Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nikandros's understanding of the Veretian language might not have been quite as comprehensive as Damen's, but he'd made a point of polishing up his linguistic skills starting from the moment he'd realised that his then-future King was intrigued rather than angered by the blond omega Veretian Prince who had held a knife to Damen's throat. Nikandros was no fool. He'd known exactly how that was going to end.

As such, even when they were levelled at him while he was barely awake, Nikandros could hardly mistake the meaning of the Veretian words: "Hey, did you know that everyone in the court thinks you're fucking Laurent?"

Nicaise said it without any particular inflection as he leaned casually against the post of Nikandros's bed. As if that were an entirely normal sentence to offer in greeting at the crack of dawn, or ever. And as if it were usual for Nikandros to wake up to find that the recently-ascended King of Vere's so-called 'pet' had invited himself into Nikandros's rooms.

It was no real mystery how Nicaise had managed to get past the guards this morning, though. Right now, the alphas down the corridor from Nikandros's door would probably have laid down in a line and formed a platform of bodies for Nicaise to stroll over the top of on his way to Nikandros's rooms, if only Nicaise had batted his eyelashes a little and told them he didn't want to dirty his boots with the dust on the marble floor.

For his part, Nikandros liked to think he was unaffected, but that was a flat-out lie. He would already have kicked Nicaise out with a sharp denial aimed at the boy's indecent claim if he wasn't being impacted. He was pumping all of his concentration into remaining perfectly still so that he didn't either react to that smell or flee the room to get away from it. He had no desire to show either kind of weakness in front of Nicaise, who he knew would surely find some way to use it against him.

And, also, moving very far would have been problematic considering that the bedsheets gathered around his hips were currently the only thing maintaining Nikandros's modesty. What could he say? Delpha was hot this time of year.

It felt even hotter now, with a blush sweeping its way over Nikandros's face and not stopping until even his chest was reddened.

"You could have at least bathed," Nikandros finally managed to say.

Judging by the smell of him, Nicaise had tracked Nikandros down before he'd even made the slightest attempt to wash away the evidence of his just-abated first heat. Nikandros supposed he shouldn't have been surprised; the boy had no shame and was probably intentionally trying to use his scent against Nikandros to throw him off balance.

Nikandros, luckily, had had plenty of practice by now at not being swayed by a pretty Veretian face surrounded by the heady smell of omega. He knew better than to fall for that, even if it seemed he was manifestly incapable of preventing others around him from doing so. He just had to keep reminding himself not to be entrapped by the seeming angelic innocence of Nicaise's countenance.

"Whatever the courtiers might whisper among themselves, I'm not actually bedding your King. And you're irritating, but not stupid, so I'm sure you already know there's no truth to it. It's just gossip born of the Veretian courtiers growing bored with this new peace of ours."

"It's not as though you haven't given them reason to gossip, with all the unexplained private time you've spent alone with Laurent recently," Nicaise pointed out.

"We were wrestling. And no," he headed Nicaise off before he could comment, "that isn't a euphemism for bedding him. My King is allied with yours. So it's my duty to protect that alliance by teaching your King the skills to better defend himself unarmed. It's obviously necessary, considering the positions in which he has found himself in the past, and might encounter again in future. That's all."

Nikandros privately suspected that Laurent might care more for demonstrating his new skills against Damen in a less-than-combative setting than he did for increasing his capacity for beating a true opponent. But, as always, Nikandros tried not to think too hard about such things.

"Considering Laurent's had a bunch of knotheads try to rape him as soon as they smelled something they liked, you mean?" Nicaise said with a sharp smile, as openly vulgar as ever. "Well I'm likely to have to deal with that same shit at some point, now that I'm to be cursed with a heat every few months. And it pisses me off to have to rely entirely on a bunch of alphas, defective or otherwise, to protect me. So I want to learn how to fight as well."

"That would be a good idea," Nikandros agreed. He liked to believe that it would never really be an issue as long as Nicaise was inside the walls of the new palace at Marlas, but he wasn't as naïvely hopeful as some. Even if Nikandros had trusted the Veretians to all be honourable, their recent upheaval proved that the character of some Akielons also left something to be desired. And even apart from the possibility of wilful disloyalty among the subjects of either nation, not all alphas were motivated enough to ignore their response to heat pheromones. Marlas certainly wasn't filled with nothing but strong-willed men used to battling through exhaustion and the elements without ever giving in to their bodies. Many of the courtiers in particular were soft and entitled. They wanted, so they took. It was that simple for them. Or so they thought it should be.

When Nicaise opened his mouth again, Nikandros had a foreboding feeling that he knew exactly what was coming.

"So you're going to teach me," Nicaise said, a demand rather than a request. "I mainly want to learn how to handle a blade, though, rather than wrestling; Laurent might like the idea of rolling around in a tangle with an alpha twice his size, but I'm not sure I see the appeal."

Of course he didn't. Nicaise considered himself above alphas, that much was obvious. He wouldn't want to be literally brought down to 'their level' like that. Nor would he want to actually have to touch them when there was no reason for it.

"There are sword masters all over the region that would go out of their way to respond if King Laurent asked them the favour of instructing his pet," Nikandros said. "Why should it have to be me?"

"Because why would I want a teacher who's more worried about Laurent than about me? As if someone like that would actually show me anything useful. They'd probably be too worried that I might get hurt while training and they'd be blamed for it to do the job properly. But from what I've seen, you don't give much of a damn about doing anything to get on Laurent's good side. You wouldn't let that hold you back," Nicaise said.

Nikandros had to acknowledge that point. But still. "I don't even like you. Why should I do anything for you?"

"You don't like Laurent either," Nicaise pointed out, "and you've still been teaching him. So I don't see why that should be a problem."

Nikandros shook his head, fully ready to turn Nicaise down.

But then the brat added slyly, "Or perhaps the court is right after all and you really do like Laurent. Was the real reason you gave him lessons so that you'd have an excuse to get him down underneath you, skin-to-skin with him, without your best friend realising that you really want to fuck his hot piece of ass?"

Nikandros grimaced. "Given the choice, I would prefer that there was an unsailable sea between your King and my bed. I told you, my personal opinion didn't come into the equation when I agreed to show him the necessary skills. If it had, I'd have stayed clear of him."

"If your personal feelings aren't relevant," Nicaise challenged, "then prove it now. Teach me."

"Are you going to follow me around trying to use your circular 'logic' on me and irritating me even more than usual until I agree?" Nikandros asked, admitting to himself that he was already more or less giving into what surely must be inevitable.

"Of course. Besides," Nicaise said, "I thought you would have realised by now that you really don't have much of a choice here. If I was assaulted after I'd asked you to teach me to defend myself and you'd turned me down, Laurent would have you exiled and shipped across that unsailable sea you were talking about, or send you to die alone in a desert or something. And that's if you're lucky."

"I thought you didn't want someone to teach you because they were worried about Laurent."

"I don't want someone to teach me just so they can try to impress Laurent. But why should I have a problem with wielding Laurent's power as a weapon when it suits me? Why else do you think I signed a contract with him, if not to take proper advantage of being the King's pet?"

Nikandros sighed. "You'd better be a fast learner. The quicker I can declare you capable of slashing any alpha who oversteps his bounds to ribbons so that I no longer have to spend my free time training you, the better."

"Careful," Nicaise said, "or I might think that you really care."

"What I care about is that you get out now and let me get at least another hour of sleep before I have to put up with you again," Nikandros said. "And for everyone's sake, go bathe before you meet me in the training rooms after breakfast. You're even more intolerable when you smell like that."

Nicaise scoffed. "Yeah. 'Intolerable'. I just bet that's what you think of it."

Nicaise did leave Nikandros alone for a while, mercifully, but Nikandros couldn't get back to sleep. The slightly stale but still prominent scent of Nicaise's heat had permeated the room and seemingly now clung to the walls, surrounding Nikandros and leaving him feeling too unsettled for rest. It was just a new way for Nicaise to irritate him.

At least Nikandros had the opportunity to plant Nicaise in the dirt later that day in reprisal. Nicaise looked disgusted when the grime of the training ring stuck to the sweat of his exertion, rendering his bath almost pointless. It brought a satisfied smile to Nikandros's face.

That somewhat petty revenge wasn't really worth it in the end, though, Nikandros thought in retrospect.

Apparently Laurent had caught sight of the bruises from training that now must have decorated Nicaise's otherwise unmarked skin and asked him about them, or alternatively, he'd smelled Nikandros's scent left on Nicaise through their proximity immediately post-heat. Either way, the next time Nikandros saw Laurent, the Veretian King was giving him a very pointed and too-calm look of speculation, making it visibly clear that he was planning something that Nikandros wouldn't likely enjoy. Nikandros didn't mind admitting that that look was vaguely terrifying, considering its source.

When, hours later, Nikandros somehow found himself knocked into a pile of horse muck by a servant, who practically prostrated himself before the Kyros in an endless stream of apologies for his 'poorly-timed' clumsiness, Nikandros strongly suspected that the incident wasn't anywhere near as accidental as the servant would have him believe. Laurent had his little spies everywhere in Marlas these days.

His belief that it was planned was all but confirmed when Nicaise somehow caught sight (and smell) of the revolting state of Nikandros on his way to the baths, despite Nikandros at the time passing through an area of the castle which Nicaise would normally never frequent. Nicaise devolved into a round of laughter so intense that he sounded like he might asphyxiate from it (which would serve him right).

Revenge might easily turn into an ongoing cycle, it seemed. Nikandros supposed it could have been a lot worse than just this, though, knowing Laurent. This was likely just a warning shot fired across the bow.

Nikandros wondered whether exile for refusal might not have been the better option after all. At least there would be no Veretians to bother him across the sea.

Chapter Text

Nikandros watched as, without so much as glancing away from his conversation with Laurent, Damen twisted his body slightly and casually caught the thin wooden staff that had been swinging towards the back of his ribcage.

"Fuck, again?" Nicaise cursed as Damen, unfazed, finished his sentence before looking at him.

"I heard you coming from all the way across the hall," Damen remarked to Nicaise as he pushed the staff, which was now pressed harmlessly against his palm, away from himself. "I have no idea how someone as delicate-looking as you can manage to clomp about like an overweight draft horse."

Nicaise bared his teeth. "I do not clomp. You just smelled me coming, you liar. Fucking alphas. Next time I'll aim for your thick head."

Nicaise let the tip of his staff bounce hard against the stone floor in a show of childishness, though he did at least stop short of actively trying to snap the wood against the ground in irritation.

This was the fifth time he'd failed to get the drop on Damen in the last two days, so it was unsurprising that Nicaise was frustrated. It was no one's fault but his own, though. Nicaise had made an unfounded remark about being able to beat anyone in a fight because they would never see him coming. Nikandros had tried to bring his inflated head back down to reality by reminding him that it would be impossible for Nicaise to ever lay so much as a single hit on a seasoned warrior like, say, the King, regardless of whether Nicaise could manage to sneak up on him. Nicaise had taken the example far more literally than Nikandros had intended, betting Nikandros's finest silk cloak that Nicaise could strike a blow on Damen at least once.

