there's no such reason — so if anything happens to you, I die, too. So please, live long and healthy. I'd like to grow old."

He leaned in with a wry smile for the cheek — but Aeroc turned his head away. Then, in a trembling voice, he demanded:

"……Imprinting? You never said anything about that."

"In the dream, we were destroying each other so savagely that by the time I realized, it was too late. Right now……"

In truth, he'd been holding back the confession deliberately — already outmatched in every way, he'd be a slave if he gave that up, too. He'd planned to confess once he'd earned a proper standing. Instead he temporized: "If you hadn't thrown that enormous banquet, I was going to tell you over dinner, along with the ring." The ring, at least, was real.

Come to think of it, his fury at the banquet had made him drag Aeroc straight to the bedroom, skipping everything he'd planned. And then on top of that, the nightmare and the curse. No matter how he looked at it, he'd lost some portion of his sanity. The euphoria of finally possessing his omega had clearly unhinged him.

He'd confessed honestly, but Aeroc didn't believe him. Liar, he kept saying. For someone already trembling with anxiety, perhaps that was inevitable. Kloff sensed that if he couldn't make Aeroc believe him now, it would be like this forever — an omega who perpetually left room to doubt, while Kloff had no such inclination whatsoever.

"If you don't believe me — wait here a moment."

He pulled away and made to leave the bed to fetch the evidence, but Aeroc cried out — "Don't go!" — and lunged after him. Kloff turned, startled, to find Aeroc gripping his arm with desperate force, tears brimming.

"I'll believe you — so don't go!"

"……The ring is right there in my coat pocket……"

"I don't need a ring. Just don't go."

Kloff was, frankly, disappointed — he'd gone to the trouble of preparing it — but Aeroc looked so desperate that there was nothing to do but hold him again. Aeroc clung as though drowning. Their bare chests pressed together: warm, and deeply good. Worried about the cool air on the exposed, smooth back, Kloff pulled the sheet up to the shoulders. Aeroc, attached to the cedar-broad body like a vine, gradually steadied his breathing. Damp breath grazed the collarbone, ticklish.

"Since when?"

Two clipped words, but their meaning was clear. Kloff drew the waist closer and answered honestly. He wanted to kiss, but Aeroc's head was down and the angle wouldn't cooperate.

"I don't know exactly."

"How did you find out?"

Aeroc raised his head to ask, and Kloff wiped the wet lash-line with his thumb — then slipped the thumb into Aeroc's mouth. Aeroc frowned at the sudden intrusion.

"How does it taste?"

"Are you messing with me?"

"Is it sweet?"

The eyes that had been about to drop more tears now hardened with anger, glaring through the moisture. Yet the hands that held him only tightened — never pulling away. Kloff smiled, bent his head, and licked the tears instead. Aeroc flinched, shoved the odd-behaving alpha off, and fixed him with a stare full of suspicion.

"How can tears be sweet?"

"To me, they are. Insanely. That's how I knew."

Still skeptical, Aeroc asked again and again. Were the tears really sweet? Did he taste them himself? Was it like that in the dream, too? It was something Kloff had no wish to dwell on or publicize, and the relentless interrogation annoyed him — but he was the guilty party and had nothing to stand on. He confirmed each question dutifully, until Aeroc burst out in a voice seething with fury:

"You rotten bastard."

Kloff didn't think he'd done anything quite that terrible, but Aeroc was flushed with indignation, grinding his teeth. Now what? He kept quiet and waited, and a barrage of abuse followed.

"Vicious demon. Damned wretch. Of course you lived in hell — you deserved it! Because of you, I…… I……"

The invective was severe by aristocratic standards, and when Aeroc's rage threatened to choke him, Kloff redirected.

"You were no saint either. You had Rapiel killed and then you went and died in the most horrible way possible — turned my life into a living hell."

Aeroc shook his head vehemently.

"I never did it on purpose. You were the one who said nothing but cruel things, so——"

Being branded an absolute villain for concealing the imprinting was beyond absurd. Kloff propped his chin on one hand, elbow on knee, and watched Aeroc impassively. Both had cried themselves dry by now — Aeroc's fury, Kloff's tears of bewildered terror, all spent. The confession of imprinting hadn't produced joy but an explosion of rage at having been kept in the dark. Piqued, Kloff lobbed a barb.

