Archive of Our Own ^beta

Life is not much different from a puzzle. You’re handed the blank pieces at birth and told nothing. You simply have to figure it out. You don’t know what kind of image they will create as they gain color with the experiences that shape you, how large it will be, and how long it will take for you to complete it. If you’re even fortunate enough to do so.

When Anaxa’s parents are taken young and he’s left with only a handful of memories of them which will fade with time, he learns how nothing in this life is guaranteed. Even his sister, who holds him and pretends to be strong, who tells him they will be okay, will one day leave.

He will, too.

But until then, he needs to be strong. So he winds his little arms around his sister’s back as much as he can. He pretends he doesn’t notice his shoulder growing damp. It’s there that he decides he will follow a path that will let them both flourish. As he holds her, he lets the scent of mint and lotus soothe his senses.

Everyone carries a unique note. It’s impossible to avoid. He scrunches his nose or holds it closed until his sister tells him it’s not polite. But how can it be polite to stink up the place around you? How is this just the norm? How is everyone fine with this?

It feels invasive to have everyone know things about you which you may not want to share or even be aware of yourself.

When his sister presents not much later, he’s introduced to the concepts that govern their world beyond ruthlessness and inevitability.

She’s an alpha, she explains to him as she strokes his hair. There’s relief in her expression that makes Anaxa feel like another sacrifice has been made for his sake. One which he doesn’t want her to bear.

He hopes he will be one, too.

He hadn’t cared, had pretended to not see the concepts as a whole, but he wants to be able to protect her as well. And if being an alpha would help achieve that in some way, then so be it.

However, as he grows and learns more of the different dynamics, the whole thing seems like such a bother unless you’re a beta. He notices it firsthand with his sister—the way she grows restless, the way she tries so hard to keep it suppressed for him but has to slip away when it gets too much—but it still seems like a mercy compared to being an omega.

Their scents stand out the most, even when simply existing. It has people grow pliant and soothed, mostly. But it also has some people act out of line. Never mind when it comes to heats.

He hasn’t learned of the details yet, but he knows enough that he would loathe to present as an omega once older. He refuses to believe that opinion will change—so he longs for the Grove of Epiphany. Both to carve out a future for him and his sister, to soak up all the knowledge the world has to offer, and to give him the best tools to figure out a way around this mess.

His sister, his lovely sister, works so hard to help him achieve his dreams. Any excess money goes to books and trinkets for him to inhale and experiment with. The urge to repay her merely grows alongside his body.

But he notices the gradual shift. A pressure between his legs, in his bones, in his veins. The first time he snaps at his sister over something that definitely doesn’t deserve it, he runs to the fields and leans against a tree until the sky turns to night.

The urge to mark and claim becomes more prominent. It doesn’t feel like himself. The desire to find a partner feels even less like his own wants. It feels foreign. Wrong. He claws at his skin as it begins to burn and an uncomfortable sensation pools below.

His sister finds him in the woods, later. She doesn’t say anything. Simply brushes aside his sweat-slicked bangs and helps him back home. Her touch is warm, arms reliable, scent calming. It’s the only one he can stand amongst a world that reeks.

Home is safe. Home is known. Home is also where the heat fully kicks into gear and it’s days of misery. But he looks towards the sky and lets it ground him. It always has.

The sky calls forth a sense of longing in him; the feeling stands between grief and hope. There’s blurred visions that fade once he notices them, which only leaves him more curious.

As his body convulses, that’s what he clings to. The distant, comforting feeling of safety. He doesn’t know how to place it—where it originates from, or where it falls into the order of this world—and for once, he doesn’t care. He presses it against his chest as his heart races.

After his first heat, the scents of the world become unbearable.

He locks himself away and begins working on a way to suppress them that very night. First, his own scent—which seems simpler to achieve, and it partially is. Then he works on his sense of smell. People frown when his scent is unusually covered and muddied, yet he can’t care. What others think of him doesn’t matter.

When his sister tells him that there’s finally enough saved to travel to the Grove, he’s more torn than he had thought he would be. A lifelong dream; a priceless opportunity to bask in centuries of wisdom; a way to free himself.

But to leave his sister behind? Is it worth it?

She hugs him, then, her voice gentle as she speaks. “I want you to be happy, Anaxa.” There is no regret in her tone. No grief. It makes his stomach churn with guilt. But her scent is soothing and genuine. Her hands caress his back in a way that has him feel like a child again, and he curls towards the feeling.

Yet, halfway to the Grove, Anaxa hears of the black tide striking.

When he returns, his home is in ruin. The air reeks of decay and destruction. There is no soothing embrace to comfort him anymore—only the blackened ground below his knees as he prays to an empty sky that does not listen.

Anaxa clings to the stars. To their distant shimmer. To the one piece of home that can’t be taken from him.

So back to the Grove he goes. To the place his sister had sacrificed so much for.

The Grove of Epiphany is an overwhelming experience. The people there don’t quite know what to make of him at first, and he realizes how much he had relied on scenting before, even if he disliked it. However, this is only an initial hurdle while in a new environment. And if people would rather keep a distance? Then so be it.

It doesn’t take long until he’s able to properly develop something that suppresses the scents for him entirely. At last, there is peace. Clarity. Calm. The white noise of his senses is gone, and he can focus on the next issue that is ticking closer.

While the people at the Grove tend to be more research-oriented and goal-focused compared to those back at his home, that doesn’t stop the odd brave man or woman from approaching him, too, with romantic intent.

Ridiculous. What could they possibly see in him beyond the physical if they hardly know him? And he has no interest in the physical. He can handle it himself. What others choose to do for their heats and ruts and whatever else does not concern him. He has better things to do.

Developing a heat suppressant proves more difficult. He’s able to slip away for the cycles, and they’re still miserable, but now they also serve as variables for his research. At least it makes them useful, in a way.

But every heat brings clarity to the visions he had since his first one. He looks towards the sun instead of the stars in hopes it could give him answers to the feeling that grows through his chest. His right hand will tingle, occasionally, but there’s nothing there. Sometimes, he feels like there is. But it’s gone when he blinks.

Sometimes, he’ll wake with tears beading in the corner of his eyes, but no remnants of a dream to explain them. He’s only left with an odd sense of grief.

Between the black tide, the Flame-Chase journey, and navigating the mess that is a heat cycle, Anaxa can hardly catch a break. But eventually he manages to dull the effects of the latter to something of a mild nuisance rather than an all-consuming bother. And after a few more rounds of testing, he’s finally free.

No more interruptions. No more distractions. No more cramped hands and frustration.

But the odd pulse of yearning remains; whispers of a past or future or nothing at all.

One night, golden blood drips down his palm as he presses it to his now empty eye socket. The sacrifice might be considered grave by others, but to him, it’s worth it. One, simple, blurry look of his sister could never be a waste.

So he clings to it as the years pass. He hardens his resolve as he continues his descent. Some might call it madness—he calls it the truth.

When he exchanges his soul for something greater, it’s without regret.

The night Anaxa loses his life, the mark and gem appear on his hand. He stares at them. Perplexed. Confused.

Hopeful?

He doesn’t understand. But something trills in reassurance.

A body kept moving by a Titan’s Coreflame. That’s all he is, now, with scattered fragments of a soul lost within the void. The Coreflame brings more visions and more confusion. Perhaps they’re remnants of the Titan’s life. Perhaps they’re not. Anaxa studies them curiously, but when he questions the Titan about them, they do not answer. They simply continue to smile in a way he cannot place.

It’s while he roams the streets of Okhema as a glorified prisoner with weary bones that one peculiar scent catches his attention.

There shouldn’t be a scent at all. He had locked himself away from that world over a decade ago. He had died and is now a mere walking corpse held together by stardust. The last time a scent had brought anything other than disgust or annoyance was when he held his sister the day he left home. Mint and lotus.

Anaxa’s head whips around. The Coreflame cradled within his chest resonates. The gem in his hand pulses.

This scent is familiar. He knows it on a level he can’t explain. There’s a tanginess to it; not overly sweet; not overly alpha and dominant and sickening. It’s a subtle fragrance of pomegranate and cotton. The kind that brings back a distant memory of a moment of kindness and affection. A memory he can’t place, unsure whom it belongs to.

Anaxa wets his lips as his bones ache with that exhausting drag and pressure that he knows too well. The kind he hasn’t experienced in years.

Since being brought to Okhema, he had noticed the tell-tale signs of an approaching heat. A discomfort that simmered below his skin where he couldn’t reach; his chest becoming more sensitive; a different desire to pull back from people compared to usual; the bothersome urge to create a nest made worse by the fact that he couldn’t.

But all of it has been a lot more languid, as though thawing from hibernation. Which does align with one of his hypotheses. He had figured that extensive blocking of the cycle would either make it ‘bounce back’ a lot fiercer, or it would be a very gradual shift. A longer annoyance.

The scent fades, and Anaxa frowns at the hint of disappointment that thuds within him like a complaint. But he doesn’t linger on it. He closes his eye and shelves the feeling as he makes his way back to his chambers.

It must be an anomaly. A one-time-thing. That’s how he tries to rationalize it, but he knows it to be a lie. He can almost hear a soft chuckle echoing within his mind of a god who is too nosy.

The next time he’s confronted with the scent is in Castrum Kremnos. An angry trail of blood red crystals blocks an attack from the Flame Reaver—who had almost been able to get the jump on them.

Red crystals. Protecting him from death again.

Anaxa casts a glance down to his hand and finds the diamond glowing. His back tingles, but he doesn’t dare turn his head. There’s a ringing in his ears as he tries to steady his breathing, but every inhale makes him woozy. It makes his bones ache and skin tighten with a yearning that is foreign to him.

A heat has never done that before. Not like this. This feels intimate.

He’s torn between wanting to run away and back. To his chambers. To the source of the scent—the only one able to break through the barrier he had created between himself and the rest of the world.

But the decision is made for him. Later, he stands in a circle with Tribbie, the Trailblazer, Phainon, and lastly: Mydeimos, the last crown prince of Castrum Kremnos. The blasphemous prince. The undying warrior. The one destined to bear Strife on his shoulders and battle it all alone. Mydei carries as many titles as there are words to speak, reminiscent of his own.

Anaxa’s hand burns, so he crosses his arms. But it only makes him even more aware of the tension coursing through him and how it winds tighter.

Despite keeping his eye trained on whoever is speaking, he can’t deny the shallow pulse of his heat responding to the prince’s presence and scent. The ache in his bones grows more adamant. There’s a tightness in his jaw that makes him want to grind his teeth.

To say that he hadn’t expected this would be an understatement. The scholar in him battles with curiosity to study this anomaly while the omega in him wants to whine. That part is silenced without further regard.

What makes it worse is that he can sense interest wafting his way. There’s something enticing to the scent. A longing that feels like a mirror to his own—deep, instinctual. Known.

“Professor Anaxa…” Phainon says, a hint of trepidation in his voice, “why don’t you… find some place to rest first?”

Anaxa shoots the man a glare. The only reason he had even stayed behind to talk with them was out of mere formality.

Phainon notices and softens his voice. “Matters that require Aglaea's attention are piling up. You two meeting again will—forgive my honesty—only distract her. Just… try to stay on your best behavior, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s not up to me, l’m afraid,” Anaxa says, his tone composed. “I’ve been trapped in her prison the moment I set foot in this holy city. The price of having a Titan living in my head, I suppose.” He turns his back to the group, then, and ignores the tingle of Mydei’s silent and strong gaze. “Don’t worry. I don’t want trouble either.”

When Anaxa walks away, he can feel all their eyes watch him leave. But it’s Mydei’s, warm like the sun, that has the hairs at the back of his neck rise. He clings to the remnants of pomegranate and cotton as they coat his throat, even as the scent gradually fades.

It has a hunger pool low in his stomach. It dips lower as his heat tries to respond through the haze after years of hibernation.

His primary goal, now, is to get this whole thing over with. To see if he can thaw the cycle that slumbered and not waste more time than necessary when it’s the last thing he has.

While Hyacine is very eager to help, she does fret over the news of his heat a bit much for his taste. It hasn’t even properly started yet—although he did share that he intends to find out if he can speed up its development. He would much rather get it out of the way, even more so than usual. Especially with the uncertainty of, well, everything approaching. He doesn’t want to be spending more time than necessary of his potentially final days in that sort of bothersome state.

However, she gives him a look, clearly hesitating with what she’s about to say.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Professor Anaxa, but having a heat partner does help speed things up if that’s your concern,” Hyacine says, her hands folded in front of herself.

“That is out of the question,” Anaxa replies simply. He does not appreciate the way Mydei’s face had appeared in his mind.

Hyacine sighs. “Yes, yes, I’m aware… However”—her eyes flick up—“that’s just how things are. But if you need help with anything else, do let me know, and I’ll do the best I can!”

With a slow nod, Anaxa thanks her and turns towards his chambers. A pile of soft blankets rests on his bed and he sighs at the imminent work and disappointment that awaits him.