Nikandros had emphatically refused the bet at first. He wouldn't willingly pit anyone against his King, even a fifteen-year-old boy who'd only recently figured out which way to hold a sword.

The key word being 'willingly'.

Nikandros didn't have much choice in the end, though, because Nicaise ran off like a weasel and proposed his little game to Laurent. Anyone in the palace with even half a brain (so admittedly not many people, in Nikandros's opinion, given the general calibre of courtiers that had flocked to Marlas) could tell that Laurent was currently so bored with wedding planning that he would jump at any opportunity to break up the monotony. Anything that was a little more exciting than discussing which chalices to use for the post-wedding feast would do. So Laurent had told Nikandros, somehow managing to keep a straight face, that this challenge was clearly 'an absolutely imperative part of Nicaise's weapons training'. Nikandros had been around Laurent more than long enough to be aware that it was more trouble than it was worth to fight it, since Laurent wouldn't leave Nikandros alone until he broke and went along with it anyway. Nikandros already had one Veretian hanging around in his rooms when he'd rather be sleeping and flicking food at Nikandros during meals just to annoy him and distract him from his conversations. There would undoubtedly be a lot worse than that planned for Nikandros if he was responsible for depriving Laurent of his entertainment.

When he inevitably gave in, Nikandros comforted himself that it wasn't as if Damen was in any actual danger. And Damen did keep mentioning to Nikandros how Laurent wanted Nicaise and Damen to spend more time interacting together, even if this probably wasn't how Damen had pictured that happening. And finally, Nikandros secretly wouldn't mind making Damen deal directly with Nicaise's antics rather than him just foisting the boy directly off onto Nikandros as he always did when Nicaise was being particularly annoying (which was always).

So Nikandros had handed Nicaise a staff so thin that it would probably break before it could so much as bruise Damen and reluctantly agreed to the bet. Though he wasn't sure it technically counted as a bet when Nikandros himself wouldn't get anything if – or rather when – Nicaise lost. He was pretty sure Nicaise didn't actually have anything Nikandros wanted anyway.

Damen initially had been baffled, uncertain whether he should be ordering Nicaise's arrest (and probably convinced that Laurent wouldn't allow that to happen anyway), when the first failed 'attack' had occurred. Laurent had convinced Damen to let it play out as part of Nicaise's fighting development. Not that Damen actually took much real convincing; Laurent only needed to give him the briefest of beseeching looks and Damen folded like a cheap chiton.

The other occupants of the palace didn't seem to know what to make of seeing the King of Vere's omega pet swinging a blunt stick determinedly at the King of Akielos, while the King's guards just stood idly and watched, some of them even chuckling at the view. Though, to be honest, Nikandros suspected that actually wasn't the strangest thing people had ever seen happen inside this palace, considering who was running the place. For their part, once the concept of the bet had been explained after Nicaise's first attempt, Damen's guards had just shrugged and nodded, some of them grinning, when Damen had sighed and instructed that no one should stop Nicaise from attacking him for the next few weeks. It was clear that the guards were no more concerned that Nicaise would actually manage to land a blow on the King than Nikandros was.

"You know," Nicaise whined to Nikandros, "it's completely unfair that he can just use his stupid alpha nose to know I'm nearby."

"It was your choice to make him the target of the bet." Nikandros had no sympathy to give here.

"I mean, I could still win this thing in a second if I targeted him in bed, while he's too distracted to smell anything but his own damn omega, but it's not worth scarring my eyes with the sight of him fucking Laurent. Bad enough when I have to hear it."

Nikandros definitely understood not wanting to deal with that. He preferred not to even think of it, let alone actually witnessing it. But: "Telling me that you could win isn't the same as winning. You'll just have to find another way."

"Obviously you'd better come show me a good way. Aren't you supposed to be training me? Apparently, you've done a piss-poor job of it so far if he can keep avoiding me so easily. Your reputation as a teacher is on the line now, so time to redeem yourself."

Nicaise roughly grabbed the side of Nikandros's chiton, very nearly dislodging the pin that was holding it closed in the process. Nikandros let himself be pulled to the training ring without too much of a struggle, not so much because he was afraid of losing his clothing if he dug in his heels (though he would rather avoid that), but because there were times where, as with Laurent, it just wasn't worth the effort to resist Nicaise. Besides, there was a reason why Nikandros had gained a reputation for rarely turning down the opportunity for a bout in the ring. He enjoyed the exertion of it, and the challenge when one was offered. Nicaise wasn't quite at that stage yet, but one day he might be able to give Nikandros something close to a run for his money if Nicaise continued his unexpected devotion to his training sessions with Nikandros.

When they'd started this, Nikandros had expected that he would be the one who would have to track Nicaise down and drag him to training all the time, assuming Nicaise didn't just give up on this whole self-defence idea entirely within a day or two. Nicaise, though, had surprised him with his apparent diligence. Though Nikandros probably should have realised from the start that there was nothing more important to Nicaise than doing whatever it took to protect his own interests. Also, their lessons gave him ample time each day to infuriate Nikandros without Nikandros being able to easily escape. There was no way Nicaise would voluntarily miss out on that.

An hour into their session, Nikandros had thrown Nicaise to the ground for about the twentieth time, and now had him completely pinned after Nicaise had tried to viciously kick Nikandros's knee out from under him in retaliation. Just before he climbed back to his feet, Nikandros happened to glance up, and he met Laurent's eyes for a moment before Laurent's gaze dropped down to where Nicaise was still pressed firmly underneath Nikandros's body in a position that, in retrospect, might be seen as rather compromising.

Nikandros shoved himself away from Nicaise as if burnt, scrambling to his feet without any of his usual grace in his hurry to put some distance between them.

"Funny, that wasn't a wrestling move I recognise," Laurent commented evenly.

"That's because we weren't wrestling," Nicaise said. "Nikandros just really likes getting me on my back."

As if Nicaise didn't deserve to be put there, spouting off comments like that.

Laurent's eyes looked icier than usual as he curtly told Nikandros, "Come. We need to discuss how the upcoming merger of Vere and Akielos will impact your role as Kyros."

"Hey, wait your turn! You can't have him until I'm done with him!" Nicaise complained, to no avail.

Once they'd excused themselves from Nicaise (and made sure he wasn't trailing behind them eavesdropping, as the little sneak was often wont to do), Laurent turned to Nikandros with a serious expression. Nikandros was fairly certain what he was about to say. As a currently mixed-nation territory, Delpha had no Kyros at all. Officially Ios belonged to Nikandros instead, though he'd basically been doing double duty and kept having to travel the not-inconsiderable distance between Ios and Marlas and back. But once the wedding was done and the alliance was permanently sealed, there would no longer be the need to treat Delpha as a delegated neutral ground, for both Kings would then officially rule the entirety of both kingdoms. Nikandros had expected Damen to ask him to become Kyros of Delpha again at that time, so he could be by his King's side at the new capital instead of stuck at the other end of the country half the time. It was only surprising that Laurent would be the one to bring it up, and especially that he'd see the need to go looking for Nikandros rather than just calling him to Laurent's office in an official capacity.

But instead of offering Nikandros Delpha, what Laurent said instead was: "I think you know that Damen will offer you Delpha again the moment that becomes a viable option. I want you to turn him down and remain in Ios for another year."

"Why would I do that?" Nikandros asked. "My duty is to be by my King's side as long as he wants me there. I'm certainly not going to disobey his order."

"He'll request the move, not order it. He respects you more than enough to give you the choice. And I'll be your King too, soon enough," Laurent reminded him. "You'll have to follow my orders as well."

As if Nikandros could forget. Nine days and three hours, give or take a few minutes, until Laurent's grip on Akielos - and on Damen in particular - was irrevocably strengthened.

"Still, why would you ask that of me?" Nikandros repeated.

"Because there are still many who haven't truly accepted that Ios will no longer serve as the capital and that a Veretian with power of his own will have as much say over Akielos as their own born King. If there's going to be any kind of resistance to the unification from the Akielon side, I expect it will centre around the old seat of Akielos's power. The problem with that is that I anticipate that I'll be in a fit state to travel the large distance between here and Ios for the next year, and I imagine Damen will refuse to leave me behind and make the trip without me. So I would feel more comfortable if I knew we had someone entirely trustworthy to oversee the old capital in our continued absence."

Nikandros blinked. He hadn't expected that as a justification. Though it did make sense. It wasn't as if the entirety of two countries hadn't been rabidly speculating about the possibility of finally having an heir once the wedding had taken place.

"And I'm someone you trust that much?" Nikandros asked.

"You're the one person Damen would always trust with his life, no matter what, other than me," Laurent said.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd be willing to depend on the King's ability to judge such things," Nikandros commented wryly. Neither of them had forgotten how Damen had refused to believe ill of Kastor, and had even let him close enough to bury a blade in Damen despite the proof of his treachery already being irrefutable at that stage. "And anyway, you don't even like me."

"That would be all the more reason for me to send you away to Ios for a time, don't you think?" But it was said almost teasingly.

"All right," Nikandros agreed after a moment of thinking it over. "I'll request for the King to let me stay Kyros of Ios until an heir arrives. For my King's sake, and the future King or Queen's as well, you understand, not just because you asked. You're not my King just yet."

Laurent nodded, satisfied.

When Nikandros tracked down Damen to make the suggestion, he spotted him talking to a young man with pale curly hair. Nikandros would have known he was a former slave from his posture alone, even if he hadn't recognised him specifically as one of the former slaves who'd accompanied them back to Akielos from Arles. Damen was clearly focusing his attention entirely on the ex-slave, so he didn't seem to notice Nicaise sneaking up on him outside his range of vision. Nikandros had to admit that Nicaise had chosen his moment well.

He still failed. Damen deflected the blow with ease.

"You got closer that time," Damen said, as near to praise as he was willing to offer Nicaise.

"Exalted," the young man he'd been speaking to breathed, shocked and obviously unsure how he was supposed to respond to a show of violence against his King and would-have-been master. Even though his eyes were respectfully downturned, Nikandros could see that they were incredibly wide.

"Relax, Erasmus," Damen said. "Nicaise means me no harm."

"Yes I do," Nicaise countered. "I'm going to leave bruises on you next time, at the very least."

"It's really fine," Damen assured Erasmus again, for his uncertainty had him trembling. "Even if Nicaise did have deadly intent, look how tiny he is. Even you could probably knock him down if you were of a mind to."

"Forget bruises; I'll maim you," Nicaise threatened.

At the same moment, Erasmus bowed even lower and stammered over the top of Nicaise's words, "Oh no, this slave would never –"

"You're not a slave anymore, Erasmus," Damen gently reminded him.

Erasmus's pale eyebrows furrowed. "This pet would never –" he tried.