"You talk as if you know my dream."

Aeroc leaped as though a thorn had jabbed him from below. He glanced nervously at the man regarding him with a flat, unimpressed stare, and produced an awkward smile.

"I'm saying that's probably what happened."

"Not on purpose, but you intended to? Why?"

Kloff wasn't the only one capable of pretending not to know. He curled one corner of his mouth, knowing perfectly well how irritating it looked. Aeroc turned away and feigned ignorance. The red lips — vivid against the pale skin — trembled faintly. He was shaken. Kloff needled him further, deliberately cool.

"It's just a dream, but — why would an alpha be hostile toward another man's wife?"

"Doesn't the dream tell you that?"

"Can't recall."

In truth, a certain scene was exquisitely vivid: a party, trembling hands clasped behind his back, a paper-thin smile on the surface while underneath, an astonishingly brazen proposition — unbearably adorable. But admitting to that dream would add "pervert" to his existing title of "demon," so Kloff kept it to himself.

He pressed and pressed, but Aeroc sealed his lips and refused to the end. Kloff had laid himself bare down to the imprinting, and yet one simple word was apparently too much to ask. Stung, he toppled the stubbornly seated omega onto the bed. He kneaded the resilient backside and ran his tongue over a nipple already swollen from relentless attention.

Aeroc sucked in a sharp breath. Kloff pinned his wrists before he could cover his chest, and drew hard on the tender inner skin until Aeroc's face was burning. "I told you — no more," came a voice strung tight with nerves.

"Your heat isn't over yet."

One remark, and then he brought his hips down between the legs Aeroc was trying to close. The rigid shaft met the cleft of his backside, and Aeroc made a strangled noise, twisting upward. Kloff bore down with his full weight, and through the bare skin of his abdomen felt the answering contour. He glanced down: flushed a deep pink, vivid against the pale skin, it had risen like a bud in May. He grinned and took it in hand, rubbing the tip with his thumb.

"Ah! Nnh…… don't touch it! Mm——"

"Answer me and I'll stop."

"Answer what, you animal!"

"Not quite there yet, I see."

Instead of entering, he nudged the entrance with blunt, rhythmic prods while simultaneously squeezing the slick heat in his palm, thumb nail tracing the slit. Aeroc shoved at Kloff's head where it worried a stiffened nipple and kicked uselessly at the sheets.

The soaked entrance had become a pair of wet lips, pursing around the head that kept butting against them — then, as it withdrew, the flushed, half-parted flesh clung and puckered in a glistening baby-kiss. The sight was unbearably obscene, and Kloff was losing his grip on the game. Aeroc, however, held out.

"You said you'd wait until I was ready — now you're going to force me? Liar and braggart and beast."

"Insults won't help. If you can't satisfy me with words, you'll have to pay in body."

He pressed harder at the entrance, and Aeroc's composure cracked — he stared down at the junction he could barely see, wild-eyed, and writhed.

"I don't know how to say it!"

Face crumpling, Aeroc seized the large hand gripping his sex with both of his own and held it still. Kloff tongued the saliva-slick nipple and chided lightly.

"Are you an idiot? Didn't you ever take a literature course? Rhetoric?"

"A money-grubbing philistine like you lecturing me on the humanities."

"I got straight A's in literature. The professor urged me to pursue it seriously."

"Give me that professor's name. The man's a fraud."

When Kloff raised his head, the frosty glare of a haughty aristocrat who clearly placed him somewhere between barbarian and dullard met his eyes. Very well, then — the barbarian it is.

He tormented the exhausted body until a proper explanation was forthcoming — nipples licked raw, an oversensitized sex stroked with merciless gentleness, earlobes chewed, the soft skin beneath the jaw sucked into a mark no collar could hide.

When Aeroc, in self-defense, flipped onto his stomach, Kloff bit into the shoulder blade and ground against the backs of the thighs and buttocks. He caught one ankle, folded the leg up, and the pale entrance came into view. Aeroc shook the captured ankle and fought — but the moment Kloff's tongue touched the pulsing, weeping opening, the man drew a knife-sharp breath and went rigid from spine to scalp.

