Quincy
Holding the bond at bay was exhausting, like keeping your spine perfectly straight all the time, so it was only natural that as he relaxed around Valgar and Mar, he’d let them further in each time.
It helped that neither of them pushed him and if he decided not to come down to a meal or let them know he wanted to go explore the forest, they wished him well and did not ask for more.
He left the door propped open despite the draught, wanting...
They talked about nothing for a while, and then he felt his mate brace himself. “You must know I am not proud of how I treated you in the beginning.”
Part of the reason he’d mated Yara had been the knowledge that their unusual inverted biologies gave them an option as to how to satisfy their needs while avoiding conception.
He’d been fortunate in a friend so dear who had agreed to it when on their wedding night, Quincy had asked for what he wanted through gritted teeth.
“I won’t ever ask for anything else,” he’d told her, shaking where he sat swaddled in white in their bed. She’d bitten him already and he knew he was not entitled to what he was asking for.
But Yara had crashed through the confusion into compassion.
Of course, Yara had never been under any particular pressure to produce heirs—half her siblings were still popping babies and two of her nephews had been mated by the time she had died.
He couldn’t ask the same of Valgar. Not with all the empty rooms around the castle telling the haunting story of Saran’s fall for anyone to hear.
And even beyond any loyalty he felt to his new house... They would lose the war without the water mages.
He’d thought about asking Mar, at least, who had not been born Saranian, how on earth they’d managed to overstretch themselves to this point. But regardless of what foolish mistakes the previous generation had made, that still only left Valgar to put things to rights.
“I don’t know,” he told his mate. “I... Mar told me knotting would break the heat faster, but...” His throat spasmed and he paused to give himself a moment. Knotting would also increase the chances of pregnancy by opening up the passage to his womb.
“I can refrain from it if you prefer,” Valgar said at once.
Quincy stared at him, heart clenching and then releasing all of a sudden. He had to look down, blinking hard.
“Quincy...”
“I apologise, I—”
The chair scraped shrilly against the stone floor as the alpha got to his feet. “Don’t—” He stopped next to where Quincy sat, exhaling slowly but not trying to touch him. “There is nothing to apologise for.”
And there he went being generous again. He believed it too, but Quincy could not afford to let either of them live in the world where that was true.
“I know what you need from me,” he said as evenly as possible.
He thought about telling him about the way he had avoided conceiving for so long, but kept his mouth shut.
If his age was not enough protection, Quincy would have to bear it somehow, and Valgar would share his pain as closely as anyone not in his body could.
It would have to be enough, because telling Valgar that Quincy dreaded what their union would do to his body would not excuse either of them from doing it.
“Mar said it feels... good.”
His alpha was looking down at him, exuding confusion. After a moment, he smiled. “So that’s what you were talking about the other day while I was riding, was it?” He went back to his seat, sprawling on the armchair like it was a throne. “Your timing almost got me thrown off Hackney, you know?”
Quincy raised a shoulder at him, smiling a little at the image of the elegant Earl of Saran flustered enough to lose control of his horse. “Saran thrown off his horse? Impossible.”
Inside, he felt his alpha flinch. “Valgar,” he corrected himself.
The alpha attempted to wave it off. “You needn’t—”
“I forget,” Quincy explained. “It’s not a message or anything, I just forget.”
His mate was eyeing him carefully. “I already forced one intimacy upon you; I don’t intend to force another.”
“Good,” Quincy told him firmly. “Will you be able to stay in control when I go into heat?”
The question clearly shocked Valgar, who licked his lips and glanced to the side. “If I keep my distance, in the bond, I mean,” he said at last. “If I don’t, I will get lost in it with you. It can be rather powerful, but perhaps not...”
“No,” Quincy agreed. “If— I never liked heats much, but...” He bit his lip, suddenly not sure if he could speak of this at all.
“Yara?” Valgar prompted.
Quincy blinked at him, then picked up a biscuit and broke it in two. “She enjoyed them.”
“Did that help? Her pleasure?”
He nodded, grateful to be understood. Yara hadn’t held back from the bond at all, and so she had become as heat drunk as he had, habit keeping them both in the correct position to avoid any consequences, and her pleasure flooding him until he had screamed with it.