"You should refer to yourself as 'I'," Damen directed. "You're not just a pet, and you're not a slave. You have your own identity."

Nicaise asked dubiously, "Are all the slaves still walking doormats like him? They're supposed to be pets now, aren't they? They won't convince anyone of that if they don't at least grow a bit of a spine."

Nicaise wouldn't have already been aware of the current state of the ex-slaves, for there'd been little opportunity for him to cross paths with them. The freed slaves that were being housed in Marlas – as 'pets' to the soon-to-be King of Vere, which was an empty title except insofar as it gave them a valid reason to be inside the palace and, more importantly, offered them the umbrella of Laurent's protection – were currently being given the privacy of their own separate wing of the palace while they grew accustomed to their freedom. Nicaise did have a point; that adjustment had been a slower process than Nikandros might have wished, personally. But it wasn't something that could be rushed.

"Nicaise," Damen chastised. "Show a little kindness for once."

"Oh get off my case," Nicaise said. "If I was actually interested in insulting him, I would have said something a lot worse than that. I just meant that obviously they all need a real pet to instil some actual character into them so they can sell the lie that they're pets as well."

Nikandros imagined for a moment all the ex-slaves in Marlas using Nicaise as a role model. Retreating to Ios for another year seemed more and more like a sound option, with that prospect in mind. Thankfully, if Erasmus was any indication, they'd all be too scared of Nicaise's brashness to want to go near him, let alone to emulate him.

"I'll get him eventually. Don't think you've won the bet yet," Nicaise warned Nikandros once they'd left the King to finish his conversation with the slave (which Nikandros wished he could listen in on, intrigued to know what had caused Damen to seek out that particular ex-slave to begin with, but he wasn't impolite enough to intrude on it, unlike Nicaise).

"I have to return to Ios in two weeks," Nikandros said, "so you're on a deadline if you want to resolve the bet before I go."

"Ios?" Nicaise asked blankly, almost as if it was a word he'd never heard before.

"I am still Kyros there, you know," Nikandros reminded him. "I'm returning after the wedding."

"I thought that Laurent took you aside to ask you to shift to being Kyros here," Nicaise said. His voice was oddly toneless.

"Believe it or not, you're don't always know about every little thing that happens in the palace."

"Yes I do," Nicaise claimed, "except when Laurent bribes people to spread false information without telling me he's doing it, the bastard."

Nikandros was fairly concerned at the idea of the palace being full of people whose loyalty could be bought, even if it was royalty doing the buying. He blamed the influx of Laurent's people; they were slowly turning Marlas into something a little too Veretian for Nikandros's tastes. Nikandros wasn't sure whether he was glad that he would be mostly away from it for a year, or worried that it would become worse in the absence of his potentially moderating influence.

"When will you return from Ios?" Nicaise asked. Nikandros didn't think he was imagining it when the question came across more like 'will you return?'

"Laurent seems certain there will be a child within the year. I'll be made Kyros of Delpha shortly after that, it seems."

"Ugh," Nicaise said, disgruntled. "Babies. Those two will be even more disgusting with a fat little ball of bodily fluids to coo over. Isn't it already bad enough that I have to see them always going all weak for each other?" Then Nicaise got a strange look in his eyes as if something had just occurred to him. It worried Nikandros. Nicaise having some kind of epiphany couldn't be a good thing.

The next day, Nicaise walked right up to Damen with his staff in hand, not even trying for stealth. It struck Nikandros, who was watching, as a strange tactic. Surprise really was the only possible weapon Nicaise might have against someone like Damen. That had been the whole point; Nicaise had started this by claiming that he could beat anyone, Damen included, if he could sneak up on them.

This was the opposite of sneaking. Nicaise looked Damen right in the eye, staring him down.

And then he turned and swung his staff at Laurent's back.

Damen was there in an instant, taking the thin beam directly to his shoulder. Nicaise might not have had the strongest swing, and the staff by design didn't have a lot of weight to it, but the hit still looked like it twinged at least a little.

"Ha!" Nicaise crowed. "I knew that would work! You're so predictable."

Laurent started laughing and congratulating Nicaise on coming up with a clever plan.

"Were you in on that?" Damen asked Laurent, sounding betrayed.

"No," said Laurent. "But it's the sort of thing I would have done. I'm impressed."

"Don't be. That was cheating," Nikandros claimed.

"Of course it was!" Nicaise said. "How else did you expect me to try to win? The whole point was to be sneaky, remember?"

"It's not cheating if you didn't make any rules against it," Laurent corrected. Trust him to make a distinction like that. "It's hardly Nicaise's problem if your oversight happens to be to his benefit."

"Even if it's not technically cheating, it's still dishonourable," Damen griped, rolling his shoulder with a small cringe.

Nikandros considered throwing himself to the floor in effacement for having any role in something that had ultimately hurt his King. It was his job to make sure that didn't happen. But this was ultimately Laurent's fault, not his, and Damen hadn't really seemed to mind the risk (at least not enough to disagree when Laurent asked), nor did he seem angry now. And, to be honest, Nikandros had just been so sure that Nicaise didn't stand a chance that he was still having difficulty processing that the King actually had received some level of injury.

"Who cares if it's honourable, anyway, as long as you win?" Nicaise said.

Damen and Laurent looked at each other meaningfully. "I care," said Damen.

"Calm down," instructed Laurent. "I didn't get hurt, and you barely got more than a little love tap. Unless you're trying to say that you can't handle one little hit from Nicaise?"

"That's not the point. You could have gotten your head bashed in if I hadn't moved quickly enough."

"You must not give enough credit to Nikandros's teaching if you don't think I could've pulled my swing partway through," Nicaise said. Nikandros couldn't help but feel a little pleased with the implied compliment. "Besides, I knew it wouldn't come to that. You're too ridiculously on the leash to just stand by while Laurent might get hurt."

Damen didn't even try to deny it. Laurent just looked like that was his due.

Annoyed with all of them – enough so that his guilt at letting the King sustain even a small injury mostly melted away – Nikandros rolled his eyes and left them to deal with each other.

Though the next day, he did voluntarily track Nicaise down to hand over his wagered cloak.

"A bet's a bet, even if you did more or less cheat," Nikandros said.

"It smells like alpha," Nicaise complained. That didn't stop him from draping it triumphantly across his shoulders.

"I thought the idea of looking like an Akielon would be what would turn you off, not the smell."

"Please," Nicaise scoffed. "I look far too refined to be mistaken for one of you brutes, no matter what I wear. Besides, this is Kemptian silk. It transcends nationality."

He'd obviously spent too long talking to that Charls fellow while the merchant had been at Marlas, Nikandros thought.

"You're so spoiled," Nikandros said.

"Yes, and?" Nicaise said, not looking offended in the slightest. He rubbed the Kemptian silk teasingly along his skin, as if to demonstrate his more indulgent pet-like characteristics, or perhaps to taunt Nikandros about the cloak belonging entirely to him now.

The spectacle made Nikandros feel uncomfortable, but not because he cared much about the loss of the clothing. He could afford another cloak.

Though so could Nicaise, for that matter. Or rather, Laurent could have afforded to buy one for him. Kemptian silk or not, Nikandros wondered why, of all the things Nicaise could have tried to claim as his prize, he'd opted for that.

At dinner that night, Laurent kicked Nikandros under the table (without Damen noticing, of course). "Why does Nicaise absolutely reek of you?"

His eyes danced with the kind of expression Nikandros had only seen before in parents protecting their children. Nikandros had to wonder why, if Laurent claimed he was willing to trust him with the run of Ios, he couldn't seem to as easily trust Nikandros not to make a move on a boy whose voice had only just begun to deepen into manhood. What kind of man did he take Nikandros for?

Though at least Laurent's reaction did seem to provide the answer to Nikandros's earlier ponderings: Nicaise had obviously asked for his scent-drenched cloak specifically because he wanted to get Nikandros killed.

Nikandros was suddenly very glad that he was leaving for Ios in a few days, and that Laurent would be too busy with the wedding ceremony (and the consummation ceremony afterwards, which had sent Nikandros into a spiral of incredulous laughter when Laurent had mentioned it to him) to spend much time plotting against Nikandros. Though Nikandros did resolve to keep a warier eye out than usual for 'bandits' on the road to Ios. Laurent seemed to have people everywhere in Akielos these days. It would be easy enough to arrange an 'accident'.

"If I die on the way to Ios, it was your new husband's fault," Nikandros told Damen a week later, as the horses and wagons were readied for Nikandros and his household's journey south.

Damen, with the same irrepressibly proud grin that hadn't lagged in the slightest since he'd emerged from the Kings' rooms, having finally gotten to properly satisfy his omega during heat, simply claimed naïvely, "Laurent doesn't actually want you dead."

"No," Nicaise whispered quietly in Nikandros's ear, "I bet he'd prefer to see you castrated, actually."

Damen, oblivious to Nicaise's words, kept smiling.

"I really hate you, you devil child," Nikandros told Nicaise.

"Please. You're going to miss me."

Strangely, Nikandros suspected that might actually be true. He must have somehow contracted some kind of madness. Nikandros wholeheartedly blamed the Veretians.

Chapter Text

It would have been considered somewhat scandalous – not to mention markedly different from Damianos's previous practices – for the King to have a smaller retinue of slaves than people of lower rank. So the King having no slaves at all had been unthinkable. And yet, over a year ago, King Damianos had very publically freed all the slaves in the palace at Ios. In doing so, he had indicated to his people that the sudden influx of Veretians into their country was by no means the last change to the status quo that they should expect.

Certain nobles had been highly resistant to the abolition of slavery, perhaps in part because they hoped that the then-Prince of Vere would stand firmly by his claim that he refused to willingly live in a country that continued to exploit its people that way. But if it had been that easy to get rid of Laurent, Nikandros's life would have been significantly less stressful.

Although Nikandros hadn't opposed the proposed anti-slavery laws for selfish purposes, he'd certainly voiced some concerns about so abruptly removing an institution based on millennia of tradition that underpinned both Akielos's economy and class system. If nothing else, Nikandros had pointed out to Damen, slaves who were suddenly ejected from the role they were raised for and told to fend for themselves would likely end up preyed upon and in a worse position than they'd been in before. At least as slaves they were appreciated and cared for, and there was a system in place to protect them. But Damen wouldn't hear of phasing slavery out in stages over a period of years, or even decades, despite all of the very valid reasons Nikandros provided for why a gradual change would work better. It seemed the issue was somehow personal to Laurent, which made it personal to Damen as well, so there was no reasoning with him.

It was personal enough, it seemed, that the two of them had nearly missed Laurent's Ascension in Marlas. Nikandros had, justifiably he thought, questioned whether it had been absolutely necessary for them to gallivant around the border breaking up slave smuggling themselves just because Laurent didn't know how to delegate.

"Yes, it was," Damen had said firmly. "We'll do it all ourselves if that's what it takes. You'd understand if you saw the slaves we rescued."

