Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They said their vows under the moonlight, as it was kalusian tradition.

The alpha wasn’t kalusian, of course. Not truly. His father had been, some poor man from a small village, but his mother had been a patuut prostitute and he’d been born on the wrong side of the border, according to the sordid details Evander had managed to overhear his brothers discussing. There were wild tales spreading about his life, many unproved and even more easily disproved, but that much seemed to be true, the alpha a bastard with broad shoulders and dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. Patuut hair, patuut eyes, patuut skin, even a patuut name and accent, with no trace of Kalus’ people in his body.

His hands were as huge and rough and scarred as the rest of him as he let his coat fall over Evander’s shoulders, the wolf skin too big and warm. It seemed to burn the omega as he held it carefully, turning to the priestess with eyes that felt as dead and empty as himself. His own hands trembled, small and useless, as he said the words he’d been prepared his whole life to say.

His voice, at least, sounded firm, if only a tad too frigid.

The alpha, his alpha, bit him with efficiency. His fingers held onto the coat, keeping him still, teeth sinking into the soft skin of the neck he didn’t grab the way he was supposed to. 

Evander didn’t bleed. He thought he would, but the alpha Marked him, and he choked down a gasp, and when the alpha let go, his body felt pliant and far away, the corners of his vision going blurry. There was no pain, only a dreamlike softness as the alpha held his elbow, leading him to the head of the low and long table where the newlyweds should kneel.

He always thought the hand-feeding was supposed to be another way of humiliating the omega, to show him his place. Now he could tell it wasn’t that at all: he would never have been able to feed himself.

He could barely make himself swallow through the thickness on the air and the fuzziness on his head, but he obediently opened his lips. He let the alpha put whatever food he wanted in his mouth without a word—beyond words, just then, and either way trained too well to start complaining like a foolish bitch just because he didn’t like pork very much.

There were words being said, over the confusing warmth of his body. Polite congratulations from the guests, mocking jabs from his brothers, strange whispers from his alpha he had no hope of discerning even as close as they were. The second prince, a hazy figure distinguished only by the profound silence that overtook all when he stood up, made a long speech undoubtedly about the greatness and grandness of Evander’s new alpha, the second prince’s dearest friend, his hero and savior. 

Sometime, somehow, Aetes held his hands. Evander was sure it’d happened, brief as it had been, recognizable by the cold, professional-like care no one else would’ve shown him. It seemed like a dream inside a dream. A firm grip. A far away promise. And then he was gone.

His alpha kept a hand on Evander’s shoulder blades through the whole thing, burning even through the silks and the wolf skin and the heat. That was probably the only thing keeping Evander up.

When the food stopped coming and the conversations dimmed, his alpha stood, helping Evander up. He should have said something to the crowd. A proper alpha would’ve known to, but his alpha wasn’t proper, wasn’t the kind he’d been groomed for and his parents had hoped for, and he was silent as stone, leading Evander away.

Evander let the coat slip from his shoulders as soon as the bedroom’s door closed behind him. It fell to the floor, his dress a silky, transparent thing that hid nothing of the little Evander had to show, but the alpha didn’t look, not even to his tits. Not even to his face, his cool gaze appraising the room Lord Kyrios had prepared for their first night, stopping to observe the breeze entering from the balcony and shifting the curtains. 

He touched Evander again, tugging him towards the bed, but when Evander fell to the mattress and obediently spread his legs, he wasn’t even looking at him anymore.

“Take care of yourself, little lord,” he told him, voice low, and walked off to the balcony.

He left him alone.

Left him, and as the hours dragged like scorching fire in his skin and Evander started crying at the worst of his Marked heatsickness, as still and quiet as the alpha that had abandoned him, choking any small and rebellious sound against a silk sheet, the alpha stayed outside. All throughout the night Evander’s body betrayed him and made him unable to sleep, to blink, to move even if to curl in pain or cry out, aching for a touch he didn’t want, but knew he’d been born to bear.

The alpha didn’t give it to him. He didn’t even come to their bed at all.

Perhaps it had been too presumptuous of him to think his alpha would want him. Just utterly preposterous and silly, perhaps. Yes, he’d been prepared for the fucking, but he’d also been told it would be as good as an unwanted chore to whichever alpha ended up with him. 

Evander knew, after all, his place in the world as an ugly omega.

He was small even for one of his kind, and too thin. Bony where an omega should have curves, he’d been told countless times. Most of all, he was a homely boy, as Aetes, his oldest and mildest brother, liked saying.

While his brothers’ had all been blessed with noble profiles, and fierce eyes, and such handsome faces one could find himself breathless just by looking, Evander was nothing of the sort, not really. Since childhood, his face had been too small for his hawk-like nose, too ugly for someone of good standing, and he’d never grown into his features like he’d prayed for every night as a boy. 

It had only gotten worse, his face filled with pimples that wouldn’t, no matter what Lady Kyrios did, go away; his hair of a dimmed black instead of shiningly golden like the rest of his family, the type which at twenty already had its plentiful of gray hairs that had to be pulled out; eyes gray instead of deep blue in lands were gray eyes were the most common and boring of all. His skin always seemed a bit pale-gray where it wasn’t red, perpetual wine-dark stains under his eyes. More than all that, his features just seemed… not quite right all together, really. 

There was no talking around it: his looks were miserable. 

If it wasn’t for his blue blood, he knew he would not have attracted any suitors. Even with his blood he wasn’t much sought after, not as the tenth, less preferred son of the kingdom’s third richest man.

An omega was only worth how much he could be pretty and silent, and though he had mastered the act of not talking without being given strict permission, Evander couldn’t change being born with a bad face, just like he couldn’t make himself an alpha when he was still young and looking for an out.

His parents tried. Making him more desirable, that was. The only good thing nature had given him were his tits, he’d been told. Good, pretty tits his brother’s liked showing to their friends; which Orius, even more than the rest, had taken to groping, inviting others to grope, laughing as he taught him all too well those were the only part of him people liked to look at.

Not enough for the Kyrios. The Lord of their House, when making him, had used traditional methods that had long been forgotten by most. 

He was taught how to be docile, to be mild, to be pure. In a world where omegas were fighting for and slowly gaining more power and freedom, Evander had been raised in ways alphas from a thousand years ago might think of as a bit too restricted. It made him quite the novelty. 

It helped, he supposed, that on top of his proper dowry,  he’d also been given a very generous allowance his entire life—and while he was not allowed to use it himself, his alpha would end up with a pretty sum to show for it, since an omega could not legally own any money or property for himself.

Perhaps he wasn’t a pretty bride—never that—, but he could be an interesting enough prize, at the end of the day, and with tits big and firm enough an alpha could simply look at them instead of his face as they fucked him. 

Only, his alpha hadn’t cared about them. Hadn’t cared about Evander at all, not even to look disgusted or disappointed with him.

After that first torturous, dragging night where he didn’t breed him through the heat, there was a tense breakfast with only them both, Evander’s family and the second prince, and a good three hours were Evander stayed still in the room as he waited for his alpha to finish talking and sparing with the prince. 

Then, the alpha had taken him by the arm and guided him through the stiff goodbyes of his parents, amused jokes of his brothers and the unreadable stare of Aetes, his head still pounding and body overheated, and shoved him inside a carriage before leaving him again, this time to mount his own horse. 

Evander didn’t watch through the windows as the only home he’d ever known disappeared on the horizon. There were days and days of completely silent travel, stopping only so the alpha and his three guards could set camp, and Evander himself could be fed and told to sleep inside the carriage, all the while listening to them joking and laughing outside, equals. Not once did he look back or weep, for he felt no warmth, and no grief, over what he left behind. 

There was only terror over what was to come.

Terror, and the horror of not once his alpha coming to fuck him to fulfill their duties and his desires.

His alpha’s, more than any other in the country, needed an heir. It was clear to Evander that was why the second prince had all but shoved the man his way and not towards a noble woman: he knew Evander’s family would be easier to convince to give him away to some foreigner, and the prince would’ve heard how he was well trained to give his friend all he needed. 

As of yet, the alpha’s entire pack was only himself, his name only what he made it to be, his household scandalously small and new. 

He was only a bastard, and not even a rich man's bastard. Only, according to the tales and songs that were being spread of his name, since he was six up until he was twenty-seven he’d acted as unofficial foreign help to the kalusian army, helping the common folk caught in the crossfire of their nations, translating the meetings of officials from Kalus and Patut who refused to learn each other’s tongues, taking care so the soldiers could get supplies and deals with merchants who’d otherwise spit on their faces, and that last year saving the life of the second prince during an assassination attempt.

Since then, the prince seemed intent on making everyone know about the alpha. The legend of it all, as legends did, grew. 

The boy was elevated from dirt to myth, a tainted commoner filled with new riches, lands, and an entry in high society supported by His Highness himself—but not, according to the whispers, by His Majesty. He’d been given the ownership of a state vaster than that of Lord Kyrios, but no title. No real respect from the traditionalists that smiled to his face and talked to him with all the property there was, all the while with clear disgust in their eyes.

For Evander to be given to him, it was an insult to all the Kyrios’ line. But it’d been the prince’s wishes, for all he left unsaid as he came time after time to dinners at the Kyrios’ manor, dragging his patuut friend along and refusing to talk about anything besides outlandish stories about their time at the army and pointed, gentle remarks about how he so desired for his dear friend to find a good and noble wife.

It was no surprise, then, that with all his devotion the prince had given the alpha the richest omega there was (even if the ugliest) and, to compensate, what was perhaps the prettiest piece of land in all Kalus.

Akadios.

Evander didn’t look much, but he’d heard all the gossip before, the fury of Lord Kyros and bitterness of his brothers. After they’d gotten there, his alpha had gone off again to take care of the horses and he was ushered inside, shown what would be his room by a silent beta servant. Hadn’t bothered looking around the place, simply sitting stiff by the bed and beginning his wait.

A long, long wait.

His alpha didn’t come.

A beta did with a meal and then later a bath, but only so. The hours ran fast past him, and only when the sun was almost rising did he crawl his way to the bed, falling into a stiff sleep. The servant came back late the next morning, and the evening, and during the night—but he never touched Evander, didn’t prepare him or tell him he’d been called for. He gave him food thrice a day, prepared a bath once every evening, and helped him put on one of the silk dresses there was no one to stare at.

He felt sick. The meals sat on his stomach, too heavy and too tasteful. He’d overheard his brothers and their friend’s enough to know that the Lord Kyrios liked to eat bland, even for a kalusian, and he knew that Patut had a lot of spices they didn’t. Evander couldn’t say he was used to eating well, and most of the time, he couldn’t bear to eat half of what he was given. By the looks the servant gave him, that wasn’t appreciated. Nothing he did seemed to be, even if he did everything he’d been told he should: kept quiet, kept his legs open, kept waiting for when he would be necessary.

Only his fourth day there did the alpha knock on his door.

“Are you alright?” Evander nodded, silent, watching him. The alpha nodded back and paused only for a single second before saying, “Good,” and going away again.

Evander did what he’d spent the last thirteen hours doing, and all the other hours he spent awake: he stared at the closed door, back as straight as possible and eyes as empty as he felt. The alpha came back the next day and asked, again, if he was alright. Evander nodded once more. The evening after that too happened, and the evening after, and so on. Each new day, the alpha seemed to pause for one more blink of Evander’s eyes, before going away. Each new day, it seemed more and more like he was going to say something else, stay in the room, fuck Evander until he bled and filled—but he always stepped back, and never did step closer to take what was his.

Once, he had looked at him, as intense as Lord Kyrios, as aware of the failure he’d been given, and he had said, “You’re very quiet, little omega.”

Evander's stomach had turned, unsure because of course he was, he was a well-trained, well behaved omega whose biggest appeal was that he had been raised to have an empty head and tightly shut lips. But just then, his alpha didn’t seem to enjoy his silence, and that terrified Evander. He didn’t know when he was allowed to talk around the man. He didn’t know what he was expected to say.

That silence stretched. It wasn’t a question. He hadn’t asked anything, and yet, his alpha kept looking at him like he expected an answer and it made his cheeks burn again, knowing that even if he continued there for hours, Evander wouldn’t dare open his mouth to prove him wrong.

Instead, he pressed his lips tightly and focused on his lap.

The alpha looked angry at that, when he went away that day.

Some days, it seemed the seconds dragged and dragged for eternity, throbbing like the bite on his neck, and in others it felt like he blinked and the morning had turned into night, leaving him with no memories of eating, of using the bathroom, of cleaning himself, despite knowing his clothes had changed and, thus, he must have done it.

Either way, he crawled into bed at sunrise knowing it was one more day he’d been of no use, no desire, unable to feel much hurt or humiliation under all the panic. It seemed, the longer the alpha didn’t use him, the more he would be hungry and violent when he decided to come. He already looked more annoyed at Evander every day.

When he’d gotten there, there’d been a bruise on his wrist, purple fingerprints which had sunk deep on pale skin, and Evander didn’t remember whose hand had given it to him. Lord Kyrios, grabbing him too tightly as he walked him towards the moon altar. Orius, being too rough that last evening before the wedding, when he’d made Evander crawl into his bed and grasped Evander’s tits, and whispered in his ear about all his alpha would break. Even his alpha, perhaps, all those times he’d held Evander as if not trusting him to walk to the right place if left to his own devices. Many men who could’ve bruised him, many who’d do it without thought.

Evander held onto it. The skin, almost healed already, squeezed by his own fingers until he could see the bloody red marks coming back, remembering himself he could be wanted, even if as something to hurt. The alpha would come, would break him, would do what they were both supposed to endure, and things would be good and right again.

He just had to continue waiting that dragging wait.

The room he was in was on the second floor and had a balcony, low and big and with a very clear view of the gardens below. Evander didn’t go there, not really, but sometimes he stood up and got closer behind the curtains, peering down.

It was only when he heard the alpha’s voice traveling up from the gardens. Only when he was certain the doors wouldn’t be opened and he wouldn’t be needed in bed.

His alpha liked horses. Horses, and going on walks with his betas, talking to them as if they were old friends, smiling a boyish smile and laughing a loud bellyful laugh. If Evander stayed up until so late it was early again, he could also see him praying. He didn’t know to whom or what the alpha prayed and couldn’t hear his fervent whispers, but it could only be worship what brought him out at such a time, to prostrate himself towards the still rising sun.

That was when he first saw him.

He had noticed before that his alpha’s servants tended to be quite older than what most preferred. The poor started working young, of course, and there was no reason for a kitchen maid not to be a little girl and a valet a young man, not when those were the ones who could take the most. Not his alpha’s. Evander had yet to catch a glimpse of a child working at his state and most servants he’d seen were already quite gray on the hair.

Then there was a young boy.

He was dressed in plain clothes, same as any servant. Even from where he was, Evander could see his knees were muddy and scrapped all over, his boots clearly old and well-worn. As an omega he had an at times unfortunately good nose, too, and when the wind caught just right, he could tell he reeked of wet horse, and horse shit, and an underlying of alpha bloody steel that only made the rest seem worse, burning more prominently in Evander’s nostrils. 

Nothing about him deserved Evander's attention besides a passing sniff of annoyance at the smell, only—that seemed to be the only child at Akadios and he watched his alpha walk through the grass hand in hand with the boy. Watched as they kneeled together, as his alpha’s hand touched the boy’s back carefully, showing him the proper posture, their foreheads resting together.

When the sun was high on the sky and the two had risen up, there was no mistaking the way his alpha looked at the boy, his eyes so soft it hurt, his smile tender and warm and painfully sincere as he reached to caress his dark cheeks, the boy’s own face all patuut, all the alpha reflected back at him. Evander just knew, hollow and humiliated where he stood.

He has a son.

My husband has a bastard.

Perhaps it was that ever present memory of the burning his alpha hadn’t taken care of, the scorching, pulsating desire that had disappeared only after days and days in the most disappointing and painful of ways. Perhaps it was the aching humiliation of not being used for what he was good for, and the empty feeling of panic at not knowing why he wasn’t being used. Perhaps it was just the silence and isolation making him lose himself.

Evander was well trained enough to not go out of his room on his own, but later that same day he first saw the boy, that was exactly what he did.

Before, he looked at himself for the first time since his wedding night. Staring in the mirror made Evander flinch. He had long accepted that he would never be a soft-faced beauty, but his face embarrassed him so very much everyday. His skin seemed even worse now far from Lady Kyrios’ care—more red all over the place, pimpled and irritated and swelling, and somehow at the same time dry and oily. He wished he had all of Lady Kyrios’ oils and creams, despite them helping only a little. He wished he did not have a face—a body —at all.

He felt like a ghost haunting the hallways with a cursed face, with his dark hair falling down his back and a white flowing dress, being ignored by the beta servants he passed by, who looked down to their own feet and scurried away, nervous. 

Evander knew, in a way, who he was searching for. Not quite where or why—if there was a part of him, so under-stimulated and neglected those last few weeks, who would welcome doing something bad enough to earn himself a beating and a rape. 

He found it, either way. Found the boy.

“Are you sure you can’t do nothing?” he heard.

It was the voice that made him stop before taking a turn on the hallway. Soft enough he knew it was a child, the accent—mostly the vowels, huskier than the way Evander and the kalusian said them, merging with the unrefined twist of his r’s and general grammar of someone who learned the language around low-born kalusians—letting it clear it was a patuut kid. He heard shuffling, and annoyed muttering, and a long suffering sigh.

“You need to be more careful, Kassem. I can probably stitch it up, but that’s going to take my time. You will have to wait until after I finish the rest of my work.”

Kassem.

It was heavy on the tip of his tongue, a strong name, if a patuut one. Sounded good, sounded alpha, and he blinked fast.

“Can you do the fun embroidery?”

The other person, older, probably a woman, laughed. “Oh, that’s funny!”

They were the ones to turn the corner and find Evander there, standing tense. The bastard had something on his hands: the shirt Evander had seen him using during his morning prayers, a tear Evander could see as the beta maid had been touching it, only letting go startled when she saw him. She froze, and the bastard froze, and Evander had been frozen for a long time now and only then was able to wake up and step closer, softly clearing his throat as if to announce himself, but mostly trying to find his voice after not using it for so long.

