Chapter Text
Charles didn't look in the mirror. In fact, he tried not to look anywhere at all, locking his gaze onto a tiny, barely visible crack in the stone masonry of the wall opposite him. That crack was the only real thing in his chambers, which were otherwise drenched in faux gold.
Behind him, there was a quiet, methodical rustle. Oscar moved with his accustomed, almost frightening precision: tightening the thin strings at the collar of the snowy-white shirt, smoothing out the stiff pleats of the ceremonial doublet. His fingers were cool and dry. Not a single wasted movement or fussy sigh. In this palace, where everyone was either choking on their own bile or trembling with primal fear, Oscar's icy calm remained Charles's only anchor.
"If you pull any tighter by even a millimeter, I'll suffocate right here, and Uncle will have to put a corpse in the arena," Charles said.
"A corpse wouldn't fetch high enough stakes, my Prince," Oscar replied evenly, loosening the silk cord by exactly one measured tug. "Your uncle needs a spectacle with a beating heart for the finale. Alive, preferably trembling and incredibly beautiful. You fit all three criteria perfectly."
"You're disgustingly pragmatic, Oscar."
"I'm a realist. And I'm trying to ensure the collar doesn't chafe your neck when you have to sit with your head held high for six hours straight."
Oscar finally turned him around, critically surveying the result of his work. For a second, something heavy flickered in his usually impenetrable eyes, but he instantly hid it behind the familiar mask of a detached servant. He reached out and carefully, almost weightlessly, adjusted a stray dark lock at Charles's temple.
It was the gesture not of a subject, but of a friend. The only person in this whole cursed world who knew how loudly Charles had screamed into his pillow at night after his family was slaughtered within these very walls.
"Are you scared?" Oscar asked quietly.
"No," Charles blinked slowly. He felt so empty inside, as if someone had scraped out his ribs with an iron spoon, leaving not even an old ache behind. "You're scared when you believe there's a chance to be saved and you're afraid of losing it. But I know how everything will end. What's the difference whose fangs sink into my neck in a few weeks? That bastard from the north who loves breaking omegas' fingers, or some mercenary who decided to buy himself a title? The outcome is the same. I'll just move from one cage to another."
"The cage might end up having an open door."
"You don't believe that yourself."
"I believe that human stupidity is boundless, and accidents sometimes break the strongest bars." Oscar took from the table a heavy silver ring with the royal family crest — the very one his uncle had graciously allowed Charles to continue wearing as a brand — and slid it onto omega's ring finger. "Breathe through your nose. If you start feeling nauseous, look at the top of the central flagpole. It's at exactly the right angle so it seems like you're looking at the arena, but you'll only see the sky. I'll be standing three steps behind your left shoulder."
"Thanks," Charles breathed out barely audibly, closing his eyes for a moment to soak in this last second of silence.
The heavy oak doors of the chambers swung open without a knock. The captain of the palace guard appeared on the threshold. He was a coarse alpha reeking of sour ale, and his mere presence made the air in the room instantly grow heavy.
"It's time, Your Highness," he rasped, twisting his lips into a semblance of respect behind which mockery was clearly visible. "The spectators have been waiting. The main course must take its place at the table."
The path to the royal box seemed to Charles like a direct road to death. When two guards pulled open the forged doors leading to the balcony, Charles was nearly thrown backward by a dense wave of scents.
It was a monstrous mixture. Sand scorched by the midday sun, cheap rancid oil used by low-ranking fighters to coat their bodies, the sour sweat of tens of thousands of people filling the stands to the very top tier, and the suffocating, aggressive pheromones of aroused alphas.
The crowd craved blood. It vibrated, stamping its feet so that the stone floor under the soles of Charles's shoes trembled slightly.
"And here is our prize!" a booming voice rang out from the left.
His uncle sat in a high-backed carved chair, lolling with one leg crossed over the other. Resting on his lap was a heavy cane with a gold knob in the shape of a snarling wolf's head. Nearby, lips pursed and fanning herself with a peacock feather fan, sat his wife, whose perfume smelled of cloyingly sweet rot.
Charles walked silently to his designated spot slightly in front, at the very edge of the balcony, so that every ragamuffin in the back rows could see the omega's thin silhouette. He sat down, his back perfectly straight, and placed his hands on his knees. His fingers dug into the silk of his trousers with such force that his knuckles turned white.
A deafening strike of a copper gong rang out over the arena.
A herald stepped onto the raised platform in the center of the sandy circle. His artificially amplified voice rolled over the stadium, forcing the stands to fall silent for a moment.
"I welcome you, loyal subjects of the crown! Free citizens and guests of our great capital!" he roared, spreading his arms. "Today we open the Bloody Tournament! Eighty of the most glorious warriors, mercenaries, and lords from all corners of the continent have gathered here to prove their right to victory!"
The crowd exploded in a welcoming roar. The herald paused, theatrically pointing his hand upward, directly at Charles.
"At stake is not just ten chests of pure imperial gold, but ancient blood! Whoever remains standing on this sand last will receive the hand and heart of Prince Charles, securing their right to enter the ruling family!"
Thousands of eyes instantly bored into Charles. He physically felt sticky, hungry, evaluating gazes sliding over his face, his neck, and creeping under his clothes. He felt sick. A bitter lump rose to his throat, but he didn't allow himself even to swallow.
"The rules are simple," the herald continued to broadcast. "Only one duel a day for each participant. Before entering, fighters are provided with a weapons rack. Only one weapon may be chosen, no shields. He who falls and does not rise remains on this sand forever. There is no mercy, and death is the only judge!"
The gong struck a second time. The herald hastily left the arena, and from two opposite grated gates, the first opponents stepped onto the sand.
Charles didn't remember their names. Some hulking brute with a heavy flail and a nimble, wiry mercenary with twin daggers. When they converged in the center, Charles closed his eyes.
He thought that blindness would protect him, but the sound turned out to be far more brutal. The screech of metal, the wet slap of something heavy hitting flesh, a stifled, gurgling wheeze, the ecstatic roar of the stands.
When Charles finally forced himself to open his lids, the mercenary was already on his knees, clutching his torn throat with his hands, and from under his fingers, dark liquid was spurting onto the yellow sand in pulses.
The fights went on one after another, merging for Charles into an endless bloody carousel. The smell of fresh blood rose to the royal box, settling on his lips with a salty taste. Oscar, standing behind him, tapped his heel against the stone with an almost inaudible, rhythmic sound, and this measured beat helped Charles count the seconds and not faint.
The sun had passed its zenith when the herald announced the seventh duel.
"He is from the southern wastelands, undefeated in battle! The one whose name makes even seasoned legionnaires tremble! Shion, nicknamed The Jackal!"
The grate rose with a clatter, and an alpha stepped onto the sand. He exuded such a thick, suffocating wave of pheromones of scorched musk and rotting leaves that Charles reflexively shifted his shoulders, trying to shield himself.
Shion was shirtless; his swarthy skin, bumpy with molded muscles, was completely covered in tattoos depicting snarling skulls and writhing snakes. He didn't just walk; he strutted, playing with his shoulders and smiling widely and predatorily at the stands.
The crowd roared his name, and The Jackal basked in this adoration. Approaching the weapons rack, he disdainfully kicked away a classic sword and grabbed a heavy iron mace studded with serrated spikes.
His opponent turned out to be a very young lad, apparently the youngest son of some bankrupt noble family, who had decided to risk his life for the sake of saving his family. He held a long spear in his trembling hands, and his pallor was visible even from the height of the royal box.
The duel was not a fight, but a show trial.
Shion wasn't trying to finish it quickly. He played with the boy like a sated cat with a broken-backed mouse. He parried the spear thrusts effortlessly, leaving shallow, bleeding lacerations on the opponent's body, forcing him to dart across the sand under the cackling of the crowd.
Charles dug his nails into his palms until they crunched. He was shaking. In the eyes of the doomed youth, he saw the same expression with which his own mother had looked at her killers a second before her throat was cut.
"Stop it," Charles whispered barely audibly with whitened lips. "Just kill him. Don't torture..."
As if hearing his plea, Shion made a sharp lunge. The heavy spiked mace smashed the youth's knee with a sickening crunch. He collapsed onto the sand with a piercing, inhuman shriek. The Jackal slowly approached him, raised his weapon, and, looking directly at the frenzied crowd, brought it down.