Nikandros had seen them soon enough, for they'd appeared at Marlas only weeks after Laurent and Damen had. Despite travelling from Aegina in relative comfort, almost all of them had arrived looking far less composed than even the most poorly-trained of the slaves Nikandros had ever seen before. All slaves were submissive, but to Nikandros their behaviour had always appeared to be in line with the teachings he'd grown up with: that slaves chose to give themselves over to their masters, and masters should accept it as the gift it was. But these slaves instead looked like they submitted because they had given up. Their bodies might have been spared any visible beating so they would maintain their worth, but they were obviously battered in spirit. There were no signs of any kind of choice, other than possibly the choice to live on regardless of how they were treated. Though there was a hopelessness in the air around them, hovering like a haze, so perhaps even that had simply been out of their hands.

Nikandros would have preferred to think that these slaves had only been poorly looked after because they'd needed to be hidden from sight in the two months since slavery had been outlawed. But the bone-deep sadness that emanated from them seemed to go beyond just a few weeks of having their movements restricted. It was, Nikandros thought, years in the making, as if they'd been raised into it where all the slaves Nikandros had encountered had seemed to have been raised to be happy and proud of their position.

Was this normal, Nikandros wondered, for those slaves who simply didn't take to the training and a life of submission early or naturally enough to eventually be declared fit to parade before men of Nikandros's rank? There had to be hundreds of slaves who weren't considered suitable for a Kyros, or for even a middle-ranked noble. There might be thousands, even. Were they all like this?

"All right," Nikandros had finally declared. "Let's do whatever is necessary to free all the slaves."

It wasn't quite that simple – Nikandros had known even before Damen passed the laws that it wouldn't be – but Damen was right that it was worthwhile.

Now, fifteen months after slavery had been declared unlawful, there were somehow more former slaves being housed in the palace than there were in any of the converted slave houses that now taught life skills and helped the recently-freed men and women find roles to suit existing or newly-taught skill sets. Most of the ex-slaves in Marlas had been specifically taken under Laurent's wing as 'pets' with the mindset that people were less likely to take advantage of someone contracted to King Laurent than they were with a free man who was assumed to have no one in their corner. Laurent had talked Lady Vannes into claiming many of the freed female slaves as pets for the same purpose. (Though Nikandros didn't think she'd really needed much convincing, for Vannes clearly liked the idea of personally building them up to be strong, independent women. Nikandros expected that within a few years she'd have her own little army of Akielon pet-warriors. It was lucky she was loyal to Laurent, he supposed, though that wasn't a thought he'd ever expected to have before.)

When he'd visited Marlas up until now, Nikandros had rarely seen any of Laurent's 'pets' apart from Nicaise, for they tended to keep to themselves most of the time. But in the two weeks since Nikandros had permanently returned to Marlas in preparation for the arrival of the heir, he'd quickly realised that at least a few of the former slaves now wandered the castle fairly freely, even if they still tended to avoid eye contact with and defer to most people they encountered. And there was one slave in particular who seemed to have adjusted to freedom a little faster than most, with a little help.

Many of the residents of Marlas knew that the sight of Nicaise and Kallias together, with their heads bent together almost close enough for their brown curls to intertwine, was something to be feared. Nikandros was a little impressed that they managed to effectively scheme together considering their conversations tended to be a slightly disjointed melding of Veretian and Akielon, for neither was fully fluent in the other's language. But Nikandros would have preferred it if they hadn't overcome the language barrier; Nicaise, who wore being the bane of Nikandros's existence as a banner of pride, really didn't need to have a right-hand man who would help him find new ways to drive Nikandros and the rest of the palace occupants up the wall.

Today, however, Kallias's expression was serious, but not shrewdly so, and there was no smirk playing at Nicaise's lips. Their current conversation was clearly about something other than Nicaise convincing Kallias to spy on someone or to help him play some trick.

Kallias was saying, "I've spent my heat both with and without a bedmate. The difference is day and night. And I fear this might be worse since his first heat has been so delayed in coming. He shouldn't be alone through it. He should have an alpha with him." He didn't hide his grimace when he said the word 'alpha'.

Nikandros found himself wondering what Kastor had done to put that expression on his old slave's face. For all of Kastor's faults, Nikandros hadn't been aware of him mistreating his slaves, though things might have changed once Kastor was no longer subject to his father's oversight. If he had taken that as a license to act without any care for his charges, perhaps it wasn't so surprising that Kallias had notably borne no child despite clearly having spent at least one heat with Kastor. A clever slave like Kallias, who didn't want to be further bound to his abusive master or introduce another life into a bad situation, could have manipulated someone into giving him preventative herbs without Kastor's permission, or perhaps even risked his life on less savoury medicines if that hadn't worked.

Either way, Nikandros could only be glad of it. Damen would probably have warmly welcomed any nieces or nephews and happily raised them almost like they were his own children, but the last thing they needed was for a child acknowledged as Kastor's to become some kind of a rallying point for those who still didn't agree that Akielos and Vere should be one nation. Kastor had officially been crowned King for a time, after all. He had been King before Damen, and his children conceived during that time would have been older than Damen's children. They would arguably have had a very real claim on the throne. All in all, Nikandros wished he could have profusely thanked Kallias for having avoided the potential problems of that, even if that hadn't been Kallias's actual intention. But bringing it up with Kallias would risk reminding him of things he might prefer to forget, so Nikandros maintained his silence on the topic.

But if it was true that Kallias had disliked his own experience with an alpha enough to have resorted to the measures Nikandros suspected, it seemed incongruous that he would push for an alpha to see to whichever slave had gone into heat, for whom Kallias clearly seemed to care.

Kallias's tenor turned pleading as he said to Nicaise, "You could convince the King to help him through it, couldn't you?" Nikandros found that his interest was piqued enough to override his usual aversion to listening in on private conversations. If it involved Nicaise 'convincing' the Kings to do anything, it was probably a conversation Nikandros should know about, he thought.

Nicaise laughed. "He just popped out a kid. You're overestimating him if you think he's up for wild heat sex right now."

"No, I don't mean King Laurent," Kallias said. "He needs an alpha. Damianos-Exalted's insatiable appetite is well-known, and with his husband incapacitated and no slaves for him to turn to anymore, surely King Laurent would agree to gift his pet's first heat to his husband to keep him satisfied during His Majesty's convalescence."

Nicaise scoffed, "Yeah right. Laurent's already pissed at Damen for getting the easy part in making babies. If Damen ran off and bedded another omega right now, we'd probably have a civil war on our hands. Besides, those two idiots don't have eyes for anyone but each other anyway."

"You have to try to convince them," Kallias all but demanded. Kallias had obviously never quite had the gall to try to order Nicaise around before. Otherwise he would already have been aware of how doing so would make Nicaise dig his heels in.

"I don't have to do anything."

Kallias tried to keep pressing him even so. "Please. Damianos-Exalted will at least try to be gentle with him, I'm sure. Someone like King Laurent wouldn't have chosen him if he wasn't a decent kind of alpha."

"His Self-Righteousness thinks so highly of his own decency that he'd never go along with this. Which is lucky for you, because it stops you from being stupidly noble, pushing an alpha at him as if you're not sickeningly in love with him. Honestly, it's not like it's actually going to kill your little lover boy to deal with his heat by himself. He'll have a few bad days, sure, but then he'll have a few hell-free months before he has to worry about it again. It's not that bad spending heat alone." Though Nicaise didn't sound overly convinced by his own claim.

Kallias shook his head. "He's brave, and he would manage, but it's still worse than anything I would ever wish on him."

Was it really that terrible? Nikandros had personally only ever seen one omega through their time, and the ravages of heat had seemed uncomfortable but not intolerable for the omega in question. But maybe it really was exponentially worse to go through it alone. Certainly, the idea that Laurent might refuse to let Damen properly help during Laurent's future heats had not gone over well with Damen, and Nikandros didn't believe his King would be so concerned over some minor inconvenience.

Nicaise, though, apparently wasn't as easily persuaded as Nikandros. "Stop being so dramatic. Just give him a fake alpha cock or a glass knot or something to stuff himself with, like the rest of us resort to, and tell him to suck it up and deal with it."

Nikandros only just barely stopped himself from choking audibly on his own spit and dissolving into a coughing fit that would alert the two pets to his presence.

That was certainly a lot more insight into Nicaise's heats than Nikandros had ever expected to hear, even with Nicaise's mouth being audaciously uncensored about such things. Nikandros was glad that Nicaise wasn't looking in his direction, because he undoubtedly would have picked out how red Nikandros's face had just turned and used that to his advantage.

Kallias, on the other hand, looked more intrigued than embarrassed. "Fake cocks?"

"Don't tell me this is news to you. Why did they even have training houses for slaves if they didn't even teach you anything useful while you were there?"

"We weren't supposed to touch ourselves or each other," Kallias said bitterly. "So why would they teach us how best to do so?"

Nicaise scowled. "Well fuck them. Overbearing bastards. Why shouldn't you be allowed to touch whoever you want, however you want? In fact, here's a novel thought: why don't you just fuck him through his heat yourself, since that's what you actually want."

Kallias shook his head so hard that Nikandros thought it must have hurt his neck. "I can't do that. He's not allowed to spend his First Night with anyone his master hasn't offered it to." His eyes were a little wild as he said it. It was a fiction born of a perhaps-unhealthy denial of what everyone present knew: Erasmus hadn't exactly spent the duration of his time in Arles alone and untouched, so he could no longer have had his First Night even if he'd still been a slave. Kallias said something more, quieter this time so that it was difficult to make out the words, but Nikandros thought he made out the words, "I already ruined him and had him sent away once. Not again."

"You aren't slaves anymore," Nicaise reminded him.

"But we are pets to a Veretian, subject to Veretian rules. And Veretians don't allow omegas to spend their heat with anyone they aren't tied to either, right?"

Nicaise snorted. "Laurent was grinding all over an alpha through his heats long before he was married to the brute. I don't think he's got any room to complain about two omegas harmlessly fooling around. Vere only cares about bastards, and there's no fear of that from you two fucking."

Dejectedly, Kallias said. "It doesn't matter anyway. Only an alpha can really provide relief."

"Ha. That's what the knotheads want you to think." Then Nicaise made a strange face and said, "Look, I'll kill you if you mention this where Laurent or any of his spies can hear, but… my heat always dies down a bit whenever Laurent comes and checks on me during it. I think omegas can calm each other or something, I don't know. And even apart from that, you have a cock, don't you? If you don't think that could help, then you obviously don't know how to use it properly."

"But –"

"Ugh, 'but' 'but' 'but'," Nicaise mimicked.

When Nicaise exaggeratedly rolled his eyes, his gaze finally happened to catch on where Nikandros stood lingering just inside the doorway. Instead of being angry that Nikandros was intruding on a very private conversation, as Nikandros might have expected of any normal person, Nicaise simply smirked. "Oh look, Kallias, it seems you're in luck. Nikandros over there is acting as the Kings' proxy while they're being too lazy to drag themselves out of bed. So why don't you go ask him for permission or something and stop bothering me about it."