"Stop! I'll talk — stop!"

Immediate surrender. The sweetness was dizzying enough to make his head swim, and having to pull away before a proper taste was a genuine loss — but there was a larger objective. Aeroc wasn't going anywhere.

"Well, then. Let's hear it."

He gave the grin that others had called menacing, braced on both arms above the prone omega, and looked down. Aeroc peeked sideways, nibbled his lip.

"I don't know what it is."

"Not enough, apparently."

When Kloff reached for the released ankle again, Aeroc stopped him in a panic.

"I mean it! I don't know. I don't know what it's called."

The alarm seemed genuine enough. Still — it was baffling. What kind of person doesn't know the word? Had the library stuffed to the rafters been purely decorative?

Kloff had assumed someone with that razor-sharp mind and those shelves of literature would have considerable depth in the humanities. The man set him reading lists and grilled him with exacting rigor — clearly a master of philosophy. Dream or no dream, Aeroc had just been passionate enough to rage and interrogate, and now he couldn't articulate the thing itself? Perhaps the heat had short-circuited his higher functions.

Then again, Kloff himself had woken up sobbing, so he was hardly operating at full capacity either. Still annoyed, but willing to concede the point — nothing was more tedious than a serious argument in bed. He offered a compromise.

"If you don't know the word, just describe it. I'll tell you what it is."

After a moment's hesitation, Aeroc began. His cheeks colored, but there was no mischief, no sarcasm — his expression was utterly earnest as he looked up at Kloff, voice faintly trembling.

"When I first saw you by chance in the garden, the rest of the world went blurry — everything except you. The birdsong and the wind I'd always heard vanished, and only your voice echoed inside my head. Even in a room full of people, you were the only one who stood out. I could douse myself in perfume and your bittersweet scent would still hit me harder. When I closed my eyes, I saw only you. As long as you were there, I didn't care if I had nothing else in the world. No matter what you did to me, I forgave it. No matter how much it hurt, how hard it got, I couldn't give up on living — because of you. And when you were hurting, I felt like I was dying. It was just…… as though the only reason I was born was you……"

By the time the quiet, even words reached him, Kloff had very nearly collapsed. No elaborate rhetoric, no poetic flourish — the phrases laid out like a thesis, dry as a paper — and yet all the light in the world seemed to pour from those rose-colored lips, and the thin, hopelessly trembling voice rang more gloriously than any celestial chorus.

Kloff's own face was burning. At the same time, the sheer absurdity drew sigh after sigh. What is he trying to do? One simple sentence would have sufficed, and here he was, talking all the way around it. Of course, Kloff was also so happy he could die.

"And?"

He prodded brusquely, deliberately, to hide the heartbeat hammering hard enough to crack his sternum. Aeroc swallowed, looking a touch lost, and continued.

"I wanted you to look at only me. To kiss only me. But you wouldn't even glance my way — you were with someone else. It made me furious. No matter what I said or did, you never looked. So I went further and further, until I finally did something that terrible…… probably. That's what must have happened. In your dream."

The last words were barely audible. God, what do I do with this impossibly adorable creature.

"That was a very thorough confession, and I'm grateful — but it wasn't exactly poetic, and the clichés were a bit thick. It's a touch embarrassing from the listener's end. Could you not just say I love you and be done with it?"

After the seductress act, the role had flipped entirely — a confession as pure and artless as a first love, delivered like a young poet trembling at the lectern. It was so beautiful that he teased, almost reflexively. Aeroc's brow furrowed; he stared at Kloff. His mouth worked, clearly full of things to say and no idea how to say them, until at last he managed a single sentence:

"Someone told me that what I feel isn't love."

"Who said that?"

"……Someone."

"Scammed by another fraud, apparently."

It had only been a light jab, but Aeroc looked thunderstruck — and then slammed a fist into Kloff's chest, hard. Kloff winced and grumbled "That hurt," at which point Aeroc roared. The fury was genuine enough to be unstoppable.

"You're allowed to hurt!"