Charles gasped, feeling his stomach twist into a knot. He squeezed his eyes shut, green circles floated before them, but what forced him to open his eyes was the suddenly changed tone of the noise in the stands.
Shion didn't walk toward the exit. Stepping over the mangled body, he headed straight for the wall above which the royal box hung. He stopped below, tilted his head back, and his face, splattered with another's still-warm blood, broke into a triumphant grin.
"Hey, prince!" he shouted so loudly that his voice drowned out the stadium's hum.
Charles forced himself to look down. The Jackal's eyes burned with a wild, lustful fire.
"See how I smashed him?" Shion ran his broad tongue over his upper lip, licking away a drop of blood. His gaze slowly, shamelessly groped Charles from his collar to his thighs. "Remember that strike, sweetie! When I win this tournament and lock you in the bedroom, I'll be pounding my sperm into you with just as much force! You'll be screaming under me louder than this puppy! Prepare your tender ass, The Jackal is coming for you!"
The crowd burst into laughter, whistling and hooting.
Charles felt absolutely naked, rolled in filth before thousands of these sweaty, cackling monsters. He wanted to peel off his skin just to wash away this sensation.
To his side, a quiet, approving chuckle sounded.
"He has fire," his uncle drawled, tapping his fingers on the armrest. "A bit crude, but the people like it. A good breeder for a fading line, don't you think, nephew?"
Charles didn't answer. He sat there turned into a statue until Oscar, behind his back, squeezed his shoulder almost imperceptibly. Exactly for one second, but enough to transmit a tiny pulse of warmth and support.
The next three hours turned into a gray mist. Charles had learned to shut off his hearing. He stared at the central flagpole, just as Oscar had told him, watching how the heavy cloth with the royal crest swayed lazily in the wind.
Down there on the sand, people continued to die. Bones crunched, blood flowed, the herald shouted new names, but for Charles, it all merged into a monotonous background noise.
He was dead.
The Charles Leclerc who once ran through these gardens and laughed with his brothers was dead.
The sun began to dip toward the west. The strike of the gong sounded deeper, as if announcing the end of a long, exhausting day.
"And finally!" the herald's voice had grown slightly hoarse by evening, but intriguing notes appeared in it. "The last duel of the first round! On one side, the veteran of the northern wars, called the Iron Bear, Bjorn!"
A giant tumbled out of the right gate. He was clad in leather armor with metal plates on his shoulders, his face crossed by an ugly scar across his entire forehead. The crowd met him with a respectful hum, for Bjorn was known here.
"And against him..." the herald hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking into his scroll. "A fighter who has named neither his clan nor his title! Registered under the name Mad Max!"
The left grate crept upward. The stands, which had been preparing to roar, suddenly fell silent. A strange, wary silence set in.
A man walked onto the sand, and he was not a giant like Bjorn, but in his figure, wrapped in simple, dark, dense clothing without a single crest or ornament, one could feel a heavy, molded, primal power.
His head was wrapped tightly, in several layers, with coarse black cloth.
The mask hid everything: forehead, chin, lips, cheekbones. Only his eyes were visible — blue, deep-set, hidden in the shadows of furrowed brows. No waves of aggressive pheromones emanated from him. He didn't smell of anything at all, as if he were deliberately suppressing his alpha-essence, locking it away tightly like a heavy safe.
Unlike all the previous fighters, he didn't raise his hands, didn't look at the stands, and, to Charles's astonishment, he never once, not even briefly, lifted his gaze to the royal box.
"What kind of clown show is this?" Charles's aunt snorted disdainfully, fanning herself. "Is he a leper? Or hiding the brand of an escaped convict?"
"We'll find out soon enough," his uncle drawled, leaning forward. His squinting eyes flashed predatorily. "If he's a weakling, Bjorn will snap his neck in half a minute."
Max approached the weapons rack. While his opponent, playing with his muscles, chose a huge double-handed ax, Max let his gaze slide over the arsenal. His hand in a dark glove settled without hesitation on the hilt of a hand-and-a-half sword, the most ordinary one, without engravings or precious stones.
Max weighed it in his hand, made one short, test-run circular movement with his wrist, and turned to his opponent. He didn't stand in an effective stance, he simply lowered the blade tip to the sand and froze.
"Hey, ragamuffin!" Bjorn bellowed, spitting under his feet. "Take the rag off your head! I want to see the face of the bastard whose skull I'm about to break!"
Max didn't answer, continuing to remain calm.
"Are you deaf, or what?" the opponent roared, gripped the ax more comfortably, and rushed forward.
The ground shuddered under his heavy steps. Bjorn put all his monstrous strength into the swing; the ax blade descended from top to bottom with a whistle, capable of cutting a person in half together with their armor.
The crowd gasped.
Max didn't block this blow, because it would have been suicide. An imperceptible fraction of a second before the steel was meant to crush his shoulder, he took one step to the side. Bjorn's ax struck the sand with a dull thud, dragging the fighter's massive body along by inertia.
Max didn't delay for even an instant. His blade flashed from bottom to top in a short, blurred silver arc.
Charles's hearing caught the sound of flesh being sliced. There was neither a scream nor a long struggle. Max simply took a step back, lowering the sword.
Bjorn froze, and his hands released the ax-haft. He slowly, disbelievingly brought his palms to his throat, from which a scarlet line began to appear in a thin, even streak. In the next second, the giant figure of the Iron Bear collapsed onto the sand face-first, raising a cloud of golden dust. He was dead even before his knees touched the ground.
The duel lasted exactly four seconds.
Such silence hung over the stadium that one could hear a raven cawing somewhere under the dome. People in the stands were frozen with open mouths. No one whistled or shouted his name. They simply hadn't managed to understand what had happened.
Max stood over the body for exactly two seconds. He didn't put his foot on the chest of the defeated enemy and didn't emit a victory cry like the others did.
With a calm, measured movement, he lifted the blade, wedged it into the crook of his elbow wrapped in dense cloth, and in one fluid movement, wiped the blood off the steel. Then he simply turned and walked toward the same gate he had emerged from.
"Wait!" squeaked the herald, who had jumped to the edge of the arena and had also just come to his senses. "The winner of the last fight is Mad Max!"
Max didn't even slow his pace. The shadow of the arched vault swallowed his figure, and the grate descended with a heavy clatter behind his back.
Only then did the stadium explode with sound. But it wasn't a roar of delight, but a hum of anxious, terror-mixed whispering.
Charles sat without moving. He looked at the empty dark maw of the gate behind which the fighter in the mask had disappeared.
All the other tournament participants were understandable to Charles. They were monsters, sadists, vain peacocks, or desperate fools. Their cruelty was loud, dirty, smelling of sweat and lust.
This man was different.
He had killed his opponent with frightening efficiency. There was no sadism in him, and he didn't want to cause pain. But there was no mercy in him, either. He had simply removed an obstacle in his path and left.
"An interesting specimen," his uncle's voice sounded in Charles's ear, making him flinch. The man was leaning on his cane, looking at the bloodstain left by Bjorn. "Completely wild. Mute, by the looks of it. But what confidence... Well, Charles. It seems your wedding night promises to be much more unpredictable than we thought."
His uncle turned and, shuffling his feet, headed for the exit from the box, followed by his retinue.
Charles remained sitting. The sun had finally fallen below the horizon, drenching the sand below in deep purple shadow. Oscar stepped forward, silently handing him a heavy cloak.
"It's time, my prince," he said quietly.
Charles rose slowly. His legs were numb, his temples pulsing with pain. He threw the cloak over his shoulders, but before turning away, he cast one more, last look at the dark arch of the gate.
With each new dawn, the tournament resembled more and more a gigantic, insatiable hourglass in which human lives fell downward instead of grains of sand.
Charles sat in his seat in the box as if nailed to the chair by invisible nails. He had learned to look through the arena. He saw only the geometric trajectories of movements: a swing, a short lunge, a ridiculous, broken somersault of a falling body. But the name of Mad Max gnawed into the palace walls more strongly every day, creeping through the corridors as an exciting whisper.