“Omega!” the maid exclaimed, horror in her wide eyes. She was older, hair peppered with gray, voice full of motherly reproach as she’d talked to the boy before, now just shocked and afraid.

Evander steeled himself, crossing his hands by his back. “Do you have a needle and some thread?”

She dipped her head.

“Of course, omega.”

“Please, get it for me.” The bastard seemed to instinctively step back when Evander stepped closer once again, but that didn’t stop him. He took another step, and another, until he stopped before the boy. Evander felt cold, so very cold all over, and he said, tight: “Come. I will stitch it up for you.”

So, he sat on his bed, a terrified young alpha glued to the door as if ready to run away, a trembling maid giving him what he had asked for and gluing herself to the bastard’s side, fear in her eyes, seeming to think she’d have to somehow protect him from the monstrous little omega who was, quite clearly, smaller than her. Evander looked at their faces, and looked down to his lap, and he started with the stitching, all the careful, slow work he knew well.

He didn’t do any fun embroidery. Evander of Kyrios was no fun.

He wasn’t even close to finishing yet when the door was opened violently, his alpha bursting into the room with an urgent look on his face. Evander expected the punishment and, for the first time in his life, he stared it in the eyes, back straight and chin held high.

“Husband,” he acknowledged, perhaps the first time he’d said anything to the alpha, and lifted the shirt. “Do you approve of my needle work? It is not yet finished, but I would not dare to clothe your son with something you find unsuitable.”

His alpha stared at him without answering, eyes as cold and tight as Evander’s chest felt. He did not answer. Cautiously, he touched his bastard’s shoulder. “Leave us, Kassem.”

Both the child and the beta took this as an opportunity to disappear running. Evander took one last look at the boy’s small, terrified face, something inside himself constricting.

Breathing in, he put the shirt on his lap, straightening the rough cloth, tracing the small stitches he’d done.

“Little omega.” Evander looked up to the alpha, blinking slowly. Had no idea how his face looked, only that it made his alpha pause. “I—I am sorry.”

The words rang on Evander’s ears as he approached, cautious steps Evander stared at with complete, dumbfounded confusion. He’d never heard an alpha apologizing, never even heard of it, but the phrase, despite his slight stumble, came out of his alpha’s lips without hesitation. Firm, like he was used to saying it. 

He sat by Evander’s side.

“Can’t delay this anymore.” He laughed, bitter. “I suppose you know about my past, ay? Everyone seems to. Now you know I have a son, which I hope isn’t common knowledge. Herakles told me—he said it was better if I kept it hidden for now, while Kassem isn’t acknowledged by the king. Confuses me a bit, the whole bastard thing, and why it matters so much if some alpha accepts my boy as legitimately mine, but it seems it does, to you people. Agreed to do what I had to do for it to happen, but I was explained his father would never let a patuut bastard become a lord, and he would never let a patuut bastard legitimate his own patuut bastard. I was told, then, that having a respectable noble omega backing up my claim would be Kassem’s only hope.”

And had he been told Evander was the ugliest, noblest omega in the kingdom, and thus the only one both high status enough to be able to do it, and low enough to agree with such an scheme?

The realization, how deep the prince’s schemes went and how carefully Evander must have been chosen, sent a shiver up his spine. His hands tightened their grip.

There was a stretch of silence, as if his alpha stupidly thought he would answer. Instead, Evander pressed his lips tightly, just like in their last conversation, staring at his alpha’s huge hands as concern simmered in the pit of his gut. He could hear when the man took a long breath, controlling his anger. It was only a question of time until he decided he didn’t need control.

“I’d meant to explain the situation to you,” he said, careful. “My wish was to do it long before, but I was told I wouldn’t be allowed to see you until the wedding night only after I agreed with Herakles’ plan. And after the wedding—was waiting to talk, only.”

For what, he did not explain. Evander did not ask.

That silent stretch again. That tense wait, the expectation Evander should open his mouth. He swallowed and said, as quiet as possible: “I understand.”

“I don’t expect you to. I know I should have explained myself before.”

Evander looked at his face, blank, and repeated, “I understand,” perhaps a bit too firmly, peeved this alpha went so against everything he was taught he had to be there repeating himself, trying to make him act in a way that made sense.

His alpha looked back, forehead creased with pure annoyance. “You can ask or say anything you want. I understand it’d be deserved.”

“Thank you.” Evander rested his hands over the bastard’s shirt. “I do not want to ask or say anything.”

His frown only got bigger. “I’m sure there’s at least something you’d like to ask me about.”

“Do you approve of my needle work, alpha?”

He stopped. His brows snapped together, lost and angry, and Evander waited for the slap, and the punch, and the huge hand closing on his throat as he threw him onto the floor. He wasn’t sure how the patuut punished their omegas, but he’d done enough and was longing for it, after so long being ignored. He would take and hope for a proper fucking after.

His fists clenched and unclenched, but they didn’t touch Evander.

“It’s fine.” He stood up. “When you finish it, find me. That, or when you feel ready to have a real, adult conversation. It would do this marriage some good. Fuck.” 

His alpha had his back turned to him, so Evander didn’t hide the way he flinched at the cursing. Definitely didn’t stop from curling against himself when he slammed the door as he left him again.

His heart was pounding, his thoughts racing. Evander let go of the shirt with hands shaking so badly, he couldn’t have held onto it if it was his only life source. It felt like he was reeling and crashing, that thumping expectation of violence pumping on his blood, his veins, his wide eyes staring lost at the closed door. He used his knuckles to desperately stop any tear.

It was only later, still struggling to understand the conversation they had, when Evander was struck by a relief of the likes he had never felt before. 

He did not matter. The alpha did not want him. 

Evander was an imposition, a forceful way to lay claim on the elite of the land, and he always knew he as himself would be only of second importance in whichever match he ended up in, but he also knew his body at least would be a factor to it. The alpha had no choice and no care for anything but what being connected to a noble omega would mean—what he did have was an alpha heir. An heir that, to him, was the only thing that truly mattered. He could cry of relief at the thought of being so unwanted, of knowing the rest of his life, his husband would not wish to touch him at all, and would have no duty to do so to continue his family.

He could live the rest of his days like that, forgotten at the background of his husband’s home. Could live happily and, fast, he started to think about the logistics of making this family work. 

There would be banquets, balls, meetings and many other society events he would have to be seen at, a not-really-pretty status symbol in his alpha’s arms, and by the way the alpha seemed so clueless about it all, Evander would need to step up on the planning and social manipulation.

In itself, the presentation of the boy to society would need much planning, detailed carefulness and a gigantic amount of tact, which he doubted the alpha, in all his rough straight-forwardness, had ever considered. He would need to host his own events, to endear himself to men like Lord Kyrios, to teach his boy the way Lord Kyrios had taught his other children. He needed to do everything he had no idea was even done.

Evander laughed, startled and horrified, feeling half insane—there was one way of making this work, he suddenly understood.

Talking to his alpha, and telling him what he would need to do.

-

He chose his less impressive dress, a boring thing made of brown wool Lady Kyrios would have beat him for using around an alpha, making himself washed out and hiding skin. Evander remembered the way he hadn’t even looked at him during their wedding night, nor anytime while they traveled, and decided there was very little he could do to make him care for his body, and so very little he could do which would make him care less.

Anyhow, he thought his alpha looked more surprised seeing him like that, gently knocking on his door, than any alpha had ever looked when he’d shown all the skin he could’ve possibly showed.

“Hello,” his alpha said, eyes on his face, opening the door more so he could enter. “I’m happy you came looking for me. I was—was ruder than it was fair to be, considering I was the one supposed to be apologizing, but I did wish to talk.”

Evander blinked, quietly accepting to be guided inside, although he hesitated when his alpha not only sat, but gestured for him to sit in front of him, not lower somewhere more proper. He looked at him. “Alpha.”

There was a tightening on his lips, despite the alpha’s face continuing as unreadable as before.

“Wasim,” he said, voice rough as ever. “That’s my name, little lord. Wasim. I’d like if you called me that instead of alpha, I’ve told you before.”

When, Evander had no idea. During the wedding feast perhaps, when he could hear no words and understand no improper orders. It was a good place to start, either way.

“I’ve come to talk about such matters.”

Wasim—and even thinking of his name was a dangerous disrespect—lifted his eyebrows, surprised. “What we call each other?”

“What is expected of us.” Evander crossed his fingers in front of him, keeping his eyes demurely down as he took some steps closer to his desk. He whispered: “It would be terribly improper of me to call my alpha by his name, and you should not call me lord either, alpha. I am an omega, I could never hold a title. Most importantly, I am yours. It’s only right for you to call me Evander, or simply omega. Boy, if you prefer. Nothing which implies we are of equal standing.”

Wasim snorted. “I don’t care about what they expect.”

“It would do good to care,” and it was rude, and it was him asking to be punished. Evander breathed in, steeling himself. “It would make Kassem-alpha’s standing more stable.”

There was an awful silence, but when Evander dared peek, Wasim looked more focused trying to read him than like he was preparing a punch.

He said: “Sit, please. Explain to me.”

So Evander obeyed.

“His Highness sees you as a savior, Alpha, but it is said His Majesty is not so keen on giving you a title.” He looked at the man’s hands, not his face. “Even if that is not the complete truth, the simple fact the aristocracy gossips about it so confidently tells you the disregard they have for your name. It would be for the best if you did what you could to be liked by them, or at least have your line be respected. His Highness will not live forever, after all. If you wish for Kassem-alpha to keep this land after his death, he will have to have a connection to nobility that goes deeper than the like of the prince and dislike of all others.”

It was more words than he had ever said to Lord Kyrios his entire life, he was sure of it. He could imagine what the Lady would have done if she had ever heard him speaking like that to an alpha: could feel that hand fisting his hair, tilting his head back, closing and closing with long nails digging into his scalp. She would have called him a bitch, he knew. A stupid slut, a dumb whore, a brainless hole that did not know its place. An omega that could not quite wrap his head around the fact that the moment Lord Kyrios decided it was too much trouble trying to find someone who could put up with his face, the Lady would happily throw him to be fucked by just about any alpha or beta that promised they would kill him by the end of it.

Wasim Baksh, half-patuut bastard and future Lord Akadios, who had Marked Evander and left him to cry his heat out alone, did not bend him over that desk and fucked him bloody and raw, nor did he whip him. 

Evander bit the inside of his cheek, dropping his gaze. “I mean no offense.”

“Clearly,” said Wasim. It was hard to decipher what he was feeling only by hearing his voice, but Evander had truly done too much already. He did not look, instead briefly closing his eyes. “I’ve been rude, and I’ve neglected you thanks to my own cowardice, and still, you come and offer your help.”

“I am your omega.” He repeated: “I am yours. It is only right.”

“I don’t think I know what being an omega means in Kalus, if the way you talk about it is anything. I don’t think I understand anything about how this place works.” There was something, there, Evander could decipher: his absolute contempt in trying to understand Kalus. Wasim sighed. “It’s—I’d like your help, Evander. I’d never thought about any of the things you just said.”

Hadn’t known to think, he thought, but didn’t correct out loud, because why would he?

“They expect us to make an appearance soon—”

-

His alpha was— aware, he supposed was the best word. Aware he was a foreigner, and a bastard, and that just because the prince saw him as a savior, it didn’t mean the rest of high society didn’t see him as a savage. Evander himself didn’t know how patuut alphas were made, but clearly, it was not with shame or stupid pride. For every basic custom he didn’t know, there seemed to be no hesitation being told about it, even if by someone like Evander. 

He laid it out, clear and simple. The banquets and balls. The summer lunches outside, with sweets and tea, and winter parties with fish and warm wine. The religious festivals and traditional ceremonies, events he would be expected to go to and others he would have to host himself.

Evander did not tell Wasim he could do a lot less to help than what Wasim seemed to think he could. No need to flaunt what a terrible match he was.

His tutors had taught him the barest minimum necessary for reading and even less writing, and the basics of mathematics one needed on the day to day of running a household, but that was because there was a small chance of him not knowing those things annoying his alpha. No one actually expected him to run anything, not unless there was a war or a divine apocalypse coming. Even the mending hadn’t truly been expected—much more the work of a pretty, useful, favored wife than an omega like him.

He was meant to be quiet and always open for a good fuck, and in a lot of ways, those last weeks staying in his bed still and waiting were what he’d always been told would be his life. Only the lack of orders to spread his legs and bend over made him anxious. The rest had been the boring, quiet horror he’d been prepared for.

If he was prettier, he would’ve been more useful. He could never tell Wasim that, but he knew it was the truth—pretty omegas were taught how to be perfect hosts and the life of parties, charming and sweet and somehow the center of everyone’s attention, but still praising those around instead of being praised, coaching delightful stories from guests instead of talking too much themselves. Wasim, cold and disdainful every time Evander tried to talk about the kalusian lords, would’ve needed someone like that, but Evander couldn’t be it.

It did him no good to mourn a face he didn’t have. He mourned it still, mostly for the life it could’ve given him.

Was it bad of him, to hide that particular truth from his alpha? Perhaps. Likely so. There was very little an omega could do to an alpha that wasn’t bad—if it was right, the alpha would do it to him before he could take the initiative. But Evander knew the moment they made their first appearance together someone would make a comment about how useless he was, so he thought he could at least get used to his husband’s punishments before Wasim learned that shortcoming of his.

He tried very hard to make up for it.

The prince was the first to send them a letter of congratulations once their honeymoon period had officially concluded, but Wasim had received them directly and sent him his own answer without asking for input. After him, though, it came Aetes’ letter.

The thing was, Aetes favored him. Always had.

His brothers’ seemed to have an understanding that when one of them was playing with him, the others could join anytime. Only, Aetes was the oldest and most severe, the one who was the most like the Lady Kyrios, and so, as soon as he called out Evander, all the others were quick to let them be. All Aetes ever did, though, was let him nap in his room, curled up close to the fireplace because Aetes hated Orius and the others, and would bask in the silence and peace of having Evander close. He never tormented him much, certainly never touched or stared, and sometimes gave him books. Sometimes fed him, just the way Wasim had done on their wedding night.

Aetes was the kind of alpha that thought omega babies, destined to be nothing but useless whores, should be disposed of as soon as their parents first caught wind of their sweet scent during birth–but since their parents had decided to keep him alive, he didn’t think it was fair to punish him for what he perceived as their own cowardice and stupidity.

Rarely, he’d sat by the fireplace, fingers stroking Evander’s hair, looking at his face with such pity, so saddened by how cruel their parent’s had been for not killing him swiftly, Evander felt the need to apologize for it. “No, my little brother,” he always said, as kind as any child of those lands, of Kyrios, knew to be. “It is not our fault.”

But it was something someone should be faulted for.

Evander read the impersonal message he’d sent with a strange feeling in his chest, a numb kind of grief that took over as he sat down. He didn’t know what he was grieving.

Upon request, he numbly explained to Wasim the proper response an alpha should send and as the rest of the correspondence kept coming, showed him the way it all depended on who’d sent it and what was their connection. Wasim was a good writer, at least. His calligraphy was neat and careful, well worded. Fine enough he didn’t seem to notice how bad at it Evander was.

For more than a week, they sat together in Wasim’s office everyday as Evander gingerly guided Wasim answers, watched Wasim’s careful pen strokes, held his back tightly at every move of those hands so he didn’t flinch. 

It was hard to talk. Went against all he was and ought to be. But he told him, quiet as a mouse, about each important person who’d gifted them something and, most noticeably, explained there was a considerable amount of important nobles and merchants that’d been at the wedding and still hadn’t sent a thing, even if only a note. Wasim scowled a lot at that. Said, “I don’t get why this matters.”

But it did. It mattered a lot.

Evander’s fingers twitched where they rested on his lap. “I understand this may all seem silly to such a great heroic soldier like you, but such politeness does matter in court. For them not to stand it to you is a deliberate slight, sir,” and he tried to sound as shy as he could.

Wasim sent him a look. “Ain’t you a sly little one?”

Evander blinked.

“I am sorry, alpha,” he blurted out, but it was less of the apology it ought to be and more of a confused, appalled exclamation. The flagrant disrespect, for some reason, amused Wasim instead of outraged him. He grinned.

“A great heroic soldier unperturbed by silly things,” repeated Wasim. He laughed. “Sure, we can pretend. Yes, that’s what you truly think of me.”

“I would not dare to think less. All the stories—”

“Horse shit.” Evander pursed his lips, since that was better than any of the other ways his body wanted to react. Wasim shook his head. “None of ‘em mentions Kassem. None of ‘em mentions any of what matters, because that’s got nothing to do with some invites and gifts and silly parties, and none of you would like to hear about all the bloody shit it involved. It’s fine. You don’t see me as heroic, little omega. I know that much.”

Evander looked at those wide, strong shoulders instead of his eyes. He had the body of a warrior, not a hero. A killing machine. Evander swallowed.

“I am not sly,” he whispered, voice cold the way it became when he was wary and afraid. “I am always perfectly sincere, alpha.”

Which only made him grin again, sharp and dangerous, but at least he didn’t decide Evander was a cunning slut who ought to be shown his place.

Wasim was aware, and stoic, and never touched Evander. He expected—he knew he wasn’t desired. He knew he wouldn’t be fucked, he’d been told so. But he still expected it. Waited to be molested, because why not? Wasim kept his hands for himself and that made no sense at all. He listened when Evander spoke, and that seemed too nonsensical to even be part of a dream.

No one had ever listened to him before.

-

He caught only fleeting glimpses of the bastard. It seemed now they knew Evander was aware of his existence, they did what they could to keep their paths from crossing—if the boy still prayed, he made sure not to do it by Evander’s window, although Evander sometimes still saw Wasim doing so.

Evander gathered, sometime after being called sly as if a sly omega wasn’t a dead one, that perhaps he didn’t need to be gathering dust by his bed until he was called upon Wasim’s office. When a servant came with his food, he asked, “I am allowed to walk around the estate?” and received a look as if he was completely insane.

“You can wherever you want to, sir!”