He has always been very peculiar about his nests; would track and prepare for his heats ahead of time. A haphazard one in a place he’d rather not be to begin with—surrounded by textiles and scents he didn’t choose nor prepare himself—would be second only to sleeping on the floor.

But he has no other choice.

Anaxa strips down to the light garments he wears below all the layers, breathing a soft sigh of relief as his shoulders relax. When he brings one of the blankets up to his nose, there is no added scent to them—merely freshly washed cotton.

Cotton. The grip Anaxa has around the blanket tightens briefly as he thinks of broad shoulders and a gaze so stern yet kind—which he knows it to be, somehow, instinctually, despite how little they’ve interacted. He thinks of those bright eyes and how they didn’t look away from him, even for a moment. How they burned with something Anaxa doesn’t dare call recognition.

Anaxa exhales as something shifts and gives in; as he takes another deep breath and imagines the tanginess and sweetness of pomegranate. A jolt skitters across his spine and settles within his stomach as a wave of longing pulses through him.

Curious. Very curious.

A new hypothesis, he tells himself. Rationalizes it. He shifts his weight where he stands. There is no prince staring him down and putting everything in jeopardy. He is alone, here. There is no need for pretense, even if habit and pride frown at him in complaint.

Hyacine’s voice rings in his memory. A heat partner, Anaxa recalls as he lowers the blanket and attempts to arrange the pile in a way that would appeal to him.

It doesn’t.

As he traces the soft cotton, he wonders what it would be like for a body to lay there instead.

Another wave of something washes over him at the thought. It’s different compared to his usual heat sensations, which tend to feel disconnected and not his own. Usually, it’s more like his body is made to be a vehicle for what he doesn’t actually desire. A nuisance, all of it, with his mind and body at odds.

But this is closer to being pleasant. It’s a little unnerving. It’s puzzling, and Anaxa prods at it again, trying to recall the rumble of Mydei’s voice as he does.

Another pulse, low in his gut, follows the thought.

How very curious.

Anaxa feels the temperature of his body rise, slow and steady, albeit still slower than before the use of suppressants.

What this proves, he’s not entirely sure of yet. But one thing is certain: Mydei can, in some way, help him thaw this suppressed heat. He can, somehow, help him get over it quicker. And better yet: he doesn’t even need to be physically there.

A complaint prods at him; not his own, at least he believes. He doesn’t attempt to place it. He ignores the tingle in his hand.

Instead, he slips the thin layer of clothing off and welcomes the prickle of cool air against his bare skin. He settles in the now less unpleasant nest—now that the scent of cotton embraces him and caresses his skin. The eyepatch is slipped off and finds its home on the nightstand next to the bed.

It’s been so long since the scent of a person brought him comfort. So long it feels like a first. Cotton is not exactly known to be a scent that stands out, usually. Perhaps pleasant as you cross it, but forgettable otherwise.

But this is different. This doesn’t make him think of laundry and chores. There’s something so homely to it as the image of Mydei and his strong arms fills his mind. As he pictures being surrounded by pomegranate and cotton in an embrace speaking of domesticity.

Anaxa wonders if this is what others would talk about during class breaks or theater plays. How their perception of a scent would shift along with their attitude towards a person. How their feelings towards someone would make their scents change.

It’s the first time in all his years of life where Anaxa almost mourns not having experienced it himself. It’s not a terrible grief, but he notes it to the side of his current study regardless.

Perhaps he doesn’t mourn having missed out on it, but that something which comes so naturally to others, something they all understand without pouring over books and research, has never even been part of his consideration. One he never missed nor desired, mind.

But perhaps it’s just this particular scent that sparks grief of what could have been.

Cotton, soft like home, gentle without being overbearing.

Pomegranate, both sweet and sour, a curious contradiction. A replacement for blood in age-old tradition.

Anaxa’s eyes flutter open as he notices a distinct whine fall from his lips and slick beginning to ooze between his legs.

Ah.

He had underestimated the effect of this variable. It had worked much better than expected. He would say that it would be good to know for the future, but he doesn’t expect there to be one for him.

Anaxa curls in on himself, winding his legs around one of the blankets while pressing the other end against his face. He takes a deep, rattling breath, hoping to fill his chest with the scent that stands for belonging and safety.

But it’s not enough, he realizes with distant dread. The scent is steadily fading—replaced by his own. By the sweat beginning to bead at his skin and coating the blanket. He’s numb to his own smell, but he knows it’s there. Knows he must be spreading omega stench to entice a mate to join him, to help an oh-so-poor omega in heat.

A growl rumbles low in his throat at the thought. He brings a hand to his chest as a distraction and finds the nipple already hard and aching, so he squeezes it. His toes curl at the sensation.

The thought of someone else’s hands doing this shoots through him.

At least Hyacine is keeping watch. She should be able to keep anyone at bay if they try to get too close.

Even a crown prince, he thinks, and doesn’t know how he feels about the thought, so he lets his hand travel down his body as his legs shift. The featherlight friction has him gasp softly, and he chases it, rubbing his thighs together in a slow motion.

But the thought of Mydei continues to press against his mind. His inner critic sneers that his thoughts are filled of another person while his hand is on a journey between his legs.

It’s a first for him. Usually, his thoughts would be devoid of anything and anyone. Usually, he would be focused on the movements of his hand or toy and what sensation to go for next; where and how to press to relieve the ache. Sometimes, he’d even be thinking about what to prepare for his next lecture as the toys worked him to give his hands a rest.

This is different, he thinks as new slick oozes out of him, a pleasant warmth coating his body. Is it because of the suppressants? The amount of skipped heats? Is his biology reacting to scenting anyone at all after years of being numb to it? Is the Coreflame affecting things more than he had initially thought it could? Is a heat even more overwhelming to a technically dead body?

He shudders as his fingers reach the mound of his pelvis, so close to where he aches.

There’s too many variables, he thinks as he turns his head to the blanket below him, trying to cling to a shred of cotton.

There’s too many variables, but one thing he knows for certain: Mydei’s scent had been appealing, and Mydei had responded in kind. Had responded with interest. Interest.

Another gasp hisses into Anaxa’s mouth as his fingers trace his soaking rim. He skirts around it, teasing the entrance as he gathers some of the slick to spread across his folds.

Before the scent blockers had granted him bliss and locked him away from all this nonsense, alpha pheromones were unappealing at best and disgusting at worst. He could not rid himself of the prejudice he held towards what they stood for, for they reminded him of the prejudice others held of him. That they would think of something so primal without knowing him as a person first.

Anaxa bites the blanket as his fingers slowly slip inside himself. His body demands for him to speed up, so he rebels and takes it extra slow. He will not give up this control. It’s his body, at the end of the day—dead or alive or something strangely in-between. This is his vehicle, not the other way around.

The very few times he had experienced any sort of pull towards someone else, it had felt foreign. It was omega craving a mate after an experiment had gone awry, not Anaxagoras craving a partner. He would never settle for anyone for the sake of biology. He would never settle for anyone, period. It would take a god to sway him, and even that would be for naught, for the gods do not hold his respect.

That thought circles his mind as his fingers dip further inside him, his legs widening to accommodate, to grant access, to welcome him in and sate both of their needs. The primal and the individual.

It’s as he sinks deeper that he pictures Mydei’s hands and how they might look under those gauntlets. As his fingers fill him, he wonders how much thicker Mydei’s would be. If they would be calloused from years of war and fighting. If they would be surprisingly gentle despite the bloodshed they’ve been forced to uphold.

Shame wants him to stop. It tries to tell him that the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos doesn’t deserve to be reduced to a whim of his lust.

But this is a mere fantasy. The image in his mind could have been modeled after anyone. He doesn’t impose these thoughts on the real man—doesn’t expect them to ever become a reality. They may never even meet again to begin with, if fate takes its course.

This is what Anaxa tells himself as he rolls onto his stomach while spreading his legs. It’s harmless, he thinks, teasing himself as his fingers slow even further. He will never know.

It’s harmless to picture Mydei behind him, below him, to be surrounded by pomegranate and cotton. To imagine strong fingers scissoring him open. To think of a warm and wet tongue licking at him.

It’s harmless, he tells himself as he throbs with a yearning he has never felt before; as he bucks his hips and laments how weak his wrists have gotten over the years; how his physical stamina is nowhere near what it used to be, not enough to sate this body of his. He laments walking away when that wondrous scent was within reach.

An annoyed groan rattles out of him.

This is going to go nowhere. An omega’s libido in heat is already to be feared, and it seems like suppressants only make it worse. While he had asked Hyacine if she could procure toys for him which could take over as his hands grew tired, he hadn’t expected his heat to progress so quickly. And he doubts she’d want to disturb him now. He’d have to deal with the first wave himself.

It’s only then, between ebbs of his frustration, that he notices a shift in the atmosphere beyond the door. The sharp, tangy scent of pomegranate hits his senses like an arrow aimed straight at his throat, and his mouth falls open under its force.

Anaxa inhales sharply, turning his head to chase the smell, to fill his being with it until there is nothing else.

Instinct or his own desire? His own wish? The lines have become so blurred. He doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins.

Perhaps that’s the answer he struggles to accept.

The visitor remains silent, but Anaxa knows that he’s aware. That he’s listening. His scent is sharp and heady—stronger than it had been in their talk before. A sort of pride hums in his chest at the thought of affecting Mydei, when in the past, he didn’t even want to think about appealing to an alpha. Not even on accident.

Because this isn’t just any alpha, something within him adds like a purr.

“What do you want?” Anaxa asks, tone harsh and only slightly breathless. One wouldn’t be able to guess that he has his fingers buried inside himself at this very moment.

A beat of silence. Anaxa feels it thunder in his chest.

“You were calling for me,” comes Mydei’s reply. The rumble of his voice makes new slick coat Anaxa’s fingers.

No longer a fantasy.

It resonates deep within him; pulls at memories forgotten or that had never existed before.

Anaxa moves to lay on his back, spreading across the bed and hoping for his skin to cool even a little. A walking corpse is not built for this.

“I appreciate your concern, Crown Prince, but there is nothing for you to worry about.”

More silence. It’s only then that Anaxa realizes that he can’t remember if he had locked the door.

He doesn’t know if he wants to rush towards it to make sure, or hopes it gets torn down. But the decision is made for him with fatigue blanketing his body as Mydei’s quiet yet strong voice reaches him.

“Would standing outside the door help?”

“…What?”

Mydei clicks his tongue, or perhaps curses under his breath. “You heard me. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Even under the gruff tone, Anaxa notes no malice or hidden motives. His pheromones exude a protective care, a desire to understand, the scent of cotton pushing to the front and feeling homey and safe.

Mydei genuinely just wants to help—without simply barging down the door and having his way and blaming biology as a lesser person might. And an alpha’s scent is soothing for an omega heat. It’s not a terribly farfetched suggestion.

Perhaps it’s the relief of being respected that has Anaxa’s shoulders grow lax. His voice is quieter than intended as he speaks again, but he knows Mydei hears him.

“…I’m not sure,” Anaxa replies truthfully. All of this a first in many regards. Having an alpha around him during a heat has always been out of the question. He doesn’t know what effect it would have. But from the samples so far—if it’s this scent—he’s hopeful.

There’s a subtle thud; an even quieter grunt that Anaxa feels shoot through his body. His core aches in response and he stares at the door in confusion.

“Then let me know when you’ve figured it out,” Mydei says, tone somewhat unplaceable.

Anaxa can’t understand what Mydei’s scent is conveying—perhaps being numb to the world in this aspect has its downsides, too. Distantly, he wonders how others are perceiving this exchange if even his numbed senses are picking things up at all.

Anaxa blinks at the door as he realizes that Mydei is truly serious and what that entails.

“You plan to just sit there?” he asks.

“I’ll leave when you want me to,” Mydei replies. His tone is even, controlled. Perhaps even the faintest bit bored.

Anaxa can’t tell if he’s relieved, in awe, or the tiniest bit insulted.

He plans to just sit there? Knowing full well what will transpire in this room?

Never has anyone—be it alpha or someone that isn’t a medical professional—been so close to him while in heat. The whole thing is so strange that Anaxa feels an incredulous laugh want to bubble out of him.

The crown prince of Castrum Kremnos, sitting beyond his door, intending to watch guard while he’s locked in here in heat.

The crown prince of Castrum Kremnos will be listening to him pleasure himself.

Anaxa does laugh, then, and decides to widen the spread of his legs. Very well. Let him listen.

“How do I know,” Anaxa starts with somewhat of a drawl as he pushes his fingers inside himself again, “that you won’t just barge inside?”

“You already know the answer,” is all Mydei replies.

You already know the answer.

The gasp that hisses past his lips feels so loud in the silence of the room. Excitement jumps across his skin like an electric current. He can’t find it in himself to feel the shame he thinks he should be feeling, not when that comforting scent is wafting through the gaps of the door—no longer a memory he needs to cling to.

He can’t bring himself to care, not when his fingers slide with such ease, slick with arousal.

Arousal, Anaxa notes, and thinks that everything is beginning to make sense.