Three or four more blows landed before Kloff pulled him into a hold that pinned his arms. Blocked from hitting, Aeroc resorted to every obscenity he could muster — aristocratic vocabulary stretched thin — and Kloff shut each one down with a kiss. Every time a curse tried to emerge, another kiss. Eventually the struggling subsided.

A long, long kiss later — face flushed from anger or breathlessness or both — Aeroc still bristled, pointing an accusatory finger.

"I was absolutely rotten, too — but you are genuinely despicable. How could I possibly…… you……"

Kloff smiled lazily. "Too late to figure that out. You're already mine."

Truly angry now, Aeroc shoved him and rolled over, turning his back. Kloff gathered him in again, face to face, and for a while stroked the grumbling head.

"So — are you going to say it or not?"

"You first."

Refusing to yield to the end — admirable or infuriating. Kloff laughed softly and gave what was asked, lightly.

"I love you."

It wasn't a difficult thing to say — but having said it, his ears burned with an unexpected bashfulness. In an entire life of hearing the words, he had never once spoken them aloud. The sensation tickled; it felt foreign. He mumbled a practice run, and Aeroc went completely still — as though hearing the most impossible thing in the world.

"I love you."

This time he looked Aeroc square in the eyes and said it clearly, so there could be no mistaking. Still no reaction. Stubbornness flared.

"I love you. I love you. I love you, love you, love you."

He varied the endings, shifted the tense, repeated it with single-minded insistence — and Aeroc launched himself off the bed. He rolled off the high, expensive mattress and very nearly tumbled to the floor.

"Aeroc?"

Kloff threw back the sheet and went after him. Aeroc didn't look back — didn't seem to hear his name. On legs that barely held him, he stood and began pulling on the trousers and shirt draped over a nearby sofa.

One thigh showed a pale streak running down the inner surface as he pulled on the trousers — and Kloff felt the blood rush south again. Aeroc didn't bother to wipe it; he just dragged the trousers up and threw on the shirt. He was fumbling with the buttons as he headed for the door, and Kloff scrambled after him.

"Where do you think you're going in that state!"

Before he could reach him, Aeroc slipped through the door and was gone. In the instant before it closed, Kloff caught the ashen white of his face. Terrified of what Aeroc might do next, Kloff's blood went cold. He yanked on trousers and nothing else, and tore out after him. In the long corridor outside, from the far end, the sound of bare feet running.

I really will shackle him to the bedpost. Once he learns what an imprinted alpha is capable of.

Bewildered and furious, Kloff gave chase with every intention of following through.

He rounded the corner where Aeroc had vanished and found, at the end of the long corridor, Hugo — directing the staff through the final service of tea and biscuits for the lingering guests. And there was Aeroc, barreling toward the butler, snatching the steaming teapot out of his hands.

Hugo, startled: "Be careful, sir — that's boiling water." Aeroc didn't hear. He seized a fine teacup from a maid's tray and splashed in the tea. He was about to drain it in one swallow — and Kloff lunged.

Hugo, too, reacted — catching the teapot that Aeroc was already half-dropping with both hands.

"I told you — tea is bad for the baby!"

In his haste to wrench the cup away, the scalding liquid sloshed over the back of Kloff's hand.

"Ngh!"

He hissed and grabbed his own wrist with the other hand. Hugo, seeing the burn, snatched a glass of cold water from the equally stunned maid's tray and poured it over the wound. Then he soaked his own linen napkin in a second glass and wrapped the hand.

"I doused it quickly — it shouldn't be a serious burn."

Hugo clutched his chest in relief, and Kloff did the same. And beside them, Aeroc — frozen in place, breathing in rough, shallow drags — did the same. His pallid face was a picture of helpless confusion.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Ah — well."

The tear-bright eyes turned to Kloff. Whatever the cause, this habit of bolting had to be corrected. If it wasn't, every future occurrence would mean Kloff on the receiving end of invisible blades, or vomiting blood, or — as now — a fury that transcended the physical sting of scalded skin.

"Come with me."

Without a word to the dumbstruck butler and maid, Kloff took Aeroc's wrist and strode forward. Each time Aeroc tried to speak, tried to pull free, Kloff squeezed hard enough to bruise. The small sounds of pain drove into his hammering chest like nails — but he swallowed them down.