This fighter in the mask remained an anomaly. Mercenaries and steppe barbarians who went up against him in the quarterfinals and semifinals tried to take him with fury, cunning, and the heaviest weapons, but the result remained unchanged. Max didn't dance on the sand, didn't emit battle cries, and didn't try to humiliate the defeated.
But the main thing for Charles was something else. Throughout all these long, exhausting days, Mad Max never once lifted his head toward the royal balcony.
When, after another clean victory, the fighter silently turned and left through the gate, Charles felt a strange, bitter relief mixed with cold.
This man didn't need an omega of royal blood. He didn't need these ostentatious titles or the right to sit at the same table as his uncle's family.
Max had come for the chests of imperial gold.
To him, Charles was just an abstract, inanimate addition to a bank note, a free accessory that could be locked in the far rooms of a purchased estate and forgotten. And that suited Charles. Someone who doesn't see you as a person, at least, won't demand love from you.
By the end of the second week, only two figures remained on the tournament board, their collision as inevitable as an avalanche.
Mad Max and Shion.
By that time, The Jackal had turned his duels into a disgusting, bloody cult. The crowd was literally going crazy over him; women threw handkerchiefs onto the sand, alphas roared his name, intoxicated by the waves of his heavy, aggressive pheromones. Shion basked in it. He deliberately dragged out the fights, forcing his opponents to bleed, to crawl before him on their knees, and every time, when delivering the final blow, he would turn to Charles's box, licking his lips and demonstratively playing with his hips.
The evening before the final was windless and heavy. Charles stood on the stone balcony of his chambers, clutching the forged railing with whitened fingers.
Oscar, as always, froze like a silent shadow two steps behind. They talked quietly about some insignificant trifles — the quality of the tea, the need to sew buttons onto a travel doublet — just to fill the oppressive silence.
Suddenly, from below, from the wide terrace of the laundry wing, a resonant, silly girlish laugh reached them.
Charles involuntarily lowered his gaze. Down there, having laid out freshly washed sheets on the stone parapets, four palace maids were gossiping. Their voices, clear and devoid of any caution, carried distinctly in the night silence.
"...I'm telling you for sure, the fight steward swore to our cook!" one of them, with red hair, chirped. "They were deliberately kept at opposite ends of the bracket! His Majesty personally ordered it. If The Jackal and The Mad One had met on the very first day, who would have bought tickets for these two weeks? But now the whole city has gone crazy, the bets are such that you could buy half the kingdom!"
"And who did you bet on?" the second interrupted her. "The Jackal?"
"As if! The Jackal is good, of course, look at those shoulders, but he's crazy. Did you see what he did to his opponent yesterday? You wouldn't envy our prince, of course... In bed, The Jackal will break him in half and not even notice. They say he tied his concubines in the south to the bed so they wouldn't kick. But at least he's a striking man, high-born."
"Oh, come on, our prince is as pale as a moth, it'll do him good if he gets crumpled properly!" the third giggled, and the girls rolled with laughter again. "But what if the mute in the mask wins? Now that's a horror!"
"Mommies, don't remind me!" the first girl theatrically hugged herself. "Whenever I look at him, my knees shake. He stands like a wooden stick. And that black rag... I asked the grooms, they say he hides his face because there's no face there! Either he burned in a fire as a child, or leprosy ate his nose. Just raw red meat! That's why he's always silent, he probably doesn't even have lips to speak, or his voice is such that dogs would drop dead!"
"Just imagine..." the fourth drawled in a quiet, voluptuously-pitying whisper. "Wedding night, they bring our prince into the bedroom, close the doors, this Mad One takes off his mask, and there's a noseless monster! And he tries to kiss him with his stumps! I'd die of fear right there. It's better if The Jackal fucks the prince, honestly. At least he looks like a human, while Max is a demon from the underworld. Poor, poor Prince Charles. Such a doll, and he'll go to such a monstrosity..."
The laughter resumed with renewed vigor.
Charles slowly closed his eyes. Such a dense, suffocating lump of nausea rose to his throat that he had to convulsively gasp for air. It was as if his insides had been doused with slop. They were discussing his body, his future pain, and his humiliation with the same fervor as they discussed the quality of fabric at a fair. To them, he was no longer a person; he was just a piece of fresh meat thrown into an enclosure with two predators, and the only question was exactly who would tear this meat with their teeth: a handsome sadist or a disfigured monster.
Behind his back, a sharp, dry sound occurred. Oscar had half-drawn a heavy dagger from its sheath. His face, which usually resembled a frozen death mask, was distorted with rage.
"I'll go down," Oscar's voice vibrated on a low note. "No one will even understand where the blade came from. I'll throw them off the terrace into the moat."
"No," Charles breathed out. He didn't turn around, but his hand blindly found his friend's elbow and dug into his sleeve with a death grip. "Leave them."
"Prince..."
"I said no, Oscar. Don't you dare."
"They're dragging your name through the mud!"
"They're telling the truth," Charles's voice sounded even and lifeless. "Why break the mirror for showing an ugly room? I really am a prize to be locked in a bedroom. I'll have to spread my legs before whoever survives tomorrow. What's the difference what the laundresses think about it? Let's go inside. I want to drink poppy tincture and sleep."
The morning of the final split the capital in half with the deafening roar of copper trumpets.
When Charles entered the royal box, it seemed to him for a second that the stadium was about to collapse under the weight of human bodies. People were sitting in the aisles, hanging from stone balustrades, crowding on the roofs of outbuildings.
His uncle sat in his chair, flushed, looking like a gluttonous spider. His fingers nervously stroked the gold knob of his cane.
"Ninety thousand gold sovereigns just on the bets alone, Charles!" he wheezed, not looking at his nephew. "You turned out to be the most profitable commodity our line has ever produced. You can be proud of yourself. Your mother would have been happy to know that your ass saved the royal treasury."
Charles remained silent. He sat down, straightened his back out of habit, and folded his hands on his knees. He wore a white silk suit devoid of any embroidery — the color of mourning in his family's ancient traditions, which his uncle foolishly took for a symbol of the bride's innocence.
The gong struck three times. The herald didn't make long speeches and shouted two names.
The grates crept upward simultaneously.
From the right side, Shion flew onto the arena. The crowd roared so that Charles's ears popped. The Jackal was magnificent in his wild fury. On his shoulders, traces of past battles burned like fresh scars; the tattoos seemed like living snakes on his bulging muscles.
Shion didn't go to the standard rack, because his squire had already brought out a monstrous double-handed cleaver with a serrated blade that widened toward the end. Shion grabbed it with one hand, effortlessly twirled it over his head, slicing the air with a whistle.
Mad Max walked out exactly as he had on the first day. No hurry or greetings. Dense dark clothing without crests, a head wrapped in black cloth, and a slow gait. He approached the rack, took his usual plain steel blade from it, checked the balance, and turned to the center of the circle.
"Well, freak?!" roared Shion, spitting onto the sand. His pheromones hit with a wave of such force that the omegas in the lower rows of the stands began instinctively covering their faces. "Today I'll rip this rag off you and make you eat your own nose, if you even have one left! You'll die here, and I'll fuck your tender prince right on your corpse!"
Max merely lowered his sword tip to the sand.
The gong sounded for the last time.
Shion covered the twenty paces separating them in three seconds and brought his gigantic cleaver down in a jump, putting his entire mass into this blow.
Max didn't evade and took the blow on his crossed hilt. The clang of metal was so terrible that Charles reflexively flinched. White sparks sprayed in all directions. The shockwave kicked up a cloud of golden dust around the fighters.
For the first time in the entire tournament, Max was thrown back. His boots carved two deep furrows in the sand. Shion, emitting a triumphant yell, immediately went on the attack.
Max defended with sparse, rigid movements. His blade rang continuously. He retreated, and he was being pressed against the arena's stone border. The crowd was going wild, anticipating a quick resolution. The Jackal was faster, bigger, and clearly obsessed with a fighting mood.
At some point, Shion made a feint toward the head, and then sharply cut with the blade from below.
Max managed to turn his torso, but the serrated edge of the cleaver still reached him. The fabric on the fighter's left shoulder burst with a ringing crack. A wide, wet, shining-in-the-sun strip of fresh blood instantly appeared on the dark cloth.
The stadium howled in ecstasy.