This is not just a plain bodily function. It’s the physical in conjunction with the mental. Fantasy blends with reality as he watches the door and wonders what sort of expression the man waiting on the other side is wearing.

You already know the answer.

Did Mydei mean more with that? Did it stand for more than simple reassurance?

Anaxa bows his back to press the meat of his palm against himself for extra friction.

You already know the answer.

It rings within his hollow chest like an echo. It bangs against the various crevices and has him shudder from the aftermath. His wrist stings from the strain as his body begins to burn.

The shame he feels like he should be experiencing at having himself be listened to by someone—a royal, at that; an alpha, of all things—never arrives. He wants to blame the heat, but he knows it to be a lie. A cycle has never dulled or affected his senses in such a way. It has never made him act in ways he didn’t allow. His self-control would always rise victorious.

Perhaps even towards the end of your life you can still discover things about yourself.

Anaxa captures his small shaft between two fingers as the other hand travels back to his chest. He pictures Mydei beyond the door. Pictures him walk inside. The way the fabric that covers half of his chest would fall off with one gentle caress. Anaxa pictures the nipple it would uncover and how the prince might react if he took it inside his mouth.

Another gasp stutters out of Anaxa as his mind lingers on that. The sweet and sour scent of pomegranate coils around him as he wonders how Mydei would respond to being pushed onto the bed. He wonders what expression the man might wear as he looked up.

Something possessive prods at him at the thought. Another curious discovery.

Omegas have a naturally heightened sense of protection—both of the self and of others—during a heat, but Anaxa had never found anyone worthy to be a subject of those feelings. Not to mention that the crown prince is more than capable of protecting himself. Anaxa also used to experience lesser versions of a rut, but people usually just associated them with ‘bad temper’ since they couldn’t scent him. It makes him an interesting dichotomy of an omega who doesn’t want to fully submit.

The flick of his thumb makes Anaxa bite his lip as a question continues to grow more present within himself. He battles it as the strain in his wrist goes ignored.

If he were to ask Mydei inside, would he accept?

What would it be like for someone else to gaze upon his naked form?

What would Mydei think of this crumbling body held together by the intangible?

Insecurity is foreign to Anaxa. He frowns as he notices it shallowly well inside himself.

“Mydei,” Anaxa starts, if anything to disprove that silly part of himself, to silence it, “if I asked you to come inside, how would you respond?”

“Hah?”

Well, it’s an answer, he supposes.

Anaxa laughs, short and amused. “You heard me,” he says like a dare. Like a challenge.

There’s a tense moment of silence. Anaxa holds his breath to pick up the smallest of sounds.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mydei eventually replies, but his tone is strained. Anaxa wishes he could place it. But he can’t, so he squeezes himself, knowing that Mydei can hear it. Knowing that an alpha’s already keen senses are especially heightened when around an omega in heat.

“Oh, but I’m serious,” Anaxa continues. “Having your scent closer might aid me better.”

Mydei curses again. “Inviting a stranger into your room…”

“Stranger?” Anaxa echoes in a scoff, not sure what to take more offense from. Does Mydei consider him helpless? Not fit to make a decision? Does he consider them strangers? Is only he plagued with half-truths and could-bes, haunted by what once was or never will be? “Is that what you think?”

There’s a rattle outside the door as Anaxa thinks Mydei stands.

Carefully, Mydei asks, “What do you mean?” There’s a grit to it. Something hopeful and distant. His voice is a rumble that makes Anaxa want to entice it out again and again. He wants to hear it buried at his neck, or perhaps the pillow below. Perhaps he wants to hear it fall loud and unrestrained.

A grin quirks up Anaxa’s lips. Victorious. “Crown Prince, you already know the answer.”

Anaxa takes a deep, rattling breath as Mydei remains silent. The scent coats his throat. He can practically taste it as he swallows—thick and tangy, heavy with something that makes Anaxa crave to study it further.

If even to him Mydei’s scent is this intense—through the door, through his numbed senses—there is no doubt anyone in the vicinity of this place has already left.

“Still undecided, Your Highness? What, are you afraid?”

“Anaxagoras,” Mydei hisses, and oh.

Anaxa muffles the moan that threatens to spill. He tightens his grip around himself and is painfully aware of how empty he feels. It’s a different ache to usual, he—

He wants to be full. He wants to be drowned in someone else’s scent as he’s brought to orgasm at his behest.

He wants Mydei.

It’s with that thought that the door clicks open.

He really had forgotten to lock it. An oversight that could have been costly, but he had not expected this turn of events and speed of his heat progression. However, he can’t find it in himself to regret it when Mydei walks in with a downcast gaze and pomegranate and cotton blankets him and it’s all he can smell and taste.

Anaxa doesn’t know if he has ever been this soaked before. He bows his back again as he teases his entrance and shudders. But Mydei stays rooted at the door. How frustrating.

“What do you… want me to do,” Mydei says tersely, still keeping his head down, shoulders rigid.

It’s impressive, Anaxa has to admit. Even betas can be enticed by an omega in heat. He commends Mydei’s unwavering self-restraint.

Part of him wants to see it snap.

“To lock the door, for starters,” Anaxa says, even though he knows no one would dare to enter. He just wants to see Mydei squirm. Wants to see him listen and do as he’s told.

Mydei’s eyes widen. Something rattles in his scent.

Good.

The door is slowly closed, but Mydei still refuses to look his way.

“You could hardly look away from me earlier,” Anaxa teases, purposefully slicking up his fingers and watching Mydei’s nostrils flare, “yet now you can’t stand to gaze upon me?”

“That’s not—” Mydei’s head whips up, but his mouth snaps shut. Another curse hisses past his teeth. “You’re mad.”

Anaxa chuckles as he lets his hand fall from his entrance and trace along his inner thigh instead. The hand that had been massaging his chest travels up to his own throat to feel it vibrate.

The strained bob of Mydei’s Adam’s apple is truly flattering. He wonders what it would be like to feel its shift below his grasp.

“The line of people that have said so is nigh endless, Your Highness,” Anaxa says with a tilt of his head. “You might need to be more creative than that.”

Something flickers across Mydei’s expression that Anaxa can’t quite understand. So he blinks, noting the way his breath flutters below his fingers.

Anaxa had thought it would feel more… like anything at all to be exposed like this in front of another person. Yet all he can think is how right this feels. People would often speak of ‘other halves’ and ‘feeling complete’ around that ‘special someone’, but he had never understood it. There is nothing incomplete about him—not in the past, not now.

Perhaps it’s less that something had been missing, and more that Mydei introduced color to a blank puzzle piece he had already placed and forgotten about. Radiant and warm, it stands out against the rest.

Mydei’s expression shifts and softens, as though he had heard that trail of thought. Anaxa wonders if he did. He wonders just how much Mydei can tell about him and how much he knows.

Strangely, this makes him feel a lot more exposed than being naked does. Vulnerable. The urge to hide brushes against him and he moves his hand from his inner thigh somewhat.

“So,” Mydei starts and swallows; his voice is low and thick but very controlled. Perhaps overly so. “What do you want.”

Anaxa’s eyes trail down Mydei’s body as he thinks about it seriously. “You can sit by the bed,” he says. “Keep your back turned to me, if you’d prefer.”

Mydei huffs a short laugh. Anaxa feels his throat flutter below his hand.

“As you wish,” Mydei replies, and finally, finally begins closing the distance.

The pieces of Mydei’s armor rattle and clank together with every step. Anaxa feels the thunder of his feet within his own body, like an echo, or perhaps an earthquake that he’s skirting the edge of. Every thud brings back memories that are just scattered enough to not make sense beyond a foreboding sense of belonging. It makes him think of that first heat and the way he looked towards the sun for grounding. Mydei looks just as radiant in his approach.

With a grunt, Mydei settles on the floor next to the bed, leaning against the frame.

Ah.

A different scent joins the fray. The soap Mydei had used, perhaps?

Anaxa cranes his head closer to the back of Mydei’s neck. The ache between his legs is forgotten; incomparable to the hum in his chest begging for pomegranate and cotton. It blankets him like an embrace. It chokes him all the same, addictive. It’s more dizzying than any heat has ever made him feel.

Anaxa wonders if it’s possible to get drunk off a scent after all, and thinks he’s slowly beginning to understand what people had meant by it.

He wants to ask if he may touch Mydei, but it feels greedy. He’s already asking for too much. Mydei is practically being tormented with temptation with nothing being given in return. So Anaxa simply exhales and feels the way his heated breath bounces back towards him.

There’s a subtle shudder Mydei tries hard to suppress, but Anaxa does not miss it.

Anaxa licks his lips as desperation to taste this scent on his tongue fills his thoughts. But he will not ask if he may touch Mydei. Instead, he will see how far he can push things. How deep this greed of his can go. He shifts his body while keeping his nose near the back of Mydei’s neck.

There is no mating mark at the side, he notes with delight. No one has tamed this lion yet. He would be a fool to come here, otherwise, and unworthy of his respect.

An untamed lion entering his den. Presenting his neck so prettily for him. So pliant and willing to follow his commands.

The slow squelch of his fingers feels almost criminal, even to his own ears. Heat rises to his cheeks, but not in shame. A strange, warped sort of satisfaction hums through his body, so he chases it—widens his legs as he pants into Mydei’s neck, a mere breath away yet still too far.

He wonders what he has to do to make Mydei look over his shoulder. What he needs to do to have sunshine eyes stare at him, through him, while pleasure wrecks his body.

Anaxa clenches around his fingers pitifully.

He wonders how much more Mydei would stretch him. How it would feel to have foreign fingers curl inside him. What it would be like to not be the conductor of his pleasure for once. To not know exactly what to expect next. To have Mydei push him into the mattress, to—

Another moan slips out of him, and this time, he’s acutely aware of being heard. Of having moaned in someone else’s presence. Someone who he wishes would just turn around—

Anaxa groans, low and guttural; frustrated as his fingers slide with too much ease to bring any sort of relief. The strain of his wrists, the both of them, forces him to move at a pace that keeps slowing instead of speeding up, and he has only been able to push past the pain this far because of his heat. But even with that help, he knows he’s reaching his limit.

The omega in him is begging to ask Mydei for help, and he has nothing but his pride holding him back from doing so.

Even that, he notes, is already fraying as his thighs ache with tension and his stomach churns. But Mydei sits there like a rock.

Is he actually unfazed? Did Anaxa have another leap in judgement? Did he misread the signs? Had it all been one-sided after all? Are the flickers of shared smiles a figment of his imagination? A mere dream?

Anaxa only notices his whine when Mydei looks over his shoulder with panic and concern laden in his voice.

“Professor?”

Anaxa opens his mouth—which always has a sharp remark at the ready, yet not this time. How is he supposed to express the myriad of feelings coursing through him? Confusing him? Where does he even begin?

How is he supposed to say anything when all he can think about is how Mydei’s fingers would feel inside him, and how desperate he is to find out? How memories prod at him, demanding to be discovered?

Anaxa brings a hand to his mouth to stifle whatever sound may fall from it. He closes his eye to not have Mydei’s expression—which he yearned for mere moments ago—bore into him.

All of this is too new. Too confusing. He takes a sharp breath, only now noticing how he had held it, and—

Comfort.

Anaxa’s eye flutters open and meets Mydei’s steady and secure ones.

Comfort.

Anaxa takes another inhale, deeper this time, as he’s enveloped in cotton and lavender and home.

He had heard that people could change their scents based on their partner’s needs, adjusting to their emotions. He had doubted its effects, perhaps in intentional ignorance. But here, as tension ebbs away, as the strange self-doubt that had started to wind around him slowly unravels, he understands. It rattles him more than he’d like to admit.

Anaxa hesitates before he speaks. “Are you willing to help me?” he finally voices his selfish request.

Mydei stares for a moment and Anaxa tries to not misunderstand; gives him the benefit of the doubt as he clings to those lips and the way they part.

A most gentle hand curls around Anaxa’s wrist, the one covering his mouth, and Anaxa gasps as it’s lifted.

Mydei speaks, painfully fond. “You already know the answer.”

Dream and reality blend together as Anaxa is overcome with a feeling of melancholy, or perhaps nostalgia, or something else entirely. He stares into Mydei’s gentle eyes as a different sort of warmth wraps around his wrist. Not the kind he’s used to from his heat, but something tender. Something safe. Something he has known before, yet unknowingly longed for all this time.

Do you remember? Anaxa wants to ask as he searches Mydei’s expression. Do you remember what once—or never—was?

Anaxa twists his hand to curl around Mydei’s wrist instead. The metal is cool against his skin, and he traces along the various divots and sharp edges. Mydei watches it carefully in silence, but Anaxa can tell a question lays on his tongue.

“If it would not be too much…” Anaxa asks to interrupt the thought while his thumb trails along the bottom of Mydei’s wrist. A pulse thunders through the sheer black fabric. “Perhaps you could use your hands on me.”

The way Mydei swallows is loud and Anaxa feels himself tighten around nothing.