He paid no attention to the damp cloth slipping from his burned hand; he seized the door handle, hauled it open, pulled the still-resisting man inside, and flung him onto the bed. Aeroc tried immediately to stand and flee. Kloff locked the door, crossed the room in two strides, and pressed him flat with his full weight.

Even pinned under that mass, Aeroc clawed upward again and again, as though possessed — exploiting any gap to bolt. Through it all, his face — that blank, white, automaton's face — made Kloff feel as though every breath he drew was black smoke searing his lungs from the inside.

"Why are you doing this!"

The roar finally broke loose.

"I told you — you'll never get away from me! I confess the imprinting, I tell you I love you, and now you think you've squeezed me dry? Is that it? I'm saying it again — you are my omega and you're carrying my child. Running away without permission is something I will never forgive!"

No response. Just flinching, convulsive twitches from the body beneath him — and looking at that paralyzed face, Kloff felt despair swallow him whole. He wanted, quite literally, to snap both of Aeroc's legs. If he couldn't walk, he couldn't run.

The rage was beyond containment. This was an order of magnitude beyond the time Aeroc had fled his office. Back then, imprinting had been unrecognized — the heartache could be buried. Not now.

In the seconds it took Aeroc to round that corner and disappear — the seconds before Kloff spotted his back again — he had plummeted into the abyss and clawed back out more times than he could count. The solid marble floor became molten rock, legs sinking, nerve endings dissolving from the extremities inward, that vertiginous feeling of liquefaction. Every breath was live flame drawn into the lungs. He never wanted to experience it again.

By the time his smoke-blurred vision found the translucent, light-wrapped figure of Aeroc's back and his senses began, haltingly, to function — the pain of burned skin was nothing. He'd caught the man trying to fly away, stuffed him back into the nest, and still Aeroc tried to escape.

What if I just broke one leg? Just one……

Before he knew it, Kloff's hand had closed around the thin, skin-sheathed ankle and was squeezing.

It'd snap outward more easily than you'd think. Just like that time…… that time?

The large, powerful hand wrenched the ankle, and Aeroc fluttered like a butterfly whose wing had been seized — legs beating, trying to break free. But he couldn't. Not because of the grip — because Kloff had gone limp and collapsed on top of him.

That time. What time? Aeroc's ankle had never been broken. If it had happened at all, it must have been before Kloff knew him — childhood, perhaps, a riding lesson gone wrong. But why did he have such a vivid sensation of having seen it? A hallucination. It had to be. His imprinted omega was behaving incomprehensibly; the stress was producing visions. That was the only explanation. He must not recall that image. Must never recall it.

Driving out the memory that should not exist — a thing the imprinting had warped into being — Kloff breathed roughly. At the same time, he released the ankle of the person squirming beneath him. He stroked where the red fingermarks would be. His own fingers trembled too badly for proper sensation, but he caressed as lovingly as he could manage. The revulsion at himself — at what he had almost done to something this beautiful — rose like bile.

Aeroc appeared to have entered something like a panic state. He couldn't speak coherently, couldn't meet Kloff's eyes. The ankle was free, but something more serious had gone wrong. He babbled incomprehensible fragments, thrashing, and the sight filled Kloff with a mounting terror.

"Aeroc? What is it — what's wrong?"

No matter how many times he called, Aeroc only stared at nothing and flailed. Kloff cupped the chalk-white face, forced eye contact, and shouted: "Aeroc!" The scattered gaze finally locked onto him — and Aeroc recoiled as though he'd seen a ghost. Trembling violently. What is he so afraid of? Kloff watched the color drain further from a face already bone-white, watched the man stiffen into something brittle and opaque, and could not speak.

Every time Aeroc looked at him like that, Kloff felt he was dying. Something was hidden — that much was certain — but Aeroc would never say what. Sometimes his silhouette was so insubstantial it seemed a breath would scatter it, and he'd take on the air of someone who had let go of everything. The way he'd looked down from the window that first time Kloff had fled the mansion after a panic attack — that fathomless, vanishing gaze.