An utterly preposterous idea. Unfortunately, it was charming enough in its silliness to make him ache with unwise yearning.

So, he started to go on walks outside when he wasn’t needed. He understood why Akadios was called the best they had to give, why those lands were so coveted and Wasim so hated. Evander had never been allowed that: a boring dress, an unflattering braid, the ability to just stand up and go outside. It was freedom, impossibly so, and he’d give all of himself to Wasim to keep that.

In the end, the bastard found him. 

Evander was sitting on a stone bench in the gardens, simply feeling the sun against his skin, and he paused when the boy came closer, worry tugging low on his belly. He didn’t know if he was allowed close to Kassem. He felt like the alpha wouldn’t like it.

“You’re Evander, ay?” the bastard asked, small.

“Yes, sir.” Evander ducked his head politely. “You must be Kassem. It is a pleasure to meet you properly.”

“Ay.” The boy sat by his side. “I think dad wants to talk to you. He got an invite to some party.”

“Did he ask you to call me?”

He wasn’t sure what Wasim would do, needing his omega and not being able to find him because he decided to take a walk. The fear clawed against his belly.

“No.” Kassem shrugged. “But I read the letter before it got to him, and I heard him asking Gwen about you, and he told her not to come bother you because it’s not that urgent, but he looked pissed.”

He spoke fast, that accent of his mixing with a nervous speed to his words. Evander swallowed down his worries.

“Why haven’t you looked at me, sir?” he heard himself ask, although he hadn’t been planning to. There was more to ponder about, more about the boy’s posturing and act he ought to notice and attempt to polish later, and the lack of eye contact wasn’t the worst of it.

The bastard winced.

“Dad says I shouldn’t look you people in the eyes. Never know how you might react.”

Evander couldn’t pretend to understand. He knew what it was like, certainly, for he was an omega and there were plenty of alphas, some of his own brothers’ included, who would snap and slap him for daring to look them in the eyes as if they were equals. But Wasim and Kassem were alphas too, so it made no sense they knew of it. Could it be because they were patuut? He had never known that was something that happened. 

It seemed so tricky─whether kalusian alphas saw patuut alphas or their own kalusian omegas as lower was completely dependent on the alpha and, perhaps even more so, dependent on the moment, the situation, the point they currently wished to make.

Yet, “Lord Wasim looks me in the eyes.”

Kassem shrugged.

“Dad is bigger. Stronger. He gets to do it.”

“You are an alpha and a future lord. You do not need to be big or strong, you must simply be .” 

That made Kassem look up at him, interested. “Will I really be a lord?”

“Lord Akadios.” Because that was the reason he was there, wasn’t it—the young prince had bought him for Wasim so Wasim could have a chance at getting a title. “You will be very respected. You will never again have to worry about how someone might react.” Evander hesitated since that truly wasn’t his place, but eventually, he reached out, tapping Kassem’s chin lightly. “Look up, sir. Akadios is the most desired piece of land in all of Kalus. Even without a title yet, you are their equal and, in most cases, their superior just by being the heir of its owner. They are the ones that should be worried about how you will react to them.”

The boy’s skin was too dark for Evander to properly tell if he was blushing or not, but he had the distinct impression he was embarrassed.

“Why are you calling me sir? You are older and— you.”

“Another thing you will have to learn. You are my superior, sir. Of course I should talk to you with the respect you deserve. I am here to serve you and your father, and help you both learn the property of your positions.”

“I don’t like it that much when you say it like that. Being superior and all.”

Evander blinked. “You will learn to like it. What was the invite about?”

“I said already. A party.”

“And was there a name, sir?”

“I don’t know.” The bastard stood up. “I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore. I’m sorry.”

He went away, which only served to remind Evander he’d found himself with the most improper, unpredictable pair of alphas currently in Kalus. The beta maid from before—Gwen, perhaps?—had followed Kassem outside. The boy hadn’t noticed, if his startled pause upon turning to see her was anything to go by, but he ran away either way. Gwen stayed, hands tight in front of her, eyes wide peering at Evander’s face.

Evander looked to the side, hoping the uprightness of his posture and composedness of his face was enough to hide the tremble.

-

The invite was from Polynices—a friend of Lord Kyrios, one who’d gone to the wedding and had sent Wasim a generous gift the alpha had been extremely unimpressed by, despite managing to write back acting like he was grateful. 

Wasim had the right clothes for himself and Evander, surely gifts from the prince. He had the ability to be charming, from what little Evander saw of him talking to his servants. He had all the knowledge  of rules and expectations Evander could bestow on him in a couple of weeks.

He had none of the will to be charming and polite.

Although there always was a certain coolness to him, the moment he got into the room and let his dark eyes study the gathering his face seemed to turn into emotionless stone with just a hint of thundering disgust. Evander braced himself, keeping his own face blank, his eyes respectfully lowered. He knew, no matter what, they’d come to them. 

And they did.

“This must be your bitch, eh?” one of the alphas asked playfully, after a pleasant greeting that was answered with aloofness by Wasim. Now, Wasim froze, and the man laughed again. “As ugly as any cheap whore, but I had already heard it was no beauty, so at least the tits are fine ones.”

Evander felt his stomach clench not at the statement which he was used to hearing, but at the look that shadowed Wasim’s face, dark and furious, startled in such a negative way his hand immediately went to his side. Reaching, Evander understood, for a sword that wasn’t there, and he swallowed dry, bitter fear as he touched the alpha’s hand as lightly and subtly as possible. That seemed to take him by enough surprise it stopped him just before he could pick a fight.

Evander dipped his head. “Thank you, alpha.”

“I heard he was well trained,” another alpha said to Wasim, approving. “The Kyrios’ seed, good for you. Too many spoiled bitches these days, it is good to see one who was raised right. Knows its place.”

“Many who seem to need such,” agreed Wasim, a hard violence barely restrained by the grasp Evander now fully had on his hand.

The other alpha huffed, oblivious such violence was being directed towards himself. “There are bitches at King’s College now, my son said. Strutting around, acting like they are alphas.”

“This kingdom is truly going to the dogs. Now, a little hole like yours,” he gestured to Evander, “which knows how to act its part? That is what we all need in such times. Tell me, why don’t you bring it to the next party? Needs to be seen more, such proper training.”

“I will be busy.”

The other alpha lifted an eyebrow. “Were you told when it will be?”

“I’m often busy,” replied Wasim, uncaring. “Herakles makes sure of it.”

The mention of the prince, so casual and without bothering with titles, had clearly impressed them, even if Wasim had no idea what he was doing.

“We will make sure to send an invite, just in case.” 

Evander was hanging to his arm as they distanced themselves, desperate to keep Wasim from doing all that that dark gaze clearly wished to do. Wasim's hand touched his back, heavy and possessive as the alpha guided him away with a last tense goodbye.

“Do they always talk to you like that?” he whispered, a weird thing, somber and grim in a way Evander wasn’t used to, solemn brown eyes finding his boring gray ones.

“Would not in front of Lord Kyrios,” Evander whispered back, dropping his eyes. “Some have done so with Orius, but that was because he liked to bring his friends over and show me off to them. Otherwise, it would be quite rude to the Kyrios to acknowledge me so clearly.”

“Acknowledge you?” echoed Wasim. “That’s what you think was wrong about that?”

“Alpha, please.” He felt suddenly tired of his theatrics. “It was harmless. It was good. They talked to you like you were one of them, they invited you to an event. That’s what I’m here for. Why would you refuse it?”

“They were a bunch of shits.”

Evander didn’t flinch at his alpha swearing. He felt quite proud of himself for not flinching.

“Alpha, they were the way any alpha you meet will be. Were some of the most open ones, accepting you so easily.” And, to be truthful, were quite open and kind with the way they talked about Evander himself. He had heard much worse about his face.

“Fuck—” 

“Kassem-alpha will certainly need the connections.”

Interrupting an alpha was more than just a rude gamble on his part, but he felt like that would work with Wasim. The alpha hesitated. “You can’t be serious.”

Evander ducked his head.

“Polynices is friends with the King,” he said softly, eyes finding the oldest of the alphas they had just talked to, the generous host of it all. “He is not the most powerful man in court, not even close to the Prince, but he could still be a big help to a new house like yours, alpha. And Creon there, despite what his complaints about omegas in King’s College might make him sound like, is one of the best writers and researchers on the land. A good word from him can put anyone into the College, even a patuut. Those are important lawyers, doctors, professors. Being on their good side is what Kassem needs.”

If he slapped him right then and there for taking too much, it would do no harm to his reputation. Likely, it would have helped it, for them to see him punishing Evander like a husband should. 

Wasim scoffed.

“Don’t like it,” said, “but I suppose you know better.”

What a joking comment. Almost cruel, really, and Evander felt his cheeks heating up. “Thank you, alpha.”

“I just don’t understand one thing. You’re attractive, Evander.”

Evander looked at him, strained.

“I thank you for your tact, but such lies are not needed. I know well enough I do not have what alphas want. No ass and no hips and no plump lips, and those tits are just about the only thing saving me. And my face… well, not much to look at besides the nose.”

“What’s wrong with your nose? It’s big.”

Evander blinked.

“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “Just quite.”

Wasim huffed. “A kalusian thing, then. Do they want you to look all dainty and small and somehow still handful just where they like? That’s a lot of demands when most of them look like that.” He nodded to the old alphas from before, before turning back to Evander's face. Wasim touched the hooked bridge of his nose, a brief, feather like touch. “It’s strong and elegant, husband. Any patuut would love a nose like that.”

Evander couldn’t bear it. He looked away.

He was aware that union of theirs was riddled with cultural differences, but he never would have had the now very obvious thought that Wasim’s people, with their darker skin and different features, would of course have a different definition of beauty than theirs. Why would they not have? They looked different, dressed differently, clearly acted differently, and of course they would prefer their own looks and have expectations about what one should look like based on such.

He felt so dumb, just then, but really, why did it matter if he wouldn’t be considered as plain and dull in Patut as he was in Kalus when he wasn’t there and never would go there?

Because his husband was patuut, that was why, but even while saying he was attractive, Wasim didn’t look particularly attracted to him. That, strangely, helped to steady him a bit.

“I can concede your people would think me attractive, as soon as you concede they are the ones wrong in this particular culture shock.”

“Evander…”

“Are you attracted to me, then? If you truly disagree?”

He dared look him right in the eyes, but not even then was he choked.

“You put me in a hard spot. It’s not you, you are a pretty enough boy, but…” Evander felt something easing out in his chest. Wasim shook his head. “You kalusians are just… small, I suppose. Little and delicate. There is nothing wrong with you, but…”

“You like them big and strong,” guessed Evander. His eyes were alight as he looked at Wasim’s embarrassed expression. 

Another earth shattering relief: his husband didn’t want him, but neither did he think he was so plain it was an insult to be seen in public with Evander. It was a different type of being unwanted than what he had always expected to be, and felt much less hurtful and unbearable.

He was still touching the alpha’s arm, just like Wasim was touching his hand and his back, and the knowledge that there was no scalding desire in the touch, no interest at all, was something exhilarating. He sent him a look, small and genuine.

“If you are not looking for someone pretty, then has anyone handsome caught your eye?”

A bold thing to say to an alpha and if it had been Lord Kyrios or one of his brothers—well, he could feel the sting in his eyes just thinking about the punishment he would have gotten. But Evander felt light, and so he said it, and Wasim looked sheepish, not furious.

“I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“It would not bother me,” replied Evander, almost touched by his silliness. Almost amused, even if omegas shouldn’t be amused by alphas.

“Kassem’s other parent was my very first everything,” he admitted. “In any way that actually mattered, anyhow. After them there were some fleeting passions, but none in Kalus, to be truthful.” And, like it was a secret and a joke, like it was every show of camaraderie no one had ever bothered sharing with an omega like Evander, he whispered: “I was quite taken by Herakles, when I first saw him from afar.”

Passively, Evader agreed, “His Highness is big and strong.”

“He is a prince,” said Wasim. “I thought he was just some soldier, at first. The truth killed all the attraction.”

“He is your friend.”

“He wanted to be. Bastard like me couldn’t say no, ay?” Wasim snorted. He looked at Evander’s face, softening his gaze. “You know, I don’t know what you like, but if there’s someone that catches your eye, I wouldn’t stop you.” 

Despite the fact they were already whispering quietly, Evander dropped his voice even more as it filled with derision, “Are you giving me permission to have an affair, alpha?”

Wasim smiled.

“I don’t know. Didn’t you just give it to me?”

Evander said, placidly: “I have no desire for a lover,” which meant, more than anything, I know no one would tempt the fury of a jealous alpha just to keep a lover like me, and also, a little bit, I don’t know how having a lover could be anything but painful.

Wasim said, huffily: “Can’t say I don’t understand,” which meant, in return, I agree there’s no one tempting enough around here. He paused, before lightly squeezing Evander’s shoulder, hand still hovering on his upper back. “Is this working, you think?”

Evander lowered his eyes.

“You impressed them by mentioning His Highness.”

Wasim snorted. “Just that, then.”

“I think—” He paused. Steeled himself. “Would you slap me, alpha?”

He could feel Wasim stiffening. Feel the weight of his stare on Evander’s face, and the quick retraction of his hand from anywhere close to Evander’s skin, and how he seemed to barely manage to stop before taking a shocked step back. The omega didn’t dare look.

“No,” he whispered. “No, of course not. Why? Would they like that?”

“It would be the quickest way to get their approval.” Besides, everyone liked seeing an omega being punished—with that reaction, however, Evander decided not to describe what he thought Wasim should do to him to get the approval of the room. “If that is not something you are comfortable with, I suppose you would have to stop talking to me and start to mingle around.”

“Something I’m not comfortable?” he repeated. “Shit, Evander. Just show me who you think I should talk to.”

So, he showed.

Evander was unsure of what it was that brought the shift: it seemed silly to think the thought of slapping him was so sobering, but whatever it was, Wasim turned up his charm. He touched Evander’s wrist very gently, the entire night, and smiled and talked and joked around until he had a considerable group of alphas paying attention to him, laughing and smiling with Wasim as if he was one of them.

When they were getting in the carriage to go back to Akadios, Wasim paused as if he wished to tell Evander something. His eyes had a dark, serious glint to them. They seemed very intense, and for a second infinitely worried, before he shook his head. 

He patted him on the back quite too strongly. “Good lad.”

For a beat too long, Evander simply stared at him, unable to know what he was supposed to feel when his own husband talked to him as if he was a child, before he realized that, actually, Wasim was probably acting the way he did with newer recruits. With soldiers. A shiver ran through his body.

Better than a whore. 

Less accurate, however.

Breathing very slowly, he accepted when Wasim offered him a hand of help to get into the carriage.

-

His Highness came to visit Akadios and Wasim said, looking everywhere but at Evander, that it was best for him to stay in his rooms. As if it was a choice. As if he could disagree.

He heard them riding their horses outside. Talking too loudly, voices carrying up Wasim’s anger and the amused carelessness from His Highness that only seemed to make matters worse. The beta who attended him was fast and anxious, faster and more anxious than ever before, there and gone in a blink, and it was Wasim who came to him the day after to say the other alpha was gone already. When he lingered on Evander’s door, it felt a lot like before he knew of Kassem.

Wasim asked, strangely tense, “Do you like eating alone?”

“I suppose so, alpha.”

“Would you—if you wanted, you can take some of your meals with us, Evander. I always make sure me and Kassem eat together in my room or in his, since he doesn’t like the hall very much. To have a communal moment like that, it’s an important thing in Patut.” He exhaled. “I’d meant to ask you to join a long time ago, but I got so in my own head thinking about how you didn’t know of Kassem I couldn’t bear to talk to you, and later, it slipped my mind. I’m sorry. I’ve neglected you, I know.”

Evander was so tense it sting and he had no idea what to answer, so he settled with dipping his head and whispering, “It would be an honor,” despite the fact it didn’t feel like one.

It was Wasim who opened the door for him when, the next morning, Evander went to his quarters as guided by a nervous beta. Wasim, his face set, but his brown eyes softening as they entered the room. Kassem stared at Evander’s face before looking down, staring at his food with shrunken shoulders and Evander knew both father and son were tense because of him, both were uncomfortable—he was too, but he wouldn’t dare not to come after being ordered to.

He waited. He glanced at Wasim until he turned to him, confused. Evander glanced at his empty plate.

Wasim looked at him as if there was something very wrong with Evander. “You can eat.”

How much?

But even the thought of asking was embarrassing—those were the type of rules a proper alpha would know to put down without it needing to be spoken out loud. Evander flushed an ugly red and Wasim stared, aware there was something he was not catching, but with no way of knowing what it was.

Finally, shamefully, “You are supposed to serve me.”

Wasim’s expression hardened. There was an undeniable clench on his jaw.

“Why?”

“Because.” Evander twisted his hands, anxious, a bit sick. Why! “Because you are supposed to decide what I eat, alpha.”

Understandment dawned on his face, before horror crept in. “Why would I fu—” He stopped himself. Breathed slowly. “I won’t do that, Evander. You are a man grown, you can eat whatever you want.” Evander still hesitated. His expression grew strained. “Come on. Please.”

So, very quiet and slowly, Evander put food on his plate. Wasim watched up until he seemed to notice that made things worse and then he turned to his bastard, who’d been staring at them with wide eyes, and asked about Hala—the boy’s horse, Evander understood a bit later, carefully nibbling his food and hearing the pair’s stilled conversation.

It was bad. Truly terrible, uncomfortable to all involved.

Still, Wasim didn't order Evander not to eat with them anymore, not even in that strange way of the alpha where he played it off as if he was making a suggestion or checking for Evander’s opinion. He tried to make a little appearance every other breakfast, not to seem disobedient and ungrateful, and—and it got better. A little bit. When he got over the fact that Wasim wanted him to decide what he got to eat. When he managed to convince himself Wasim wasn’t secretly cataloging his food, planning to punish him for it later.

It was a bit like taking his meals with the Kyrios. When he sat by Aetes’ side, because Aetes liked when it was him by his side and not some other brother. When he could be quiet, and Aetes would make his plate with none of the emptiness of when Lady Kyrios did, and he could just hear the family talk with none of the expectation he would need to open his mouth. 