“Don’t worry,” Anaxa continues, “I would let you know when to stop. And I trust you would listen.” There’s a concealed threat to the sentence. It has Mydei’s lashes flutter and lips part in submission.

Yes, he already knows the answer.

“Very well,” Mydei replies, deep and gruff as cotton is stained in red—heady with desire and acceptance, Anaxa realizes with exhilarating clarity as he watches Mydei pull away.

The gauntlets are pulled off and placed on the nightstand next to his eyepatch, and Anaxa studies the movement, enchanted. Mydei’s hands are just as he had imagined. Strong yet slender, moving carefully and with intention. Thicker than his own, but not by much. Only mild callouses have formed.

Anaxa licks his lips. Mydei snaps to the motion. The hunger in his eyes is slowly revealing itself. Being held back less, he realizes.

That makes desire spike within him. Anaxa gasps softly as his body squirms. His back arches; his hips shallowly roll against the bed below.

This is very, very different from usual, and Anaxa watches, expectant, as Mydei shifts and hovers, as though unsure where to start, where to touch first. And so Anaxa takes charge. He holds Mydei’s wrist as he guides the hand to his stomach—one of the more neutral yet deeply vulnerable places for a naked body—and feels Mydei’s fingers brush against the lower arch of his ribs.

The intensity of skin against skin is unexpected. He feels his own heat emanating off Mydei’s body, like this, and he aches to be drowned by it. Yearns for Mydei to cover the rest of it.

He wants their scents to mix into something new entirely. For everyone to know.

Mydei’s shoulders tremble as his thumb glides across pale skin in a slow caress. Tentative and curious, he traces every bump of muscle and bone he can reach like this. His expression seems distant, jaw tense; Anaxa wonders what sort of memories he’s traversing.

Anaxa brings Mydei’s hand higher, letting it come to rest just under the swell of his chest. A soft sigh falls from Anaxa’s lips and he decides to roll onto his back to push into the touch better. There’s a sharpness to Mydei’s scent—hunger amidst control.

Once again the thought of snapping it crosses his mind.

“Mydei,” Anaxa breathes and loves the way the name feels on his tongue; the way pomegranate coats it as he speaks, “closer.”

And Mydei obliges.

The crown prince leans forward. Sunshine eyes darken to dusk as the distance between their faces narrows and the air thickens enough to suffocate.

Anaxa brings a hand up to cup Mydei’s cheek. Another memory rattles through him at the visual. It yearns to overtake, to make him see. It prods at him with familiarity; has his body hum in recognition. The feeling is something cosmic. It’s something deeply human.

With a sigh, Anaxa bites his lower lip. It’s as though he had waited centuries for this: for Mydei, close enough to kiss; for Mydei, skin against skin; for Mydei, devoted like the day he had lost him.

A heartbeat Anaxa shouldn’t even have anymore thunders within his chest. Distantly, he realizes it’s Mydei’s melody pulsing through him, indistinguishable from his own. Perhaps beating for them both.

Does Mydei feel the same? Is he, too, plagued by visions from long ago that are impossible to place? That feel like part of his own body and being?

Anaxa brings the hand holding Mydei’s face higher. The thumb brushes along the peak of his cheekbone as though comforting tears that have not spilled, not this time. Perhaps never. Perhaps Mydei hasn’t allowed himself to do so.

Mydei’s gaze dips down to his lips. The thought of kissing someone, to have their saliva mix with his own, used to make Anaxa gag at best. But here, now, his entire body aches for it. And it’s with that ache in his hollowed chest that Anaxa pulls Mydei down to close the distance between them.

When their lips slide against each other—with Mydei’s free hand cradling the top of his head in a protective caress that feels so loving—he doesn’t know how he has lived this long without it.

It’s as though he has never truly been able to breathe and is suddenly met with a warm, fresh spring breeze as his first inhale. His senses are filled with comfort and belonging, and if it required him to die to finally experience this, he would welcome it again and again for just one more chance.

Mydei’s lips are staggeringly soft against his own. They press against him so gently yet are filled with so much conviction that all matters beyond these walls simply cease to exist.

For a brief moment, Mydei’s lips stutter in their slow glide, and Anaxa notes ancient words that others would have surely missed with how quietly they are said. A set of words in a language forgotten by most—one he knows on an instinctual level without having studied it.

It’s been so long.

The meaning and weight of those words could not be clearer.

Anaxa responds by curling one hand around the base of Mydei’s skull while the other guides their joint hands to firmly cup his chest. A sort of affection like none other winds around his body as even this sort of distance feels too painfully far.

The heat cycle is not to blame for these feelings. They feel distinctly like his own. If anything, he has never felt so aligned with his body before. The heat is a mere simmer while it’s his own feelings that are set ablaze, strong enough to make him doubt the existence of rationality and reason.

He has always known that reason made up the smallest part of a soul. Perhaps with this level of passion and longing introduced into his life, he understands what people had meant with feeling more ‘complete’.

“May I—” Anaxa pants, his lips feeling wet and heavenly.

“Anything. Always.”

Anything. Always. Anaxa keens as he lets another fantasy become reality. He lets his hand trail down Mydei’s neck and across the collarbone until he gets to push at the bundle of cloth held up at Mydei’s shoulder. A soft chuckle rings from the prince as it falls.

Better than fantasy, Anaxa thinks as he traces red markings and plump flesh that reacts beautifully to his caress.

Mydei squeezes Anaxa’s nipple like a reminder and it shoots through him like a bolt.

A pant that Anaxa might consider embarrassing under other circumstances tears itself out of his throat, but shame finds no place among the sea of pleasure. Anaxa’s head falls back into the bed as he whimpers: “Again.”

Mydei doesn’t hesitate. His hands are scary skilled, Anaxa quickly learns, as it twists and tugs at the perk nub while Mydei’s mouth falls into the crook of his neck. Ragged breath after ragged breath heats his skin, there, and it’s only then that Anaxa realizes—

Mydei is scenting him. Can hardly get enough of him. Is practically gulping down whatever he finds there.

It’s the first hint of his self-restraint cracking.

Fresh slick gushes out of Anaxa at the realization while pride purrs in his chest. Something instinctual; something distinctly him. He is rendering the crown prince of Kremnos to this. He has the man panting like starved. He is the one to tame the lion.

Desperate and hasty, Anaxa begins to tug further at Mydei’s clothes. He yanks at them and Mydei growls as he’s forced to move away to help free himself of this barrier until he half kneels by the bed in the nude.

The human body has always been impressive in Anaxa’s eyes. Beautiful in its own way—as one might admire a sculpture or vase, or perhaps the silent clockwork of the sky—yet never once has the naked form of another person sparked this sort of lust, this curiosity to touch and explore. It’s a peculiar little sensation he needs to study more.

And the winding, gorgeous markings that Mydei bears don’t stop at his chest, Anaxa learns while he wets his lips. They curl beautifully around his toned thighs, and oh—

“Touch me,” Anaxa commands, and Mydei heeds the call with a languid glide of his tongue where a pulse would be.

Scorching hot, it burns through him. It makes him want to tilt his head and grant more access; to allow Mydei beyond the borders of his carefully curated walls that had kept everyone far away.

“Anaxa—” Mydei moans as his teeth scrape along his neck. Ragged, desperate. Laced with yearning to the point of being indistinguishable to worship.

Anaxa just about sees stars and drags Mydei down into the bed.

In a whirl of motion, their positions are switched, and Mydei stares up at him with wide eyes. Anaxa pants as his thighs tremble. He will take the loss of the battle if it means winning the war. But he will not admit this temporary defeat. He will not congratulate Mydei’s terrifying and impressive self-restraint and how his own had cracked first—not if it means seeing this below himself.

Instead, he will place both of his hands on Mydei’s chest as he hovers above the prince’s groin. He’ll lean forward to chase another fantasy. He’ll let his hands travel down until they hold Mydei’s hips while his tongue traces the prince’s nipple until it hardens under his attention.

He could seat himself. He could lower himself and feel Mydei’s heat burn against his soaking entrance. He could grind his hips and coax royalty into snapping. The mere thought has his stomach tighten with want and mouth run dry.

But Mydei’s lips are parted and panting while a dazed expression marks his features. It’s too inviting.

“Say, Your Highness,” Anaxa says with a dangerous edge, keeping his lips against Mydei’s chest. “You may be a man of few words”—he trails his bottom lip along the length of Mydei’s sternum—“but surely your tongue must be quite skilled, is it not?”

Mydei groans another Kremnoan curse as his hands, finally, fly up to hold on to Anaxa’s hips.

“You—” Mydei chokes, every breath more labored than the last.

Anaxa kisses along Mydei’s collarbone. Pomegranate is thick and tangy on his tongue as he licks into the divot of bone and flesh. With his nose nestled into the crook of Mydei’s neck, he thinks that no drug can ever come close to this. It’s all he will ever crave again.

So for what little time he has left, he will indulge and be greedy. He will claim that which he desires. He will make sure this taste, this feeling, will be imprinted into the next life that follows.

“Say, Your Highness,” Anaxa continues with a kiss to Mydei’s jaw that exposes itself so beautifully to him, “would you be good for me? Would you let me ride your mouth?”

Mydei gags on a sound as the grip on his hips becomes painful. It makes Anaxa wonder if the future demigod might truly break him.

A moan stutters out of Anaxa’s mouth at the thought, and Mydei’s pulse flutters below his lips.

“I already told you,” Mydei grits through his teeth. “Anything.”

To give one such power, such complete consent, is not to be taken lightly. But that doesn’t mean Anaxa won’t toy with the princeling.

“Anything?” Anaxa asks. He lets his hands travel from Mydei’s waist to his own and covers the strong palms holding him there. Anaxa pushes Mydei’s hands down until they reach the meat of his thighs and curve of his ass. Mydei’s palms are so large. “Anything, Your Highness?”

The grip tightens. Mydei’s thumbs press into the inside of his thighs—his hands circle them so easily—and skirt along the muscles there. They ride up as though yearning to push into his heat, Anaxa notes with a smirk.

Anaxa’s legs and lower back tremble from keeping this position, so he raises himself upright—but not without a slow, gracious lick along Mydei’s pulse before he does.

Mydei’s length throbs. Anaxa can feel it brush against him. His mouth runs barren.

Before his own restraint crumbles, Anaxa moves. He lets go of Mydei’s hands in favor of supporting himself against the headboard while he scurries upwards—until his knees frame Mydei’s head and he’s hovering right above the prince’s face.

“Anything, you say?” Anaxa asks in challenge and veiled request of consent.

Mydei responds with hunger in his eyes as he pulls Anaxa down.

And Anaxa groans. Loud, guttural, instantly rutting into the wet heat of Mydei’s mouth, running high on instinct and chasing the sensation of Mydei’s eager lips. With knuckles turning white, Anaxa holds on to the headboard for dear life as Mydei laps at him like starved. There isn’t even time to process the novelty of it all—he’s too overwhelmed by how right and perfect it is.

Mydei’s tongue is flat and broad as it caresses his entrance and spreads the slick mixing with saliva. The tip of it dips ever so slightly inside with every lick, teasing and flicking at the underside of his dick before it repeats the motion, and each passage has Anaxa curl further in on himself.

He wants to move away. He wants to bury Mydei’s face so far against himself until it’s all the crown prince can breathe and taste.

When Mydei’s lips move to capture his dick while sucking at the head, tongue devilish and relentless as it traces him, swiveling from side to side, Anaxa just about cries as he’s overwhelmed in stimulation.

“Mydei—” Anaxa pants and wonders what he’s pleading for as he shamelessly grinds against his lover’s face. “Mydeimos—”

The subject of his pleas does not respond. It can’t. Its eyes are closed in bliss as a moan is vibrated through Anaxa’s body while his loyal subject loses itself in sinful worship.

Pleasure wrecks through him as Mydei pushes past his leaking rim, tongue sharp and pointed as it explores the top of his walls near the entrance as though in search of something. Every breath Mydei takes is ragged and hungry and starving and it has Anaxa keen, drunk on power and satisfaction.

Recognition dawns on him—has him quietly gasp and want to pull away—but just as Anaxa’s lips part to speak, Mydei’s head tips back and he slips inside further, brushing against the hardened lining.

Anaxa cries out and he swears he feels Mydei grin against him in the brief moment before his tongue becomes relentless.

It thrusts into that spot with pointed precision; caresses it just when Anaxa thinks it’s about to be too much. But he’s already wound too tight. Mydei is so warm and wet against him, inside him, holding his cheeks and spreading them wide, and it’s all too much. His insides had already been teased by his own hands for so long. The loving touch of another—so strange yet known like a truth of the world—is enough to tip him over the edge.

Anaxa comes with a cry as orgasm crashes through him without mercy. His thighs tremble. His head falls forward. His core yearns as Mydei does not move his head away and continues to fill him like a reminder and promise, guiding him through the waves with gentle sways of his tongue and lips.

Like a claim, perhaps, too, Anaxa wonders as Mydei’s nails dig into his skin. It keeps him grounded while threatened to float from sensation.