Upon having his attention drawn to Nikandros's presence, Kallias bowed in the Kyros's direction. It was significantly shy of the kind of prostrations Nikandros usually received from ex-slaves, but although Kallias was bolder than most, he still did avert his eyes respectfully.

In a quieter voice, Kallias asked Nicaise, "You mean the Kyros could see Erasmus through his heat in the Kings' stead?"

"Fuck no," Nicaise snapped, more sharply by far than Nikandros had ever heard him speak to Kallias, who seemed to be the closest thing Nicaise had to a friend (for Nikandros would hesitate to call Nicaise and Laurent 'friends', exactly, when they were at each other's throats more often than they were getting along). Sounding put upon, Nicaise asked, "Why can't any of you Akielons just figure out how to use what's around you to help you get what you want? You wouldn't have survived a day in Arles. Apparently I have to do everything myself." To Nikandros, he called out, "Nikandros, come over here and explain to Kallias that Laurent really won't give a damn if he fucks Erasmus through his first heat."

Nikandros pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered what horrible thing he'd done in a past life that these things always seemed to fall to him. It was true that, as the newly re-appointed Kyros of Delpha, Nikandros had been responsible for a wide range of decisions within the castle in the days since Laurent had gone into seclusion for the birth, but surely this was outside his purview?

But Nikandros had made the decision some time ago to do what was necessary to help the slaves. So Nikandros would just have to, as Nicaise had termed it, 'suck it up'.

"Is Erasmus already in heat?" Nikandros asked in the most unaffected tone he could summon, given the subject.

Kallias shook his head. "Soon, I think. He'd been purposely hiding that it was coming since yesterday instead of retreating to the special rooms out of scent range of patrolling alpha guards, where the King's omega pets are supposed to go when their heats approach. He was trying not to inconvenience anyone, he said." His frustration with his friend's lack of self-preservation was evident.

Nikandros sighed. He still sometimes forgot that the ex-slaves that ended up at the palace generally tended to be among the most damaged, and that many of them had still barely figured out how to properly care for themselves. And then a stark reminder, like an omega who would rather risk being accosted by any weak-willed alphas that might catch his scent if it meant he wouldn't 'bother' anyone, came along and made it impossible for Nikandros to ignore, or to refuse to help.

"If Erasmus is still entirely in his right mind, then he can decide for himself," Nikandros pointed out. "You should ask him what he wants."

"Erasmus is an idiot who doesn't even realise he can have anything for himself," Nicaise griped. "But he's an even bigger idiot for Kallias, so it's pretty clear he'd want it if he thought he was allowed to."

Nikandros was unable to entirely hide his awkwardness with discussing such a thing openly, but he nonetheless made himself say, "Tell Erasmus that King Laurent believes heats should be spent with someone he wants and actively chooses, unless he prefers to spend it alone. It's his choice. The King made both of you his pets because he wants what's best for you, not because he cares to have any say over who you take into your beds. If you both want it, then the King will be satisfied."

Steeling himself – perhaps to be punished for his daring, the way he would have been as a slave – Kallias finally met Nikandros's eyes. "Really?" He looked hopeful. Everyone in Marlas, even pets, knew that the word of the Kyros was almost equivalent to the word of the Kings, and could be relied upon.

"Yes, really," Nicaise interjected, apparently on Nikandros's behalf. "That's what I've been trying to tell you all this time. Now get out of here. Erasmus is probably hopelessly whining your name by now because you left him alone like a moron."

Kallias kept looking at Nikandros, though, waiting for his explicit approval. Nikandros nodded.

A smile washed most of the worry from Kallias's face. He gave Nikandros one last bow, deeper and more heartfelt than before, then sprinted away down the hallway, presumably in the direction of whatever room he'd made sure Erasmus holed himself up inside.

Nikandros received a sharp jab of Nicaise's elbow to his side. He held in his grunt, unwilling to give Nicaise the satisfaction of knowing that had hurt a little.

"You're such a sap," Nicaise said.

"You're the one who was trying to help him long before you got me involved," Nikandros pointed out.

"Only so I wouldn't have to hear him talk about how unattainable his precious Erasmus is for the next ten years straight. What a waste of my life that would be."

Somehow, though, Nikandros had the impression that that hadn't been Nicaise's only reason for helping Kallias.

"It was worth listening to all that rubbish he was spouting to see you looking so embarrassed, though. That was priceless." Nicaise was clearly pleased with himself.

"From what I've seen and heard, you've been talking Kallias into doing all sorts of reckless things for months now. I really doubt you needed my help to convince him to do something he clearly already wanted to do. Which means you involved me just because you wanted to make me uncomfortable," Nikandros accused.

Nicaise shrugged, not denying it. "Two birds, one stone. It was also quicker and easier to have you tell him rather than to keep trying to trick him into agreeing. And, I mean, I could have taken him directly to Laurent so he could have dealt with it, but I refuse to go anywhere near that gross idiot until he gets over this 'new parent' thing and stops acting so… gooey." Nicaise visibly shuddered. "Anyway, at least this way Kallias will probably make it back before the whole castle is treated to the sound of Erasmus pathetically crying for him like an abandoned puppy left to die alone in the elements."

"Is it really so bad spending heat alone?" Nikandros wondered, his tongue moving before he even processed what he was saying, and who he was saying it to.

Nicaise looked sidelong at him, speculatively. "Are you trying to say that you want details?"

Nikandros grimaced. "Definitely not. Forget I asked. Call it a moment of insanity."

"Are you sure? I think you just don't know what you're missing out on. Let me tell you, this one time, during my second heat –"

"Please stop." Right now, Nikandros was regretting even getting out of bed this morning, let alone stopping to listen in on Nicaise's conversation with Kallias. This would teach him not to eavesdrop. That sort of thing was really more Nicaise's penchant than Nikandros's.

There was a long moment of silence, as Nicaise's teasing expression faded slowly away. Then, with a great deal more seriousness, not to mention uncharacteristic honesty, Nicaise admitted, "It really does suck, doing it alone. But for those of us who don't have dumb sops like Kallias or Damen trailing around at our heels, it's still better than the alternative."

Even knowing about Nicaise's unfortunate past, Nikandros had never experienced any feelings of pity towards the boy. He didn't express any now, either, knowing Nicaise wouldn't appreciate it anyway. But however adversarial the odd relationship between the two of them might be, and even though Nicaise probably felt the opposite way about Nikandros, Nikandros found that he really didn't enjoy the thought of Nicaise spending days at a time in pain, especially when it might be avoided if there was some way to make things better for him.

Nikandros had sworn to do what he could to assist the slaves. But maybe it wasn't only the slaves who could use his help.

Chapter Text

Nikandros had made it through migraine-inducing levels of embarrassment courtesy of Nicaise. Just one example of many was how Nicaise particularly seemed to enjoy spoiling Nikandros's appetite at the dinner table by casually speculating about the bedroom habits of any unfortunate individuals who happened to be in his line of sight. Nikandros really hadn't needed to know about Lord Aucassin's apparent fetish for dirty feet and how Lady Claris liked her pet to climb naked onto the back of her horse and 'ride' in the saddle while she watched. And Nikandros even less needed to hear Nicaise remark on how the slight momentary limp to Damen's stride as he approached the table apparently meant that he'd been the one to bend over for Laurent the previous night.

And yet even though Nikandros had survived all of that relatively unscathed (in a manner of speaking), Nikandros would have strongly preferred to hurl himself off the cliffs of Ios onto the sharp rocks below rather than have this conversation.

But it wasn't exactly like there was anyone else he could ask who would really know the answer to his question.

Of course, unlike Nikandros, Laurent wasn't embarrassed in the slightest; he was as bad as Nicaise sometimes, and if he had the slightest modicum of shame then he hid it well. But the lack of embarrassment on his part didn't mean that Laurent was necessarily going to make this conversation easy. Quite the opposite, Nikandros suspected.

"You want to know about my heats? You? Really?"

"About heats in general, not your heats," Nikandros corrected stiffly. Nikandros might have uncomplainingly listened, when they'd been younger, to the explicit details of many of Damen's earliest sexual conquests, but that wouldn't even begin to hold a candle to having to listen to Damen's husband describing the intricate details of the workings of his body. Nikandros was fairly certain he would end up mentally scarred. He half expected Laurent to smirk at him and start describing his heat in depth for just that reason.

"If you want generalisations, consult a book," Laurent said. "Assuming you can manage the big words, that is."

"Why do you always have to make talking to you so difficult?" Nikandros asked.

"I didn't realise until this moment that it was apparently my job to make your position easier. What a tragic oversight."

"If you don't want to tell me, just say so. It was just a simple question," Nikandros muttered.

"And my question in turn is: why, in the first place, would you even need to ask whether having an alpha's scent nearby makes an omega's heat better or worse? Has some pretty young omega caught your eye?" Those last words were said with a smile, but it was too sharp to be anything short of deadly.

It was obvious why Laurent would bare his teeth at Nikandros like that. Apart from two Akielon omegas who were married to visiting noble lords, the only other omegas currently in or around the palace were Laurent himself, Laurent's ex-slave pets, and Nicaise. Nikandros made no secret of the fact that he'd rather not even be in the same castle as Laurent when he was in heat, given the choice. Laurent also knew that Nikandros's tastes honestly didn't particularly run towards docile slaves, former or otherwise; many of his own slaves hadn't even experienced their First Nights by the time they'd been freed, for Nikandros had generally kept bedslaves more out of custom, and in preparation for royalty or other kyroi visiting Marlas, than because he enjoyed their submissive natures. So that really only left one reason why Nikandros would be asking about such a thing. Of course, Nikandros would deny it to his dying day, which might come sooner rather than later, because Nicaise was a quick route to a shallow grave for anyone whom Laurent suspected might be looking to 'take advantage' of him.

As if Nicaise would let anyone take advantage of him. If anything, Nikandros thought bitterly, he was the one being taken advantage of here. See if he offered to help the brat ever again, if this was what he got for his troubles.

At least having a palace full of Veretians around all the time had managed to convince Nikandros of one thing: sometimes it was just best to lie through your teeth, dishonourable or not. "I overheard Kallias mentioning that your omega pets were sent to an area out of scent range of alphas when their time came upon them. I simply wondered whether the fact that they, in turn, couldn't smell the alphas might be making it worse for them, and if we shouldn't change the arrangements somehow if it is." Nikandros privately congratulated himself; that sounded plausible even to his own ears, even though he knew he was lying.

Laurent's expression made it clear that he knew too, which wasn't unexpected. A lifetime in Arles had finely attuned Laurent's ability to see through a simple farce. Laurent gave Nikandros a look that clearly conveyed 'nice try, but like hell am I going to believe a word of it'.

All the same, he thankfully still gave Nikandros the answer he needed.