He’d always liked when Aetes talked about his studies and his work—how, sometimes, their brothers got bored and started to joke around, and even the Lady and Lord Kyrios stopped caring the moment they got a bit lost, and it seemed like Aetes only continued with his explanations because he knew Evander was listening. He talked to him, despite the fact he couldn’t understand much better than the other Kyrios, even despite the fact he never made comments. Even despite him being an omega, a brainless little cumdump Aetes didn’t want to fuck.

It was his nature: he’d always liked when people talked to him. It wasn’t his place, really. No one should bother with something like that with someone like him. He didn’t like to talk back, at least, but he still liked when they did.

And once they were past the embarrassment and novelty of having to serve himself, and the embarrassment and discomfort of the alphas, eating with Wasim and Kassem was a bit like eating with Aetes. 

They talked to each other, tenser at first, slowly getting used to his presence. Wasim tried to ask Evander questions, which he answered as passively as possible, but mostly, it wasn’t that bad when they were both talking and Wasim made sure Evander knew what was going on, but didn’t try to get him to talk. He almost liked it.

Wasim went to his room one afternoon. Lingered on the doorway as Evander was starting to think was the only way he knew how to enter his space, before asking, “Do I make you uncomfortable, Evander? Are you afraid of me?”

As if he had any choice not to be!

“Why do you ask, alpha?”

“You act like I’m some kind of master.” He spoke the word with derision. Evander thought better not to say that all alphas were masters, by law and nature. “But I’m not. Don’t want to be. If you don’t like being around me, I won’t make you.”

“I—” Evander stopped. “It is—” What was it? He thought about it and decided he could be truthful, and if he was punished, he’d be better for it. “I do appreciate our meals, alpha.”

“You don’t talk.”

“Do I have to?”

Wasim scrutinized him.

“Oh,” he said, at last. Realization colored his features. “I see.”

Evander fidgeted. “Do you wish for me not to bother your time with Kassem, alpha?”

“No. If you like being quiet, that ain’t a bad thing. That’s—it’s good. It’s good I know now.”

And it was better, after. He didn’t ask as many questions. Didn’t try to force Evander into talking, but still looked his way, seemed pleased when it was clear Evander was paying attention. He smiled at him, sometimes.

-

Creon invited Wasim for a banquet at Mys to which the alpha had to be convinced to go, once Evander explained that as an omega, he would sit by his feet and Wasim would hand feed him. Even once he was there, even despite the fact Creon was kind and gave Evander a pillow for his knees, he was silent and cold until Evander rested his head against his thigh and sent him a look, urging him, almost chastising him despite the fact he had no place to do so, and Wasim looked back to his host with a tight smile. He spoke about the borders, told stories much more succinct and interesting than those of His Highness, did a brief toast to the lives lost, and all that were close or not so close leaned forward to listen, fascinated—even if morbidly so.

Lydus, father to two of Evander’s sisters-in-law, invited Wasim to a lunch at his gardens and, after a brief look to see if Evander thought it was a good idea and the smallest of all nods, Wasim agreed to spar some of the young alphas. Won and impressed all those watching, and clasped hands with every single loser as if he was the most gracious of winners, offering praise instead of accepting it.

Nikandros, who was Orius’ closest friend, invited Wasim for a friendly hunt at the Pelias woods. Wasim was interested at first and then immediately distasteful once he learned the “friendly” meant it was mostly a social gathering and all the alphas were expected to drink a lot, shoot their crossbow even more and kill a lot of animals they didn’t exactly mean to eat or use for anything, just to impress their audience. He still went after Evander talked him into it. Shot less shots than anyone else, but caught the most impressive boar he, at least, seemed intent on using for all his meat and to make a coat.

At dawn, far away from any kalusian judgment, he prayed for the animal he took.

He was good at it. He was so perfectly good at impressing them, he just needed someone to remember him that he should care. Evander was, for all intents and purposes, a mild cultural guide and pale encouragement.

Phaedra, Lady of Astera, welcomed Wasim in her home for a great ball and when she asked him to dance with her, Wasim stared as if what she was doing was strange and bad, until Evander met his eyes and tilted his head towards her, and he went with a polite smile. Evander was watching them, proud of how well Wasim was charming her, thinking about how it would do his reputation some good if he decided he wished to fuck Phaedra, when someone touched his waist.

Theron, it was. Not the worst of his brothers, for this title would always be Orius, but not Aetes either.

Evander went obediently pliant as it was his natural reaction to his brothers. Theron’s hand traveled up, grasping at his neck as he pulled Evander close. He layed a whisper like a kiss against his ear, a gentle little, “How ruined has the beast left you, little brother?”

Evander closed his eyes.

But he never got to answer that. 

Wasim caught the interaction. He seemed to recognize Theron from the wedding and immediately went to them, eyes like steel. Evander let the ensuing argument pass right through him—whatever Wasim said would be perceived as an alpha being righteously possessive of what was his and, either way, it was hard. Hard to pay attention. Hard not to get far away somewhere in his mind where he was pliant and numb and obedient, and reacted to nothing because nothing touched him.

Wasim did touch him. He only noticed after—Wasim holding his arm, Wasim getting him away from Theron. He stared at his alpha, trying not to betray how terrified he was of looking towards Theron, of learning what the look on his face would be.

“We should stay,” he told him, desperate once he understood Wasim was going to the gardens where the carriage would be waiting.

Wasim scowled. “I had enough,” he spat.

His grip, Evander noticed confused, was shaking.

“It’s your brother,” he said later, while they were being driven home. It was the first time Wasim got in instead of following by horse.

Evander swallowed. “Yes.”

There was some reddening on his wrist, a bruise-to-come he didn’t remember getting. He wondered if it had been Theron or himself. He wondered why he was so sure it hadn’t been Wasim.

Wasim let out a breath. “Is this—is this accepted in Kalus? Brothers—touching like that? I never heard of it.”

“Only if one of them is an omega.” Evander wanted to wrap his arms around himself, to cringe. Instead, he held his back tight, let his face go blank. “Then they are not true brothers. Because—an omega is a person, in a way, but it is not really a full person, so it cannot be a true son, and if it is not a son, how could it be a brother? I suppose—we are close enough to it. But not full on it. So it does not count. Not truly.”

Wasim's face had turned blank just like Evander’s then, just like the way Evander’s normally was, the way to him meant he’d gone back into his own mind, his own fear and anxiety. He couldn’t believe Wasim could feel those things. They were so terrible, no alpha had why doing so. When Evander pressed his lips in a tight line, appalled at his own daring rant, Wasim flinched, his eyes focusing on Evander’s face.

“I hadn’t—I hadn’t known,” he whispered. 

“Omegas are rare.” Evander shrugged. “Lady Kyrios always felt cheated by my existence, I think. We are so few, there can go entire years with no documented cases of one of us being born, decades without one in nobility. And she had me after nine alpha sons, when she and Lord Kyrios had long decided they would try for exactly ten kids and she prayed for the last one to be a girl. I suppose the Moon was having a bit of a laugh at her. Very few in the army probably knew an omega. Those were the only kalusians you really knew, no?”

“Yes.” Wasim sounded numb, too. Numb with a hint of horror. “I—that’s not the case in Patut, for all that’s worth. Omegas are less rare. More—more just a part of life. We don’t do all this separation by lot like you people. I wouldn’t—I imagined it was really bad, because of how they treated you, but I didn’t know it was this.”

“Husband, do I have permission to be improper?”

Wasim chuckled, a rough, surprised sound as his eyes found Evander’s. “Always.”

“Then can I tell you what they told me about sex?”

There was a pause. An hesitant, careful: “Go on.”

Evander swallowed dry. “They told me my alpha would have a knot, and he would stick it inside me whether I was able to ease the way with slick, whether he would need to make me bleed and tear to open it up. Somehow, that was how he would breed me. They never explained pregnancy much beyond that. Never explained much of the process, besides telling me my alpha would like it, and I likely wouldn’t. One of my brothers told me I should never be taken on all fours, as that was the way of whores. The other told me I should only be fucked like that, because then my alpha wouldn’t have to stare at my face.”

"No," he whispered, sounding horrified. 

But Evander had started talking, and suddenly it felt hard to stop. It was his only purpose. He knew it was what he’d been groomed to do. And he said, eyes flickering close: “They told me I should cry the first time, so I knew if my alpha liked it or not. If he did, I should cry every time he took me. If he didn’t, I should never cry again. That’s all.”

“Evander, listen to me.” He rushed forward, taking Evander’s hands in his. There was urgency on his face. “You shouldn’t bleed or tear during sex, ay? Don’t—by the Wolf, they should never have told you anything like that!”

“Yes,” agreed Evander. “A good omega should be slick enough it would not be needed.”

“No.” He studied his face, concern on his eyes. “Listen to me, boy. Kassem’s other parent was an omega. I’ve slept with one of our lot, I know how it works, and there is no reason anyone should bleed during sex. If omega ain’t wet, then the blame lies on their partner, not them. Ay, Evander.” Then, he straightened. Narrowed his eyes. “Evander, I know they likely—they mustn’t have told you about—no one would have explained to you about touching yourself. But you do know, yes, about it? You did do it, when I left you after the wedding.” 

Evander blinked, confused. “Alphas touch themselves.”

Wasim looked horrified, even more than before. Evander could only stare at his face. “I left you so—I was a strange alpha, you were clearly terrified of me, clearly couldn’t say if you wanted it in any way that truly mattered. I thought you would prefer to take care of the heat alone.”

“Could an omega do it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I did not know that.”

He thought, detached, this explains a lot. Noble, careful Wasim knew he could have dealt with his sickness alone and thought he knew how to do so, and that made a lot more sense considering everything he knew about the alpha than him letting Evander alone to suffer.

He thought, detached, was he embarrassed then, or just too weirdly worried about giving me space and a “choice”? Which one had made him leave Evander so quickly, made him refuse to even look at his direction when he got naked?

Or, perhaps, “Is it tradition?” asked Evander. “I mean, in Patut, is the omega supposed to take care of it alone?”

“No.” Wasim shook his head. “But there aren’t arranged marriages like ours in Patut. An omega and an alpha would never need to Mark each other the way we did, at first meeting. It’s something for much later. For when they trust each other completely and irrevocably.”

“Mark each other?”

“That’s tradition. In Patut, the alpha bites the omega, yes, but the omega bites the alpha too.”

“No! Alpha, I would never do that.”

Wasim sighed. “I know, Evander,” sounding very tired. “I think it’s—romantic, I suppose. But His Highness told me from the start it was dumb.” He smiled, but it was a broken thing, a bitter chuckle as he looked down and said: “I never expected us to do it the patuut way.”

“I am sorry.”

And he was. He wasn’t expecting to be, because he’d never thought much about the patuut way before, but now he seemed to always be, because of his alpha, and now he did feel bad—but he couldn’t bite him. They both knew it, knew it wasn’t his place. He couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” said Wasim. His fingers brushed the scar in Evander’s neck, making him shiver. “I bit you and you didn’t even trust me yet.”

“I never expected my claiming to be something of trust and love. It is no issue.”

“Just expected to be torn apart by some noble alpha. And then I’m the brute.”

Evander looked at him. It was true: Wasim was bigger than any alpha he’d ever met, and more scarred. Rough skin from hard work and a beating sun, and a deep voice, and dark eyes. But he was so much kinder than any of his brothers. Careful with his touches, with his words, with hearing Evander when he spoke, no matter how quietly. He’d never slapped him, even if Evander had done more to deserve it there than he ever had at home. Evander trusted, somehow, he never would lift a hand against his omega or his servants, perhaps unless they lifted a hand against Kassem first. Because he was, despite not having to be, kind.

“You are nothing of the sort.”

“Tell them that. Sorry,” he laughed, but it was heavy. “Don’t. They wouldn’t like me as much if you did.”

I like you because of it. But Evander didn’t say that, of course. It was the most humiliatingly childish thought he had ever had, although it might be second to actually believing that silly, impossible feeling of he will not lift his hand to me.

Wasim held his hands. It was a careful thing, bringing them closer to his chest. A strange thing, and Evander could only stare.

“They were wrong,” he whispered. “I understand now offering to let you get a lover was probably more scary than anything, but I promise you, no one will hurt you like that for as long as I am here. Even if you do find someone you want and trust, it won’t be anything like that. You understand?”

He didn’t. He didn’t even understand why Wasim was acting like any of that was that bad, like any of that mattered at all. But he swallowed his doubts and said, as an omega should: “Of course, alpha.”

Chapter Text

There was some bleeding, of course, that Wasim couldn’t stop him from having.

It came less frequently than it did to women, at least. But with omegas, when it did come once every three months or so, it was so much worse. Evander hadn’t known any other of his kind and so didn’t know how it felt for them, but to him, it was less of the bleeding—which, in itself, was enough to let any omega bedridden—or the pain—which was debilitating—and more of the feeling it left him. 

Heatsick, but not quite like when he had been Marked, when the desire had been clear and all consuming. Overheated, lost in his own head, empty and empty and empty like nothing could fill him. Not even cock—Orius had joked that was why that happened to omegas, that it was them being such sluts their whorish brains shut off, but Evander knew it wasn’t. It was so much worse. So much deeper, his cries then.

Theron described him as a dumb animal by nature, oftentimes, but they could never understand it. The ache. The hole. The nature of him.

He could drag himself to eat and drink, if need be, if the Lord was particularly displeased with him and ordered the house to let him take care of his shame alone, but since the first morning the beta entered his room and found him with his sheets soaked in red, crying away, he was helped. 

The cup of water was brought to his lips, careful swallows the older beta watched over before giving him more. The food was put careful on his lap and, when Evander managed to eat as small of a portion as ever, the beta frowned, holding his back to keep him up. He offered to draw him a bath, to help him clean himself. Orius had done that little trick before, so Evander shook his head, panic stricken.

In the end, the beta got him a bucket and a washcloth to clean himself, his own hands anxiously hovering as they traveled under his ruined dress, shaking all over. He changed and cleaned Evander’s bed as quickly as possible while Evander changed into a fresh dress, feeling like throwing up the entire time.

He did throw up, once or twice during the next few days, but he always did during his bleeding heatsickness. The beta came often to help him sit up and drink water, and feed him fruits, cut up little pieces of bread, stew for something more substantial at night. He didn’t seem particularly happy having to pay so much attention to Evander or make accommodations, but he did say Wasim said the fruits would be good for him during this time, so clearly Wasim was the one ordering him to keep a close eye on the omega.

Evander tried not to sob at the humiliation, remembering that Wasim certainly was being told everything about his shame.

The beta even told him, at some point, “Wasim wants to know if you prefer his help,” and Evander shook his head, cringed as he clutched his stomach and painted, begged the beta not to let him. If he had half his wits, he wouldn’t have dared, but the pain and emptiness was too overwhelming to allow logic. Pure animal fear prevailed.

When it ended, it was always a dragging thing. It slowly got better, until there was nothing, and he managed to drag himself into a long, warm bath and to eat a proper meal, suddenly ravenous. He lost two dresses, one the first night and one on the last when he thought it’d ended but there was some more still, which was better than usual, and was left pale and tired, but that was the usual too.

“Wasim wishes to see you,” the beta told him as he helped Evander finish to dress himself.

This time, Evander had the mind to not open his stupid mouth, simply nodding subdued.

“I hope all the fruit helped,” Wasim told him, walking with him through the gardens as the betas aired out his room, getting rid of the pugently sweet heat that lingered on the bed and sunk into the walls. “It felt silly, but—Kassem’s parent’s bleedings were always terrible, and they once told me it made the dizziness better.”

Evander had never heard an alpha commenting on an omega’s bleeding so casually. Even Orius used it as an excuse to get him into a bath with himself, but never talked about what was happening, and when his brothers did speak of it, it was to discuss what it meant about an omega’s place and body and mind. He flushed, looking down.

“It helped,” he said, as composed as possible. His voice sounded mild and remote, which Evander saw as a win. “Did you go to any gathering, alpha?”

He supplied, “Got some invites. Nothing urgent, and I didn’t want to go without you.”

“You blend with them more than well enough, I trust.”

“They make me want to kill something. All the things they say, all they don’t say—the only way I got of holding myself back is looking at your face. It’s better that we keep going to things together.”

“If you think.”

But there was something curling in his belly at that. Something pleased and improperly proud.

It was short lived, for Wasim said, “Ios told me you lost a dress,” and Evander wanted to die, his face burned so badly. “I thought we could go buy some clothes for you. Do you—do you like dresses?”

Evander blinked. “What?”

“I was thinking about it.” He scrutinized Evander. “Honestly, I was wondering. Ios tells me you’re my wife. Some of the alphas did too. The less bad ones, at least. Do you even like it? When they call you my wife? Is it what you prefer?”

Evander froze, perplexed. “Prefer it to what?”

“To be called husband.”

“I am an omega. I could not be a husband.”

“But what do you like? What do you think of yourself, in your own mind?”

“I have always been an omega. How could I think of myself as anything else?”

“Have you never wanted? I’ve known omegas who were happier being omegas, not men or women. Met alphas who liked being seen only as alphas, and betas too. But you—did you ever get to choose it? Did you never wish to be something else?”

“More than anything,” he choked out and it sounded raw, sounded honest and painful and coming from deep inside. He had not meant to say it out loud, much less to confess, a bitter bite to his words, a resentful laugh he could not hold: “Of course I would have liked to be a man. Of course I thought of myself as a boy for as long as I could get away with it. But I am older now, and a wife, and this is simply how things go.”

Wasim took a step closer to him.

“I would be happy to have you as my husband.”

“Do not say such silly things. It is not done.”

“I’ve been calling you one for months.” Wasim’s eyes were like steel, strong and unbendable. “We could buy you pants, if you wish.”

He wished. It was meaneless—his sisters-in-law wore trousers, one of them much more than she ever wore dresses, and he’d seen male alphas who wore dresses even if the Lord Kyrios would scoff and scowl at them. He was even sure many other omegas wore pants. But those were the ones that got to go to college. Those were the alphas and omegas and betas who got to choose. Evander had never been one of them and he shook his head, wordless.