"Blood!" screamed Charles's aunt, jumping up from her seat. "He's bleeding! Come on, The Jackal, finish him!"
Charles didn't notice how he leaned forward. Inside him, some thin string suddenly snapped. He looked at this spreading scarlet spot on Max's shoulder and felt... panic, inexplicable, wild, twisting his lungs.
Mad Max was not a demon. Hidden under that black mask was a living human of flesh and blood, a man who was hurting right now and who was being slowly beaten to death by a monster who would turn Charles's life into hell. And if this silent man fell now, Charles would be left one on one with The Jackal.
Forever.
"Please..." this word broke from Charles's throat in a miserable, involuntary rasp. "Please, get up..."
Shion laughed, licking splashes of someone else's blood from his cheek.
"Does it hurt, you piece of shit?!" he yelled, raising the cleaver again. "Come on, whimper! Beg for mercy! I want to hear your ugly voice before I rip out your windpipe!"
Max lowered his head for a split second, looking at his bleeding shoulder. When Shion lunged forward for the decisive, horizontal blow capable of taking off his opponent's head, Max made a dash to meet him, straight inside the dead zone of the gigantic cleaver.
He slipped under the Jackal's raised arms. The cleaver blade sliced through the emptiness above his mask with a whistle.
Without giving his opponent a chance to collect himself, Max threw his body forward, slamming his shoulder into Shion's chest. A dull thud of colliding bodies rang out. With his healthy right hand, Max gripped Shion's wrist, blocking the weapon, and with his left, he lightning-fast jerked his sword vertically upward, wedging it under his armpit close to the enemy's body.
Max sharply, with monstrous effort, twisted his sword hilt from bottom to top. The blade entered Shion under the ribs, piercing the diaphragm and rushing through the lungs straight to the heart.
Shion's roar broke off on its highest note, turning into a gurgling, miserable wheeze. His eyes, which a second before had been burning with madness, bulged from their sockets. The huge cleaver fell out of his weakened fingers and dropped onto the sand with a dull thud. Shion tried to breathe, but thick, dark foam poured in a spurt from his open mouth, flooding the black cloth on Max's face.
Max didn't let go of him. He looked into The Jackal's fading pupils with his heavy and calm gaze, until the opponent's body began to convulse in a major, death-rattle seizure.
Only then did Max make a sharp movement backward, pulling out the steel. Shion collapsed, settling into a pile of mangled meat, burying his face in his own pooled puddle.
At first, silence reigned in the arena.
The numbness could not last forever. People jumped up from their seats, threw their hats into the air, trampled the stone steps with their heels, and screamed.
Charles's uncle exhaled slowly. In his puffy, squinting eyes, a triumphant fire danced. He looked at the maddened crowd, which right now was acknowledging his greatness as the organizer of the greatest spectacle of the decade.
"Amazing," the king muttered, tapping the gold knob of his cane on the floor. "The people will drink to my health until the winter solstice. Let's go, nephew. It's time to descend into this filth and throw our savage his well-deserved bone."
Charles rose mechanically. His knees were shaking, and his mouth was so dry that his tongue felt like a rough piece of cloth. As they moved down the dark, narrow stairs, Charles felt like a ghost.
They stepped onto the sand under the hum of the stands. Charles's snow-white shoes immediately got stuck in the golden dust mixed with dark, blood-soaked, damp clumps.
Max stood ten steps away from them. He had frozen in place, lowering the bloodied sword with its tip into the sand, and his chest under the torn black jacket was rising heavily. From the deep wound on his left shoulder, dark, glistening rivulets crept down the fabric, falling in large drops.
The King stopped at a safe distance — five paces away — prudently shielded by the broad backs of four guards. He winced with disgust as he looked at the bloodstains, but immediately plastered a wide, fake-benevolent smile on his face.
"A magnificent victory!" the King declared resoundingly, spreading his arms as if to embrace the entire stadium. "The continent hasn't seen such fury and such technique! Ten chests of choice imperial gold are now yours, fighter! You entered this sand as a nobody, and you leave as the wealthiest man in the capital! You can buy yourself a county, you can buy an entire fleet..."
"I don't need your dirty money."
The voice sounded soft, but the stadium, catching the sound, shut up mid-word. A silence fell so profound that the rustling of sand falling from the guards' boots could be heard.
Mad Max had spoken for the first time. And his voice didn't sound like the wheeze of a convict or the bark of a beast. It was the low, clear, slightly raspy voice, from long breathing through dense fabric, of a very calm, self-confident alpha who wasn't asking, but stating a fact.
"Don't need it?" the King repeated. His languid smile slowly slid off his face, giving way to genuine bewilderment. "Ten chests of pure gold?"
Max didn't trouble himself with explanations. He slowly raised his right hand in a dark glove and extended his index finger, pointing it over the guards' shoulders directly at Charles's chest.
"I only need him."
Inside, everything in Charles broke and plummeted into an abyss. The alpha's finger, aimed at him, felt like the physical tip of a spear pressed to his throat. His vision darkened.
If this man didn't need gold capable of buying a small state, then what monstrous, perverse goals drove him? Why did he need a broken prince without a family? To sacrifice him to his northern gods? To turn him into a personal slave to vent his hatred for the nobility on royal blood every day?
Charles felt bile rising to his throat. He stood in his white mourning silk and understood that right now, he had been sold to the devil for free.
"An interesting choice," the King said, slightly pensive. Giving away his nephew and keeping the gold in the treasury? It wasn't just luck; it was a divine blessing. "But that's your right. The agreement is sealed with blood."
The King straightened up, remembering the ninety thousand spectators who were greedily catching every movement in the arena, and switched back to the mode of a magnanimous monarch.
"However, since you're now entering the ruling house, do the crown the honor," the King said loudly, pointing with his cane at the fighter's face. "Take off your mask. My nephew has the right to see the face of his future husband, and my people, the face of their new lord."
Max didn't move. For several long, agonizing seconds, he just looked at the King with his heavy gaze, and Charles managed to think that he would refuse now.
But Max slowly raised his healthy right hand to the back of his head. His fingers dug into the tight, sweat-and-dust-soaked knot. The stadium froze as if everyone’s vocal cords had been cut at once. The maids in the upper tiers had surely already squeezed their eyes shut, waiting to see a collapsed nose, rotting sores, or cheekbones charred to the bone.
Max pulled at the edge, and the long black ribbon began to slowly, coil by coil, unwind, revealing first a strong-willed, stubborn chin, then tightly compressed, well-defined lips, the straight line of cheekbones...
When the last black scrap slid off his neck and fell onto the blood-soaked sand, Max threw his head back, brushing the damp, stuck locks from his forehead.
One gigantic, collective sigh swept over the arena.
No scars and rotting meat. A young and incredibly beautiful alpha’s face looked at Charles. He had clean, slightly weathered golden skin, a straight, noble nose, and a strong jaw. Fair, almost wheat-colored hair, darkened at the roots from sweat, fell onto a high forehead. In his stern face, devoid of any arrogance, was that rare masculinity that artists had spent centuries trying to carve out of marble for statues of ancient heroes.
Charles stared at him with wide eyes, unable to draw a breath. The contrast between the monstrous expectation and reality hit him hard. But the fear hadn't gone anywhere; it had just changed form. A beautiful monster remained a monster. The fact that he had ideal facial features didn't make his blade any less sharp, nor his intentions less frightening.
"Well then..." the King was the first to recover, his voice trembling with unconcealed pleasure. "It seems the gods are exceptionally generous to our family today. Welcome to the palace, Lord... Max. A feast awaits us."
The feast in the Great Throne Room looked most of all like the hurried nailing down of a coffin lid. The King sat at the head of the table and beamed as if he had single-handedly conquered half the world.
The wedding ceremony took exactly four minutes. The priest hastily read ancient prayers over a cup of wine, forced them to touch the same chalice with their lips, and sealed the parchment with a heavy wax seal.
Max remained absolutely detached throughout this farce. The palace physician tried to stitch his shoulder right in the hallway, but Max only allowed the wound to be tightly bound with clean linen and flatly refused to put on the ceremonial doublet offered to him, remaining in his simple dark shirt.
He didn't sit at the table, didn't touch the roasted quail, and didn't drink a drop from the royal goblets. He stood by a high carved column, arms crossed over his chest, and his gaze followed Charles's every movement intently.