"In my experience," Laurent started (and Nikandros braced himself to receive some mental images that he would never be able to rid himself of), "it makes it worse if you can smell that alphas are somewhere nearby but you can't get to the source of the smell, but better if the source of the smell is right there with you. Which," Laurent added dangerously, "is not a recommendation that you should offer to be that source."

Nikandros blinked. That had been more painless than he'd expected from Laurent, despite the implied threat at the end.

Though when Nikandros was slow to say anything because he was still processing that, Laurent did ask, his lips twitching. "Was my answer not to your satisfaction? I could provide further clarification if you needed details."

For the love of Akielos, no.

Deciding self-preservation was the better part of valour, Nikandros thanked Laurent with a quick bow and then fled before Laurent could decide he'd gone too easy on Nikandros after all.

The awkward talk with Laurent wasn't the last of Nikandros's troubles for the day, though. By the evening, there was something of an uproar in the palace as a rumour spread that one King had propositioned the Kyros of Delpha to spend his next heat with him behind the other King's back.

Nikandros should probably have known better than to have a conversation like that when Orlant was on guard duty for Laurent, because Orlant was notorious for having a big fucking mouth. Given his uncontrollable tongue, coupled with the Veretian court's preference for scintillation over truth, it was no wonder a simple question and answer would become twisted into some scandalous falsehood. Laurent probably had known better, because he more than anyone knew what Orlant was like, but it was clear Laurent had long since given up on policing what people whispered about him as long as it didn't stop them from following him regardless.

Apparently Damen didn't feel the same way about just ignoring the gossip, for whatever he'd overheard had clearly left him livid.

The set of Damen's jaw when he spotted Nikandros was slightly worrying. But he currently had one hand holding Aeliana, who was squirming against his chest, and his other hand was prying her curious fingers from where they were tugging (probably painfully, by the look of it) at the ends of her father's curls, so at least Nikandros could be sure that Damen couldn't physically attack him in some fit of jealous rage before Nikandros had a chance to explain himself.

"Laurent and I aren't sleeping together," Nikandros interjected before Damen could even say anything.

"I know you aren't," Damen said. "I'm not an idiot. Though I still wouldn't say no to a decent explanation for why you were apparently caught stripping off your clothes in front of him, considering Laurent's assured me you two don't ever wrestle in the Akielon style."

Nikandros sighed. The way gossip travelled in Marlas, Nikandros shouldn't be surprised the details had already changed into something only tangentially related. He figured there were probably at least ten different versions of the fabricated story being circulated by now.

"I asked him – fully clothed, by the way – a question about someone else's heat. Apparently some people consider that to be the same thing as bedding him. I would suggest those people are doing it wrong."

Damen snorted, but didn't look particularly amused. Aeliana, possibly trying to imitate the noise her father had made, started noisily blowing spit bubbles.

"It's not the first time people have made up stories about us," Nikandros reminded him. "It'll pass just like it did back then."

"Yes," Damen said. "But I'm allowed to be annoyed that everyone just assumes that Laurent would bed someone else, aren't I?"

Something about the way Damen said it suggested it wasn't a matter of Damen's pride being hurt by everyone believing that Laurent might be considering cuckolding him, but instead Damen being displeased about Laurent's character being maligned. Nikandros thought that was very different from how it would have been a few years ago with anyone other than Laurent. Apparently becoming King had made Damen grow up significantly.

Or maybe it was Laurent who had done that, as much as Nikandros might not like to admit it. Nikandros supposed the kingdom of Akielos might have a lot more to thank him for than providing the heir, who currently seemed to be trying to almost launch herself out of Damen's arms in Nikandros's direction, but was finding her father's hold on her was too strong and sure for that to succeed. Nikandros took pity on her and let her grab onto his fingers, which she promptly stuck in her drooling mouth. Lovely.

Apparently, with the way Nikandros's life worked, the fact that Damen was being understanding and logical about the rumours rather than, say, challenging Nikandros to a duel for Laurent's honour, meant that of course Nicaise instead had to take on the role of walking up to Nikandros looking like he was about to punch him in the face.

"Why is everyone back to thinking you and Laurent are fucking?" Nicaise asked.

"It's your fault," Nikandros said with a shrug.

"I didn't shove you both in a bed together and tell you to get a leg over. So how is it my fault?"

"You asked for me to give you my clothing," Nikandros said.

"And you, what, decided that was a good reason to take off said clothing in front of Laurent?"

"I haven't ever been naked in front of Laurent."

"The guy who saw you on top of him in bed would disagree."

It was like a game of Vaskian Whispers, Nikandros thought. By next week, people would probably be claiming that they'd had sex on the banquet table in the middle of dinner in front of everyone.

"You should know very well how rumours develop from nothing around here, since you're the one who starts half of them whenever you're bored."

"Not from nothing," Nicaise said. "There's always some grain of truth in there."

"Well the grain of truth here is that I asked the only person I could ask about whether it would actually be making it worse for an omega if they had an alpha's scent with them during heat. You might recall that I asked you how I could help you, not hurt you. I wanted to be sure which I'd be doing if I gave you what you asked for."

The line between Nicaise's brows disappeared, smoothed away entirely in an instant the way only youth could allow. "Oh." He didn't seem to know how to respond to Nikandros admitting that he'd been trying to look out for him. "And?"

Nikandros thought of Laurent's answer to his question. Nicaise's insistence that a few alphas who overtly weren't attracted to omegas should stand as guard outside his door for the duration of his heats was probably making things worse for him than if he'd been entirely away from alphas, by the sounds of it. But Nicaise felt safer with them than with betas, for some reason that Nikandros had never really questioned, so he wasn't likely to change that any time soon. Considering he was already being subjected to alpha scent, Nikandros didn't think providing him with some item infused with it would make things any worse. And it seemed it might have at least some potential to make it better. Though Nikandros was trying his best not to think about what Nicaise might actually want to the item for.

"You can have something of mine, if you want it," Nikandros concluded. He would have preferred to offer to get Nicaise something from some random alpha, but Nicaise would only have called him a coward (and he would have been right).

Nicaise looked a little too pleased for comfort, but on the bright side, at least he didn't seem angry anymore. Nicaise had ways of making Nikandros miserable when he was pissed at him. And Nikandros already had enough to put up with, with the castle abuzz with speculation about him.

Over dinner, Vannes asked, "So how was it?"

Nikandros knew he was going to regret doing so, but he still asked, "How was what?"

"Fucking one King while the other watched. I bet Laurent puts on quite a performance if Damianos has his eyes on him, right?"

On Nikandros's other side, Nicaise snickered, apparently having come around to finding the rumours funny now that he knew for sure that they weren't true.

Nikandros really, really hated the Veretian court's propensity for gossip.

It took about a week for the talk to die down, and by the end Nikandros had entirely lost track of what he and Laurent were supposed to have done together, though Nicaise made a point of keeping him updated on the more graphic accounts just to watch Nikandros's face change colours. Nikandros hadn't seen Nicaise in a while, though, so he hadn't been treated to any iterations of the 'try to give Nikandros an aneurysm' game over the last day or so. The relative peace was kind of nice, but also strange; Nikandros had grown so used to Nicaise being constantly underfoot that he couldn't help but feel like something was missing when he was absent.

When he returned to his rooms that night, Nikandros stopped in his tracks so abruptly that only his long-honed balance kept him from tripping over and landing face-first on the marble floor.

Nicaise had, it seemed, made something of a cocoon for himself in Nikandros's bed, and was hugging Nikandros's pillow against his chest. From the smell of it, he'd probably been there for hours now.

More importantly, the smell also suggested that he would likely be going into heat any moment now.

"You didn't give me one of your chitons before my heat, even though you said you would," Nicaise greeted him flippantly, in supposed explanation. "So I came to looking for it myself."

"And when you got here you just decided you were entitled to my whole room instead? I would have brought it to you had you given me the opportunity, you know. How was I supposed to know you were going into heat now when I haven't seen you since early yesterday?"

Nicaise looked at him like he was an idiot. Sarcastically, he said, "Oh, I don't know, maybe by asking yourself why you hadn't seen me for so long? What, did you just assume I wasn't hungry enough to come to several meals in a row? Or didn't you care?"

Nikandros felt a pang in his chest. It was true that it hadn't occurred to him that the reason for Nicaise's absence might be because he didn't feel comfortable just strolling around the palace when his heat was nearly upon him. It was also true that Nikandros had been a tiny bit relieved to have a break from him.

"Anyway," Nicaise said, huffing slightly, "I'm here now. And this is better than one measly piece of clothing, anyway. The whole place smells like alpha."

Nikandros would beg to differ. Right now it reeked of pre-heat omega, and that would only get worse the longer Nicaise refused to remove himself.

"You have to leave," Nikandros informed him.

"No. I like it here. Now make yourself useful and hand me that box, would you," Nicaise ordered.

Nikandros looked askance at the box that Nicaise had apparently bothered to bring with him to Nikandros's rooms. Nicaise wasn't the type to bring supplies like food or water with him when he could just order someone else to deal with it for him. Which left the only other thing that Nikandros happened to know Nicaise deemed useful to have on hand during heat.

Nikandros was not picking up that box. Nikandros didn't think it was even a good idea to be in the same wing of the palace as that box. He could see the trial play out now, with the contents of that box as Laurent's primary proof against him. No.

"I'm taking you back to your own rooms," Nikandros announced.

"Then I'll turn around and come straight back here. Walking all by myself, fully in heat by then, across half the width of the palace."

"Then I'll chain you to your damn bed so that you can't."

"That might be what you're into, pervert, but I don't keep chains just lying around in my room, so good luck with that."

Nikandros groaned. "I hate you."

"Oh, don't worry, I know exactly how you feel about me."

Nikandros levelled a glare at him.

"Come on. I'll feel much better, and safer, if I can see my heat through here," Nicaise wheedled. "You said you wanted a way to make it easier for me, right?"

Damn it. Well, basically, as Nicaise would say, Nikandros was fucked from both ends anyway. Even if he forced Nicaise out now, the palace rumour mill – which was probably looking for something new and juicy now that people were apparently growing tired of talking about Laurent and Nikandros – would still twist it as if King Laurent's favourite pet had spent his actual heat in Nikandros's rooms, and more. And Nikandros was already going to have to burn his bed as it was anyway, because Nicaise had basically scent-marked it. No, scratch that; he might have to burn down the whole palace just to be safe; at least then there would be no actual evidence for Laurent to indict him with. He supposed, given all that, that the damage was already done, and it probably wouldn't actually make anything worse if Nicaise remained.

He yielded with a grimace (which was basically the summary of his entire relationship with Nicaise, he thought).

"Oh, and speaking of safety," Nicaise added, in a way that made the hairs on Nikandros's arms stand on end. "I'd say you have a few choices here. You can call for a bunch of guards to come look out for me while I spend my heat in your rooms, which will get back to Laurent pretty much immediately. Or you can leave me alone and just cross your fingers that no alpha comes sniffing around here. Or," Nicaise added pointedly, "you can stay and look out for me yourself."