Wasim touched his hand. “Think about it, please.”

He thought, of course. It plagued him as he sat frozen in a fresh bed, tracing his skirts. Evander would have liked to be a man. He’d held into boyhood for as long as he could, for much longer than he should have, until his boobs grew and his first bleeding hit, and the way the Lord and Lady treated him wasn’t the only thing he’d had to worry about—until there was Orius, Theron, all his brothers but Aetes, who suddenly stopped treating him with the simple cruelty of young boys bullying their smallest. 

He’d craved to be one of them. Ached with it.

Evander had watched his brothers all the time when he still hadn’t started his own training. When he managed to slip away, he’d run after them despite that always ending with him either bleeding or Aetes grabbing him by the wrist, staring down at the other boys or the Lord and Lady as Evander sniffled over whatever they had inevitably done to him. 

When they were taught how to fight, he watched out of his window with jealousy and hunger. Hunger for a weapon, for useful hands, for a way of feeling less powerless. Little Evander of Kyrios had been a starving child, sure if he got himself a blade, he’d be able to shape himself into an alpha.

It couldn’t be done. Why would his husband, his alpha, pretend it could?

Wasim did get a seamstress to come full of samples of fabrics and measuring tools and a shy little omega apprentice Evander refused to even look at. Evander obediently—perhaps a tad too coolly—looked over the fabrics, already calculating how likely it was that he’d managed to get Kassem a couple of new clothes. He stopped when Wasim tried to show him a sample of light blue satin, shaking his head before he could think better of it.

“Satin is for people who cannot afford silk,” came out of his lips, all himself, all Aetes, all the parts of himself that Aetes had helped to carve out.

Wasim furrowed his eyebrows. “You truly are a spoiled little lord, aren’t you?”

“I am of good breeding,” corrected Evander. “We talked about this before, you cannot call me a lord. An omega cannot hold a title.”

“Spoiled still. Does the difference between satin and silk even matter? It all looks the same.”

“We talked about this too,” anguished Evander. He sighed. “Let me take care of it for now, please.”

But, as the seamstress was measuring him, Wasim peered at Evander from where he was standing bored, and he said: “Blue looks good on you. Darker blue, I think. Goes well with your hair.”

Evander turned to stare at him. The seamstress’ head gave a slight perk up, eyes going towards his face before she looked down with a chuckle. The sting of humiliation wasn’t even felt, so normal as it was, so absolutely abnormal Wasim’s comment was.

“It is no good,” he whispered when the seamstress had her back turned to them.

“Not your hair too,” said Wasim, touching his back. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It takes to grey too quickly. It has all these stupid curls. It is unbecoming.”

Wasim lifted an eyebrow. “You have to know I wouldn’t think that.”

Evander sent a look to Wasim’s own curls. “I suppose, alpha. But everyone else does.”

“You look homely, Evander.”

And, if it’d happened a couple of weeks ago, Evander would have flinched, surprised by the insult, the mocking alpha smile sent his way—but it wasn’t a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn’t anyone else saying it. It was Wasim, his smile more genuine than anything, kind as ever. Evander would have smiled if he was the type who was allowed to.

“You do know,” he said, his amusement honest and rebellious to everything he was supposed to be, “that that is not a good thing, do you not, alpha?”

“What?” He looked surprised, then. Evander didn’t laugh, because that would be too improper, but he felt like his eyes might have lit up with amusement either way, wrinkled up on the corners. Something like wariness appeared in Wasim’s face. “How bad?”

“If His Highness had chosen you a properly sought after omega, you would certainly have to beg forgiveness to have him keep talking to you.”

“Evander—”

“I know you grew up around kalusian soldiers, but everyone says you started helping them after you were seven. If you were with the patuut before as most think you were, then kalusian is not your first language, is it? It does not insult me.”

It did hurt when Aetes said it, but not him, not his alpha. He’d said Evander wasn’t unattractive in Patut, but it wasn’t so much about that. Not about him feeling pretty around Wasim, not as much as the fact he never felt like being plain and homely mattered when he was with him.

“I meant it as a compliment, for all that matters. Heard someone using the word a long time ago and thought—well, thought wrong, clearly.”

“It is fine.”

“It sounds like a compliment.”

“I suppose. I thought it was one too, when I was a child. The first time one of my brothers called me that.”

His other brothers had been very eager to help explain that particular misunderstanding.

“My point stands. You are pretty and you do look good in blue.”

It did not take a genius to know what Wasim thought looking homely meant and Evander was a silly omega indeed, for he kept thinking about that even as he told him, forcing himself to sound placid again, “You should ask her to measure Kassem too.”

“I tried before.” Wasim rolled his shoulders, as large as ever, as strong. “He gets uncomfortable with the attention. Doesn’t like the fancy clothes either.”

“He will need them.”

He looked at him. Wasim looked back, until he sighed. “I know. You probably already noticed,” and he chuckled, scratching his eyebrow, “but I always end up avoiding unpleasant confrontantions when I think the other person doesn’t deserve to be unpleasently confronted, which just ends up fucking over things. You know.” He gestured towards Evander, despite the omega not quite getting what he was trying to say. He stared, still.

Wasim called Kassem.

Evander watched the little bastard being fitted—the way he shifted his weight, how he avoided looking at the seamstress or her apprentice, the little hug he gave himself after she finished, a flinching, cringing motion. His eyes kept going to Evander, small little glances until he came to him.

“Can you answer her questions?” he asked. “I don’t really know what she’s talking about. You can choose the details for me, ay?”

“If you wish, sir.”

He said, “I think you dress well,” and cringed as soon as the words left his mouth, looking to the side embarrassed. The conversation was as stilled and awkward as it always was when Kassem tried to talk to him during any meal.

It was a lot like when Evander asked if he needed to talk, when Wasim understood he was simply a quiet person. A little moment of oh where it suddenly clicked.

Kassem was shy. 

Wasim wasn’t—he hated kalusian traditions, so he kept himself quiet and cold around most gatherings unless given a little nudge. Despite that, he was all charm and jokes with his own household of betas, and had no issue being the center of attention. Could force himself to be charming and funny even to those he hated, when he felt necessary. His son liked riding horses alone, and praying quietly with his father, and reading books alone. Evander would take a guess he hadn’t grown up around anyone his age, at the camp, and thus hadn’t ever had a friend before. 

Shy, and introverted, and lonely enough he’d want to befriend the omega his father had all but been forced to marry. It ached on Evander’s chest. He, too, had been shy and lonely at that age. Boyhood had been half of the longing haunting his childhood—brotherhood had taken control of all the rest.

“I can explain it to you,” he told him at last, soft. He paused. “You could tell me how patuut dress, too. It would be an exchange, sir.”

Kassem looked up. He smiled.

“I would like that.”

-

Once Evander offered, there was nothing he could do to keep the bastard from going after him—for every three walks he took, one would be with the boy following him, so closely mirroring the boy Evander himself had been he’d felt sick at even the thought of seeming uninterested. 

He wished to talk about Patut. He wished to talk about Kalus, as long as Evander didn’t comment about his place as an omega or the boy’s place as a lord. He wished to talk about his horse, Hala, and Wasim’s horse, which he had since the army and used to be Kassem’s job to take care of. He wished to talk about Akadios, and the camp, and the dog they used to have when they were there, an army mut Wasim kept. He wished to talk about Kyrios.

He mentioned he was twelve, which meant Wasim had been seventeen when he was born. A good, proper age to have children. Evander probably would be having them since he was fifteen, if the Lady had managed to find an alpha that wanted him. 

He mentioned very little about the actual soldiers he grew up with and none of his supposed omega parent besides a passing comment about a grandparents’ house in Kalus, a warm childhood home he was safe at when his father had to travel, which Evander doubted was Wasim’s parents’s.

“Do you like having brothers?” he asked him once, eyes big and earnest. “I always wanted siblings.”

“They did not like playing with me,” because Evander was sure Kassem wanted brothers just because he wanted someone his age to play with. “Frankly, I do not think they liked me all that much, sir.”

“Oh.” Kassem looked disappointed. He lowered his eyes. “That sucks.”

“If you think, sir. I imagine it is the natural way of things.” He decided not to say most alphas don’t bother with omegas, because he knew Kassem would make a fuss about that. Instead, he tried, “Did you have friends at the camp?”

“Not the camp. Dad didn’t even let me talk to most of ‘em, and I didn’t want to either. They were real bad. But when I stayed in Patut, sometimes. The kids were better. I liked them.” He paused. Asked, already cringing, “Did you have friends?”

Evander sent an indulgent little hum his way.

“I had one brother who was better than the rest. I would not be so presumptuous as to think he liked me enough to see me as a friend.”

Even if he disregarded the fact he was an omega— well, truth was, he didn’t think Aetes had any friends. He favored Evander and as cold as being favored by him was, it was the warmest Aetes seemed capable of being. Kassem seemed so displeased with his answer, though, Evander could only wonder what the boy would think if he met Aetes.

He supposed it was best to keep that from happening until the Baksh claim on Akadios was firmer. Any meeting with the Kyrios, who all hated patuut and bastards alike, was sure to traumatize the boy.

“I was tryn’a visit you,” Kassem told him, tracing the dirt with an already disgusting boot. “Dad said it’d be no good, but I think he wanted also. When you were sick. If I were feeling shitty, I’d wanna someone more good than Ios helping me.”

“Ios?”

Kassem sent him the same scrutinizing gaze his father was so good at giving him. “The beta that takes care of you. You don’t know his name?”

“You will not like what I say,” he said, slow and careful, “but an omega is not really expected to care for a household.” Not one like him, anyway. “If an alpha wants him to know someone, they should tell him. If not, he should always just pay attention to his own alpha. Why do you think he is bad?”

“Not bad. Just a bit strange, ay? He don’t even look me in the eye.”

Because this Ios knew what was proper, Evander translated, and Kassem didn’t like propriety. He glanced at the boy, his lips twisting before he controlled it as best as he could. 

Kassem peered at him curiously. “Are you really—that’s really what your life should to be? Waiting ‘round until your alpha tells you what you should care about? What do you even like doing?”

The proper answer would be nothing. Hit with such a shameless question, Evander found the real answer would likely be nothing too. 

There was nothing about his life before Akadios he’d liked very much: he’d always survived training, barely held in when it came to maintenance punishments, went blank when his brothers came to play with him. There’d been Aetes, but he didn’t know if the lazy days he passed with him counted. Love, yes. He loved his brother. He didn’t know if he liked him.

He liked taking walks in those gardens, he supposed. That meant a lot for a life that was supposed to be devoid of such things, but nothing for a boy like Kassem. A lot for the life of an omega, but nothing for an alpha. 

Wasn’t that what all his conversations with Kassem and his father truly came down to?

“I do not know, sir. What do you like?”

The bastard seemed disappointed. He shrugged. “You know, ay. Horses. Books. I like swords, but I’m not as good as Dad. No one is, though. Would you ride with me?”

If Evander was anyone else, what crossed his mind then would’ve been a joke, dirt and improper as it was. Still, he was Evander of Kyrios, the most boring of omegas, and the thought of omegas are only supposed to ride one thing was as sincere as it could possibly be. Fortunately, also because of who he was, he didn’t say it out loud.

“If you wish,” he said, “it would be my honor.”

That was, despite the fact that Evander didn’t, in fact, know how to ride a horse.

-

Wasim went to Kassem first. Evander watched standing a little back as he held his son’s face carefully, touching his shoulders, looking for any scraps despite the fact that there would be none. When he turned to Evander, however, his concern grew.

“Ios told me you fell,” he said, slowly.

“Only getting out of the horse, alpha,” which was better than if he’d fell while riding it. His cheek was throbbing, the start of a pulsing bruise he knew would turn ugly, and his shoulder was sore, but he was sure he hadn’t hurt anything too badly.

Wasim not so much.

“Come on,” he told him, helping him as if walking would be very hard with a hurt shoulder. “I got some medical experience because of the army. I’d like to take a look.”

He followed the man obediently, but there was very little Wasim could even do besides making sure he hadn’t broken any bone, Kassem hovering close with terrified eyes. Evander could smell the anxious guilt coming from him, which was almost worse than the pain.

“I’m sorry,” he told him.

Evander’s eyes softened. “It is fine, sir,” he said.

Wasim squeezed his knee.

“You’re good, lad.”

Later, as he studied the swelling on his cheek on the mirror, Evander thought I can work with this. He almost grinned.

Wasim had a meeting he was supposed to go to and Evander had had a plan, already. The alpha, like his son, had left Evander to talk to the seamstress alone and, despite him somehow managing to convince her to make some pants and shirts for him he had no intention of using, mostly it had been Evander in charge of deciding what he wanted. He had taken advantage of it to ask for dresses he knew Wasim was likely to disapprove of.

Sly little one .

It was traditional, in fact. It was the kind that came from practices that had been denounced as too degrading for at least half a century, the ones most older alpha’s longed for and younger omegas didn’t even know had existed, didn’t even know to fear unless they were like Evander. He took great care to make sure Wasim didn’t see it until it was almost too late. 

White silk. A deep cut across the middle of the bodice, one that would expose his entire right breast.

Wasim, as soon as he saw him, just stared. At his face, but in such an intent way, Evander could tell he wanted to look at it.

“My tits are down here, alpha,” he told him honestly, because it really seemed like the man was struggling to keep his eyes up.

Wasim choked.

“No,” he said, apparently horrified. “Ay, you will kill me one of these days, omega.”

Evander took his arm and guided them down the stairs calmly. “They will love it.”

“Your face is bruised and your breast is—is out! They will think—”

He seemed unable to even say what they both knew the alphas would be thinking and telling them. Evander had such a silly alpha, such a confusedly considerate foreigner when it came to Evander’s body—a body that was all his to use, honestly!

He sent him an exasperated look.

“There will be no speculation. You will say you were the one that chose my clothes. You will tell them you punished me for disobedience and that is how the bruising came to be. You will demonstrate good humor, and disdain towards me, and interest in classic kalusian customs, asking them about more traditional omega clothing.” He let go of him by the end of the staircase and fiddled with Wasim’s collar, smoothing the heavy pelt of his cloak down. “They will love you for it.” He paused. His fingers brushed the bronze pin fastening Wasim’s clothes, sending his face a cautious look. This part, he knew, would be the most likely to start an argument. “They will want to touch me. You should let them.”

As expected, “Absolutely not.”

“It is—”

“Fine? I know it fucking isn’t. You can’t possibly want for them to touch you.”

“Not particularly, but it would not upset me much.”

“I would never participate in something like that. Not now, not ever. No.”

“You will let them look.” He opened his mouth, but Evander was becoming way too daring living with him: he interrupted his husband. “Alpha. I am telling you now. You will let them, and you will hear everything they say not with a smile on your face, I understand now that would be too much to ask, but at least with no hostility. At least vocally agreeing. Please.”

“What I understand is, they will think I beat you, and made you come as some pretty tits for them to stare at, and that will make them respect me more.”

“It is what an omega like me is for.”

“It isn’t.” Evander wished he could believe it, if only because he said it with such certainty it seemed wrong not to agree. Wasim touched his shoulder, a featherlight brush. His eyes were still very much strained not to accidentally travel down. “You didn’t—you knew about the party and I am sure you had your plans, but you didn’t fall purposely, ay?”

“I did not,” and that, at least, he could say with honesty. He had not meant to fall, he was just really terrible with horses. “I would not.”

Wasim sent him a look. “This people, this place, you know them more than me, I admit. I don’t like this, truly hate it, but if you think it’s what Kassem needs, I will say all your terrible things. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“Kassem—”

“Not even for him. We could be starving at a war camp right now and you could be our only chance of survival—even then, I would never let my son grow up thinking letting someone do a sacrifice like that for him is fine. It’s not the kind of kid I want to raise. Even this is too much. It’s nothing I am proud of.”

Evander blinked.

“This is for me too,” he admitted. “Those people scorn you at every corner. If the prince dies too young, or loses too much favor with his father, you will lose your position, but so will I. I do not know if my parents would let you take me back to the border or if they would force an annulment, but it would either be starving with the army or be thrown at a much worse alpha, one who would see me as an already tainted bride to be broken and tamed. Do you understand that? I need this to work, husband. I need to do this for myself.”

He couldn’t bear to imagine what would happen if he went back to the Kyrios. What they would do, what his brothers would do knowing the Lord of the house would think of Evander as not having any tight chastity to protect. Not even Aetes would save him and the possibility filled him with an urgency and drive like nothing Wasim or Kassem could do.

Selfish, he was, and he should never voice the depths of his self preservation out loud, but it fell out of his lips, all the improper sincerity Wasim showed and probably expected to receive back. Wasim seemed surprised by the outburst, but once again—not angry. Not at him.

“I see. I don’t like it,” he repeated for what seemed like the thousandth time, “but I see it.”

That night, as they left a successful dinner and Evander could barely contain his smile, and Wasim his desire to start punching people, Wasim reached for his hands. At the carriage returning to his house, his fingers trembling, grasping for Evander’s fingers, his voice so small for such a huge man: “They did believe I beat you, and they loved me for it.”

Evander looked at his haunted face and didn’t say I was born for it, although he thought it.

He gave his alpha’s fingers a light squeeze.

“I told you so.”

Wasim stared at him for a second, before letting go with a startled, honest laugh. That entire night, Evander took every mocking comment, leering look and denied ask to feel his tits with empty looks of subservience, but now he found himself flushing, embarrassed. It was a daring thing to say, he supposed. Being alone with Wasim clouded his manners.

Before they got home, Wasim lent him his own cloak to cover his tits and goosebump covered arms, and Evander fussed over his clothes once more.

He felt delirious—felt, he understood finally, victorious.

-

Later, he thought about it.

How intent Wasim was in constantly repeating how much he didn’t like doing those things, seeing Evander like that. Wasim’s look some good weeks ago, the twist of his lips, the bitter amusement heavy with weary hope as Evander said you are nothing of the sort. 

You are not a brute.