He wanted to cry. To wail like a child — what hurts so badly, why can't you tell me — to cling and sob. He was terrified. Even with Kloff right there, he was powerless, and that fact alone was a great blade pressing down between his shoulder blades.

But he couldn't weep in front of an omega in shock. What he'd already done — frightening Aeroc with the nightmare, making him cry — was more than enough. The surge that tried to break through, he forced back down. He tasted blood at the back of his nose, but Kloff summoned every scrap of strength and smiled. And whispered, very gently:

"It's all right. I'm here. Don't be afraid. No one can hurt you."

Moments ago he'd been ready to snap the man's ankle — and now he whispered that sweet lie. Yes: a lie. He knew it perfectly well. Alpha or not, Kloff had never been able to give Aeroc unconditional protection, to guarantee that nothing would ever harm him. Even now, unable to comprehend why Aeroc suffered, he could only offer hollow comfort, performing the same meaningless gestures anyone could manage.

And yet — at those worthless words and actions — Aeroc clutched at him like a drowning man and gasped for air. One sentence, barely formed:

"……I don't want to fall asleep like this and never wake up. I can't sleep."

Kloff despaired again at the incomprehensible — and yet was deeply, truly grateful that Aeroc had communicated something, anything. He exhaled a trembling sigh of thanks to God.

"Why can't you sleep? I'll watch over you. Don't worry."

He spoke tenderly, but Aeroc panted, moaned — and then whispered, just loudly enough for Kloff's ear alone:

"I woke from a vast darkness into this beautiful dream. So I can't fall asleep. If I sleep inside the dream, I'll wake up in the cruel reality again. The cold cottage, the hard bed — I'll be alone. That hurts too much to bear. So——"

None of it made sense, but Aeroc's face — contorted yet tearless — looked as though his next breath might be his last. Those blue eyes, so quick to overflow, now held nothing but a reddened rim and not a single drop. Kloff had no words. All he could do was grip the man as though they might fuse into one — because without that, the cracked and painstakingly glued porcelain doll might crumble into sand and sift away between his fingers.

"This isn't a dream, Aeroc."

"……It's a lie."

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Because you don't love me."

Aeroc let out a desolate laugh. Better tears than that. Kloff tasted, in the sincerity that had failed to reach, a despair so acute it was physical.

I love you. I'm imprinted on you. I can't live without you. I love you more than anything in this world. No matter how many times he said it, Aeroc only smiled that empty smile. And then exhaustion pulled him under; his eyes began to close. He rubbed them, slapped his own face — fighting sleep as he'd vowed — but the lids were winning. A smile twisted with anguish. Through failing eyes, a silent plea.

"You're so gentle in the dream that it's like a lie. Please — anything — give me a stimulant. I don't want to sleep."

The whisper was so pitiful that Kloff genuinely wanted to brew the strongest possible tea and put it in his hands. But he couldn't.

Aeroc was clearly in the grip of confusion. He'd suddenly become an omega, undergone an unplanned pregnancy, and the shock had triggered some kind of delusion — or hallucination. Just as Kloff had, the heat was blurring the line between dream and waking.

"When you wake, you'll open your eyes right here beside me. Don't worry."

The heat, the marathon of sex, and now the task of ferrying the fertilized egg safely to the womb — Aeroc's fatigue would be immense, and he'd sleep for a very long time. As he should.

Setting aside his own reeling head and shredding heart, Kloff — the alpha paired with this terrified omega — soothed and gentled and talked him down. Aeroc fought the tide of sleep, and with the last of his strength managed a whisper so faint it barely qualified as sound:

"……Even if it's a lie…… just keep saying you love me until I fall asleep."

Kloff tilted his head up so Aeroc wouldn't see the tears that were finally breaking through, cleared the burning knot in his throat, and whispered:

"I love you. I love you, Aeroc. I love you…… I love you……"

Already gone, eyes closed, Aeroc murmured: "I am in love with you." A frail smile, one last tear slipping through barely trembling lashes. It sounded like a farewell — the final words of someone departing forever — and through vision swimming in tears Kloff could say nothing at all.

The breathing was steady, the heartbeat strong — and still the crushing terror that he might never see those blue eyes again kept him holding the limp body through the night, kissing it again and again. In the cold, hard dark, so that Aeroc would feel no pain, he whispered without cease into the sleeping ear.