"You're such a manipulative little shit," Nikandros accused.

"Mmm. But you'll protect me anyway, won't you, Alpha?" Nicaise's tone was sweet.

Even without seeing the slightly smug turn-up of his lips, Nikandros knew Nicaise well enough by now to be aware that Nicaise had chosen those particular words in that tone solely because he knew how best to manipulate Nikandros. And yet the words tugged at his chest nonetheless, igniting something in him that he didn't want to acknowledge.

"You're going to be the death of me, kid," Nikandros conceded. "But I'm not ready to die just yet. So if you're spending your heat in here, you can be damn sure that I'll be across the palace, very publically not anywhere near my rooms, at all times. I'll arrange for your guards to come here. And when Laurent asks me why the guards who protect you during your heat are outside my rooms instead of yours, I'm sending him your way. You can deal with your own mess for once."

"That's fine," Nicaise said. "I'll just tell him you invited me."

Nikandros made a frustrated sound but forced himself not to respond, as it would be foolish to prolong this further when Nikandros didn't think he had much more time before Nicaise's scent shifted into full-blown heat. As Nikandros moved towards the door (to get out while he still could), Nicaise said, "Also, I'm almost seventeen. I'm not a kid anymore."

Yeah. Nikandros was, unfortunately, slowly beginning to see that.

Chapter Text

According to Nicaise, the way pets acted in Marlas was considerably subdued compared with how it had been in Arles. That was even though many of the same courtiers with their same pets had travelled to the new capital from the old. With the melding of cultures, apparently there had been some unspoken (or at least not spoken in Nikandros's hearing) recognition that King Laurent would frown upon the Veretians forcing the more extreme parts of their pet culture immediately down the Akielons' throats. And since none of the lords and ladies wanted to risk the tradition of pet ownership going down the same terminating road as Akielos's slavery, they'd made a few concessions. That was one of the few things that Nikandros would ever be grateful to Veretians for.

In Arles, dinners had apparently tended to be capped off by a very different kind of performance than poetry or ballads, and courtiers had thought nothing of having their pets unlace them right in front of their peers. Putting a pet in 'the ring' meant something very different than Nikandros's training sessions with Nicaise in the training rings. Nikandros hadn't found that out until Nicaise, a little too gleefully, had explained why some of the Veretian courtiers had been wondering what it could mean that Laurent had loaned Nikandros a pet that he didn't ever seem to use himself. Nikandros had even heard one of them, with a salacious expression, asking what the point was in having a bout with a pet in the ring if there was no audience, and wondering how it was possible to get an invitation to watch their 'fights'. Nikandros had seriously considered smashing that man's face into the ground repeatedly until it was unrecognisable. Nicaise hadn't even been quite fifteen at the time. Less than a year had passed since he'd been being treated like a real pet. The last thing he needed, even if he acted like he didn't care, was some old lecher objectifying him.

Thankfully for Nikandros's sanity, it quickly became a popular sort of game in Delpha for pets to openly tease in public and then appease in private (or not at all, if the pets preferred that approach to getting the attention of someone rich and titled). It was probably closer to how pets and masters behaved in the masters' own homes, away from prying eyes and the need to showcase the pets like expensive adornments, Nicaise speculated (though he could hardly be sure, he acknowledged, having never been a pet outside of a palace). At banquets, sex was still simulated to a point through dance, but certain things were left to the imagination, and the audience was always left wanting more.

Even that was more than confrontational enough for Nikandros, who was used to a tap on the shoulder serving as the height of public displays of one's intentions. But at least he didn't feel like he was going to have to spend all day every day wandering around the palace with his hands over Aeliana's eyes as soon as she was old enough to understand what she was seeing. He was going to have enough to worry about when it came to covering her ears, with Nicaise around.

Nicaise might have called the Veretian pets in Delpha tame compared to what he'd known, but they were still catty little beasts, in Nikandros's experience. So problems abounded when there were more than a few of them gathered under one roof. The Kings didn't have the time to deal with every little problem or petty squabble that arose in or around the palace, so Nikandros, as Kyros, was often called upon to resolve disputes.

Not all of them lived squashed together in the close proximity of the pets' quarters, mercifully. Many were contracted to the kind of higher-ranking nobles who received expansive apartments featuring when they visited, and therefore stayed with their masters even when their 'services' weren't required. The pets of those few more permanent Veretian elite palace residents, including Nicaise, often had rooms near to but not actually with whoever held their contract. The idea was that they would have some opportunity for space throughout the long months or years spent at court, but still be close at hand. And there were even one or two, like Lord Berenger's pet in particular, who didn't bother with the fiction of maintaining a separate room of his own (except maybe for keeping his mountains of clothing and trinkets in) when he already clearly had the run of his master's space.

But even those pets who spent their nights elsewhere tended to converge on the pets' wing to help each other prepare before events, painting each other's skin and picking out each other's outfits (which may or may not actually look good on the intended recipient, depending on the temperament of the pet who'd done the choosing). Sometimes during those sessions, the choicest clothing or jewellery mysteriously disappeared, only to be flaunted by the thief at a different event, where they claimed it was a new gift that had been bestowed on them. Having to sort those types of messes out tended to give Nikandros a headache. Half the time the masters didn't have the first clue what they had or hadn't bought for their own pets. Nicaise didn't help, for he always had an opinion about who was in the wrong. And he didn't like being ignored when he spoke up about it (or ever, for any reason, for that matter).

The worst was when the pets gathered in packs in various areas around the palace to trade gossip away from their masters and the guards. That seemed to be when the rivalries born during turns in the gardens or meals where pets flirted with masters other than their own were able to actually play out, and thus reached their volatile peaks. Discussions of which of the Veretian nobles might be looking for a new pet turned into which pets were getting a little long in the tooth or otherwise couldn't hold their master's attention. Which turned into bickering and slashing words, then shoving and occasional bruises, and, on one particularly memorable juncture, a scratch of fingernails across the face. Nikandros had had to listen for hours about how the offending pet should be tossed out of the palace, if not the two allied countries entirely, forever and ever because the scratch would scar. It was barely reddened. The mark would be gone in days. The injured pet nonetheless was inconsolable until Nikandros sighed and organised with the other's master for him to receive punishment. Then Nikandros caught the injured pet smirking tauntingly at his soon-to-be-disciplined counterpart. He'd probably provoked him into taking a swing on purpose, the little wretch. But Nikandros would never be able to prove it.

Nikandros would almost take dealing with a full-blown war over those sort of messes. At least during war, he knew where most everyone really stood.

So all in all, today was hardly the first time Nikandros had been called to the pet's wing to deal with some issue. It was, however, the first time Nicaise had barrelled through everyone until he spotted Nikandros, stormed over and captured his hand, and then used their joined grip to drag Nikandros to the pet's quarters. And it was also one of the very few times that Nikandros had set foot on the side of the wing that had been specifically set aside for Laurent's pets in particular. Nikandros had to admit that it felt awkward to invade their space, especially without invitation, as a once-master amongst former slaves.

Nikandros was guided through the hallway that threaded past all the former slaves' rooms. Those who were outside their rooms, tucked aside in twos or three in little alcoves along the hallway, as well as those who had their doors opened, all bowed low as they spotted him passing. Even in a castle half-full of Akielons, Nikandros was a fairly recognisable figure, and he was one of the few Akielons to come down here anyway.

"Up, up, up," Nicaise called out, irritated. "What have I said about bowing to people when you're in your own home? You're the King's pets. You bow to no one except who he orders you to."

Actually, Nikandros thought, even minor lords bowed to him as Kyros, though not with their heads almost pressed to the ground like that. But real pets like Nicaise, born and bred in Vere, were the epitome of entitlement. So Nikandros wasn't surprised that Nicaise thought the King's pets should be above such things, despite having no part in the aristocracy. It wasn't like Laurent wouldn't support that supposition, if it ever came to that. Nicaise probably had greater worth than Nikandros himself in Laurent's eyes, whatever their respective titles may be.

The door to the room that Nicaise eventually guided Nikandros to was one of the few that was shut for privacy. Nicaise's version of asking for permission to enter apparently boiled down to him yelling out, "Is everyone's cocks and asses covered in there?" and then barging through the door without really waiting for an answer.

The first face Nikandros saw was Kallias's. So it was no surprise that the second face was Erasmus at his side. Erasmus was kneeling where Kallias was standing. They both bowed, Erasmus deeper than Kallias, who was somehow more inured to Nikandros even though Erasmus saw him more regularly and spent time among Kings more days than not. The last face in the room was familiar as well, but not because he spent his days trailing Nicaise like Kallias, or because he was acting as the princess's primary babysitter while the Kings were otherwise occupied, like Erasmus. It was the face of one of Nikandros's old slaves. Isander, Nikandros recalled after a moment of reaching for the name.

He'd been one of a few slaves from the old fort at Marlas who Kolnas, the Keeper, who had more recently taken on the role of re-training slaves and finding them new situations when he believed they were able to fend for themselves to Nikandros's specifications, had determined would require a more sheltered environment. Other ex-slaves, even the omegas with their regular heats, had been successfully working in roles such as servants in the inns in the village, or singers, or even a seamstress in one case, for months now. But, Kolnas had said, Isander's sense of self-preservation was too low, no matter how much Kolnas tried to instil it in him. He would probably hand over whatever money he made in a paying job to anyone who ordered it, and would spread his legs for anyone who showed kindness to him. Nikandros recalled how many of his younger slaves, especially those still awaiting their First Night, seemed to crave attention like plants with sunlight.

Judging from the waft of pregnant omega, and the fact that Nikandros knew there was only one of the four omegas in the room it could possibly belong to, Kolnas had had a point. But apparently placing Isander in the castle hadn't been protection enough.

"Fix this," Nicaise demanded.

He pushed Isander so that the young man stood directly in front of Nikandros, almost like the petitioners who officially presented themselves before him as Kyros. Except, unlike the farmers and merchants that came to Nikandros hoping for financial assistance or a ruling in their favour, Isander didn't rise out of his bow after a brief obeisance, or raise his eyes to look directly at Nikandros's face. He was flushed, clearly embarrassed either at being tossed before the Kyros like a recalcitrant child, or at having his former master's full attention directed at him for the first time in years.

Nikandros knew that Kolnas had taught his old slaves that they could have their own voices and face free men as equals, but perhaps that hadn't taken with Isander. Some habits were deeply ingrained, especially among the slaves who had excelled most during training, giving themselves over to it fully from early on. And this was likely one of the first opportunities Isander had had to be in the presence of someone of Nikandros's rank since back when he was actually in Nikandros's service; Laurent only visited rarely despite being nominally their master, preferring to leave them to themselves and each other unless they specifically required him. So it was no surprise that Isander reverted back to a level of submissiveness that would almost have been befitting a palace slave at his prime. Almost. At least he wasn't trying to outright prostrate himself as he would have back then, Nikandros thought. Nicaise would have no patience for that and probably would have dragged the poor boy up off the ground, pregnant or not.