Mydei’s hands move upwards to embrace him. To hold him upright, Anaxa distantly notes as his head is abuzz, his core still throbbing with every rattling breath, clenching around the tongue nestled shallowly inside himself.

Held in devotion, Anaxa thinks when he sees Mydei’s expression through fluttering lashes.

Overstimulation makes Anaxa hiss and move away. Clarity slowly returns as he attempts to catch his breath, and what he finds below him is a man smiling in bliss and pride, face flushed and glistening in result of their joint pleasure. It makes Anaxa narrow his eye in a pout, his cheeks wanting to heat for more than lust, but Mydei’s hands are so gentle at his back and scent so soothing. He can’t find it in himself to be upset.

And so Anaxa reaches down between his legs instead. He swipes across Mydei’s lips. “Messy,” he says, voice low and foreign to his own ears. Coarse like gravel and heated by the sun itself.

Dusk-bright eyes burn as something shifts.

No longer is Anaxa merely cradled and held, but supported as their positions are switched in one smooth motion. Mydei kneels between Anaxa’s legs and caresses his thighs in a silent request to keep them spread, and it has Anaxa’s stomach flip while his back bows upwards to meet Mydei’s mouth halfway.

Kisses—hurried and messy and desperate and wet—are littered across Anaxa’s body. From the thighs, Mydei’s lips travel upwards across his stomach, a strange sort of possessiveness shooting through him at the visual, before they reach his chest. Mydei’s hands move from his thighs, a quiet claim, to his waist, a brief thrill, up along his sides and arms until their fingers slot together like they’re meant to be.

It makes Anaxa think they are. They must.

A sound between a gasp and a whine falls from Anaxa’s parted lips as a divine something shoots through his chest. Like a right after decades of wrongs. Like coming home. Anaxa tightens his grasp around Mydei’s hand as the thought of never being apart threatens to choke him.

Memories almost close enough to grasp now scatter across his brain. They shimmer, taunting. He attempts to reach for them as he winds his legs around Mydei’s waist and feels the length of his throbbing member press against him. But Mydei doesn’t budge—he’s too busy covering every part of his chest in kisses until finally reaching the neck.

There, Mydei pauses. One inhale after the other, he remains there, hands entwined, idly tracing skin with nose and lips.

“Missed you,” Mydei eventually says in a language just for them. It’s raw and vulnerable in a way that has Anaxa blink. There’s a hunger to it that does not feel primal, but spiritual. “Tried to find you.”

Anaxa can merely laugh in response. Light and airy. In disbelief. Painfully fond. He turns his head to chase Mydei’s lips into a kiss, and for a brief moment he wants to flinch at the taste, knowing it’s his juices, but it passes when Mydei licks into his mouth and kisses him like a confession in itself.

There’s pomegranate on his tongue, coating his throat, filling his chest with every inhale, and he chases it. He wants to lure it out further and taste the depth of its sweet and sour range.

Then it mixes with something fresh. It makes Anaxa think of forests and the rivers that wind through them. He thinks of the gentle caress of the sun. Wood turns to paper turns to poetry itself.

And it’s then that Anaxa realizes this must be him. This is how Mydei perceives him.

It’s lush greens and the comfort of a cooling river on a sunny day; the density of the woods and the safety they can bring; the lives that can thrive within them. It’s a gentle lull of prose and feelings, so hidden yet exposed if you know where to look, illuminated by rays of light.

And Mydei knows.

Because Mydei is the sun granting warmth for his growth. A distant, yet ever-present power that has been guiding him. They’re destined to always be in each other’s orbit, even if they never meet for a lifetime. They exist for as long as time itself.

Anaxa groans into the kiss as he rolls his hips. The sun heats his skin in a gentle embrace, but he’s eager to be scorched by it, to inhale the scent of burning wood. He wants to watch the cinders rise high into the sky as the final trees fall, bearing it all.

And gracious Mydei, generous and kind, caves with a roll of his own hips.

Another groan follows before Anaxa can stop himself, overcome with desire so heady it’s intoxicating. The smooth glide of Mydei’s length across his soaked folds and own hardened dick is enough to make him as close to feral as he ever thought possible. As he never thought possible.

He needs Mydei inside him now.

It’s agonizing how close he is to getting his wish. How Mydei’s heat burns against him, heavy and thick, aching with need. Yet the prince seems content in this languid glide while they kiss.

“Mydei,” Anaxa pants, “get to it.”

For a moment, Mydei stares at him. There’s surprise. There’s awe. There’s longing. But there’s also hesitation that Mydei seeks answers to at the crook of his neck.

“Would you indulge me?” Mydei almost whispers. There’s guilt and tension to it as his hands subtly shake where they have remained joined.

Anaxa frowns at it and laughs instead. “I am the one who invited you into my room, Your Highness.”

Something shifts in Mydei’s scent. The nervous tension leaves and becomes almost playful instead. Mydei’s voice is a rumble at his throat as he speaks, “so you’re saying you wanted this from the beginning?”

Anaxa wants to fluster, but merely tightens his jaw.

It had not been his plan from the beginning, but very well. He’ll play along. He lost one battle already—he won’t lose another. With Mydei’s scent this close, soothing the ache in his bones, it’s even easier to overcome his bodily desires. He’s had enough practice for it.

Anaxa rolls his hips just to have Mydei’s tip caress his slicked entrance. He can’t help but clench around nothing, but he keeps his tone even. Controlled. “It was you who stared at me nigh unblinking, dense with interest, likely thick enough to have everyone nearby know,” Anaxa says, measured and slow. He lets Mydei’s tip briefly catch his rim before he continues the lazy roll of his hips and suppresses the urge to croon at the way Mydei’s jaw tightens. “It was you who came to my chambers, even though I was prepared to remain alone.”

Mydei is frozen above him. Not even breathing. Anaxa feels the following words thunder through his empty veins.

“And it was you who begged for me to come here, clear enough for all of Okhema to know.”

Anaxa tenses as Mydei frees one hand to caress its way down to his hip. With a slow stroke, Mydei’s thumb glides across valley of his waist, then teases his stomach.

It shoots through Anaxa with a shuddering gasp.

“Professor,” Mydei rasps into the curve of his neck, “two can play this game.” There’s a rattling inhale as Mydei’s voice dips low. “Are you sure you will win?”

All it does is make Anaxa narrow his eye, because if the princeling would know one thing about him, it’s that he will never back down in a battle of the wits.

Anaxa raises and angles his waist to trap Mydei’s member between their bodies. It throbs, slow and aching. It lets them both know just how far the man would reach; leaves them both desperate and wild with desire, the air dense with it.

“Are you sure this is something you want to test, Your Highness?”

Anaxa follows it with one, gradual, painful roll of his hips, pressing further into the man above him. Mydei gags at the drag of skin and pressure, the grip at his waist tightening instinctually. Already there’s a swelling at the base, Anaxa notes.

And he laughs, incredulous, hungry, tasting release and victory in every inhale and taunting roll of his hips. “Acting all high and mighty, but already you are a mere two strokes away from popping your knot.”

There’s a sharp hiss—pained, feral—and Mydei starts rutting into him like he can’t help himself anymore. The groans, open-mouthed and guttural, pressed to where a mating mark would bind them, have Anaxa’s unbeating heart and radiant pride soar.

More. Just a little more.

Mydei’s grip is turning iron while his thrusts become ragged, still clinging to restraint, but it’s fraying. With a wide, wicked smile, Anaxa turns his head to whisper into Mydei’s ear.

“Wouldn’t you like it, Crown Prince? To knot me?”

Mydei sobs. His hips stutter. His teeth beg to bite down in the way they trace his skin. His knot is growing and desperate to release already. It’s exhilarating. The power of having someone as powerful as the crown prince at his mercy has Anaxa drunk with desire, and he can’t help but push things further.

“Do you secretly wish for Kremnos to have another heir?”

A dull ache blooms from Anaxa’s shoulder where Mydei almost digs his teeth into, elongated fangs on the brink of breaking skin. Anaxa bites his lower lip to stop himself from moaning. But knowing that he’s unraveling the restraint of this crown prince—making him rut against his body as though he were in heat—is exhilarating.

Mydei’s scent is sharp and spicy, now. Cotton has been burnt and all that’s left is the pointed sense of pomegranate that cuts along his airways with every breath. There’s something so distinctly alpha to it—Anaxa realizes on a subconscious level—that has his mouth water. It has him respond by capturing the lobe of Mydei’s ear between his teeth and sucking his own little mark into it.

“Your Highness,” Anaxa rasps directly into his ear, loving the way Mydei’s hips stutter, how his length burns against him, how they press together, “how shameless of you. Wanting to—”

Mydei sheaths himself inside him in one thrust until the flared base of his knot finds resistance, and Anaxa’s head falls back as all possible words get fucked out of him with a moan instead.

“Do you hear yourself, Professor?” Mydei grunts into his shoulder, teeth scraping along skin, every thrust slow and deep to make sure he feels every inch. “Do you realize?”

Yes, yes of course I do, Anaxa wants to say, but can’t. His mouth is slack while his insides are scorched, stretched wide and full in ways he hasn’t felt before. Mydei reaches so deep that a distant part of himself briefly worries. Anaxa’s legs widen to accommodate—to have Mydei reach further.

“Do you enjoy– gh– this little game of yours?”

Mydei lets go of his now reddened wrist—Anaxa can feel the marks and the way they tingle against the air—to instead cradle his body in a tight embrace with both arms. The prince’s voice turns tender, vulnerable, as the initial frustration ebbs away and his hips steady themselves to a slow roll that’s about connection instead of briefly frayed restraint.

It’s there that Anaxa attempts to catch his breath, body pulled taut, clamping down on the intrusion, while his senses are overloaded on everything. He clings to Mydei’s steady voice.

“Wanted to do this right,” Mydei says with a gentle kiss against his collarbone. “Wanted to take it slow,” he adds, licking along tender skin. “But you just have to keep pushing things.”

Anaxa wants to reply and tease, but every time Mydei’s growing knot presses against his entrance—a delicious promise that the stretch of now will be replaced with more—all words fail him. He winds his arms around Mydei as an anchor and silences his mouth with another kiss, rolling his hips to chase that intoxicating glide and union.

Full. Complete. United. That’s all Anaxa can think of as Mydei’s taste coats his tongue and their hips meet each other halfway in this gentle sway of worldly pleasure. A bond he never knew could be so overwhelming courses through his body. With every thrust, Anaxa feels his insides shift to accommodate Mydei’s size. It makes his mouth water with want, and Mydei drinks it all up.

“So pretty, so perfect,” Mydei continues to babble whenever their mouths part, panting and shaking as his hips stutter and length throbs. “Anaxa…”

To think that a single word could carry so much weight to it.

Mydei’s scent is dense with relief and yearning, fully encompassing Anaxa and drowning out everything else. Every caress, every kiss, every roll of hips, speaks volumes to how he feels, and Anaxa wants to be engulfed by it. It’s addicting to be craved so wholeheartedly. So he cants his hips to change the angle and swallows the moan Mydei graces him with. So pretty, so perfect.

It’s there that Anaxa finds his voice again, now that his body gradually adjusts to being connected so intimately. “Mydei,” he breathes, cradling the man’s face with a lifetime of relief that hums in his dried veins; gasping every time Mydei’s knot pushes at his rim, opening him wider.

Mydei’s hold around his body tightens as though he were afraid he may disappear entirely. And Anaxa kisses him, knowing the inevitability of it, hoping the promise of a next lifetime is conveyed. Because for now, they have this: their scents mingling, something sharp, something wise; sweat-slicked skin pressed together, leaving no room for thought; blood red marks glowing in tandem, proof of their bond shared; soaked thighs and ragged breaths as the pace begins to rise and their bodies rock in unison.

“Mydei,” Anaxa chants once more, not entirely sure what he’s asking for, yet knowing Mydei will understand. Perhaps he’s simply too drunk on the taste of the name and the way the prince grunts at the sound.

And Mydei does understand. He responds with a kiss to his cheek and neck and chest as he slips out for a moment long enough to have Anaxa flipped to his stomach. Praise and adoration continue to be trailed along his spine and Anaxa’s body melts with relief at the new position. He pulls his legs up below himself, and just as the void inside him threatens to make a whine fall from his mouth, Mydei fills it again. Full. Meant to be. Anaxa wants to swoon at how right and perfect it feels. He melts into the bed as he’s rocked back and forth.

Distantly, Anaxa thinks the rumble of his throat must mean he says something, but he doesn’t concern himself with it. All he does is spread his bent legs to push up and meet Mydei’s thrusts, loving the way the budding knot is gradually coaxed further inside every time. Soon. Soon. Anaxa tightens his grip around the bed sheet as he urges Mydei to hurry.

And Mydei, thick and lovely and perfect, curls his wonderful arms around his waist in a way that has the omega in him purr at the promise of being bred. The truth, and how he can’t be, doesn’t matter. Not when Mydei grunts and brings a hand to rub at his leaking member while spreading slick across his puffy folds. Not when every thrust starts hitting the back of his legs with ferocity as the need for climax becomes too agonizing to withhold.