He let the image sit on his mind, and thought, and thought, and thought.

It dawned on him, finally, why Wasim insisted on repeating his oppositions even though they both knew, in the end, he would largely trust Evander to lead their way and to not do anything that would hurt himself. He held onto his morals so strongly, sank his nails onto them and refused to let go no matter how deep the claw marks went, and for all he talked, Evander had thought he’d been doing it mostly to try and convince himself he’d been keeping them, despite what he was doing with his husband.

Orius had talked about him as if he was a beast—no mind, no conscience at all, just animalistic cruelty to bestow upon Evander. Aetes, with all his cold kindness, had argued against the marriage with their parents—no point in it, no point in making an omega, a harmless born slut, have to suffer through the indignity of being raped by a patuut. 

No one had ever said Evander could be raped before. He didn’t think Aetes believed he could be, by a kalusian.

Wasim, Evander knew, was more clever than any other alpha he had ever met. Clever, and intelligent, and aware of everything the kalusian thought of him. Maybe what he did need so desperately was for Evander to trust he didn’t want to put him in such a position. For Evander to believe in him, and for Evander to never think of him the way everyone else seemed to.

Evander couldn’t help but think he was being silly, if that was really the case.

So Wasim didn’t like to see him treated that way. He still let Evander create situations to make it possible! Using Wasim’s morals, that was selfish no matter his hesitation—and why did it matter he was being selfish for the sake of his son, when everything Evander did was for his selfish self not to go back to his parents?

Silly, but painfully so.

He touched the bruise in his cheek, closing his eyes.

He was still thinking about Wasim’s face, as he fell asleep. About his trembling hands.

-

“They think omegas are born whores.” Evander nodded. “But they also think omegas have to be hurt during sex and to endure the pain without receiving any pleasure from it.” And, when Evander simply nodded again, failing to understand his tone, it took a very pained edge. “Makes sense, you think?”

“Does not have to. It only is.”

“You won’t ever hurt like that, ay? Gonna make sure of it.” Evander sent him a look. “I will.” Wasim brushed his neck, thumb tracing just a little below the bite. “Remember this? We’re mates. Gonna take care of you for the rest of our lives.”

Evander had always thought of the Mark as him being Marked and, at most, him being mated. Being mates was a completely different beast, even if it did not sound like it at first. He felt his expression going dull.

They were riding through his lands. Evander, despite Wasim never saying it out loud, seemed to have been banned from riding alone, so while Kassem was happy and free a bit ahead of them, he was on Wasim's horse, settled comfortably against the man’s chest as they galloped carefully. The alpha was warm. Worried.

The day was beautiful. Evander didn’t care about the sourness of the conversation as much as he cared about how beautiful the day was, how grateful he was that Kassem had asked his father and Wasim had agreed to take them on an outing.

“Might I ask you something?” Wasim made a sound which seemed to say go on, one hand in the reins, another in his shoulder stilling him. Evander breathed in until he felt a bit firmer, and managed to ask what had been plaguing him, “Why do you want to be a lord? You do not seem to care about the title, and yet, it is the only reason I am here.”

“I don’t,” came almost immediately, simple about it. “Never asked for it. When I saved Herakles, after he decided we would be friends, he told me I could ask him anything. Any prize, any reward. So I told him I wanted money. Security, safety, for my son to never starve again. All I thought he would give me was some gold and if he was truly so serious about our friendship a little rundown house somewhere in Patut. He decided I needed this lands. He decided I needed to become Lord Akadios. And he’s a prince, it’s not like I could just tell him no, I want less . So I’m here. Don’t want a lordship, but between that and the army, the choice is easy. A part of me—I thought I could help Patut, perhaps. If I accepted his offer of power.” He chuckled against Evander’s ears. “But the King keeps Herakles on a leash as tight as the one Herakles keeps me.”

He thought about the fight he’d overheard between them both, once upon a time.

“You would go back,” said Evander. “If you could.”

“I would choose Patut,” corrected Wasim, softly. “If I knew I could be there and not starve, I wouldn’t need anything else. Well.” He coughed awkwardly. “I’m happy I got you here with me, of course, husband.”

Evander looked ahead, amusement curling on his chest. He remembered him, “There is no need for tactful lies, alpha.”

Wasim huffed, a trembling thing against Evander’s back. “Just ain’t wanting to make it sound like my biggest dream is to not be married to you. Despite all that made us be here, I think you’re the best partner I could have.”

“Just quite,” agreed Evander, quietly pleased.

He let out the most undignified of sounds when Wasim picked up speed, his arm holding him closer as he whipped the reels in one strong motion. He laughed, but he kept his hold on him firm. Kept him safe enough Evander couldn’t call his laugh cruel. When he slowed down next to Kassem, Evander was breathless and he was grinning.

“You never ran?”

“Why would I,” he let out.

“It’s fun,” said Kassem. “It’s the best.”

Evander shook his head. “I like walking slowly and peacefully.”

Wasim had to help him get out, holding him by the waist. His eyes lingered briefly on his cheek, still healing, before he set him down in a patch of grass with a small smile. “There, there, lad. A bit shaky, ay?”

“A lot,” he disagreed.

Kassem had asked for a picnic, claiming he and Wasim used to do that a lot before the marriage. For some reason probably involving his overwhelming loneliness, now they were there he only wished to teach Evander a patuut children’s game which involved kicking a ball back and forth to each other, something he managed to be terrible at. They did that until Evander was able to at least kick it back to him, holding up his skirts. When he settled down exhausted and sweaty on the ground, Wasim gave him a flask, the water already cool, but welcomed anyway, watching as Wasim cut up some fruit for them.

His hair was getting curly and frizzled. The curls stuck to the sweat on his forehead, his neck, even his reddened cheeks, and he was aware he must have looked silly. Both Wasim and even Kassem didn’t look half as hot.

Wasim smiled every time he looked at Kassem, but more so that day. The boy looked happy. The boy looked happier than Evander had ever seen him and he decided he shouldn’t worry too much about looking silly and ugly. There was no helping and—

And it was a beautiful day.

It was a great outing.

-

There was only one other boy in Akadios, although he was some four years older than Kassem, close enough to a man. Evander learned about him the same day he first fell, once the boy was the stablehand’s son and seemed to help him with the horses. When he asked why Kassem didn’t try to befriend him, he was met with a pulled face he supposed meant the boy was just at that age that was too old and also too young to want to play with a twelve year old.

He wasn’t so sure, after said twelve year old fought with the boy.

He learned only because he was taking a walk and heard all the commotion. When asked about it immediately after sending Kassem to his room, Wasim made a face much like his son and said he wasn’t sure what had happened—neither had wanted to talk and Kassem had practically run upstairs, so he was going to give them space and try asking again later.

Evander was, despite all else, Lord Kyrios’ son. He didn’t believe in giving a kid space and he slipped away to Kassem’s room.

The bastard was crying, but the kind of cry Evander could clock as more fueled by anger than hurt. Kept furiously wiping his cheeks and, when he saw Evander, he scowled. “I won’t say sorry.”

Evander paused before going in and closing the door. “That is fine,” he said. “Most alphas do not, so it is truly your prerogative.” Evander kneeled before him. He dabbed at his face carefully, a soft handkerchief he’d gotten from Aetes years ago. “Do you wish to tell me the reason, sir? I might be able to help with your father.”

“He said something shitty.”

“About Patut?”

That would explain a lot.

Kassem blinked, his eyes red and teary, before hesitantly shaking his head. “About omegas.” His voice was so small. So shaky. It dumbfounded Evander, who could only stare surprised. “He said—it was terrible. Can’t repeat it.”

“Oh.”

Oh.

What else could he say? How could he explain to this kind little bastard that whatever the boy had said, it was no issue?

Evander closed his eyes. Breathed very deeply before opening them again.

“I was your age, the first time one of my brothers touched my breasts,” he whispered, and perhaps he shouldn’t tell a child such a thing, but Evander had been told worse things as a child, by alphas. If he felt an uncomfortable twist at it, at Kassem’s small, horrified face, it was only Evander being a silly little omega, he was sure. “It is an omega’s duty, to bear the desire of their betters, sir. If they so wish to touch, that is their right. If they wish to comment, that is all well and good too.”

“No,” he whispered back, blinking fast, and suddenly Evander was wiping away even more tears mixed with the dirt. “It’s not—it ain’t fair. I want Patut. How could dad ever think here is better?”

Evander paused. Because here is the only choice he has, since the moment the prince decided he was his.

He put down his handkerchief, staring at the dirt and the small speaks of red against the baby blue silk. There was something big growing on his throat, something very hard to swallow. “Thank you, sir, for caring about what he had to say about my lot. You are kind and noble. But it is not necessary. You should not bother fighting such things.”

It will make your presentation a whole lot harder.

Evander was already sure he’d have to push it to even later than what he’d been planning. If Kassem couldn’t take whatever the young beta had said, he wouldn’t be able to take the comments his father already struggled so much not to fight against.

Later, it was the father who came to him, his face grim and set as he asked to walk with Evander. Trepidation settled, curled and acrid on his stomach as he followed.

“I wish to talk,” he said. “It’s just talking, it’s not—I can’t reprimand you, Evander. But I can speak, and I can ask you, please, not to say such things to my son.” Evander was sure there was only one such thing he may have been referring to. He stared at Wasim’s uncomfortable face, how the alpha seemed unable to look Evander in the eye. “It ain’t—I don’t try to shelter him, because I know matters of violence, including—including sexual, can happen, and it’s best he’s able to talk with me. But what you said, the way you said it—it’s nothing a boy should be hearing about, at his age.”

“Then why—” His useless tongue struggled to form the words. “Why did they—”

Why did they do it to me when I was his age?

The face Wasim made, it was like he could hear his words, even though Evander couldn’t make himself speak them. It was childish. It was stupid, all that omega silliness that had made his family treat him in such a way. Why. Because he was an omega! That was the only way omegas could be treated and he shouldn’t─he knew better than to question, to freeze, to look for logic when there was no logic, just instinctual, biological reality.

“Evander─”

“Alpha,” whispered Evander, looking to Wasim’s feet. He felt numb. “I am sorry. I had no right, and I will not say such things to your son ever again.”

“Evander─”

“May I go to my room, alpha?”

He paused. Evander could feel his displeasure, but he knew Wasim would end up stepping away, would say: “It isn’t my place to stop you, ay?”

And so, Evander ran away.

He wished he didn’t cry. He wished he wasn’t so silly as to cry because of that.

But he was. He’d always been.

-

He kneeled before him. Evander’s insides were frozen numb, an empty hole like himself, but Wasim kneeled as he sat in bed, taking his hands in his, looking at his face with great somberness.

“My entire childhood—every soldier seemed so large, and dangerous, and frightening, until I became large, and dangerous, and frightening enough to keep them away. But I don’t want to be that to you, Evander.”

Slowly, Evander squeezed his hands. Looked to his face. “Please, do not kneel,” he asked, dead, and Wasim sat on the bed. He didn’t let go of him, still. “I am sorry, still. It was not right to tell Kassem such things. I—it did not feel right, but I thought it was just me.”

“You have good instincts, I believe.” Wasim sent him a half-smile. “He likes you. That’s why he fought Alexis. You inspired loyalty.” Evander snorted, an involuntary reaction. “It’s true! My boy is very loyal, I promise, and he warms quickly to people who treat him well. You did that.”

“I like him,” he admired. “He is a good alpha.”

Or, well. He was a terrible alpha considering how kalusians thought alphas should be. But he was a good alpha to Evander, just like Wasim.

Wasim’s eyes were sad. “Don’t keep yourself away,” he asked, a gentle, unspoken please hidden there between his lips.

“You are the best partner I could have. That is what we decided, is it not?” And it settled in him. That pleasure. He looked at the man. “I am not—I do not think I am afraid of you. I am happy to have you as a husband.”

“Are you now,” and his blush probably betrayed him, for Wasim touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry for what they did to you, but I’m happy you are here.”

“What will you do to this Alexis?”

“I talked to his father. He’s a good man, I trust he won’t let his son disrespect someone who never did anything to him.”

“And Kassem?” which was the real worry trashing inside him and Wasim seemed to know that. He sighed.

“I can’t punish him for this. I’d probably feel like I should punish him if he hadn’t done it, even if I know it’s what he’s gonna have to do later.”

And so, that was that.

-

Their meals together became more frequent and, sometimes, both father and son came to his room, eating with him on his balcony on particularly warm and sunny days. Oftentimes, Kassem managed to convince Wasim to ignore his duties and ride with him, bringing Evander alone, stubbornly ignoring the now sullen stable boy who was hushed away by his father as soon as they entered the stables.

When Wasim did work, he started calling for Evander and, sitting in his office, both carefully discussed Akadios and its people’s needs. Sometimes, he asked for Evander to deal with more trivial matters alone, despite none of the betas obeying him without getting confirmation and Evander himself being unable to make an order without asking him first, no matter how silly the problem. 

When they had a party to attend, he still quietly deferred to him, as if Evander was the one with all the power while kneeling by his feet or walking around with his breasts bare. Once, when a particularly bad alpha had been talking to him during a banquet, Evander had looked up just to see his set jaw and rolled his eyes. Wasim had looked down just in time to see, to let out a startled, sincere laugh the alpha thankfully thought had been about whatever crude joke he’d just made. Wasim had settled back on his chair, amused and calmer, and Evader had shifted, delighted for reasons he could not explain.

Oftentimes, he dreamed of Orius. Sometimes, he dreamed of Aetes. Rarely, it was Wasim in his mind while he slept, kind and careful.

Once only, after Lord Creon made a pointed remark about how “it hasn’t been bred yet, I see”, he caught himself saying, “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Breed me.”

Wasim, who’d been relaxed talking to him in his room up to this point, froze. His expression was puzzled by confusion and shock, letting out a choked, “Why do you ask?”

Evander shrugged. 

“I do not know,” he admitted. “I suppose I wondered. I suppose I do not think it would be so bad.”

“What? You would want me to breed you?”

He stopped. He thought about it carefully, flushed bright, but focused. “Perhaps not breed,” he admitted. “It would complicate things with Kassem. But—but you are my husband, no?”

“You will kill me.” Wasim shook his head. “By the Wolf. Are you trying to say you want to have sex, Evander?”

Was he? He didn’t know for sure.

“Would you want it?”

Wasim liked his lovers patuut, tall and broad. Not pretty, but handsome. Evander was pale and small, ugly and harmless, and he was sure if Wasim ever tried listing all he thought the perfect lover should have, Evander wouldn’t possess a single trait.

But the alpha smiled and it seemed as honest as it was dumbfoundedly startled. He said: “Wolf, you are sly! Well, see. We agreed there’s no one who really caught our eyes. Meanwhile, you are pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, and we trust each other. You’ve been thinking about this? Why not try, ay? Worst it can happen, things are weird for a while. I believe we could work it out, if that was the case. We work well together.”

Perhaps it should sound bad. A good omega certainly would be hurt, insulted, angrily indignant—but despite everything, Evander liked how blunt Wasim could be, all his earnestness. There was no one handsome enough, but there was Evander, and of anyone else in Kalus, having sex with his own husband was what made the most sense, even if they weren’t that attracted to each other. 

Evander looked at him and nodded.

“Yes. We could try.” He paused. Wasim looked back, kind, patient as Evander struggled with uncertainty. Finally, he asked: “How do we try?”

“Now?” Evander shrugged and Wasim smiled, amused, laughing in shock, perhaps. He reached out a hand, touching Evander’s knee. Not his thigh—his hold wasn’t tight, didn’t wander upwards, just stayed there, firm and comforting as ever. “Are you sure?” He nodded, but Wasim just gave him a soft squeeze. “Evander, I need you to say it, please.”

He swallowed. It was a struggle to get the words out despite his embarrassment. “I am sure. Please.”

Wasim said, half a question, half an understanding: “But you don’t know how you would like it.”

Evander snorted.

“No, I do not. So, how?” 

He watched as Wasim thought about it. He would have expected a whole lot to come out of this strange conversation they were having, but not for Wasim to get out of the bed and kneel in front of him. Evander blinked at him, surprised. “Alpha?”

“Let’s try like this.”

Wasim’s hands touched his waist, so huge his thumbs almost met in the middle, and he kissed Evander. Evander was so short, and he was so tall, it wasn’t hard even with him down on his knees. Evander was aware of the size difference, but also, he was mostly overwhelmingly aware of the fact he was being kissed for the first time in his life. He’d always been told no alpha would bother doing that to an omega like him.

When their lips parted, Wasim smiled at him, a gentle thing, and his fingers brushed against Evander’s waist.

“Close your eyes, Evander.”

So he closed. He supposed it was weird he hadn’t already.

Wasim kissed him again, even more softly. Careful, like he understood Evander needed it to go slow, and like he wanted to take care of Evander. His mouth was very warm, his hands even more so. Evander’s heart was going wild on his chest, thumping against fragile ribs, and he couldn’t quite explain the sound that left his lips, but he knew it was something he should have been ashamed of. The type of sound a worthless slut made. The type that sounded a little bit like a sob, only too needy and choked out.

“Was this alright?” rasped Wasim, voice even deeper than normal, thumb caressing his skin through the silk. Evander nodded. “Good. Stop me if there’s anything that doesn’t feel right, ay?”

Evander nodded again, completely unable to use words.

Unable to understand, too, when Wasim reached under his skirt, his fingers rough as they brushed between his thighs, skin scarred against Evander’s softness stealing a whimpering sound out of the omega’s bitten lips. He gasped, surprised, when those same fingers touched his underclothes, thumb circling the one little nub he had always been told not to touch, had always been mocked by his brothers who said no alpha would ever bother with such a useless thing. 

Wasim bothered. He bothered with everything other alphas didn’t, telling Evander: “You can hold my head, but don’t pull my hair too much, ay? Not my thing,” before pulling down his underclothes.