I love you, I love you. Over and over. I love you, too.

* * *

The next day, Aeroc slept through till late afternoon. When he woke, Kloff was still holding him — had never let go, not once, lest he fly away. The sleepless night had taken its toll, but the sight of Aeroc's nose crinkling at the warm afternoon light slanting across the pillow, the small disgruntled sounds as he surfaced — that was the reward for the patience of waiting out the dark.

The first thing he did upon waking was look at the face directly in front of him and say "Kloff?" — as though addressing a stranger. The slightly hoarse voice carried no trace of terror, no pain. Kloff, who had been steeling himself throughout the night, let the relief flood in and gave the smile he'd been rehearsing.

"Morning, Aeroc. I'm afraid you're still dreaming."

Still half-asleep, Aeroc blinked and narrowed his brow.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm still in love with you."

Incomprehension flickered across the blue eyes — and then he broke into a radiant smile. He seemed stable. The night-long vigil's anxiety dissolved, and Kloff leaned in to kiss the prettily curved lips.

"A passionate declaration first thing upon waking — somebody's been working hard at becoming a romantic."

"……You made me this way."

"When did I do that?"

The playful grin showed no residue of shock whatsoever, which struck Kloff as faintly odd. Does he not remember last night? Well — just as well, perhaps.

Kloff pulled Aeroc close for a lingering kiss, then rose. Fatigue, tears, sweat — he wanted a scalding shower. As the sheet slipped away, Aeroc let out a theatrical groan and stretched extravagantly before going boneless. The un-Aeroc-like sound drew Kloff's gaze; their eyes met, and Aeroc smiled with a touch of sheepishness.

"I'm exhausted."

"Of course you are. You put in a full night's labor."

"……The sex was long, but I don't think it lasted all night. You didn't — you know — while I was unconscious? Please tell me you're not that depraved."

Aeroc eyed him with the look of someone already half-certain of the answer. How does he arrive at that conclusion? Setting aside the fact that Aeroc had single-handedly dragged him to the banks of the Styx and then conveniently fainted while Kloff was left to claw his way back — the nerve to lay blame was astounding. But another episode was the last thing he needed, so the commentary stayed internal and the expression stayed warm.

"Sex isn't labor. And it's not a solo activity, either."

"Then why am I this tired?"

Because you went sprinting barefoot through the halls, got dragged back, thrashed like a wild thing, and had a breakdown. Aeroc's baffled face gave nothing away. He'd drawn up one knee and was absently rubbing his ankle. Kloff laid a palm gently over the flat lower abdomen.

"You spent all night moving the fertilized egg from here — to here."

Rosy color bloomed across the cheeks in an instant. Aeroc chewed his lip, then admonished:

"That is not hard labor."

"It absolutely is. Selecting the strongest, healthiest seed out of countless candidates, building a whole person, and transporting it from a deep valley to an open plain."

"Using rhetoric learned on a scholarship at the National Capital University for that — you're the lowest of the low."

Aeroc covered one burning cheek with a hand and swept the brazen alpha up and down with a look of utter disbelief. Kloff, privately quite proud of the metaphor, smirked for emphasis. A pillow hit him square in the face.

While its owner writhed with mortification, Kloff climbed out of bed. He cleared his scratchy throat — worn raw from a night of whispering — and poured a glass of water from the table. Then he filled a second with apple juice and brought it to Aeroc, who was bundled in the tangled sheet.

He righted himself, took the glass, and pouted with maximum pathos. "I suppose tea is off the table for good now?" The expression was designed to crumble all resistance, and Kloff — gazing at his omega with all the tenderness in the world — drew a calm, merciless line.

"Apple juice for the foreseeable future."

Grumbling, Aeroc drank the juice, then recited what was perhaps the most universal line in the lexicon of the newly pregnant.

"I'm hungry."

"I'll have something prepared."

Kloff nodded, tying the sash of his robe.

"No potatoes. I won't eat them."

"All right."

He was about to step out and call Hugo when Aeroc's voice rang out behind him:

"Wait — cancel that. I want boiled potatoes and vegetables. And you're making it yourself."

