12. The nightmare ends

12. The nightmare ends

"Don't tell me — that Rapiel?"

He asked again, unable to believe it. Aeroc nodded.

Six months ago, Rapiel had married in a hasty, family-only ceremony — as though fleeing from something — and crossed the border with that disagreeable husband of his. By all accounts, he was alive and well in the foreign country.

The couple had recently sent a card of regards to the mansion. Hugo had forwarded it to the country house, and Kloff had personally verified the signatures of the insufferable man and the uncomfortable one. He hadn't shown it to Aeroc, of course. If Rapiel had died in the interim, word would certainly have reached them — or else the wolf himself would be standing at the door this very moment.

Moreover, commissioning a murder required meeting someone in secret — and a foul-tempered, hugely pregnant omega who had been hounding Kloff twenty-four hours a day could not possibly have met with anyone behind his husband's back. So how, exactly, had he ordered a killing? Kloff reached his conclusion.

"Childbirth is a blessing, but it's also an extraordinarily painful ordeal. You're probably delirious from exhaustion. Aeroc — you need to sleep. Let's talk when you wake up."

He smiled with gentle kindness, pried the baby from the resisting arms, and laid it in the prepared crib. Aeroc whimpered like a mother dog whose pup had been taken, so Kloff pushed the crib right up against the bed. Aeroc slipped a hand through the wooden slats to pat the baby, and soon found himself being eased onto his back and tucked in to the chest.

"I'm not making it up. Believe me. Rapiel was your wife, and he was pregnant, and I was so jealous that I had people trample him. Killed the mother and the unborn child both."

"Yes, yes. You committed murder. And I hated you so much I turned you from an alpha into an omega and did every inhuman thing imaginable. I know."

The perfunctory answers made Aeroc's eyes fly wide. He seized Kloff.

"You remember? Do you?"

"Of course. I've always known. Our first child was an omega son named Rapiel. Right?"

"Yes! That's right!"

Whether the memory made him happy or sad, Aeroc couldn't seem to decide — his expression was pure anguish. Kloff smiled faintly and gathered the swollen, hardened body that ten months of suffering had left bloated and stiff. And whispered tenderly into his ear:

"You were an absolute villain, and I took thorough revenge. Isn't that so?"

"Yes. You took the babies as soon as they were born. Threw me out of the house to starve in the streets, made me sell my body. I miscarried several times, too. It was so miserable and painful that I wanted to die."

A vein stood out on the alpha's forehead. The arms around the body in his embrace trembled violently. But Kloff stubbornly held on to the smile.

"And then? What did I do to you?"

Whether glad that someone was finally listening or simply unable to stop, Aeroc launched into the story with an oddly animated lilt — words of unspeakable cruelty pouring from him.

"We met by chance and you gave me a silver coin. I used it to buy clothes and went to your house. Because I looked like Rapiel. So you made me bear children — and when I found out, I was so tormented I tried to kill myself. But you saved me again. Then I lived in the cottage beside the rose garden on what was now the Viscount Bendyke's estate. I had four more children after that. The last were twins."

Through gritted teeth Kloff managed a strangled "And then?", and Aeroc produced words that were almost unbearable to hear.

"You told me what I felt wasn't love, and to die the same wretched death as my crime deserved. I asked you to tell me you loved me — even if it was a lie — and you refused."

At this part, Aeroc wilted like a rain-soaked puppy, all spirit drained.

"Fucking…… son of a bitch……"

Kloff couldn't help it — he cursed the version of himself in the story. But Aeroc flinched and apologized.

"I'm sorry. For putting you through that. I've always felt so sor——"

"Not you."

The interruption baffled Aeroc. He blinked, frowned in confusion, then started apologizing again. Torture — there was no other word for it.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean to."

"I know. You don't need to apologize anymore. I forgave you a long time ago."

He'd said it to calm him down, to get him to sleep — but Aeroc bolted upright. He shouldn't have been moving yet; pain twisted his face, eyes squeezing shut, and then the half-risen body toppled onto Kloff, who had lurched up in alarm.

"Are you all right?"

"……Say it again. What did you just——"

Aeroc clung to him, grasping, desperate.

"I asked if you're all right."

"Not that. Before."

The eyes that met his were so achingly raw that Kloff was overwhelmed. "I said I forgive you. I forgave everything," he repeated, in a voice that came out dazed and stupid. At that, tears welled in the ashen blue eyes and spilled.

"Really?"

He had no idea what was happening — but his investor's instinct pointed unequivocally toward unconditional affirmation.

"I mean it. I know everything, and I've forgiven all of it."

Aeroc let out small, fractured cries — ah…… ah…… — and began to weep. He soaked the front of Kloff's shirt through.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

The repeated gratitude bewildered Kloff. What was there to be grateful for? The one who deserved thanks was Aeroc — for enduring the grueling ordeal and giving him a healthy alpha son. Kloff would spend his life repaying that debt. But the man sobbing as though some deep, calcified thing inside him were finally dissolving — all Kloff could do was hold him, gently, and pat his back. After a long, long time, Aeroc lifted a face smeared with tears and mucus and asked:

"Then — I'm allowed to love you now?"

Whether love required permission, and what the countless declarations Kloff had already made were supposed to mean if it did — he was too spent to argue. He simply smiled and wiped the tears.

