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When they announce his engagement, Feyd-Rautha is in bed with his newest slave girl, a gift from his uncle. He has to show his appreciation, so he does his best to enjoy himself in the process. When a messenger interrupts them with the news, Feyd-Rautha stabs him in the shoulder for the impertinence and because yet again, his life is not his to control. He doesn’t have high hopes for this Atreides heir. Either he will be a squeamish coward or he will turn up his nose at Feyd-Rautha and all he has done to survive. Feyd-Rautha is proud of his strength and his ability to do what he must to get through the day. He will not be looked down upon, though perhaps he will have to tolerate it from this Paul Atreides. The baron and the emperor would likely frown on it if he murdered the ducal heir.
Feyd-Rautha attends to the marriage negotiations as is his duty, but in his free time he acts as wildly as he is able. He is desperate to be free, but there is little freedom to be found on Giedi Prime. Sometimes he thinks he can taste it in the spray of blood as he slashes throats with abandon in the arena, or on a slave girl’s lips in his quarters, but all such tastes are ephemeral and only leave him frustrated.
His first meeting with his fiancé is in a garden that offends with its voluptuous abundance. It feels as though the emperor is rubbing Feyd-Rautha’s face in all that Giedi Prime lacks. Feyd-Rautha refuses to be first to the meeting, to cater to this pampered omega dukeling. He lingers on his ship, and it is only when a guard, one of the baron’s creatures, comes to collect him, that he goes to meet Paul Atreides.
Paul is not what he expects. The omega is slight, but wiry. Beautiful, but artless. Sheltered, but friendly. Feyd-Rautha is pleased that Paul thinks of him and tolerates his questions. He listens to Paul speak of life on a planet so different from his, it might be a part of an alternate reality. It doesn’t enrage him the way the emperor’s largesse does. Paul isn’t flaunting, he is sharing. It is a new concept to Feyd-Rautha.
The many small oddities surrounding Paul remain in Feyd-Rautha’s thoughts as he returns to Giedi Prime. He turns the idea of the omega over in the back of his mind as he fights and fucks through his days. Something has changed within him. Paul presents a new opportunity, and the restlessness that buzzes under Feyd-Rautha’s skin eases when he thinks of him.
The next meeting will be a tea, but Feyd-Rautha knows better than to drink any. He doesn’t trust his uncle’s poison tasters. Feyd-Rautha listens to Paul’s ideas on beauty and finds himself captivated by Paul’s reflective, benevolent worldview. It is so different from all he knows, and so unexpected to find in the one chosen to marry him. Paul’s melodic voice and hopeful words bring comfort to Feyd-Rautha that he had not been looking for, but now that he has found it, he will not let it go.
Back on Giedi Prime, the days are darker than before. Paul’s light has cast deep shadows over Feyd-Rautha’s daily life, and it takes a great deal of willpower to continue on as before. He still enjoys a good fight, but he doesn’t desire the slave girls as he once did. They don’t offer what he has learned to want.
On the nights when he is able to kick everyone out of his rooms without causing suspicion, he allows himself to think of Paul. He dares to consider a future out from under the baron’s thumb, living a life of his own, with Paul by his side, and a painful, clawing hunger awakens inside of him. He wants with a ferocity that he has never felt before. He will have this future, he decides, no matter what trials he must overcome to claim it.
In the labyrinth on their third meeting, Feyd-Rautha holds Paul for the first time. He wants many things in that small window of time, but mostly what he wants is for the moment to never end. The air is thick with potential, and Feyd-Rautha thrives on it. Then, Paul uses the Voice on him. It is by accident and directed at an assassin Feyd-Rautha would have enjoyed killing, but it is a thrill all the same. What else can this omega, his stunning fiancé, do? Feyd-Rautha regrets the necessity of letting go of Paul to begin an investigation into the assassination attempt, and he resents the interruption of their limited time together.
When the baron’s men discover the noble who ordered the attack, Feyd-Rautha is given the honor of the kill. He beheads the noble with a rage that takes him by surprise, but then, this man wanted to kill Feyd-Rautha’s fiancé, who becomes more priceless to Feyd-Rautha by the day. Feyd-Rautha brings the heads of the noble and his family back to the baron, and he almost enjoys the feast held in his honor. He very nearly feels righteous.
He next sees Paul at an ice festival, where Paul greets him with a warm smile. Feyd-Rautha has never before been greeted that way. He wants more, more of Paul’s smiles, and kind words, and earnest questions. Then Paul kisses him, and Feyd-Rautha can hardly believe it is happening. How has he managed to attain this great gift, this boundless feeling of fiery joy in his chest as he kisses Paul back? He wants more of that, too.
Feyd-Rautha decides to try on patience for size, because Paul is worth it, and so he steps back and does the proper thing, which is to walk Paul back to his ship and let him go. Paul will return, Feyd-Rautha reminds himself, and when he does, it will be to marry Feyd-Rautha and become his completely. Feyd-Rautha can wait.
His patience is tested, however, by the many diplomatic hoops he must jump through in the weeks that follow. Finally, he sees Paul again, and speaks his vows, and gets Paul alone.
Mine, he thinks, as he kisses down Paul’s throat. This is mine, too, he knows as he grips Paul’s hips and draws him close. No one else’s, he says silently as he marks Paul with his mating bite and climaxes.
Later, he is at peace for the first time that he can remember. The peace lasts all night and into the next day, when they learn that the emperor has gifted them with Arrakis as a wedding present.
“So that is where we will live,” Paul says, and smiles at him as brightly as the rising sun shining through the curtains. It is as if the world has opened anew. Feyd-Rautha’s life is his, his and Paul’s alone, and he looks forward to living it.