“My– dei—” Anaxa pants into the cotton sheets below, broken from the way his body is rattled and shaken. His skin burns. His core throbs as it becomes impatient, release being rubbed and fucked ever closer out of him. A deep, guttural grunt falls from his mouth as the words don’t stop slur together.

And Mydei doesn’t. He rubs and tugs with skilled and tireless hands while the tip of his dick presses into the sensitive part of his entrance before sliding all the way in, molding him in a way that Anaxa knows his body will remember.

When Mydei shifts to press a most gentle kiss where a mating mark would be, Anaxa’s vision blanks as his body goes taught with a choked gasp.

The orgasm hits him like thunder, erupting delayed, claiming the skies and everything one can sense as it travels through the body. Anaxa is at the mercy of it as he trembles, his ears ringing while Mydei’s hips are vicious in the way they pound into him for his own pleasure.

Mydei curses, sharp and broken, jaw unhinged and letting every sound fall free. His teeth press against Anaxa’s neck as though pleading to bite down, but he doesn’t.

Anaxa wishes he would. Wants to bear the mark on this body that no longer heals for what little time he still has left. Wants the teeth to run deep—deep enough to carry over to the next life, to have them both remember what they have now.

And it’s there, as Anaxa clamps down on Mydei’s length, skin alight and tingling, that the prince finally lets loose with a gargled and torn sound. His knot, finally, finally, slips past Anaxa’s oversensitive rim, stretching him even further and plugging him completely as Mydei fills up what little space isn’t already claimed. The omega in him cries in relief, and Anaxa doesn’t find it in himself to argue. Because it’s Mydei.

It’s Mydei who is borderline sobbing into his skin, chanting affections and praise. It’s Mydei whose strong, wartorn hands are caressing his frame like something precious and worthy. They’re reverent as his length throbs and continues emptying itself inside him, knot flaring wider to make sure nothing leaks. As though wanting to make sure his seed would catch.

It’s Mydei. Warm like the sun; pomegranate and cotton; lavender and devotion. It’s Mydei traversing the forest of his mind like he knows every leaf by name and anticipates their sway in the wind before anyone else can.

It’s Mydei whose laugh has been a guiding light in darkened nights, even when the visions were vague and blurry and uncertain.

It’s Mydei whose heart beats like a drum against his back, beating for them both.

It’s Mydei, his for now. His to treasure while he can.

Clarity slowly dawns on Anaxa as he opens his eyes with great effort. They’re both laying on their sides, now, Anaxa notes as he stares into the empty room while his back is warmed by a strong chest and arms wind around his center, hands coming to rest just below the void that makes his heart. He must have passed out—a thought that would have him worried if his companion were anyone else. But it’s Mydei. And affection blooms within his chest where the cracks allow for the sunlight to fall through.

Anaxa shifts somewhat and hisses at the stretch and fullness. Still plugged. Instinctively, Mydei’s arms wind tighter around him, nose pressed to his neck and tongue licking in soothing motions. It’s so painfully domestic and affectionate that Anaxa feels choked by it. It’s an act as though this were just a regular occurrence for them both. Just another day. He’s enveloped by cotton and lavender as though they’re attempting to lull him back to sleep; it would work if he were any less determined to memorize every moment of this.

A pleasant high buzzes through his system. Sated is the best way to describe it. A deep satisfaction he hasn’t experienced during a heat where toys and his hands were his only companion. He almost wants to laugh, now that he knows of the joys a heat partner can bring and the pleasure and connection a knot carries. Not that he would ever have allowed anyone else to join him in bed, however.

Heat partner. The thought has a mild tremor course down his back. He can’t help but tighten to it. Then there’s a soft sound at his neck, between gasp and sigh, and it makes Anaxa unwind one hand from Mydei’s hold to bring it to his stomach.

To feel the bump there has his mouth run dry. Mydei is large. That much is to be expected from a body so wide and built. But to feel it like this, to trace the edges and the way—

Anaxa’s breath catches abruptly as the pleasant simmer sparks alight to more. A new wave to his heat? Or simply his own cravings?

Does it even matter at this point when he knows Mydei will give him everything he wants and more?

“Naxa…” Mydei slurs into his skin, heavy with sleep. But his hips give one, languid, drowsy roll that’s followed by a moan so sweet it has Anaxa bite his lower lip.

And so Anaxa presses down on his stomach.

The moan stretches to a groan, a beautiful reward, and Anaxa feels the way Mydei slowly throbs back to hardness inside him.

He can hardly move or create friction like this, not with the knot still full, but it’s not about chasing release. It’s about the shallow drag. About connection. So Anaxa brings his hand lower to trace where they are joined.

And Mydei, lovely Mydei, gasps in surprise and sensitivity.

“Naxa—”

“Shh…” Anaxa coos. “You already did so well. Let me handle this.”

And Mydei, perfect Mydei, sighs in response as he brings a hand to massage at Anaxa’s chest, twisting the bud there. Because of course he can’t just lay there and do nothing. Not when he’s just as hungry.

Anaxa exhales at the touch; tilts his hips and bows his back to have Mydei slip further inside, just a little more. Delicious, perfect. He licks his lips and lets his eye fall closed, because already is his body kicking up the gear in producing fresh slick. He feels it trickle down to his thighs. And he spreads it—from his outer folds, down to Mydei’s sack, and back up to his own stirring dick, he massages it into the skin.

“Naxa, please, it—”

Must hurt, Anaxa thinks and stops. “Too much?”

A pause. A shuddering exhale. “No,” comes Mydei’s response. It sounds a little defiant. “Just not… used to it.”

Anaxa blinks. Ah. He bites back a smile and laugh as he resumes the languid slide, this time around himself. The temptation is too strong—he has to tease.

“Your first time knotting an omega, hm?”

The inhale is sharp enough that Anaxa feels it cut his skin. All it does is make him grow bolder.

“Too used to your own hands?” he adds, trapping his length between two fingers. “To your knot falling loose when all you want is to have it caught beyond oversensitivity?”

Mydei’s hand falls from his chest to join him at his core. The difference in the size of their hands has Anaxa briefly falter, the touch electric, but he feels the way Mydei likes this. So he continues.

“Did you picture anything, Your Highness? As you rutted into your hand? Maybe even both at the same time?”

Mydei’s palm covers his own, joining and guiding it with a slow pace. It makes Anaxa’s lashes flutter to feel their callouses against the back of his hand and the way their fingers intertwine, but he keeps his voice steady. Or at least attempts to.

“Did you grit your teeth or bite the sheets as you wished for warm flesh instead?”

It’s there that Mydei licks at his neck once more. Small, subconscious, as though lost to the sound of his voice. Anaxa guides their hands lower so they trace his stuffed rim; tilts his head to grant Mydei more room. Every rapid thud at the back of his chest makes him yearn even stronger for teeth to mark him proper.

When Mydei brings his hand lower, shallowly fucking his knot inside with a gentle roll of his hips, Anaxa’s act crumbles with a gasp.

Mydei’s voice is gravel in his ears as he speaks. “More.”

It makes Anaxa’s mouth snap shut as his body tenses.

Even though Anaxa wants to continue, to prod and push, words fail him as Mydei’s fingers trace his folds, spreading the slick around in lazy motions.

“What else, Anaxa?” Mydei asks, the wicked man, the ruthless prince, as his palm travels to the inside of his thigh and starts lifting it. Shifting the angle. Forcing Anaxa to move and accommodate and Cerces have mercy he reaches so deep.

“I have,” Mydei continues, spreading him wider. “I’d think about many things, Anaxa.”

The name shoots through him with the unspoken truth. Anaxa clutches the bedding as he waits for more.

“I’d think about someone below me, above me, taking me apart one way or the other,” Mydei says as he shallowly rolls his hips and circles his length. “I’d think of the expanse of the world and the comfort of lush greens.”

Anaxa bites back a sob as his body is positively lit aflame with the confirmation. Another climax gradually builds with every caress, with every word kissed to his flesh.

“I’d think of how full you’d be of me.” The speed of Mydei’s hand picks up, there, fingers sliding from side to side, setting his sensitive nerves aflame and— “How pretty you’d be.”

Anaxa clamps down on Mydei as fresh slick coats the hand guiding him through his high that doesn’t feel like it has an ending. It’s no blaring white lightning that strikes him at once, but a pulse that goes and goes and goes, a new wave running through his body with every gentle swipe of Mydei’s fingers. It’s only when Anaxa hisses in oversensitivity that Mydei stops, but his fingers remain in mellow pressure.

“So beautiful,” comes the confession at his neck. Anaxa chokes on the way it claims him. “So good,” Mydei mumbles, and it’s there that Anaxa notices fresh heat pumping inside him and oh.

Part of him wonders if he even can take more, but his pride flares at the thought and he becomes determined to find out. He wants to know how many rounds it will take until it starts leaking despite the heavy knot.

A sound wrings itself from the depths of Anaxa’s throat at the thought, and Mydei meets him with a grunt of his own.

This is infinitely, infinitely better than wasting away for almost a week, sweaty and tired and frustrated as his body and mind are at odds with each other. It’s so, so much better to be united with not just anyone, but the person his skin sings for.

Mydei’s hand travels to his lower abdomen and the touch has Anaxa’s vision waver.

“It won’t take,” Anaxa says, breathless. There’s a pang of disappointment. Perhaps guilt, too, with his instincts feeling like they failed. There’s a first for everything.

“I know,” Mydei replies and presses down. There is no disappointment. “But I can still make you round.”

Gods be good.

Typically, when alone, orgasm would grant a moment of respite before his heat demanded attention again. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The issue is that it would gradually become more difficult and frustrating to achieve—supremely annoying when time is so precious.

But here, he doesn’t even get a break.

It hums through his body like a constant. Knocks at his consciousness loud enough to drown out anything beyond needs and wants he didn’t even know he could experience.

Anaxa thinks he understands now what Hyacine meant with a heat partner speeding things up. It’s just not quite what he expected.

After Mydei’s fingers coax him to come two more times and his body is positively boneless, the knot is finally loose enough for Mydei to technically slip out. But he doesn’t. He stays, because leaving hurts too much, feels too far away, and they only have these next few days before reality tears them apart again.

As the hours pass and he’s guided from one high to the next, that thought becomes louder, and not even the soothing embrace of lavender and cotton can help quell it. It presses against him as the setting sun shines into the room.

So Anaxa clings to Mydei as he rides him. He burns the vision of Mydei’s flushed and blissed out face into the soul fragments that remain in this body. After all, a soul is one part reason, two parts longing, and three parts passion. Mydei has put them back into balance. The scattered pieces he holds are enough, surely, seeing the way his body sings to Mydei’s tune. How the mark at his hand burns in tandem with Mydei’s twisting lines as his muscles flex.

Surely, this is enough, Anaxa hopes even as doubt grows.

Perhaps reason has left him. Perhaps that’s the hollow he feels. One which not even Mydei can fill. Even when he’s held—even as he is washed from sweat and slick and he clings on to the edge of the tub while his body is rattled and hips marked anew—it’s still not enough.

But Mydei doesn’t ask. Perhaps he can tell, and doesn’t need to.

Instead, his lover merely coos and soothes and brings reason when Anaxa can’t find it himself. Grounding with his affections and generous with his praise, Mydei makes it gradually almost possible to forget about their fate in this lifetime, if only for a collection of moments once the sparkle of the stars is high in the sky. Every time his skin is marked and kissed and he’s filled with proof of Mydei’s longing, those fears are chipped away.

The prophecy truly is despicable for taking all he holds dear.

“Naxa,” comes Mydei’s voice, so gentle and sweet. Calloused hands brush aside his bangs and caress the cracks where an eye used to be. “Don’t you remember?” It’s phrased with reassurance. Soft, affectionate.

Yes, of course he does.

With every moment they have spent together in this one day, as though making up for lost years, the hazy visions began running clearer. And while he had spent years wondering what it would uncover, all he finds now is a bittersweet taste lingering at the back of his throat. So he dilutes it with Mydei’s tongue. It’s unreasonable to mourn something that’s warm and alive below him and waste what little time they have left.

That’s what Anaxa focuses on as he milks Mydei for all he has. As he makes sure his body will remember the feel and taste, and he honors every mark left behind.

Except for the neck. Mydei always catches himself and pulls away and Anaxa has to pretend the physical heart he doesn’t even have anymore doesn’t sink. Pretends that the fragments of his soul don’t rattle in protest against his rib cage. Longing scratches the inside of his throat each time.

It’s morning when there’s a knock at their door. Mydei’s head snaps to it, his scent flaring sharp and protective, so Anaxa pats his arm. It does the trick and has the prince settle his head back over Anaxa’s chest.

“I’ve brought you some food,” comes Hyacine’s voice from beyond the door. She sounds a little sheepish.