"Yes. You're allowed."

Every casual remark he'd ever tossed off had blown up in his face — but this time was different. Kloff was granted the extraordinary fortune of seeing, at point-blank range, his omega — hair plastered to his forehead, eyes and face swollen, clothes disheveled, looking thoroughly wrecked — smile with genuine, unclouded happiness. And the man whose eyes creased shut in that dizzying smile looked at Kloff and said:

"I love you."

The confession aimed straight this time. No angle, no deflection. Like someone waking from a long, long dream, Aeroc smiled through beautiful, joy-soaked tears — and it was aimed directly at Kloff.

Lips drenched in tears were sweet enough to make the mind go blank. Kloff devoured every last one of his beloved's tears. He licked the slightly chafed skin around the eyes and whispered I love you, and this time the reflexive answer came back: "I love you."

From that afternoon onward — having cleared, in a single day, the pinnacle of human agony that was childbirth, a first nursing, and a thorough psychological dismantling of the husband who had inflicted it all upon her — the terrifying omega fell peacefully asleep.

Right up until the moment of sleep, he'd extracted a solemn promise that Kloff would absolutely not leave him alone. So Kloff sacrificed one arm to serve as Aeroc's pillow.

Pressed close against the shoulder, cheek still faintly warm against Kloff's chest, Aeroc plunged into a sleep so deep it bordered on unconsciousness. The arm had already lost feeling, but Kloff didn't want to pull it free. However much the arm hurt, could it hurt more than what Aeroc had been through? He stared at the ceiling for a moment and sighed.

The story Aeroc had just told was truly horrifying. And now Kloff understood, a little, why Aeroc was so obsessed with food; why he sometimes looked at Kloff as though the man might vanish at any moment; why he had never been able to say I love you straight.

He'd thought his displays of affection were more than sufficient, but for this count with his unfathomable inner world, they apparently hadn't been. That all that anxiety had been elaborated into that kind of fantasy — attachment deficit and emotional instability. Common enough among the aristocracy. The only child of a powerful house, raised under exacting discipline, and on top of that an alpha-to-omega conversion from a genetic anomaly — for someone like Aeroc, it made perfect sense. As far as Kloff knew, there was only one medicine for this condition:

Pour in love without limit.

And that happened to be the item Kloff was most confident in supplying. From beyond Aeroc's now-steady breathing, the baby made a small phew sound. Awake, apparently. Kloff wanted to go check, but Aeroc was attached to him and escape was impossible.

"Son. Your mother needs an enormous amount of affection and love. He just cried himself to sleep. I don't want to wake him. So do you think you can play on your own for a bit and go back to sleep?"

At the father's quiet voice, the baby answered with a soft phew — then went still again. Tiny nasal sounds: the newborn had apparently mastered snoring already.

"Smart kid. That's my boy."

The next day, Kloff woke late to find Aeroc already up and nursing. Kloff blinked and asked, "Sleep well?" Aeroc — face equally puffy — smiled brightly and nodded.

The boy was suckling with gusto. The sight looked strangely appetizing, and Kloff licked his lips — at which Aeroc gave him an odd look. Disguising it as a yawn, he heaved his impossibly heavy body upright and scrubbed his scalp. From the distant kitchen came the sound of Martha clattering pots.

"Hungry?"

"A little."

With an effortful groan, Kloff stretched and climbed out of bed. He pulled on a robe, and before leaving, returned to the bedside to press a cautious kiss on the crown of the nursing baby's head. Then he raised his face to the most beautiful person in the world and kissed him, too, softly. Aeroc had closed his eyes for the kiss; when they opened and met Kloff's, he smiled gently.

The same faint smile as always — and yet entirely different. Light seemed to radiate from his entire being. Kloff stared, momentarily blank, then cupped the man's cheeks in both hands and kissed him again. When their lips parted, Aeroc said, "I love you" — shy as a first confession.

"I know."

He answered playfully, planting kisses on the forehead and temple. Aeroc laughed.

After a long spell of kissing, a thunderous rumble from Aeroc's stomach broke the mood. Kloff rose and headed for the kitchen. He was a family man now — time to move his body and feed his wife and child. He'd just opened the door and started through when the urge to look back seized him. Aeroc had been watching him the whole time; the moment their eyes met, he smiled without a word.

A strange feeling came over Kloff. A peculiar certainty that he needed to tell this man — the one who had been watching his departing back — that he loved him. He went back to the bedside and stroked the disheveled gold hair with one hand.

"Aeroc Teiwind."

The sudden use of his full name made Aeroc look up.

"I love you. You, and the child you gave me. More than anything in this world. I love you."

The solemn declaration left Aeroc's expression momentarily blank — and then a radiant smile broke across his face.

"I know."

Hearing his own words echoed back, Kloff felt a sudden lightness — as though he'd finally done something he'd forgotten he owed. A strange sensation, but breakfast was pressing. He kissed the crown of Aeroc's head briefly and left. At the threshold he stole one last glance: Aeroc wasn't looking his way — he was kissing the baby's forehead. That was enough. Kloff descended the stairs with an irrepressible smile and a buoyant step.

Through the great corridor window on the way to the kitchen, brilliant sunlight poured in.