But that was not something he could have with Valgar, not if he expected the alpha not to knot him.
“I will keep you safe,” Valgar told him, and Quincy found he couldn’t look away.
It was only the echo of some other emotion that released him to top up their teacups. Mar, he was rather sure, and if he was meant to be jealous of his alpha’s other omega, he was failing miserably.
He was busy being desperately grateful instead.
***
THAT MORNING, HE STILL went down to the stables, and when he found he was too tired to do much more than observe, he sat petting Xam until he got so cold the dog started whining.
He startled into wakefulness, groaning as he put his feet on the ground and his body complained loudly about his carelessness.
A little question came through the bond, open enough Valgar must have sensed his discomfort, and Quincy sent a reassurance in turn. It was nice, truly, a meeting of eyes across a crowded room that made him feel seen, looked after.
Once he’d got in, all he’d cared about was warming up, and so he hadn’t given much thought to anything else when he’d ordered his maid to get him a bath. And now he was stuck because his muscles seemed to have dissolved and Cocal was too small to help get him get out safely.
The knock sent Cocal running to the door to tell whoever it was her master was indisposed. But the door opened anyway.
And then Valgar was there.
Quincy blinked up at him, loose and happy. Of course it was Valgar, just when Quincy wanted him.
The alpha’s eyes darkened appealingly as his eyes roamed over Quincy’s body, and his cock twitched under the attention. “Go see to the provisions for Quincy’s heat,” he told Cocal, then came and knelt by the bathtub. “You called?”
Had he? He didn’t remember. He tilted his head to rub his cheek against where Valgar was holding the edge of the tub, and the alpha let out a startled laugh. “You are really... soft,” he said wonderingly.
Quincy smiled at him. He was, soft and easy and free, and Valgar’s hands were on him, making him groan as they got him upright without any apparent effort.
“Slow down,” he was told, and the towel was soft too and warm from where it’d been left by the fire. Valgar laid him down like that, wrapped up and shivering a little with delight as he warmed up, looking down at him in a way that made Quincy’s insides twist with longing.
The alpha’s eyes widened, and Quincy realised he’d kicked off the towel and he was completely naked. Naked and hard and wet, and he smiled, because he wasn’t the only one, he could tell.
“You really are something else,” the Earl of Saran told him, shaking his head and keeping his eyes demurely focused to the side.
“You want me,” Quincy said, and it was like he’d dropped a log in the fire, feeding it, the flare of desire going through him and making him squirm.
But Valgar still did not move. “You need water,” he declared and turned around and went to fill a cup.
Quincy huffed, a little annoyed, and closed his eyes until he felt the cup press to his mouth, Valgar’s hand on the nape of his neck to help him drink.
He drank desperately, his feverish body recognising at once that this was life.
Valgar made him eat something too, it was salty and doughy, and it hadn’t been in the room before and suddenly Quincy was sober enough to realise Cocal must have been back with provisions at some point.
“Thanks,” he said, raspy. He was leaning back against Valgar’s bare chest, and he couldn’t remember how he’d got there either.
His mate squeezed him close. “You sound better.”
Quincy shrugged a little, very aware of his nakedness under the sheets. “I... The bath really got to my head. I don’t know what I was thinking, I could sense my heat was coming since morning.”
Valgar hummed. “No harm done. I thought you wouldn’t want— to be that vulnerable, not this first time.”
The state an omega could fall into when he went into heat was ideal to offer an alpha as little resistance as possible, which was why it was known as a type of intoxication, but its intensity depended on a number of factors.
Water and food were both known to regulate it somewhat.
Quincy’s skin was still fizzling, and he was both hard and.
.. ready. But he wasn’t out of his head with it.
“We could let it rise again,” his alpha suggested, probably sensing his inner debate.
And it would feel good to do so, Quincy knew, so good afterwards he would only remember fragments of it amidst the general haze of ecstasy.
He turned his body further into Valgar’s instead. “Would you kiss me?” The words came out laboured already, his nerves getting the better of him.