"Sign the papers," Max said when the King tried to propose another toast. "We're leaving in an hour. The horses are already saddled."
"Why such a rush, dear son-in-law?" Charles's aunt chirped oily, fanning herself. "The night has only just begun..."
"Home," Max cut in shortly. "We have a long way to go."
The King didn't argue. He hurriedly scribbled with a quill on the credentials, disinheriting Charles from the succession forever. Charles signed his name right after. His hand didn't tremble, but he felt as if he were writing his own name on a tombstone.
His former chambers smelled of fading lilies and cold dust.
Charles stood in the middle of the room, looking at a simple leather bag opened on the bed. He didn't call the servants and packed his things himself. He took very few items.
Luxurious outfits are needed by princes, but for slaves and captives, enough that won't let them freeze on the road is sufficient. Charles had removed his silver ring with the royal house crest back in the throne room and silently left it lying on the King's table next to an empty goblet.
A quiet, familiar sigh sounded behind his back. Charles froze, holding a rolled-up shirt, then slowly turned around.
Oscar stood on the threshold. He wasn't wearing his usual senior valet livery; he was dressed in a simple travel cloak of dense gray wool, and a campaign broadsword hung at his hip. His face, which had always served as Charles’s standard for self-control, now looked as if a hammer had struck perfect porcelain from the inside.
"I'll set out in two hours," Oscar’s voice sounded raspy, as if he were forcing himself to push out every word. "I'll keep a distance of five miles and follow you all the way to the coast. If he tries to..."
"No," Charles breathed out.
The shirt fell from his weakened fingers onto the carpet. He rushed forward, covering the few paces between them, and gripped Oscar’s cloak with both hands.
"No, Oscar, you aren't coming."
"My prince..."
"You aren't following me!" Charles jerked him toward himself with such force that Oscar had to take a step forward. "You'll take the money we sewed into the lining of the chair in the library, buy yourself clean papers from the guild, and leave for the south. You always wanted to see the ocean, Oscar. You promised me. You swore that if this nightmare ever ended, you’d start living your own life."
"This isn't the end of the nightmare," Oscar’s voice broke. For the first time in all the years they had spent together in this golden cage, his perfect mask truly cracked. There was such bleeding pain in his dark eyes that Charles wanted to scream. "I'm handing you over to another's. An alpha who killed fourteen people without hesitation. I prepared you for death in the arena every day, my prince. I knew how I would collect your body. And now you're being taken away to a place where I won't even be able to dig you a grave."
"He won't kill me."
"How do you know?"
"Because someone who wants to kill takes the gold to pay for their forgiveness!" Charles shouted fervently in a breaking whisper, pressing his forehead against his friend’s shoulder. "But he refused. He refused everything, Oscar. I don't know what he needs. Maybe I'll be scrubbing floors in his barracks, maybe he'll lock me in a tower. But I'll be breathing. And if you follow us... he'll kill you. I won't be able to survive that. If you die, nothing at all will be left of me. You’re the only proof that I once existed as a human."
Oscar froze. His large, strong hands slowly rose and rested on Charles's shoulder blades, pressing him close with such gentle strength that it was as if they were trying to hold up a crumbling sandcastle.
This was more painful than watching people die. More than listening to The Jackal’s threats. Oscar was his air and his shield.
Oscar pulled away first. His fingers rested on the prince’s cheekbones, carefully, almost reverently wiping tears from his cheeks. He forced his face to harden again, returning it to the appearance of an impassive warrior, but his chin was still twitching treacherously.
"If I don't get word from you through the post guild in a year," Oscar said very quietly, "I'll find him. Even if I have to burn the entire north down to the glacier."
"Oscar," Charles sobbed, trying to smile through the rising tears. "Goodbye."
"See you, Charles."
When the door closed behind the valet, cutting him off from Charles forever, the omega wiped his face with the sleeve of his simple shirt. He pulled the leather drawstring on the neck of his travel bag, threw it over his shoulder, and, without looking back once, stepped into the hallway.
Charles held the reins with a familiar, confident grip. In childhood, when his older brother would sneak him away to the distant meadows beyond the royal stables, horseback riding was synonymous with freedom for Charles. Now it had turned into a way of transporting a captive to the place of punishment.
They rode in silence. Mad Max — now just Max, a husband, his alpha, a legal owner — moved half a length ahead on his massive, matching his master, black stallion.
The word "husband" beat persistently in Charles’s skull.
Every time Max turned his head slightly, checking to see if his companion was lagging, Charles would nervously lower his eyes to his horse's mane. He was afraid of meeting his gaze. He felt that if he looked into Max's eyes for too long, he would read all his terror and decide that the trophy had turned out to be defective. And what do they do with defective things in the north? They throw them out. Or break them completely so they don't take up space.
Twilight overtook them at the foot of gently sloping wooded hills. Max dismounted by a huge, uprooted oak, the trunk of which formed a natural windbreak. He didn't say a word, just threw his stallion's reins over a low branch and began to unbuckle the girth.
Charles remained frozen in the saddle, feeling helpless. In the palace, servants would have immediately fussed around him, but here there was no one. Charles carefully, trying not to make noise, threw his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground. His legs, numb after a whole day of riding, buckled; he nearly poked his knees into the hard grass, but grabbed the saddle in time.
He waited for a shout or a taunt, but Max didn't even turn around. He removed the saddles from both horses, hobbled them, and let them graze in a small clearing. Then he knelt at the roots of the fallen oak and lit a fire himself.
Charles remained standing five paces from the fire, clutching his modest travel bag to his chest. He didn't know where to sit. Did he have the right to occupy a spot by the warmth without permission? Or should a slave sit on the bare ground behind his master?
Max took bread wrapped in linen and hard salty cheese from the bags. He cut two large, uneven pieces with a hunting knife, placed one on a clean wood slab, and, raising his head, simply looked at Charles. Then he shifted his gaze to the empty space on the other side of the fire.
Charles approached the fire and settled on the fallen tree. He took the offered bread with trembling fingers. He forced himself to take a bite, but the dry crumb stuck in his throat. Charles chewed it, eyes lowered to the dancing sparks, and felt this heavy, calm gaze watching him point-blank. There was no lust in it, like The Jackal’s, that made you want to peel off your skin. There was no sticky, evaluating mockery like the King’s. It was the gaze of a man looking at a complex, incomprehensible map, trying to decipher half-erased writing.
Charles’s clothing was not at all calculated for a night under the open sky of the foothills. The cold crept from the ground, crawling under his pant legs, pricking his lower back like ice needles. Charles tried to rub his shoulders inconspicuously. He clenched his jaws so tight his teeth ached, just so he wouldn't chatter them.
Showing weakness is a trigger for a predator. If an omega trembles, he is vulnerable; if he is vulnerable, he can be subdued by force.
The sound of a wooden flask being pushed aside rang out, and Max stood up.
His large figure blocked out the pale light of the rising moon. Charles instantly stopped breathing. His heart did a wild, painful somersault and began to beat at such a speed that dark circles floated before his eyes.
Here it was.
People said the truth — northerners don't wait for soft beds. It's enough for them to throw an omega onto the moss, twist their arms behind their head, and take what is theirs by right.
When heavy, quiet footsteps were heard circling the campfire, Charles instinctively shrank even tighter. He squeezed his eyes shut until he saw colored spots under his lids, pressed his chin into his collarbones, just so he wouldn't see his face at that moment. He prepared for the pain, for the cracking of tearing fabric, and the coarse smell of someone else’s arousal. "Just don't scream," he ordered himself mentally, suffocating from panic. "Whatever he does, just be silent. Don't let him hear how you break."
Charles froze, cold with the anticipation of capture. But instead of hard, calloused fingers digging into his shoulders, something broad, heavy, and dense settled onto his back. It smelled of dry sheep's wool, bitter smoke, pine resin, and something stunningly clean — the smell of sun-warmed stone and grass.
Max’s scent.
Charles shuddered so violently it was as if he’d been struck by lightning. Opening his eyes, he saw large hands in dark sleeves linger for a second at his neck, neatly, without touching his chin with a single millimeter of skin, smoothing out the heavy hems of a gigantic woolen cloak.