“Thank you,” Anaxa replies, and hopes it comes across as genuine. Mydei is still staring at the door, but the tension in his shoulders has eased somewhat.

There’s a beat of silence. Hyacine lingers as though wanting to say more, but then all they hear is the soft clank of her shoes against the tiled floor as she walks away.

Mydei had offered to get food before, and Anaxa still can’t tell if he was genuine about it or simply wanted to see what would happen if he asked to be out of eyesight for longer than a moment, but regardless, it had ended with him gasping and whimpering moments later.

When Mydei rises and walks towards the door without even bothering to cover up, the view is plenty of compensation—even though a part of him still wants to huff in complaint for being separated.

Scratches mar Mydei’s back. Pretty little lines that carve their claim between the red marks that glow when passion reaches its peak. The rounded indentions of his teeth litter Mydei’s shoulders, his hips, the sculpted curve of his ass, and also peek out from the inner thighs with every step he takes.

Anaxa hums, pleased. The crown prince looks good dressed in red.

And when he bends down, he looks even better.

Desire and hunger spike at the view, and he basks in it as he stretches across the bed. There’s a pleasant ache in his muscles, and the scent of a hearty meal hits his senses as Mydei turns with a silver tray in hand.

Must be Kremnoan, Anaxa thinks, if Mydei’s expression brightened by recognition is anything to go by.

Aside from food that has a generous amount of protein and a large pot with a lovely smelling beverage inside it, there’s also a suspicious wooden box hiding its contents. Anaxa blinks at it as he watches Mydei approach the bed.

A foreboding sense dawns on him, but Anaxa isn’t sure if he wants to laugh, fluster, or thank Hyacine. He’ll decide once the heat is over.

“A balanced meal.” Mydei nods his approval as he places the tray on the bed. “Although I’ll make you something better next time.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

Mydei’s jaw tightens as he swallows whatever he means to say, but Anaxa merely smiles, features soft. “Like what?” he asks, tone kept encouraging. Some of the tension in Mydei’s shoulders eases, but Anaxa feels as though it’s replaced by something heavier.

“Whatever you’d like.”

“Then, for next time,” Anaxa starts, keeping his tone light as he pats the bed in invitation, “I’ll have a list ready of things I’d like to try.” He tilts his head as he smiles, watching Mydei find his seat by his thighs. “Such as the pancakes I’ve seen in a certain promotion.”

Mydei huffs in response, crossing his arms. “Mine are even better.”

“I look forward to them, Your Highness.”

It’s easy, Anaxa thinks, to be like this. Mydei makes it easy, even with all the hurdles they’re dealt with. He makes it easy to forget the world beyond these walls exists; to think of anything other than how right it feels to have Mydei slide back into bed with him as they share a meal. It’s so easy to be swept away by it all as warm hands caress his body in mindless touches, simple and domestic. Loved.

The word rattles him. Strange, foreign. Years of frowning at the term and the way people would act as though bewitched by something inexplicable does that. He still doesn’t fully understand their behavior, nor what the word means to them, and he probably won’t, but… He will treasure this, whatever it is.

Words are meant to be used to give meaning to concepts. To express yourself to someone else. So if this is ‘love’—a hum in your body, the desire to do better, to be better, to selfishly want a future shaped by your own hands, to comfort and embrace it in turn, to feel your own worries lighten at the sight of a smile—then so be it. Let this be his first and final love.

Perhaps, Anaxa thinks as a drink of red and pink is poured into his glass, it’s quite fitting that it would be Mydei of all people. The one to undo him.

A crown prince destined to carry the burden of Strife itself, teaching him the true meaning behind what it means to love. What it feels like to be cared for and treasured. A bond that could not and has not been broken—one that has lasted lifetimes and still hums fresh and alive in their bodies, even in a walking corpse granting him a second chance to experience this.

It would take a man destined for godhood to sway him, wouldn’t it.

Anaxa toys with his glass, watching the liquid swivel. The aroma from the drink is sweet and floral. It’s supposedly energizing and helps with weary muscles—a favorite, or perhaps even necessity, for many that go through their heats. Some would also sometimes blame their actions on the drink, saying they ‘lost control’. As though it would excuse anything.

Anaxa has never tried the drink himself. He had found the scent nauseatingly sweet in the past. But now, it’s almost like a pleasant buzz. Fresh. Exciting. He wonders what has changed.

An idea crosses his mind. And with the way Mydei’s fingers are curling around his thighs just begging to part them and slide to his center, he thinks it will work.

“Still shy, Your Highness?” Anaxa asks, just to hear the scoff at the back of his neck.

“Shy? After everything we’ve done?”

“Then why…” Anaxa drops his voice as he looks over his shoulder, “do you still hesitate?”

Why do you wait with taking what’s yours? What always has been yours, ever since those promises were forged under a sunlit tree so long ago?

Mydei stills. Anaxa counts the heartbeats at his back.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

With a glorious, wonderful grunt, Mydei brings his hand to a waiting heat.

One might think—Anaxa included, until a day ago—that it would lose its novelty. That a simple touch, just a little bit of pressure, wouldn’t be enough anymore, not when he has been bent in half and pounded into various surfaces. But Anaxa sighs into it. He never even realizes how wound-up he is until Mydei untangles those feelings and releases them to burrow deep into his bones.

As Mydei’s fingers push into his folds in alternating motions, prodding and teasing until they’re puffy, Anaxa has to steady his arm to keep the drink from spilling.

“Perhaps I just enjoy seeing you demand things of me,” Mydei hums as he slides a finger across his leaking slit.

Anaxa grits his teeth. His pride soars, pleased. “Then get on your knees, Your Highness.”

A kiss—a lingering, aching kiss—is left behind where he wishes for skin to crack. But Mydei slides down his body tenderly. He makes a show out of it, too, moving slow and smooth while kissing and licking along every muscle. Mydei and Anaxa move in sync, and merely spreading his legs in a way that feels so known by now already has anticipation buzz in Anaxa’s throat.

Seeing the glorious crown prince on his hands and knees while trapped between his legs makes Anaxa truly wish they had more time. There’s still so many fantasies he wishes they could make a reality. Still so many sensations to explore. Still so much they could have done together, even beyond the bedroom.

But this body is held together at its seams by a Titan’s grace. It has always been a temporary blessing. To deny the truth, the inevitable end, would be foolish.

He may be called a fool, but only in the eyes of the ignorant.

Anaxa tips up Mydei’s head by the chin. “How did you like the drink?” he asks, caressing Mydei’s lower lip with his thumb to watch the way it moves just for him.

“…Refreshing,” Mydei replies. Slow, deliberate. There’s a glaze to his eyes that only grows denser the more Anaxa takes control.

So Anaxa raises the glass, as though offering a sip, but then spills it instead.

His skin prickles where it pools and slides down. From his abdomen, to his mound, down the sides of his hips, it leaves behind a reddened trail.

Mydei’s eyes grow wide.

“Then drink up,” Anaxa adds with a smile.

Golden eyes fall half-closed in bliss. Mydei licks his lips before he kisses his way along Anaxa’s inner thigh, reverent and eager as he finds the first trail of juice where the leg bends. And oh, the rough, wet slide of Mydei’s tongue is one he will never tire of.

Anaxa bows into the touch, to coax Mydei lower, but that wish isn’t granted. Instead, Mydei kisses along the peak of his hips, sucking there. The sound feels so loud in the room as Mydei savors the drink and licks his skin clean. All Anaxa can do is steady himself with a hand in Mydei’s hair while Mydei’s mouth and tongue clean up the mess he made—until finally, finally, Mydei starts moving lower.

Even if the heat is making him more sensitive and eager, there has to be something about Mydei’s touch in particular that sparks something so carnal. Something that makes him wish this heat would never end.

Anaxa all but shoves Mydei down further as his restraint snaps.

Mydei moans into him as his tongue laps up in wide and slow motions. From the outside to teasing the entrance, he licks and sucks as though this were the addictive drink. As though this were his true reward. The slurping is so obscene that Anaxa feels his face flush, but his body aches and can’t help but supply more slick for Mydei to indulge in.

Just when his insides start feeling too empty, craving for Mydei to get closer still, two fingers fill him and gently curve upwards.

Anaxa’s body spasms, pressing Mydei’s nose strong enough against himself to suffocate, but Mydei merely groans. Loud, pleased, his fingers eager as they curl and thrust, thumb rubbing into the underside of his dick while his mouth surrounds him.

Anaxa sees stars as he clamps down on Mydei’s fingers and comes with a gargled cry.

Every pulse is dutifully licked away and swallowed. Mydei’s fingers stop their motions but remain inside, knowing how desperate Anaxa is for human flesh, for the connection.

It’s why he hasn’t opened that box yet.

He could be wrong, and he knows that if he’s right that Hyacine only meant well, but he has had to make do with silicone and other things for years. Now, he has a warm and receptive and giving partner who eases the burden and listens to his every need. One who helps graciously and selflessly.

Now, he has a mate.

Anaxa’s breath catches.

Mate. Mate.

The term ignites something in him, but in the way a wildfire lays its ugly claim and burns it all down, leaving you with the aftermath. A mate is an unbreakable bond. It speaks of future—the one thing they don’t have. His grip on Mydei’s hair loosens, and when he’s met with a questioning gaze, he silently pulls the prince upwards for a kiss.

Mate.

Mydei’s lips are soaked and pliant as they slide against his own. A forest, bright and alive, greets him. It grows across his tongue and up the sensitive walls of his mouth. It tingles the roof of it. A bright little creek flows along his sides as Mydei’s hands wind around his frame.

Mate.

Mydei slots between his legs so perfectly. Or perhaps it’s his body that is meant to be together with Mydei’s.

Mate.

The word tumbles in Anaxa’s head over and over, slurring together with Mydei’s name until they’re one and the same. Distantly, he can taste the subtle floral note of the drink, but it’s overpowered by a thick and heady pomegranate note that fills his senses.

Mate.

It clouds his mind. It blankets him. It makes him push at Mydei’s shoulder to encourage their positions to switch. He wants to see Mydei below him. Wants sunbright hair fanned out across the bed. Wants to pin the hands—wrists thicker than his forearms—into the pillow. He wants to kiss and lick and mark and claim.

Mate.

Mydei’s sharp inhale returns clarity to Anaxa’s mind and makes him wonder if he had said it aloud.

The flush that runs high across Mydei’s cheeks and up his ears makes him think he did.

Over the past day, they have shared countless of kisses. But it’s this one that feels painfully, strikingly vulnerable. It’s a first, tentative, uncertain brush of lips. Like a confession for them both—of something that had gone unsaid but has now finally been given shape—and Anaxa chases it. Again and again, he dives for it while Mydei’s arms now cradle him so gently.

Mate.

The word hums through his body and tingles his fingers now buried in sunlight. He had craved the mark, but didn’t dare to cross that invisible line. He had buried it in hopes it would get lost, but he found it anyway. And now that he has crossed it—now that he sees Mydei respond in kind—how could he ever go back or pretend otherwise.

“Mate,” Anaxa breathes as he noses along Mydei’s scent glands. He fills his chest with pomegranate and something lush; licks along sunkissed skin while Mydei’s pulse thunders at his behest. It beats in acceptance and excitement. His scent is so welcoming. So thrilled. Crystal clear.

“Yes?” Mydei asks quietly. Like a cautious, tentative, terrifying question. A single word to change it all.

Anaxa’s thoughts run wild. Part feral, part returning to rationality. He can feel the ache in his teeth and how they beg to bite down. It travels down to his jaw, and further still to his throat that’s run barren.

When Anaxa raises his head to stare down to search for an answer, for clarification, all he finds is unconditional affection.

Perhaps later or in the next life he’ll regret ruining this moment, but for now, they need a voice of reason. This isn’t something to take lightly. The thought of potentially doing something against Mydei’s wishes is unacceptable.

“Mydei,” he starts, not entirely sure how the sentence will continue. There’s so many ways he could phrase it. But Mydei is patient. “Are you sure?”

“We already share an unbreakable bond,” Mydei says simply. “Why not another one?”

It’s said so matter-of-factually, Anaxa can’t help but laugh. “Your Highness…”

Mydei’s smile is small, but oh so bright. “If you would indulge me…” he says, bringing Anaxa’s hand to his neck, “then claim me.”

Anaxa blinks. Typically, the alpha marks the omega first. Claims them—one way or the other or both. The bond is sealed and made mutual with the omega returning the bite. Sometimes, this doesn’t happen.

But Mydei is Mydei, who is a giving lover first and alpha second. Who is staring up at him with a gentle flame in his eyes. Who, like him, disregards these secondary customs of the world.

“Are you certain?” Anaxa asks again.

Mydei scoffs, and he—

“You already know the answer.”

—does indeed already know.

With a shuddering breath, Anaxa moves his hand down Mydei’s shoulder, uncovering the bare neck that lies in wait. There’s a rush in his ears that must be Mydei’s breath as he lowers his head to graze along the exposed skin. Mydei will bleed. It will hurt.

It will hurt for him, too.