His alpha’s chest rose sharply beneath his head, but he moved slowly as he laid Quincy down on the bedding and bent over him to press their mouths together.
Quincy sighed a little, eyes falling shut, body relaxing into it—pure instinct to give himself over to the care of the man who had sworn to protect him.
It didn’t mean he was not scared, that he didn’t need Valgar’s gentle nibbling at his mouth, his big hands spreading warmth and relief in one as they travelled down his arms and up his neck to hold his face in position to suck on his tongue.
Quincy shivered under him, his own hands scrambling weakly at Valgar’s bare shoulders.
He couldn’t have held his end of the bond closed in the state he was in, and feeling his mate’s restraint made him whine in distress.
Was he not wanted? Why wouldn’t Valgar come closer?
His mate broke the kiss, resting his forehead on Quincy’s shoulder. “I will, Quincy, I will come to you fully as soon as you ask me when you aren’t half out of your mind.”
The words brought enough sense back he immediately apologised. “I— I didn’t mean—” Valgar silenced him with two fingers on top of his lips and a look from his violet eyes that made Quincy’s whole body clench.
“You are mine,” the alpha told him. “Mine to protect first of all, but mine.”
Quincy nodded, unable to either form words or look away.
“Good,” Valgar said and kissed him again, plundering his mouth as Quincy arched into him begging for more.
When the alpha came into him at last, his body offered nothing but joyful welcome.
The size of him was considerable still and no matter how slick Quincy’s passage was, the fit was tight.
But this time, on his back with his legs spread and hooked over his mate’s shoulders, Valgar had put his fingers in him first, the soft tips playing with the ring of muscle until Quincy was doing his best to shove himself onto them.
There was a little pain, inch by inch demanding his body make room for his mate, that he adapt to the enlarged alpha member opening him up slow and steady.
Quincy panted for air, head thrown back, hips and hole twitching as he fought the dual impulses of impaling himself and withdrawing.
Valgar ignored both, keeping him firmly in place for his cock with hands on his hips, murmuring low praises of how good Quincy’s body felt to him, how it was his and perfect. He stopped at last, chests so close it felt like their hearts were beating together. “Just a little more,” he said.
Quincy made a low sound, inquiring and worried at once. He was full to bursting already, and it seemed impossible there could be more, that he could take more. Valgar shushed him and pulled back.
At once, Quincy dug his nails into his shoulders and his heels into his back, which made Valgar laugh. “I’m coming right back,” he promised, voice gone grave with lust. “Oh, Quincy, you are a marvel.”
And with that, he did as he’d said and pushed back inside, not stopping, a long, wet slide that made Quincy scream, his arse taking him in fully until his spine was melting like a candle left too close to the fire.
Until he was melting, clenching, desperate to get Valgar closer, to take every drop of his seed and— “Valg—”
He climaxed like that, spilling his own seed all over his belly and chest as he milked his alpha’s cock.
And now, if Valgar would but knot... The thought shocked him not with terror but with the prospect of even more pleasure, but either way, he was too exhausted to speak or move as his alpha half collapsed on top of him, still buried inside, still seeding.
But there was no further stretch; his alpha was staying inside but not allowing his knot to form.
Quincy’s body was already cooling, heat past, and even Valgar’s considerable bulk not enough to keep the chill at bay when he was covered in sweat from their exertions.
But Valgar was breathing heavily right in his ear and Quincy could feel him struggling to hold himself together.
He got a hand up to pat his hair, scratching softly at the skull with fingers grown stiff and offering what comfort he could with a soft hum that required no words.
It could have been minutes or a good half hour; the penetration had settled into a minor discomfort and his mind remained calm.
Somehow, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Valgar would do everything in his power for him, and that was it.
The withdrawal was unpleasant; his passage apparently having grown used to the stretch and Valgar’s seed coming along as he pulled out and leaving a sticky mess on both his thighs and the bedding.
Quincy groaned as his mate lowered his legs and began massaging feeling back into them, but when the alpha attempted to leave the bed, he found enough strength to drag him back down and burrow into his arms. Valgar tensed up, probably wanting to clean up, but soon relaxed and enveloped him in his warmth again.
And safe like that, Quincy could at last rest.