Max returned to his spot on the other side of the fire. He sat down, took his knife into his hands again, and continued to methodically scrape the hard crust off the cheese, as if nothing had happened.
Charles sat, stunned and lost in the space of his own destroyed logic.
The cloak was huge. It covered him entirely, from his shoulders to his very ankles, creating a cocoon around his body with warming heat. Charles slowly, disbelievingly brought a trembling hand to the collar and gripped the coarse cloth. It held the residual warmth of the alpha's body.
A short circuit occurred in his head. Why? Others would have laughed to see his trembling and would have used their own weight to "warm" him on the sand. But this man had given his only protection from the northern night to someone he had won in a bloody slaughter.
Charles looked at him through the flickering haze of the fire. He waited for a trick. Waited for Max to say, "Now work it off." But Max was silent. He finished his supper, stretched his long legs toward the fire, leaned his back against the fallen trunk, and closed his eyes.
Charles spent the rest of the night without sleep. He sat wrapped in another's cloak and listened to his husband breathe evenly and deeply. And with every hour, this cloak on his shoulders seemed more and more like a heavy, insurmountable puzzle to him.
By noon, they had passed the pass, and a wide valley, bathed in pale northern sun, opened before Charles's eyes. It breathed with life: flocks of sheep were scattered along the hillsides, a swift river meandered below, and dozens of sturdy houses built of gray stone and larch blackened by time huddled along its bend.
When they entered the main street, Charles mobilized internally again. He prepared for heralds, curious crowds, fingers pointing, and whispers behind his back. He expected the local residents to come out of their courtyards to gawk at what kind of exotic little animal their silent neighbor had dragged back from the south.
But the village was living its usual, unhurried life.
A tall blacksmith in a leather apron, having emerged from the smithy with tongs in his hands, wiped the sweat from his forehead, squinted at the sun, and said:
"Welcome back, Max."
Max replied only with a nod of his head.
An elderly woman carrying laundry washed in the river in a heavy basket stopped by the wattle fence. She looked at Max, then shifted an attentive, devoid-of-any-malice gaze to Charles’s pale face, peeking out from the huge cloak. She politely, with the dignity of a free woman, inclined her head, greeting the traveler, and walked on.
To these people, Max was no gladiator arena triumphant; he was just a man who had gone away on business to the city and now had returned home.
Max's house stood at the very edge of the settlement, where the valley began to scramble upward, giving way to a coniferous forest. It was a sturdy, squat structure of thick logs set on a high stone foundation. Under the wide roof overhang, firewood dried in neat, even piles; a thin, welcoming wisp of smoke curled from a stone chimney — it looked like one of the neighbors had stoked the stove for the master's arrival.
Max dismounted first. He tied his stallion to the hitching post and walked over to Charles's horse, silently holding it by the bridle.
Charles tried to climb down himself, but his numb thighs cramped. He swayed awkwardly, his foot slipped from the stirrup, and he would have flown onto the packed ground of the courtyard if a hard, strong hand hadn't caught him across the waist. Max held him in the air easily, like a child, set him on his feet, and in the same second, before Charles had time to be frightened by the proximity of his body, removed his hands.
"Thanks," Charles breathed out barely audibly.
Max didn't answer. He took a heavy iron key from his pocket, climbed the three steps of the porch, and inserted it into the lock. The thick oak door swung inward.
Max didn't enter; he only stepped to the side, close to the porch wall, and lowered his hand, opening the passage for Charles. There wasn't a shadow of impatience in his gesture.
Charles swallowed the lump in his throat, stepped over the high threshold, and found himself inside. The air in the house was warm, dry, and surprisingly light. It smelled of dried thyme, bunches of which hung under the ceiling beams, old wood, and cleanliness. It was one large, reasonably zoned room. In the middle of the room stood a long, scraped-white oak table and two benches. In the far corner, a sturdy wooden staircase led to a mezzanine level, and underneath it, a closed massive door was visible.
There wasn't a single decoration here. No paintings, no tapestries, no mirrors. But the house didn't look abandoned; in every detail, in the perfectly polished copper kettle on the hearth, in the evenly arranged clay bowls on the shelf, a calm, confident male hand could be felt.
Charles stopped in the middle of the room, still gripping the strap of his bag. He felt like an alien object here.
Behind him, the door slammed, and Max walked past him. He set his heavy bags on the bench, unbuckled the sword sheath from his belt, and hung them on two wooden pegs by the entrance. Then he pulled off his dark jacket, remaining in a simple undershirt, and Charles finally saw his left shoulder. A yellowish-brown spot was showing through the coarse fabric.
Max caught his gaze but didn't bother to cover his shoulder. He simply pointed his chin at the door under the stairs.
"Yours," he said.
This was the third word Charles had heard from him in two days.
"Mine?" Charles repeated in a trembling voice.
Max nodded affirmatively, then turned away, dropped to one knee before the hearth, took a birch log, and began to blow on the embers.
Charles slowly, as if in a dream, walked to the indicated door and pressed the iron latch. The door opened noiselessly.
It was a small bedroom. One window with thick, cloudy glass looked directly at the wall of the coniferous forest. The entire room was occupied by a wide, low bed, covered with clean, austere linen and a heavy blanket of wolf skins. A simple wooden chest stood at the foot of the bed.
And nothing else. No bolts on the outside of the door, no chains.
Charles walked inside and dropped his bag on the chest. Slowly, with disobedient fingers, he untied the ribbons on the neck of Max’s cloak and allowed the heavy wool to slip from his shoulders onto the floor.
He sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress, tightly stuffed with dry straw and herbs, springily gave way under his weight. Charles wrapped his arms around his shoulders and looked at his pale, thin wrists.
He waited for the familiar heaviness to overwhelm him. He waited for that familiar, suffocating feeling of a locked cage that had haunted him for the last few years in the royal chambers. But the silence of this house was different. It didn't press down, and it didn't smell of conspiracies or poison.
Beyond the wall, a measured, soothing sound was heard as Max poured water from a bucket into a kettle.
Charles closed his eyes and, for the first time in a long time, took a full breath, feeling how somewhere under his ribs, through the thickness of many years of frozen ice, a tiny, tear-inducingly frightening sprout of realization was timidly breaking through:
I am alive.
The smell of food made Charles's stomach painfully contract. Only now, catching the thick, rich aroma of stewed meat and herbs, did he realize just how hungry he was. In the palace, food hadn't gone down his throat for the last few weeks, and on the road, he had eaten only dry rations, which could barely replenish his strength. Charles took a deep breath, trying to calm the trembling in his hands, and slowly walked out of the room back into the main part of the house.
Max was standing by the hearth with his back to him. He had already managed to wash up, and the blond hair at the nape of his neck was damp and slightly darkened. In his movements, as he removed the heavy cast-iron pot from the fire, one could read the same precision with which he wielded his sword in the arena. Charles quietly, trying not to creak the floorboards, approached the long oak table and stopped in indecision, not knowing which place he was permitted to occupy.
The alpha turned around, holding two deep clay bowls from which thick, appetizing steam was rising. He silently placed one bowl on the edge of the table, the second one opposite, and then nodded for Charles to sit on the nearest wooden bench.
Charles obediently dropped onto the hard wood. Before him was a portion of thick, hearty stew and a slice of fresh, porous bread. Max sat opposite, not bothering to recite prayers to the gods, propose toasts, or wait for Charles to begin first. He simply took a wooden spoon and started eating, looking somewhere toward the window, beyond which thick twilight had already thickened.
For Charles, the silence quickly began to become unbearable. In the palace, silence always meant a threat. If the King fell silent at dinner, it meant that one of those present had fallen into disfavor and, perhaps, would not live to see the morning. Courtiers always filled the void with senseless but safe chatter, gossip, and fake laughter.
Charles forced himself to swallow a couple of spoons. The food was incredibly tasty, hot, warming him from the inside, but the tension made his jaws ache. He felt as if he should do something, show his usefulness, his submission, or at least politeness. Slaves don't have the right to sit with a sullen look before their master.
He swallowed, moistened his parched lips, and, gripping the edge of the table with his fingers, tried to break this vacuum.
"It’s very tasty," Charles said. His voice sounded too thin, pathetically trembling on the last syllable. "Thank you."