It felt instinctual to close his eyes and spread his legs, his breath catching, panting, tears burning under his eyelids even before anything was done. He didn’t dare roll his hips, to try and search for more, the scalding heat tight on his belly like nothing he’d ever felt before—nothing he could name, as Wasim rearranged his skirts and Evander helped to hold them up, even without understanding why and what Wasim was planning, no warnings or lessons who could have prepared him for the soft, fervent kisses Wasim laid on his legs, a slow trail from his knees up to his bare thighs, all smooth, all soft, all untouched.

Evander’s stomach clenched and he knew he was wet. He’d never been wet before and it was almost enough to make him actually burst into tears.

His breath was ragged and desperate as Wasim pushed his legs wider. Held them open, firm and careful, and held his hips, stealing an inhuman noise out of him when his mouth found Evander’s cunt, tongue dragging up his folds. Only then he understood Wasim’s previous comment—even in all his shock, and all his shaking, his hands went to the alpha’s head almost without knowing what he was doing.

Nothing else about what Wasim was doing made any sense.

“Wasim!” he gasped and Wasim looked up from between his skirt, dark eyes, searching eyes, giving Evander’s hips a careful squeeze. He looked down and whatever the man saw on his flushed, teary-eyed, ugly face, it made him smile. Evander choked. “You cannot do this!”

“Why not? You don’t want me to?”

“It is— wrong. Dirty.”

“Why do you think that?” Evander had no answer. Because it was , couldn’t he just see that! He breathed in shakely. “Evander. Do you want this?”

It was the way he said want. It struck him to his core and Evander choked on nothing, nodding his head. “Yes.”

There were tears in his eyes by the time Wasim’s mouth found his cunt again. It felt so good, better than anything he should be allowed to feel: Wasim lapped him up, licked his sensitive cunt, sucked on his little nub, his tongue hot, letting everything from Evander’s mind down to the top of his toes on fire. His hips obeyed the pace Wasim commanded, his insides clenching as he whimpered. He felt undone. Overcome. He knew he cried out, but he could hardly catch what. Yes, maybe. Wasim’s name. Stupid little oh’s and ah’s.

He’d been told once omegas couldn’t feel pleasure the way alphas did. That they couldn’t come. Truthfully, Evander lasted very little before something inside him clenched one last time before spilling, a shocked moan leaving his lips.

This was true limpness, true pliableness. It took him seconds riding the aftershock of pure bliss and pleasure, holding onto Wasim’s shoulders, before he could blink at him and say, “I should suck you too.”

Wasim laughed. He kissed Evander’s thigh once more.

“Wanted you to have a good first experience,” he whispered, his voice very low, and very rough. “Don’t worry about nothing else.”

-

They had sex. 

They had a lot of sex as the days passed, and never what Evander had been told sex was—no knot, no cum filling him up, no bump growing on his belly. No cock rearranging his insides, and for all he’d been told of his duty and all the vague things he knew about how fucking worked, he’d always thought it would be all about just that. His alpha’s cock. Never he would have imagined all the things Wasim could do with his mouth and his fingers and his maddening teasings.

Evander had been prepared his whole life to be fucked bloody—never, it turned out, they had taught him how to take being fucked slowly, deliriously, incoherent with scorching desire and burning care and such pleasure, it felt like being undone, every time, all the time.

Wasim didn’t start treating him like an omega. Beyond that, he didn’t even start treating him like he was just something for him to have sex with.

Instead, he still treated Evander with impossible respect. He talked to him, and heard him, and made him cry with pleasure when the mood seemed right. He never demanded much of Evander back: each moan seemed to delight him enough.

Laying on top of his chest one night, blinking against the bone-deep tiredness he felt, Evander was even able to tell him, “I am glad you did not help with the heat that night.”

He couldn’t help tensing when Wasim moved, even if he didn’t think Wasim would slap him. Curled his shoulders and dropped his head, cheek against his shoulder, trying to make himself smaller, despite Wasim just touching his cheek lightly, making him look up cautiously. His face was somber. Guilt-ridden.

“I’m sorry you had to suffer through it alone. Perhaps there was a better way for me to deal with things and I regret that I didn’t know enough to try. But, yes. I believe it’s best we didn’t do anything while you were like that.”

Evander would have endured it. Later, he thought it would have changed very little—he’d been raised to expect it, so he wouldn’t have held it against Wasim and would have probably come to trust him just as much as he did then. 

But Wasim hadn’t touched him. Knowing that was a possibility, that an alpha could look at an omega sweet and begging and in pain, and decide not to take it without them being conscious to truly give, he was relieved it was what Wasim had done. Dreams of unwanted, painful desire were still better than dreams of unwanted touches, no matter how good they might turn out to be.

He lifted himself as well as he could, when his bones felt so heavy. When everything felt heavy and slow.

Evander looked. Truly, perhaps for the first time.

Wasim was handsome—perhaps not handsome in a way the kalusian nobility would approve, but that was only because of their own grudges and pettiness. His features were sharp, that dangerous beauty kalusians liked even if they would pretend they couldn’t see in him. His hair was all plentiful black curls, his eyes an unbelievable dark brown, a lovely warm shade, and his smile made him look like the loveliest of men indeed. How could anyone pretend it didn’t without admitting they sounded like a fool?

He had scars of course, a big, twisting one cutting through his eyebrow all the way down his cheeks towards his upper lip, and a multitude of smaller ones. So did the prince and most alphas who’d ventured into the army. Wasim was the only one people connected scars to brutality. On the others, it was simply heroics. On the others, it didn’t take away from their strength and good looks.

Evander nodded. “I am glad,” he repeated, although this time he was talking about something else.

Wasim smiled as he pulled his face to himself.

-

It started with the matter of breeding, so it made sense sooner or later they had to talk about Wasim’s cock. About Wasim fucking his cunt with his cock and what that would truly mean.

“The kid would be yours,” Evander told him. “So should be the choice.”

“The kid would be ours,” corrected Wasim, “and either way, you would be the one who’d have to carry it. It’s your choice. Do you want it?”

Evander stared at his hands. He knew he should say yes—it was his only purpose. But Wasim had a kid already and even if Kassem was legitimated by the second prince himself, a kalusian alpha birthed by the Kyrios lineage—even if by their bitch—would always be favored by the nobles of the land, the King himself included. It would be a struggle for the rest of their lives and that, the sure knowledge breeding him would only give Wasim more problems, made it easier for Evander to admit to himself what he knew was the truth since a very long time.

“No,” he heard himself saying, cold and emotionless the way he was when afraid, lowering his eyes.

Wasim nodded. “So be it. I will ask Gwen. She should know what kind of contraceptives are sold in Kalus.”

Evander peered at him. “What is a contraceptive?”

“I don’t know the usual method here, but back in Patut, there was this tea people drank so they wouldn’t get pregnant. Knew some people who also used oils on their dicks to kill any chance of a kid, but I never learned where they got it.” And then he smiled, an amused smile as if remembering something. “Kassem’s grandfather, the dad of his other parent, once told me to put half a lemon rind on the tip of my dick to make sure I didn’t spill inside. A very strange man, he was. Scared me a little, all his crazy talk.”

Evander frowned. “Do not do that,” he said. And, a little embarrassed, “But, the tea could be good. If we have something like it here.”

Wasim chuckled.

“You will. People are very creative with those things.”

So they were.

-

Wasim was a huge man and perfectly proportioned everywhere. Still, Evander found he was not as scared as he thought he would be, staring at him naked, letting his eyes wander low. He would be gentle, he thought. He would stop if Evander hurt. Perhaps he would stop even if Evander just didn’t like it, just because.

It didn’t hurt. He made sure to lick Evander until he was undeniably wet enough, to open him up with careful fingers, teasing, crooking, working him loose before sliding in. He called him good. He called him beautiful and Evander almost believed him, so high he felt.

Later, Wasim made them toast by the fireplace.

He knelt by it while Evander sat, knees tucked under himself, on a pillow. Evander had never touched a toasting fork, never looked at one or realized they had them in their rooms, and perhaps he stared at Wasim holding the bread above the flames a bit too confused for it not to look silly. He blinked, and frowned, and Wasim smiled that honest and uncomplicated smile of his.

“You could have asked a maid.”

“Didn’t have maids growing up,” said Wasim. “Ain’t no pampered lord, Evander. I like doing things this way.”

And that was the end of that, then.

Wasim had boiled some water before, a kettle he went all the way to the kitchen to get, besides two mugs. Evander went to fill them so he would stop staring so much, prepared the leaves of his tea for himself and simple mint in Wasim’s. Once ready, the ceramic hot in his palms, the scent as sweet as the scent of a pregnant omega, he sat down again by Wasim’s side, passing him his tea.

“Thank you.”

Wasim slid the toast off the fork and onto a plate, holding it out for Evander to take. “Eat, too. It’s no good, taking medicine with an empty stomach.”

So he ate. He drank the tea that was supposed to keep him from getting pregnant. 

Wasim asked, “How was it?”

“I was not teared open and left gaping blood, so that was better than what I was told to expect.”

Wasim scoffed. “At least that.”

“I was not filled with my new and only reason to live, either. That was a bit of a let down.”

Wasim looked at him, before seeming to understand he wasn’t being serious. He smiled, soft. “I don’t think my cock is that life changing, unfortunately. Can’t really live just to take it.”

Evander couldn’t help but feel relieved. He wasn’t sure he’d ever told a joke his whole life—it felt really good to know his alpha wouldn’t be mad at him for trying it out.

“What a pity.” But, once the food settled on his stomach, he told him, “I did like it.”

“I will make sure to give it to you every time you ask, then.”

-

It came out during a dinner not by Highness himself, but Lydus of Mentes, who was close friends with Herakles and thus treated Wasim like he was the man’s pet, indulging and always a little too amused not to be demeaning. He said it like it was a given, waving his hand with abandon, one too many glasses of wine deep, “Of course, our friend is almost convincing His Majesty to make you a baron. How, it evades everyone.”

And Evander could have crackled really. A baron. That was better than Lord Kyrios could have ever hoped for Evander! Was better than Lord Kyrios own title!

“What’s the difference between a baron and a lord?” whispered Wasim as soon as Lydus’ attention was caught by Lady Phaedra. Wasim was clearly annoyed either way.

Evander suppressed a smile. He would like to pretend it was because he was amused and that was improper, and not because he was fond of Wasim and that was even worse.

“I will explain to you later, alpha.”

-

Evander traced his chest, a painful looking scar pulling his skin. 

“That one is what got me this place.” Evander blinked. Wasim smiled, touching his hand. “Got saving Herakles,” he clarified. “He thinks it’s the greatest story to have ever happened to anyone.”

“Do you think that is a good story?”

Wasim seemed surprised, before chuckling. “No,” he said, honest. “Herakles—he exaggerates. Not just this, everything with him is so grand , so theatrical. Me saving him was the most heroic everyone has ever been, he believes, but it’s not even the most heroic thing I ever personally felt like I did.” His thumb caressed Evander’s knuckles. “Felt like I was doing more honorable things helping you choose dresses, truthfully.”

“I thought it was important,” whispered Evander, soft, blushing when Wasim smiled at him. Evander propped himself up, asking, “And the others? Patuut or kalusian?”

“Depends. Some are patuut. The oldest and worst are almost all kalusian.”

It caught him off guard. Wasim said it casually, but when Evander turned to look at him, all he could think about was that it sounded worrying. That it sounded a bit too casual not to be hiding something terrible.

“Husband?”

“Evander.” His eyebrows furrowed. Wasim’s smile seemed more tight, then, and strained. “Saying that was a mistake. I could tell you about Herakles. Even about the ones I got helping the patuut. But there’s no heroic deed behind most of these. There’s no need for you to hear such things.” 

“Of course.” He sat on the bed, suddenly feeling very cold. When Wasim sat up, he lowered his eyes, demure. “I am sorry. There are things omegas should not ask about.”

“Evander.” He looked away. Wasim touched his wrist. “Please.”

“It’s fine if you do not want to tell me things.” He was his alpha, his husband, his better. Of course he could decide what he told Evander and Evander should simply accept it. Sincerely, Evander didn’t even wish for them to have emotional, personal conversations! And still, for some reason, there was that sting, that part of him that said, stone faced and stupid: “You do not have to justify it like that.”

Like he couldn’t take it. Like he was a silly child that shouldn’t be told bothersome matters. 

“That was shitty, ay? I didn’t mean it. Only—I want to tell. Would like for you to know for some time now already. But I don’t know how to do it without making things strange.”

“That is dumb. You should not bother with strangeness.”

“Would you like to hear about my childhood?”

Evander hesitated. It seemed like the type of question that deserved hesitation. That was meant for consideration, not blindly agreement. Finally, he nodded and Wasim smiled without humor or warmth, so different from his usual smiles. There was a clear glint of bitterness there. 

“I know the stories. The legend they made out of it. Of what they did to me. Help. That’s what they say, ay? Pretty way of describing it. I was seven years old, was starving, abandoned and wandering around their camps, and I used to clean their piss and shit for the scraps of food they didn’t think were good enough to feed the horses and hounds with. They used to throw me at the newest recruits to test them, which basically meant letting them hit me as much as they could to see how much they knew. Used to laugh as they threatened me with their swords and their dicks, and they just loved to shove me every chance they got—towards the floor, and the shit I should be cleaning, and the fires they made for the meals I didn’t get. Guess I wasn’t their slave—sometimes the kindest ones would give me coins as payment, and technically I could get away any time and no one would have stopped me. But I was a kid, and I had nowhere else to go.

“I was eleven when some new general noticed they could use me knowing how to speak both languages for their own good. Stayed there because I knew it was that, death by starvation or following my mom’s footsteps towards a brothel. Ended up—liking it, I guess. They got enough purpose out of me they didn’t fuck me up quite so bad anymore, and I got to help civilians who treated me much better than I ever had been before. Eventually, I got big enough, and strong enough, and good enough with a sword, they didn’t dare touching me at all.”

“They cannot do this,” whispered Evander, horrified.

“Why not? There was no one out there who cared about how they treated some half-patuut kid. If there was someone, they’d probably tell me I was lucky they beat me, and lucky they just threatened to fuck me, but never did more than threaten. But I think you know how those thoughts go, don’t you, Evander?”

“It is not right,” he repeated. “You are—” An alpha, he wanted to say. Strong, and big, and made for other things, better things, nothing like Evander, whose kind was born for fucking. He was Wasim, monstrously huge, and kind, and always gentle, and nothing like the ones who should suffer such things. He swallowed and ended, quieter: “They should not have done it.”

Wasim touched his hands.

“No,” he agreed, kind again, running his thumb through his knuckles. “They shouldn’t have.”

“Husband, you hate Kalus.”

Its people hurt you, he couldn’t quite make himself say. It felt too improper to act like an alpha could be hurt or tormented even when being confronted with the proof they could.

Wasim sent him a tense smile, still holding his hands with all the tenderness of the world. “I like you.”

“But you hate here. You love Patut and its peopled, it is clear by the way you talk of them. Would you not want a house there?”

His eyes flicked with pain, which answered the question a lot louder than the calm way he said: “I told you I dream of it. Herakles wishes for me to stay here.”

Herakles. The way he said it, such a strain on his face, just made Evander more sure His Highness wasn’t that good of a friend. Seemed that just like everyone else, he thought there was something inherently tainted on Wasim because of his birth—only, he thought he could save him, make him a good kalusian noble through sheer force of will and scheming. 

Wasim called him friend, but there always seemed to be that tired undertone, besides the understanding the prince wouldn’t hear a word if Wasim tried to say he didn’t want something. Evander could tell just from what he had previously said Herakles thought he knew what was best for his husband, and if Wasim disagreed, it was as silly as the disagreement of the other nobles and the king. As easily disregarded, despite being all about his and his son’s lives.

Evander ran his fingers through Wasim’s scarred knuckles. Their eyes met.

“I do not doubt he might make it a bit hard for you, but there are some nobles who have houses in Patut. Lord Kyrios has never been one of them, but from what I heard, those that do, prefer winter there. You would have to stay most of the year here, to appease His Highness, but you could visit. If you so wished.”

Wasim blinked. A smile stretched across his face, surprised, delighted with the idea.

“I would. Would you?”

Because he always asked. Evander always forgot he did.

“I do not have a lot in Kalus, husband. Why would I not go with you?”

The kiss Wasim pressed to Evander’s knuckles was chaste, his lips dry and his hands calloused. Evander felt himself going warm, all raw and tender inside, and when he looked up, Wasim chuckled. “Thank you.”

I am sorry. Evander’s eyes flickered close, trembling eyelashes as he tried to control the urge to say so. It would be too much to start apologizing, despite him feeling something so unbearably tight on his chest thinking about Wasim’s childhood, despite the urgent, panicked feeling like someone had to apologize to him, now, and since none of alphas who hurt Wasim would, it was only his place to kneel and beg and grovel like Wasim deserved to hear.

Wasim’s knuckles ran through his cheek.

“If we go to Patut,” he whispered, serious, “I’m teaching you how to stab someone.”

Evander’s eyes shot open, surprised. “It cannot be that dangerous.”

Wasim huffed. He said: “I grew up far from golden capitals and big bustling cities, Evander. Lived the first years of my life up close to refugee villages and bordering brothels, and then on the other side of it all. All I know about Patut without Kalus interference is what I heard from the elders. It was beautiful, and then it was war-torn. It was peaceful, and then Kalus made it violent. I’d like to help my people, if you tell me it’s possible. I don’t trust your soldiers not to make it a problem. It’d make me feel better if I could teach you to protect yourself.”

“Perhaps in another life, alpha. But in this one—” He shook his head, a bit panicked just thinking about it. “No, it would not be proper.”

“I don’t care for property, Evander. You know that.” But Wasim stopped at the clear fear in Evander’s face, softening. “If it really bothers you, though, I ain’t pushing it.”

“Thank you.” He looked at him and offered, placating as ever: “You ought to teach me patuut, even if we don’t go there.”

Wasim laughed, but he could tell he both didn’t expect and liked that Evander had offered to learn.

“I will, ay. That will be hard. For two neighboring countries, our languages sound completely different, I don’t think you could even repeat after me if I said a single word in patuut. If only we had the same alphabets, I guess it would be at least a little easier, but even that is different.”

“I am barely literate, you know?”