Kloff had one hand out the door. No butler in sight. He turned.

"What?"

Aeroc, sipping the last of his juice, added:

"Cut the potatoes into nice little rounds."

"You're serious? I've never cooked in my life."

His dismay was plain, but Aeroc matched his earlier resolve with an iron will of his own.

"Start learning. From now on, you're feeding the two of us."

He pointed first at his own chest, then at his belly. Kloff sighed.

"This is revenge for the tea, isn't it?"

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"No."

"Don't lie."

"So you're saying you can't do it?"

The moment he said lie, Aeroc's chin snapped up and a supremely imperious gaze descended. I won't eat a thing unless you make it yourself — that was the unyielding will behind the smile.

After a breathless staring contest, the guilty party — hamstrung by the imprinting confession — blinked first. Kloff released the bellpull he'd been about to ring. Aeroc waved him off with an entertained smile, and Kloff left the room without even the energy to snap back. Damn it. Where's the kitchen?

"Did you actually make this yourself?"

The hard-won potato-and-vegetable soup was presented with ceremony — and after two spoonfuls, Aeroc's face collapsed into a grimace and the spoon clattered down. Years of strict table-manner training kept the gag reflex in check, but the expression of someone swallowing poison was unmistakable as the soup went down. Kloff, aggrieved, held up his bandaged hands.

"The evidence, Your Honor."

"……That crunchy thing I just chewed — was that your fingernail, or a piece of your actual finger?"

Looking ready to lose the battle with his stomach, Aeroc stirred the remaining soup with his spoon.

"The blood washed off the potatoes when I rinsed them."

"I thought it tasted metallic. You fed me your blood?"

"Recent studies show that blood is an excellent source of iron — beneficial during pregnancy."

He cobbled together a defense. Why he was defending himself when he'd warned from the start that he couldn't cook was beyond him, but here he was.

"You did this on purpose, didn't you? Because you don't want to cook."

"I swear on our child — absolutely not."

It was absolutely not intentional, so he cut that line cleanly. Aeroc hummed, slid him a look, and pushed the bowl away.

"……It really is different."

Kloff caught the murmur — "What is?" — but Aeroc only said, "Never mind," and would not elaborate. Something was being withheld; the familiar unease stirred — but Kloff had resolved never to push, so he let it go.

The self-sacrificially produced blood-potato-vegetable soup went straight into the bin. Aeroc then consumed a soft bread and proper soup prepared by the cook, a modest selection of vegetables and fruit, a portion of slow-braised meat, and ice cream for dessert — and fell asleep.

Slight as he was, the man's appetite was extraordinary — he ate like someone with a grudge against hunger. In private with Kloff, he even picked crumbs off the table with his fingers. The first time Kloff witnessed that, he'd been genuinely shocked.

Anything edible went into his mouth without discrimination — with a single exception: raisins. He loathed dried fruit of any kind; if something that even resembled a raisin appeared, he spat it out immediately. It wasn't that he couldn't eat them — he seemed to harbor some private vendetta against all things dried. Fresh fruit, on the other hand, was consumed without prejudice, so the matter was of little consequence.

For now the pregnancy justified the appetite, and it was endearing besides. He'd be ravenous again the moment he woke, so Kloff set a plate of cookies and a glass of juice on the tea table within reach. After kissing the forehead and lips of the peacefully sleeping man, Kloff turned off every lamp in the room and carried one very small light to the writing table beside the bed.

He'd need to stay at Aeroc's side for several days, catching up on work in the gaps. Above all, with a child now on the way, preparations were needed. If a formal marriage certificate proved impossible, he'd draft a legal instrument of equivalent binding force. Not because he didn't trust Aeroc — but so that Aeroc could trust him. That the document was also designed to ensure Aeroc couldn't leave was something Kloff would freely admit.

While drafting what amounted to a mutual-enslavement contract, he glanced from time to time at the sleeping beauty. Simply sharing the same space filled him with quiet elation. An unconscious smile settled on his face as he bent to the work. The fingers he'd sacrificed for Aeroc stung where they met the pen, but the pain was bearable.

The scratch of nib on paper was the only sound — a still and peaceful night.