Max froze for a second. He slowly shifted his heavy, dark gaze to Charles, looked at him as if trying to understand why he had even uttered these words, and then simply nodded.
"Eat," he replied shortly and returned to his portion.
Charles shrank internally. This monosyllabic answer struck at his already fragile confidence. But he decided that he couldn't give up. If they were husbands now, and if they were to live under the same roof, he had to find at least some common ground. He needed to understand who was sitting before him.
"The valley we rode through..." Charles nervously swallowed, forcing himself to raise his eyes and look at the alpha’s face. "It's very beautiful. And the village looks so peaceful. Have you... lived here long?"
Max chewed a piece of bread, swallowed it, and only after that raised his gaze again.
"Always."
Charles felt a chill run down his spine. Only one word again.
"And this house..." Charles searched for a new topic, locking his gaze on the massive ceiling beams. "It's very sturdy and warm. Did you build it yourself?"
"Father," Max replied evenly.
He didn't look angry. His eyebrows weren't furrowed, and his jaws weren't clenched from irritation, but this brevity killed in Charles any hope for normal communication. A prickly lump of panic began to grow in his chest. What was he doing wrong? Asking too many questions? Violating the hierarchy? Maybe, in the north, omegas were generally forbidden from being the first to speak at the table?
Charles lowered his eyes to his bowl, feeling a bitter sediment of resentment and fear rising to his throat. He didn't understand this man. Max was like a locked fortress without doors or windows. His silence was felt not like shyness, but like a wall against which Charles was breaking himself to blood.
The alpha was clearly not in the mood for long conversations, and Charles drew the only conclusion his mind suggested to him: his voice was unpleasant to Max. Max hadn't taken him in to have pleasant conversations. He had needed a body, a trophy, a silent doll that would perform its functions without opening its mouth.
The rest of the dinner passed in complete silence. Charles choked on every bite, barely holding back tears from the rolling feeling of his own powerlessness.
When the bowls were empty, Charles hurriedly rose from the bench. He wanted to grab the dishes to carry them to the basin of water, to show that he was ready to serve and be useful around the house, since he couldn't be a pleasant conversationalist. But no sooner had he reached for Max's bowl than the alpha’s large, heavy palm landed on the table a millimeter from his fingers.
Max didn't touch him, but the gesture was so indisputable that Charles reflexively pulled his hand away, as if burned.
"Go," Max's voice was low, calm, but it held a command. "I'll clean up everything myself."
Charles opened his mouth to object, to say that it was his duty, but looked into the alpha's eyes, and the words stuck in his throat. He only obediently lowered his head, turned around, and walked to the bedroom door on stiff legs.
Charles leaned his back against the closed door and gasped convulsively.
He needed to find his bag, take out a spare clean shirt, and somehow tidy himself up. He took a few steps toward the chest, reached for the ties of the bag, but his hands suddenly dropped helplessly.
Changing clothes didn't make sense.
Today was their wedding night. What should have happened two days ago, in the royal chambers, immediately after the contract was signed. Max had refused to stay at the palace then. He had preferred to leave without touching Charles, and the omega had been infinitely grateful to him for that. The thought of giving himself to an alpha within the walls where the King and his retinue could eavesdrop on them through the doors caused physical nausea in Charles. Max had waited until they were on his territory. In his house.
Marriage in their world wasn't considered valid until the alpha physically secured his rights to the omega. That was an immutable law. And Charles, as an omega of royal blood, had been bought for exactly that.
He remembered the old, dry beta-tutors in the palace who had come to his chambers after his parents' death to prepare him for his future role. They forced him to learn the rules of submission for hours. They read him lectures on how to properly react to an alpha's aggression, how to present his neck, how to relax his muscles so that the pain during penetration wouldn't be so unbearable.
"An alpha is led by instincts," the chief tutor's voice sounded in his head. "Your task is to be a vessel. Do not resist, even if it seems to you that he will tear you apart. Any resistance on your part will only increase his cruelty. An omega must pleasure, not fight."
Charles wrapped his arms around his shoulders, trying to calm the trembling shaking him. He had no experience at all. All these dry, medical lectures had in no way prepared him for reality. How should he behave with a real alpha? With a man who killed people with one movement of a sword?
Max was huge, his shoulders twice as wide as Charles’s, and his hands were used to crushing bones. If Charles did something wrong, if he flinched from fear, if he couldn't hide his panic, Max could simply break him in half. Or, what was even worse, Max's coldness, his silence at dinner, meant that he would take him the same way — silently, mechanically, like an animal.
But he had no choice. He had to submit and prove that he was worth the gold Max had refused.
Charles took a deep, shaky breath. His fingers rested on the lacing of his doublet. Pulling his clothes off was physically painful, as if he were tearing away his only protective layer of skin. Every movement was difficult. He removed the top, folded it neatly, and placed it on the edge of the chest. Then he pulled a thin white shirt over his head. Charles unbuckled his trousers, let them fall to the floor, and stepped out of them, remaining naked.
He felt small, vulnerable, exposed. In this austere, simple room, his slender body, not made for hard labor, seemed like some absurd mistake.
Charles took a few uncertain steps toward the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress creaked quietly beneath him, and the rough, austere linen of the sheet pricked the delicate skin of his thighs unpleasantly.
Charles sat with his back straight, just as he had been taught at the palace, resting his cold palms on his knees. His toes curled convulsively, scratching the floorboards. He bit his lower lip hard, trying to focus on this slight pain so as not to start crying from the rising panic.
He didn't take his eyes off the dark wood of the closed door behind which the sounds had died down. Charles no longer heard the splashing of water or the clatter of earthenware. Then a creak sounded, followed by heavy, measured footsteps. They moved unhurriedly but inexorably, measuring the distance to the bedroom door. Each step echoed with a dull thud in Charles's temples.
The lip beneath his teeth was already bleeding, leaving a salty, metallic taste on his tongue. Charles squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, praying to all the gods he knew only for this to end quickly, and for him to be able to endure this pain without letting out a single scream.
The heavy iron latch crept upward, and the door slowly creaked open. When Max stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him, he froze. His gaze instantly focused on the bed, where Charles sat on the edge, completely naked.
At that moment, Charles wanted more than anything in the world to curl into a tiny ball, wrap his arms around his knees, hide his face, and disappear. His body was shivering slightly from the night chill and fear.
Overcoming the instinctive desire to cover himself, Charles forced himself to straighten his back. He squared his shoulders, stretching his neck to demonstrate his submission, and slowly, with a sinking heart, spread his knees a little wider. It was a rehearsed, humiliating gesture he had been taught at the palace.
Max stood motionless for so long that Charles felt as if time had stopped. The alpha's chest rose slowly beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. It was impossible to read a single emotion in his eyes. He simply looked, studied this pale, fragile figure against the background of rough gray sheets, as if seeing something completely alien in his austere home.
Finally, Max took a step forward. With his every approach, the air in the small room became denser, saturated with the alpha's heavy, tart scent. When Max was right up against the bed, Charles felt an army of goosebumps run across his naked skin, from his very ankles to the back of his head. The hairs on his arms stood on end. He stopped breathing, expecting the first blow, a rough grab, or a cruel command.
But large, calloused hands rested on his thighs firmly, yet without the intention of causing pain. Max pressed down, forcing Charles to move deeper onto the mattress. The omega obediently moved backward, and the next moment, strong hands gripped his waist. One sharp, coordinated movement, and Charles was flipped onto his stomach.
His face buried itself in the austere linen of the sheet. Charles gripped the fabric, damp with cold sweat, with his whitened fingers, bunching it in his fists. His heart hammered against his ribs with such furious force that it seemed it was about to break through his chest.
Charles squeezed his eyes shut. This was what he had been prepared for. He had always thought that this was exactly how it would go: he would lie face down in the pillow, swallow his tears, bite his lips until they bled, and pray to the gods for the alpha to finish quickly and leave him alone. It was the safest scenario. To not see his tormentor's face, to not look him in the eyes, and to turn into a soulless mannequin.
But suddenly, Charles realized that he didn't want it to happen exactly like that.
Max was not the monster from his nightmares. Throughout their journey, he had never once insulted, struck, or humiliated him. He had given him his cloak when Charles was freezing by the fire. He had shared his food as an equal. He hadn't looked at him with a lustful gaze.