By the way he startled, he didn’t.

“You are the son of a lord.” Evander looked at him. Wasim seemed to understand the look well enough, if the face he made was any indicator. He guessed, looking pained: “But they didn’t bother teaching their omega son.”

“They taught me the basics, but I am as well read as any ten years old alpha. Lord Aetes liked giving me more serious books, but he is a lover of physics and mathematics. It all just gave me headaches, I pretended to read them just so he would not get mad at me. Either way, you teach me well enough and I might as well know how to read patuut better than kalusian.”

“I’m a good teacher. Taught all Kassem knows.”

Kassem, from what Evander had seen, was in fact quite a studious little alpha, despite being such an energetic child—he’d gone to the gardens just to read quietly more than just a few times.

“Did you learn alone?”

“Learned from my elders. A lot of it when I was younger, but even after I went to the kalusians, when I was bigger already, there was always some stupid mission they wanted me to do back home. I helped people as much as a I could, and a lot of them fed me and took care of me, but they didn’t have a lot to give and I could never accept it if they tried. Knowledge was the best and only payment I ever asked for.”

Evander rested back on the bed, blinking lazily to him.

“Kassem talks a lot about Patut.”

“Does he?”

Evander nodded. “Would you want to talk about it too?”

Wasim paused. Considered it too. 

“I think I would.”

-

Kassem loved to ask him to play with him outside and, after tangling himself on his own skirts and almost falling one too many times, Evander gave up and put on one of the trousers Wasim got him. He rationalized that he was using it to keep up with Kassem and it was fine, as long as it benefited one of his alphas. How good he felt wasn’t the main part of the equation.

Kassem had taught him to play cards, but more often than not, he liked that one ball game. Evander even thought he was getting the hang of it and Kassem probably thought so too, since he decided to tell him more specific rules about how to make points and how to win.

Evander had a couple of nephews and nieces, but he was never allowed around them like that. He wondered if, if he had been, that was how he would feel about them: that overwhelming urge of devoted worry every time he caught sight of Kassem’s face.

“Did the soldiers ever hurt you?” he asked him, kicking him the ball lightly. It was perhaps too direct of a question out of the blue, but he’d learned that was what they tended to appreciate more.

Kassem chuckled, dry, and he sounded painfully like Wasim. Older, and shrugging stoic at the face of being badly treated, saying: “They said some things. Wouldn’t dare to actually do anything with dad around.”

He kicked it back.

And that was better, he supposed, then what Wasim had told him about his own childhood. Kassem still grew up in a camp full of people that hated him and thought of him as inferior, that “said things” to him, and from all Wasim had alluded to, Kassem had starved for a good part of his life. His other parent had abandoned him, and neither Wasim or Kassem talked much about that, but it ought to have weighed on the boy, too.

Evander bit the inside of his cheek.

“You are not happy here.”

“I’m happy here,” he disagreed, stopping the ball with the heel of his foot. “Happier, I guess. With my dad and— and you. Away from any soldiers. Away from Herakles, most of the time. I miss grandma and grandpa. I miss the real Patut, not the camp. But I’m safe. I’m glad dad married you.”

“I am glad I married your dad,” which seemed to be a sentiment Evander kept repeating these days, but still rang true either way.

Sometimes, Kassem just liked to explore Wasim’s territory, only wanting to run around as Evander did his best to keep up. He truly lacked the energy for it, but if he got really behind, Kassem stopped to wait, smiling as Evander found him out of breath and with his face so red it was not funny. 

Well, not to him. It seemed funny to Kassem, taking hold of his hand as he continued his exploring.

-

After everything, Wasim started talking more about his past, each little whisper a secret the kinds Evander wasn’t used to being privy to.

The best he could hope for, Evander learned, was bittersweetness like a tender bruise on his face, eyes warm with longing as Evander ran his fingers through his hair.

“Kassem’s other parent, they were so clever. Never met no one as unbelievably clever as them. Half the time I couldn’t even hope to follow what they were saying, but I was so grateful they let me stay close to such a mind that nothing else mattered. Got an apprenticeship with the Emperor, moved to the capital, made a name for themselves. Only—we were seventeen, at the time, and we had Kassem, ay? And they couldn’t take him. Didn’t want to, honestly. So they left him, and he stayed with me.” He smiled, stiff. “Our men gave me a great time when I came back from a mission with a baby, let me tell you.” 

“Do you love them?”

“I did once. After they left Kassem, I couldn’t anymore.”

He tried to imagine it. Loving someone so wholly, so full of worship, and still being left behind. Of loving someone enough to have a child with them and learning they were the kind of person who’d leave a child behind so carelessly. 

That was still the best kind of story he had.

Whispered doing a horse ride, just the two of them, just the sunset and Wasim’s hand warm on his waist, Wasim’s voice somber on his ear, Evander’s hand together with his on the reins

“My first time—it was with a beta. A kalusian soldier. He was about my age, from a poor family, hard working. I thought he was more like me than the generals that thought we were both dirt, and I thought he was attractive, until we fucked and he made sure I knew every thrust had disgust behind. It was—I wanted it before, but not so much during it. He was a shit about it too.” And then he seemed to feel Evander’s flinch against him. “Sorry.”

Evander peered at him through his lashes, stiff. “No matter. He was a shit.”

And Wasim smiled so big at that, he almost didn’t feel like bursting into tears from all the adrenaline of saying a bad word.

That was what he had to say more often. How hated he’d been his entire childhood. How they wished to show that hate at all times, at any given or created opportunity.

In the dead of night, Evander was able to make a confession of his own.

“Orius used to ask me to go to his room,” he whispered, trembling hands. “He would—he would touch himself, alpha. In the bed, while I looked. It would get all over the sheets, and he used to threaten to make me lick them clean until I cried. When Lord Kyrios learned about it, he was so angry. He thought Orius was trying to make me his slut, when I was supposed to be kept untouched for my future husband. It was the only time Orius was ever punished and I wasn’t. It was the only time I ever feared for one of my brothers’ lives, Lord Kyrios beat him so badly.”

He had believed, even if only for one second there, that Lord Kyrios had truly killed Orius. That his unconscious, beaten body was gone for. 

He had felt so much pain, so much panic, a horrified clarity that came with the realization he cared so deeply for his brothers despite everything. He had been tearfully relieved when Orius survived, up until months had passed, the lesson had been forgotten, and his brother’s started with their amused obsession with his breasts, Orius at the forefront—then, Evander had just been empty. Numbed by every touch and squeeze and the picked-raw knowledge that whatever fragile, tender feeling he kept towards the Kyrios, it was not reciprocated.

Now, his husband told him, serious, “He should’ve protected you better.”

He thought about Kassem, just at the right age. About Wasim when he’d been twelve. Evander thought, maybe, he was starting to believe that he’d deserve that as much as they had.

-

It’s a sudden switch. Wasim had his lips pressing against Evander’s inner thigh, a fervorous trail of kisses like all Wasim so loved to bestow upon his body, a hint of teeth, of tongue, of careful pressure, and Evander did not pull his hair, hands bracing himself on the wall besides the bed. His own eyes closed, head tilting back, but he felt it. A switch. A sudden tensing. He opened his eyes and—

“Wait,” Wasim breathed out.

He blinked at Evander. Evander was on top, because he said he liked doing it like that, because he always seemed to like it when Evander was on top, when Evander rode him or sat on his face, even if even like that the omega was still too hesitant to do most of the work. He got out, staring at Wasim with wide eyes.

“Wasim?”

“I just—” Wasim inhaled, a quiet, trembling little thing. He sat up on the side of the bed and Evander stared at the tightness on his back. The slight shake. “Fuck . Got a little lost right there.”

Evander opened his mouth and closed it quickly. He’d never felt as unsure in his life and he was very often very unsure when it came to Wasim. It was with great carefulness he scooted over and, after a brief hesitation, touched the man’s shoulder.

Wasim turned his head. His lips were puffy, and his eyes darker than ever.

“This never happened, Evander,” he whispered, calming, reaching for his hand. “You never didn’t notice something before.”

It relaxed something on the omega’s belly, but tensed something else, that uncomfortable knowledge that even then, he was being like this: knowing what to say to reassure Evander, pushing comforting words out of his lips first thing after he caught his breath. His alpha was silly. He was too good.

“Did I do something you did not like now?” asked Evander, nervous. He gave Wasim’s fingers a light squeeze. 

Wasim half shrugged. “I—I don’t know. Don’t think so. But—we talked about the camp, before. The soldiers. I hadn’t properly thought about that in a long time. I guess it’s still in my mind more than I’d imagined.”

Evander bit his inner cheek. 

“What do you need from me?”

He couldn’t tell what the emotion in Wasim’s eyes was. It was warm. Bittersweet, a bit, a soft and secretive look of fragile sincerity. “Nothing. You shouldn’t—you don’t have to do nothing.”

“I am here,” which meant, I am here, I don’t get to be useless.

“I know. I want you here,” which was a terrible thing to hear, because Evander really despised feelings and having to deal with them, and certainly didn’t know what to do then. Had expected Wasim to ask for something tangible he could look for.

“I will make us tea,” he decided out loud, getting up.

Wasim caught his hand.

“I can make it.”

Evander gave him a look. “You will let me make it.”

“Thought you said it’s maid’s work.”

He didn’t answer, simply shrugging and going to the fireplace, knowing his alpha left everything they would need close enough, always. He could feel Wasim’s eyes on him, dark and confused and interested.

As he brewed the tea, Evander couldn’t help but be lost in thought. He couldn’t help but feel something between unfair envy and stupid awe blackening his heart—one of the first things Wasim had told him when they agreed to start having sex was that he didn’t like having his hair pulled, and the first thing he did when he felt uncomfortable in bed was to immediately stop it. Now, he didn’t look embarrassed or worried, and he had reassured Evander, but only to let him know he hadn’t been hurting Wasim before. Hadn’t said sorry, or acted like he should be.

Evander wanted so much to think like that. To have the power to simply voice when he didn’t want something and to waste no mental anguish over it at all. 

“Sometimes,” Wasim said as he came over, “you truly are unreadable, Evander.” He looked at him, as amused as he seemed serious. As light as the heaviness that persisted just there in the peripheral of him. “Most times, to be truthful.”

“I think I am simple.”

“You’re everything but. The most complicatedly stoic person I’ve met.”

“Kalusian soldiers ought to be remarkably simple and silly, then.”

He laughed. He seemed so delighted, so happy every time Evander dared to joke, Evander looked down to the brewing tea as he said: “Cannot disagree, though my point still stands.”

“How do you do it?” he asked as he kneeled on the bed, offering Wasim a mug.

“Do what?”

“Say no without feeling bad.”

Wasim paused, as if thinking very carefully about what to say. “I hated them from the start. I wasn’t—” Wasim chuckled, “—wasn’t a good kid, or so Herakles told me. Not a polite enough victim he felt sorry for me after the stories he heard from the others and he’s made his duty to keep me aware I’ve got a lot of blame for what was done to me since I was six.” His voice, his eyes, the little displeased curl on lips, there was no denying: he hated the prince. Wasim sighed and said, softer to Evander: “Either way, I was angry. Furious, my whole youth, and even more so after I had Kassem, when I had someone else to be worried for. I think it was easy, for me, to understand they didn’t like when I said no , and if they didn’t like it, then it was something good. But it’s not like that for you and I get it.”

“I loved them.” Evander swallowed something awful and cold, his throat tight. “I do, still. I know they do not think of me, but—I do. And I could never anger them by saying no.”

“I hope you know. I hope you tell me no.”

“I would.” Evander looked away. “As long as it is you, I would. But I would not feel guiltless.”

“That’s a good start.” Wasim reached for his hand once more. “It does help me, that it’s you. Do you know how many times I said no and it didn’t matter? All of them, until I was big enough to make them afraid. Every time, it made saying no easier, and saying yes harder. Being you here, it helps. To make me say yes. To make me want to.”

“Can—” He hesitated. He stared at Wasim, red cheeks and furrowed brows and an annoyed, desperate desire for him to understand what Evander wanted without Evander having to say it. It was an unfair wish, he knew. The other man was under no obligation of knowing his thoughts. Finally, he touched Wasim’s cup, ushering it aside at the bedside table, and was able to ask, tense: “Will you kiss me, alpha?”

He smiled, all unbearable fondness like nothing Evander had ever had directed towards himself, and answered by doing so.

-

The issue, Evander supposed, was that he was taught his whole life he should serve his alpha, but Wasim didn’t need him serving the way he was taught. He would hate it. So Evander had just jumped to the conclusion he was too strong to need anything at all.

He’d been stupid. He’d been so unbelievably foolish, taken by Wasim’s height and muscles, by his age, by his steady hands and calm eyes and unreadable face. He’d forgotten—Wasim was just a man. A man, and a bastard, and raised in a war torn camp with people who hated him. 

What do you need from me, alpha?

He knew he was small even for an omega, too small to ever be mistaken for a man, but he was still very kalusian, if not any of the beautiful parts of their people. He wondered if Wasim saw Kalus in him, unmistakable, the way Evander saw Patut in every reflex in those dark eyes, every blinding smile in those lips, every touch from those warm, dark hands. He wondered how much Wasim hated what he saw, and felt smaller and uglier than ever.

What could I do for you, husband?

“I think you are handsome,” he told him suddenly, in the middle of bed.

Wasim laughed then. “Thank you,” he said, playful and confident, knowing of his own attractiveness, but not arrogant, honest when he added: “I think you are too, Evander.”

“It never mattered before, what I was attracted to. I never thought about it before you.” He touched Wasim’s face and looked at him, that ridiculously handsome man who truly could have someone much better than Evander in his arms. Wasim took in a sharp breath as Evander’s thumb caressed his cheek, and it made something deep in Evander’s belly tighten as he admitted: “It is very intimidating.”

A glint of amusement, dimmed by the for once not terrifying hunger in his eyes. “My face?”

“The fact I like it so much. I did not think omegas could.”

Evander had too thin of a face to come out and say Wasim was the only reason he knew what desire felt like, but he imagined that was as close as it got. Wasim had liked it, too. Perhaps he didn’t want to—he was always sad when Evander talked about what being an omega was and Evander had a feeling Wasim would think it more noble and good to not like it, but he did. He could tell he did, the way his eyes seemed so dark and hot when he kissed Evander, pulling him even closer.

When they parted, Evander looked down at him. 

He hadn’t let himself do it before, and hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. Not looking, because if he looked, he would be aware of how attracted to Wasim he was, and if he was attracted to him, then his desire had so much more power, was his in so many new ways. He’d never known what it was like to have such agency. Knew hunger for Wasim’s touches, but not the hunger of wanting to touch.

So, for the first time, he reached out first.

First, it was his shoulders, hands light, careful, running through the broadness of his built down his powerful arms, his chest, his stomach. All the hard muscle and the soft fat, and twisting scars, and the heat Wasim seemed to emanate. Kissed him everywhere his fingers touched, those reverent kisses he’d learned could be given freely, down, down his delightful thighs. They trembled, too. Just like Evander that first night. Just as strange to the care.

Wasim hesitated, but when Evander looked up and nodded, he curled a hand on his hair.

“Evander—”

“Wasim.” He licked his lips. “My beautiful husband.”

And he trembled.

Because he liked this.

How silly of Evander not to have known.

It looked almost painful how hard he got when Evander repeated it: when he touched him and called him handsome, and good, and his alpha. It thrilled Evander, new and terrifying.

His lips had almost found his cock, when Wasim finally stopped him.

“Evander,” he touched his wrists, light, pulling him up, eyes full of worry. “What’s going on with you? You don’t have to do this. You know I don’t care about what you think your place is.”

And it’s easy, so terrifyingly easy, to say: “I know,” and believe in it. He didn’t have to serve Wasim because he was an omega and he was the alpha. 

But Wasim was just a man, and his husband, and he had been taking care of Evander for some time now.

So easy to say, “I want to bite you.”

He stopped so abruptly, so completely. It should have terrified Evander, but instead, he felt strangely peaceful as he waited for his verdict, pushing a curl away from his own face and looking at him, patient while Wasim struggled to comput what was happening.

His voice was cautious. Everything about him was, a hesitant, “Evander,” that made him seem quite small quite suddenly. “You shouldn’t feel pressured.”

“You take care of me,” he interrupted. “You always care and always make me safe. I want to do that too.”

Sly little thing.

Is this what you need, alpha?

No one had ever looked at him like that: like he was a true vision. Like he was something delightful and special. 

“Wolf,” he breathed out, so faint. “Wolf, is this even a question? Do you think—could I ever even say no?”

Evander’s heart did something silly and dumb.

“I will not be as good at it,” he warned him.

Wasim sent him a incredulous look. “You are all the brains in this marriage.” Evander frowned. “Every day I wake up a little more sure of my son’s safety, and it’s all because of you. Your brilliant little mind and your sly fucking schemes.” And he said it with such affection, Evander had to question how sane he truly was. “My cunning snake.”

“Wasim! I am no such thing!”

“They thought they taught you your place, but all they showed you was exactly how to play them. I think you would be unstoppable if you only admitted that to yourself.”

He overestimated him, truly. If Evander helped in any way, it was because he gave him the power. He would have no means to “play” anyone, if he was filling the place he knew was his to bear: pretty tits and a slick hole waiting on his husband’s bed, to give him pleasure and babies.

Wasim never would have made him be just that, though. He wouldn’t even have let him be. Evander was so sure of it now.

“If we did this.” He breathed in. "I would ask you not to have a lover. If you would give me the right to ask.”

“The right’s already yours,” said Wasim. “Don’t need to give it to you. And I agree. If you bit me, I wouldn’t want any lover, and I wouldn’t want you to take any either.”

Evander smiled, small. It felt like the first time ever. “That is a good understanding.”

There was a proper patuut way of doing it—to that, Evander was the improper foreign, unsure as Wasim guided him through it. Words to say, clumsy on his lips. Promises softly said, and his fingers tracing Wasim’s forehead, and his mouth finding his neck as Wasim’s hand found his own.

Like taking a daring step towards a life that was never supposed to be his, Evander bit his alpha.