But Mydei cradles the back of his head in gentle reassurance.

Why not another one?

It’s with that thought that Anaxa bites down. Mydei flinches, and Anaxa wants to apologize, but he tightens his jaw as he pierces through another layer instead. Golden blood floods his mouth—yet another reminder of their fate. It’s metallic and wrong and so, so right.

The guilt of causing pain ebbs away as Mydei’s head tilts back in bliss and a low moan follows suit.

Every pulse of Mydei’s heart has new blood flush forward, and Anaxa swallows it all. He feels Mydei become part of his system. Feels another bond lacing them together, inseparable. He can’t help but roll his hips, yearning for another one.

And Mydei grants him that wish. Grants him everything.

Anaxa’s jaw unhinges with a gasp as Mydei fills him. Thick, throbbing, perfect. It's intoxicating—Mydei’s blood coating his tongue and throat; Mydei’s hands in his hair; Mydei’s dick sliding home. There’s a growl, and he can’t tell if it comes from his throat or not.

Mydei’s thrusts are rough and ragged. They set a desperate pace from the beginning.

Anaxa lets himself be rocked by them as he laps away the blood. Drunk, delirious. So perfect as he brings a hand between his legs to push himself over the edge with rapid flicks of his wrist.

And Mydei takes charge—flips Anaxa onto his back. His legs are pushed upwards as he’s bent in half while Mydei’s pace remains unrelenting and feral. Tears prick at the corner of Anaxa’s eyes as he isn’t given a break and fucked from one orgasm into the next. His neck falls to the side in offering. Waiting. Asking.

Mydei’s head tips forward. His breath is ragged and broken as he noses at Anaxa’s gland. The dichotomy of the gentle slide of his tongue to the loud slapping of their skin, slick with sweat and cum, has Anaxa keen and quietly beg through gritted teeth.

Mydei sobs. His knot finally slips inside. His teeth break through skin, incisors sharp. And Anaxa soars as he’s pumped full and sucked dry.

The feeling of his skin breaking so intentionally on a spot that is so vulnerable and exposed is strange, but his instincts cry in relief. The initial pain is brief and ebbs away in three heartbeats, and all that remains is addictive pleasure that has drool slide down the corner of his mouth.

There is no blood for Mydei to clean up, but he licks at the wound regardless as his breath rattles. Anaxa feels Mydei’s heart like his own. Maybe it is, now.

Mydei collapses on him and they fall to their sides. Limbs tangled, chests heaving, blissed out. Mydei never lets him go—presses them both closer together in a tight embrace. And Anaxa feels Mydei’s heart in his chest like this. It thuds, loud and strong, for them both.

They spend the rest of the day in floating, domestic bliss, interrupted whenever their instincts spike from the fresh bond that binds them. It's all gentle kisses and entwined arms and legs. United, connected, licking at the fresh mark to soothe and reignite the spark all the same. Mydei’s voice never ceases from being the sweetest melody Anaxa has ever known.

Hyacine brings food again in the evening, but the box from earlier remains closed by the nightstand. As the hours pass, Anaxa can feel the carnal instincts of his heat wane. It happens earlier than expected. All that’s left is clear desire—just as fierce when stoked, yet distinctly different. Mind over matter, in a way.

Come morning, they can both tell it’s over. Neither of them wants to mention it and break the spell. So they don’t.

They stay in bed together, if only to hold each other, to bask in one another’s scents. To enjoy this moment of peace while it lasts. They wash, and eat, and kiss as they cuddle. When Mydei’s curiosity about the box tips over, they uncover its secrets as well.

A myriad of toys neatly fill the box, lined with a richly colored velvet fabric. Mydei’s brows raise in interest, but he looks over to see how Anaxa feels.

Anaxa stares at the toys. Distant, calculating. If he had been alone, he knows a bitter taste would have lined his throat. But he isn’t alone. He looks over to Mydei and raises a brow in silent question.

For a moment, the prince flusters, but then grows serious. “You’d like to try them?”

A smile curves on Anaxa’s lips. He tilts his head, licks his lips, and lowers his eye in a way that has Mydei gulp. “Did I say to use them on me, Your Highness?”

And gorgeous, perfect crown prince of Castrum Kremnos, accepts the offer with a sharp inhale and blazen eyes. He lets himself be spread and worshiped and marked as Anaxa pulls out new sounds from his mouth with delicate fingers. Foregoing the provided oil, Anaxa uses his own slick to spread Mydei open for him. It feels intimate, possessive. Perfect.

To see the regal prince bent and panting and spread open just for him has pride and lust consume all reason.

He kisses along Mydei’s trembling back; lingers above the spot most vulnerable; pushes the toy deeper inside as he raises the speed setting. And Mydei sings for him so perfectly as he ruts helplessly into Anaxa’s hand, thick and leaking. His knot begs to catch and plug. So Anaxa squeezes it, and Mydei sobs at the onslaught of pleasure that must besiege his senses.

Right before Mydei topples over the edge—Anaxa knows from the way his breath catches and the distinct throbbing of his length and knot—Anaxa pulls the toy out and drops his hand.

To see the broad, strong prince gasping into the bed, hole stretched and waiting as it clamps down on nothing, thighs soaked in his slick, has Anaxa bite his lip in a way that would draw blood if it still could. His core throbs, aching, wanting. But he doesn’t want to bring relief by his hand.

Instead, he reaches for a different toy—smaller, meant to plug and stay inside, to give pin-point pleasure—and Mydei moans in relief as he’s filled again.

“On your back for me,” Anaxa gently says, one hand at Mydei’s waist.

Mydei heeds the command and rolls over, staring up at him through hazy eyes, face flushed and beautiful. The fringes of his bangs cling to his face from sweat. His length curves onto his stomach; precum pools there, and all Anaxa can think about is how badly he wants to be filled. How he wants to be full while he still can. The mark at his neck tingles at the thought, and the one at his hand joins it.

“You take it like you’re used to it, Your Highness,” Anaxa says, low and tempting as he crawls onto Mydei’s lap. “Anything you’d like to confess?”

But Mydei just smiles. “Think you already know.”

Oh, this little prince is deadly.

Anaxa curls a hand around Mydei’s length and seats himself.

The stretch has him gasp, now, without the aid of a heat making his walls excessively pliant and slick. But this, too, he will cherish. Anaxa grits his teeth as he sinks lower, determined to take it all. Determined to have Mydei’s knot latch just one more time. He steadies himself against Mydei’s chest in his descent.

Mydei’s gentle voice reminds him to breathe. Warm hands caress along his sides. Anaxa forces himself to unclench his jaw and lets his efforts escape with an exhale, and bit by bit, Mydei sinks further.

Soon, his knot presses against him, and Anaxa swallows.

“It’s okay,” Mydei says in reassurance. “You—”

“Don’t.” Anaxa glares. Determined even as his body trembles. “You know it’s pointless to try and stop me.”

Mydei’s laugh is airy, fond. It rattles in Anaxa’s chest. “Yes, I do know.”

If Mydei can still laugh, then clearly he needs to change something. So Anaxa sits up and grabs the remote he had left by Mydei’s thighs and turns the toy on.

Mydei’s eyes fly open as his grip on Anaxa’s waist turns iron.

“It’s okay,” Anaxa echoes in mocking challenge. The vibrations pulse into him with a pleasant lull. “I can always turn it off.”

Mydei glares. He gathers his strength with a gulp. “Don’t,” he grits, attempting to mirror Anaxa but sounding just a little too breathless.

Anaxa smirks as he turns it up another notch.

Mydei’s head falls back with a groan as his hips jerk upwards, and the remote almost slips out of Anaxa’s hand as he’s rocked. It’s a challenge of who will fall first. He can’t say who has the bigger disadvantage. They’re both wrung out and tired. Fucked empty and full. And still, they’re both too desperate to actually stop.

They still have this one night. This one night.

Anaxa falls forward into Mydei’s waiting embrace. With rattled breaths, he fills his chest with the sharp, lovely, tangy scent of home.

Home.

The black tide may have taken a lot from him—from everyone—but it hasn’t taken this. Not yet.

“Mydei,” Anaxa pleads, too tired for more, knowing it will be understood.

And it’s with a kiss to the top of his head that Mydei slips inside fully and he can allow himself to have release wash over him.

It runs down his body in soothing, tired waves which meet the pulses of the toy pushing into oversensitivity. Mydei moans his name like the melody of the ocean. And even with the approaching night being the prelude for a day that will change everything for them, Anaxa allows himself the bliss of the sea. It’s cooling. Grounding. His crystalline heart grows heavy as he watches the tide.

But even if the water grazes his ankles, it can’t do more than that to him. Because Mydei is warm and safe. A sanctuary for comfort. Because Mydei is his home, and he will always find the way back to it. He will always leave the sea behind and return to the shade of a tree. He will find the creek, and he will trace back the steps until he’s enveloped by pomegranate and cotton. It’s as true as the heartbeat below his cheek.

They share another bath—a simple one. Mydei may be silent as his hands wash over Anaxa’s body, but each caress is laden with longing. Heavy with thought. His lips look dry, tense, so Anaxa wets them with his own. He eases them open until the tension of Mydei’s shoulders joins the waters below.

“What is the plan, Anaxa?” Mydei asks when they part. It feels strangely loud, even when said so softly. There’s a quiet, tired desperation to it.

“For tonight, we rest,” Anaxa replies, brushing aside some of Mydei’s hair. “As for tomorrow… Well, we both have our duties to follow, don’t we? This was but a brief respite for us both.”

Mydei’s expression hardens. His arms wind tighter around Anaxa’s waist. But he doesn’t counter it. So Anaxa loosely curls his arms around Mydei’s neck, softening his tone.

“Your Highness… Promise me one thing,” Anaxa says, the bond throbbing in his neck and hand like a heartbeat would, “return to me once our time comes. Fight, but do not sacrifice.” He cradles Mydei’s cheek, then, and pretends the droplets he finds there are water and steam. “Do as you always have, and return to me.”

“Always.”

Anaxa’s skin tingles as they slip further into the tub. Two bodies, one heart. Their path may be littered with choices they cannot avoid, hardship awaiting at every turn, and fate written in the stars, but they still have this: a bond that cannot be broken. One that has conquered time itself, no matter how warped it has become. They have each other for one more night, and no matter what the future may hold, they will find to each other again.

It’s under the quiet, watchful gaze of the stars that Anaxa decides to return a gesture from long ago.

Mydei has already slipped into the bed with loose pants but no shirt when Anaxa walks to the nightstand and opens its drawer. His hair is still somewhat damp, curling at the edges, as he picks up his ring.

“Mydei,” he says, unsure how to follow it. The low light catches on the golden metal as he gently swivels it between thumb and index finger. The red gem breaks the light into something soft, much like the one within his hand. “It’s not the same, nor as romantic as it could be, or as it was, but I hope this will do.”

It’s only then that he looks up and notices Mydei stare at him with wide, uncertain eyes. When he approaches the bed, Mydei sits up.

“What do you…”

“A promise,” Anaxa says. “One to always return.” He finds comfort in sunshine eyes that stare at him with complicated emotions. His voice grows soft. “Right?”

Mydei is silent for a moment. His jaw is tense. “Yes. Always.”

A smile tugs at Anaxa’s lips and he extends a waiting hand. Mydei meets him just a heartbeat later; his hand trembles ever so slightly, but their fingers tighten their hold and slide together as one. Anaxa clings to this. He strengthens his grip as he imprints the pressure of their skin to memory.

With a slow caress, Anaxa traces Mydei’s ring finger with his thumb and comes to rest at the pinky.

“Then, with the moon as our witness… let this bond be forged.”

The ring slides onto Mydei’s pinky finger, and Anaxa hopes the image will be etched into his soul. He cradles the calloused hand—larger than his own, so torn from duty yet always remaining gentle—and raises it for a kiss.

“Do not succumb to Strife, Mydeimos.”

A kiss. A promise. A proof of devotion, even if merely shared in the privacy of their bedroom. Mydei deserves a grand gesture. Hopefully the next life will grant them the opportunity.

Instead of replying, Mydei pulls him close. He pulls him into a soul-crushing hug if he still had one. It’s warm, so safe, surrounding him with cotton and peace. But there’s also the tainted borders of despair that Anaxa attempts to brush away.

Mydei’s voice is strained through gritted teeth. “Stop saying it like a goodbye, Anaxagoras.”

And Anaxa can only laugh, short and light, as he toys with Mydei’s hair; as he inhales pomegranate and cotton as part of himself and feels life itself hum through their bond. “Very well. We do still have a ‘good morning’ awaiting us.”

Mydei mumbles something into his chest before he’s dragged to bed and not let go.

During the night, forehead pressed to Mydei’s chest and hands entwined, he dreams of a great tree and lush fields. He dreams of a boy whose smile puts the sun to shame. He dreams of a curse and the way it’s broken.

And when he wakes, the sun is there, warming his skin. Gracing him with warmth and comfort despite the uncertainty a new day carries.

The dream may be over, but the story isn’t.