Max was frightening because of his silence and his size, but he treated Charles with a strange, almost respectful indifference that was a thousand times better than the expected cruelty. And now Charles realized that the first time in the pose of a faceless victim felt wrong to him.
Behind him, the rustle of fabric sounded as Max threw off his clothes. Then the mattress dipped under a heavy weight, and Charles felt a hot, naked body press against his back. The heat radiating from the alpha was incredible; it went right to his bones, contrasting with the cold of the room. Max’s heavy chest pressed against his shoulder blades, and strong thighs spread Charles’s legs wider.
"Wait..." Charles's voice trembled, breaking into a raspy whisper. He twitched nervously, instinctively writhing under the weight of the other's body.
This was a monstrous violation of the rules. Stopping an alpha in the moment of arousal was suicide. The tutors had insisted that one could pay for such a thing with broken ribs. Charles shrank, expecting a roar or a backhand blow.
But Max actually stopped moving. The weight didn't disappear, but the alpha seemed to petrify, waiting for what his omega would say.
Charles, not believing his luck and simultaneously horrified by his own audacity, slowly turned his head back. Over his shoulder, he met Max's inscrutable gaze.
"Can we..." Charles swallowed, trying to push the words through his parched throat. "Can we do this... face to face?"
Max was silent and only looked at Charles's frightened, pale face, at his dilated pupils. Time dragged on, and Charles was already ready to apologize, to say that he was a fool and the alpha could do whatever he wished, but then Max slowly exhaled. He pulled back slightly, bracing his arms on the mattress and lifting his body, giving Charles space.
It was a silent permission.
Charles caught his breath and, stumbling over his own limbs from excitement, rolled onto his back.
Finding himself in the new position, Charles suddenly felt not only residual fear but also embarrassment. Now there were no barriers between them. Max loomed right over him, leaning on strong forearms. Their faces were so close that Charles felt the alpha's hot breath on his skin. Max's gaze slid over his face, over his collarbones, over his bare chest, but there was no greed in that gaze, only attentive study, as if he were trying to remember every detail.
Charles couldn't take his eyes off his face. Up close, Max seemed even more imposing. Sharp cheekbones, a stubborn chin covered in light stubble, deep scars on his shoulders speaking of years of endless battles.
Charles yielded to some strange, uncontrollable impulse. His right hand, trembling slightly, pulled away from the sheet and slowly reached upward.
Charles's fingers timidly, barely weightlessly, touched Max's cheek. The alpha's skin was hot and slightly rough. Under his fingertips, Charles felt his husband's muscles tense instantly. Max froze, his pupils dilating, swallowing his irises. He clearly hadn't expected such a gesture. But he didn't pull away or brush the omega's hand off. He allowed Charles to stroke him, accepting this tiny, clumsy caress.
"He doesn't know tenderness," a sudden thought pierced Charles. This warrior, who had grown up in arenas and in harsh northern forests, was used to blows, to pain, to the cold of weapons. But despite this, his actions toward Charles were permeated with unconscious care.
Charles swallowed hard and took his hand off Max's face, running it over the alpha's solid chest, down to his toned stomach. He lowered his hand between their bodies, and his fingers encountered Max's pulsing, hot cock. The alpha drew air noisily through his teeth when the omega's slender fingers gripped him.
Charles, blushing to the roots of his hair, pulled Max toward himself carefully, guiding him to his own moist, trembling entrance. As soon as Max felt the warmth and moisture he needed so much, his instincts took over. He seized the initiative, and his hips thrust forward.
The first penetration was slow. Max didn't tear inside like a wild beast, but his size was too imposing for an omega who had never taken a cock before. Charles arched sharply when the wide head parted his tight hole. A strangled, painful moan escaped his throat. He dug his nails into Max's shoulders, feeling his body instinctively resist the intrusion. The pain was sharp, searing, forcing tears to well up in his eyes.
Max stopped, breathing deeply, giving Charles time to get used to his size. The alpha's muscles were taut with tension; he was clearly holding himself back with the last of his strength. Charles forced himself to relax, breathing deeply as the tutors had taught, and nodded slowly.
Having understood the signal, Max thrust forward again, submerging to the very end. Charles cried out, his hips lifting off the bed as he took the alpha in entirely. The feeling of fullness was overwhelming.
At first, Max moved unhurriedly. He pulled almost completely out and slowly slid back in, driving Charles crazy with a mixture of pulling pain and unusual friction. Their bodies slid against one another, chest to chest. The air in the room became damp and heavy, filled with the thick aroma of mingling pheromones.
But the alpha couldn't hold back his nature for long. With every new thrust, the tempo began to increase inexorably. Max's movements became sharper, deeper, more demanding. Sometimes he thrust too roughly, his hips hitting Charles's buttocks with a damp smack, knocking the wind out of the omega. Charles felt this carelessness, but he understood that it wasn't intentional cruelty. Max was simply losing control, drowning in instincts, consumed by the heat of the yielding body beneath him.
And something inside Charles began to change.
The sharp, cutting pain from the first time began to fade gradually, receding into the background. In its place, something completely different began to spread. A dragging and pulsing arousal. His body, created for an alpha, had surrendered to nature. There was more and more natural lubrication, the fluid washed over his thighs abundantly, making Max's sliding unimpeded, damp, and incredibly pleasant. With every deep penetration, Charles felt something being touched inside him, sending electrical discharges of pure ecstasy to his brain.
He had been told to lie still, quiet, and endure. But Charles couldn't anymore. Gasping from the rising pleasure, he forgot about all the rules. He stopped trying to look submissive. His hands gripped Max's broad back with force; his nails dug ruthlessly into the tough skin, leaving crescent-shaped marks. He pulled the alpha even closer, instinctively lifting his hips to meet every furious thrust, demanding more, wanting Max to hammer into him with even greater force.
"Ah!" a loud, unreserved moan escaped Charles's lips. A second one followed, more prolonged, vibrating.
He moaned out loud, not trying to hold back. In the back of his mind, he was afraid. At the palace, such loud sounds were punished, being considered vulgar. What if this infuriated Max? What if he decided that the omega was behaving too promiscuously?
But Max didn't say a word. Only his breathing became even more ragged, and the hands gripping Charles's waist squeezed him so hard that there would surely be bruises on his pale skin. The omega's loud moans seemed to become a catalyst for him. The alpha turned into a machine, hammering into Charles with a frantic, shattering rhythm. The bed creaked and banged its headboard against the wall.
Charles felt as if he were being taken apart and put back together. The pleasure was pooling in his lower abdomen as a heavy, red-hot ball. Every nerve was stretched to the limit. He thrashed on the pillow, bunching the sheets in his fists, gasping from his own screams.
"Alpha... Max, please..." he muttered incoherently, not understanding himself what he was asking for.
The answer to him was a low, beastly growl that erupted from the alpha's chest. Max made one last, deepest thrust, hammering himself into Charles to the very base, and froze.
It was at this moment that Charles felt fireworks of bliss erupt inside him. A powerful orgasm rolled through his body in convulsive waves, forcing his internal muscles to rhythmically contract, squeezing the alpha's cock.
At the base of Max's flesh, a knot began to swell rapidly. Charles opened his eyes wide and inhaled convulsively when he felt the dense, hot ball expand deep inside him. It was painful, but the pain instantly drowned in the feeling of complete fullness. The knot locked them together securely, stretching Charles's tissues to the limit, filling him to the brim with the alpha's hot seed.
Max collapsed heavily, exhausted, onto Charles. He hid his face in the crook of the omega's neck, shuddering from the powerful spasms of his own orgasm. His hot breath scorched Charles's collarbone.
They remained lying like that, locked by the knot, breathing heavily in unison.
Absolute chaos reigned in his head. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He was lying under a man he had feared to death, in a strange house at the edge of the world, feeling a knot pulsing inside him... and it felt incredibly, tear-inducingly good.
His whole life up to this moment had been filled with rules, fear, and the expectation of pain. He had expected this wedding night to be his personal hell, and it had turned into the first moment of true freedom and physical pleasure in his life.
Charles didn't know what tomorrow would bring. He didn't know if this silent alpha would ever be able to speak to him in the same way he had made love to him — honestly and openly. But he could only wait.