Nicaise nudged him, but when Isander hesitated to express himself in front of Nikandros, Nicaise rolled his eyes and spoke for him. "He spent his most recent heat with an alpha, and I'm pretty sure you can smell how that went," Nicaise said. "Now the halfwit knothead is causing problems."

"Did the alpha hurt you?" Nikandros asked Isander. "Or force you?"

Isander looked to Nicaise, as if for permission, or confirmation that it was all right to speak. He didn't hesitate to meet his eyes, Nikandros noticed. Obviously he considered Nicaise to be more like his equal. Which he was, technically, even if Nicaise lorded it over the rest of them.

"Just talk to me like you would to him," Nikandros told Isander, indicating Nicaise. "I know for a fact that Kolnas taught you to speak up for yourself, because that's what I instructed him to teach. So you should know that I'm not going to punish you for doing as I intended."

"The alpha didn't force me," Isander eventually admitted. "He courted me. I thought… It's better to have company during heat, I'd heard. It's…" He couldn't speak of it to Nikandros, apparently, even when he tried.

"It's a bitch to spend heat alone, yeah. Nikandros already knows that. Get to the rest of it already."

Still hesitantly, Isander said, "We were told we no longer had to reserve ourselves for our Master or his guests. That we could give of ourselves freely if we chose, even our First Nights. I didn't think I was breaking any rules. I wouldn't have broken the King's trust on purpose."

This was sounding like a very familiar conversation, only after the fact, and with a rather different ending than Kallias and Erasmus's. Obviously, Nikandros was going to have to find someone (other than himself, preferably, if he could be at least that lucky) to sit all these ex-slaves down and explain what it really meant to be free in their current mixture of cultures.

"That's right," Nikandros encouraged. "You're allowed to make your own decisions now."

Isander shook his head. "Please pardon me for daring to disagree with you, Kyros, but I can't. The herbs didn't work, so I'm not allowed to choose anymore. I'm to be a slave once again."

Nikandros frowned, and when Isander didn't elaborate, he looked to Nicaise.

"The alpha was Veretian. You know the taboo in Vere."

"Ah," Nikandros said, his heart sinking. In many ways, the alliance of their countries, and the slow fusing into one nation, had been going more smoothly than Nikandros would have expected. But the clashing values of their people sometimes couldn't so easily be resolved. The Kings were undoubtedly doing their best, and Nikandros was supporting them as best he could as well, but some solutions were simply sluggish in coming.

Nikandros glanced down at Isander's belly, still flat, but not for too long. "You are being pressed into a marriage because of the child?"

Isander nodded, looking forlorn. "I would have agreed to it, without question. He seemed to appreciate me, from what I could tell. And I didn't want to put the King in a bad position after all he's done for us. I still don't. But Nicaise said I shouldn't be expected to spend a lifetime with a man whose language I don't speak, and who only knows enough of mine for sweet flattery and propositions." Nikandros would bet a significant amount of gold that the exact words Nicaise had used had been a little coarser than that.

Nikandros thought of Lazar and Pallas, who'd started much like that (though he imagined Lazar's version of 'sweet flattery' was a lot different than what Isander was describing, and his propositions mostly involved crude hand signals). Yet they had progressed into a real relationship and made a point of learning to speak each other's tongues. But that had been by choice on both parts. No one in either kingdom would stand for anything else in a relationship between two alphas. Involve an omega and alpha pair, though, or a woman with a man, and suddenly the Veretians seemed to think that allowing for free choice was less of a foregone conclusion.

"And when the alpha heard Nicaise say that, he was different than he had been?" Nikandros prompted. He could see where this was going. Nicaise wouldn't have been so ticked off if the alpha hadn't at least verbally attacked him. If he'd done more than that, Nikandros would have the man whipped within an inch of his life, or perhaps more, depending.

Isander nodded. "Nicaise translated some of what he had to say. It was… cruel. I don't think he cares for me after all. To marry him would be to become trapped in a way I never felt when I was in your household." He smiled sweetly at Nikandros, still without looking him in the eye. Nicaise bristled, probably at the submissiveness and the blind devotion, which Nikandros knew Nicaise had been trying to talk these other pets of Laurent's out of showing.

Isander was right in pointing out the similarities to the old slavery system. That was, in fact, more than likely the exact reason why Laurent had treated slavery as so personal to himself. And why Damen had been so insistent on freeing the slaves immediately, if he saw the possibility of Laurent as an omega sharing a similar fate to theirs, prevented only by circumstance, a bit of luck, and probably Laurent's cunning.

But surely that also meant that the Kings would take this omega's side and let him make his own decision. It didn't make sense that Nicaise would bring this issue to Nikandros rather than to Laurent, who was likely more heavily invested in it.

As if he'd read Nikandros's mind, Nicaise said, "Laurent's being an indecisive ass. He says he has nothing against bastards personally, but that Vere's stance against bastards exists for good political reason, and that Akielos's treasonous Bastard King is only the most recent proof that people will point to if he tries to change the laws. So he's waffling about what to do, even though it's his own pet. You need to make Laurent see that he should just tell the alpha to go fuck himself." Obviously, Nicaise had already told Laurent that himself, to no avail, or he wouldn't have come to Nikandros for help.

This was hardly the first time Nicaise had tried to pit Nikandros and Laurent against each other, but most often he did it purely for his own amusement, and usually he was either taking Laurent's side or making Laurent take his.

"You think I can convince him to do that?" Nikandros asked, disbelieving. "Or anything at all? He rarely listens to a word I say."

"Yes he does. He'd have left you stranded up in Ios for all eternity if he didn't respect you enough to listen to you. Surely after all this time dealing with Veretians you've learned something about using these things to your advantage."

It sounded more like Nicaise wanted it to be used for his benefit, actually, but Isander would be the ultimate beneficiary, so Nikandros was willing to let that slide.

When Nikandros managed to clear an audience with the Kings, it was almost immediately clear that it wasn't just Nicaise who was on Nikandros's side instead of Laurent's for once. Damen looked like he needed no convincing that Isander should be allowed to do as he liked. That should make it easier, surely, Nikandros thought, for Damen might be able to sway Laurent even if Nikandros couldn't. On the surface, things always seemed to be the other way around, with Damen going along with Laurent's mad schemes, but Nikandros knew that there were times when Damen instead provided a measured counterpoint and was able to convince Laurent to change his approach instead. Though Nikandros still did make a point of complaining when it seemed like Damen was always caving in to Laurent's wishes.

"Really?" Laurent said to Nicaise. "You ran to Nikandros to deal with this?"

"Why shouldn't he have?" Nikandros said. "I'm Kyros, and this is a relatively small incident in my region. It's in my purview to deal with it."

"It's not small," Laurent said. "It's a landmark case. How we deal with it will decide one of the laws of this kingdom." He very specifically said it in the singular, even though officially it was still only an alliance of separate kingdoms.

"It's no different than anything that's come before it, to my eyes," Nikandros argued. "Akielons all throughout the kingdom have been bearing children out of wedlock without incident both before and since the start of the alliance. So how is it fair for an Akielon to suddenly be held to antiquated Veretian standards purely because a Veretian happened to be involved?"

"That's what it means to be one country," Laurent said. "Laws apply across borders because the people don't remain isolated from each other."

"It's not one country quite yet. And what law has Isander broken, anyway?" Nikandros asked. "I wasn't aware Vere had committed its superstitions to writing."

"Nikandros," Damen said, indicating he was overstepping. Nikandros knew that without being told. His tone alone was less respectful than it should have been while speaking to either of the Kings. But with their only onlooker today being Nicaise, Nikandros was able to be a little more free with his tongue than he could be in public. And he refused to back down on this without a proper fight. Nikandros wouldn't stand for it, no matter what Laurent said. Vere had enough of a say on Akielon matters as it was even without this.

"Akielos has accepted many changes to become more in line with Veretian standards," Nikandros said. "More, I would argue, than Vere has. This is my line in the sand on behalf of my country. I won't let you ruin an Akielon's life for no other reason than to maintain a Veretian tradition. If you won't change your mind, then I'll take the decision from your hands. He was my slave until slavery was abolished. Perhaps I should have done as you did and taken those who needed protection as my pets back then, so that I would be in a position to assist them when they need it. If I remedy that now by buying out Isander's contract, I trust I would, as Kyros and master put together, have a deciding role in his punishment and his ultimate fate?"

Nicaise jerked slightly, swivelling his head around to look at Nikandros. His eyes were wide, shocked. It made him look achingly young. Nikandros had to look away.

"Akielons don't take pets," Laurent said.

"And Akielons don't have to marry someone just because he fathered a child with them either," Nikandros said. "Apparently our practices are merging very quickly today."

"It wouldn't work. There are no alpha-omega pet pairs. Isander couldn't be contracted to you unmarried and pregnant without an uproar."

"Stop," Damen said. "This is getting out of hand. We must be able to resolve this some other way. Nothing good will come of the Kyros taking such a public stand against the King. People will see it as you spitting in Vere's face."

Considering that was more or less how Nikandros meant it, that would be a fair assessment.

Laurent looked frustrated, but Nikandros actually suspected it was more at the situation than at Nikandros himself. "It's not as if I want to hand over an omega who was raised to agree whenever he was propositioned to an alpha who probably targeted him on purpose," he said. "But if I let it slide this time, then it will be taken as a sign that anyone can fuck whomever they please with no care for the consequences."

"And why shouldn't that be the case?" Nicaise snapped. "It's a stupid rule, anyway. Yeah, maybe Vere's had some bad history with bastards, and Akielos hasn't done too well recently either. But your Uncle was legitimate, and he still decided to fuck over Vere and take what wasn't rightfully his just as people fear a bastard would try to do. And the whole thing's even more blindingly idiotic if you're only going to impose it on pairs where at least one is Veretian. Are you saying that it's fine if some Akielon alpha and omega go breed all over the place during heat and then never see each other again, but if Nikandros knocked me up, you'd to force me to marry him?"

Nikandros avoided Laurent's eyes as determinedly as Isander had been averting his own from Nikandros earlier. "Don't bring me into this like that," he begged Nicaise quietly.

"You're already involved enough, I think," Laurent said darkly.

"Did the omega know about the Veretian traditions?" Damen asked thoughtfully, unaffected, as if he hadn't noticed the sudden undertone hanging in the air around him. Nikandros hoped he was just pointedly ignoring it. He wouldn't like to think that his King was quite that emotionally unobservant.

"No, he didn't," Nicaise said.

Nikandros confirmed, "He said himself that he wouldn't have acted against the King's rules had he known of them."

Damen clapped his hands together as if that was that done. "Well then, it seems simple enough to me. If he didn't know, then it's our fault more than his for not adequately preparing the freed slaves for this new society, and so it wouldn't be just to punish him. The alpha, on the other hand, is Veretian. He knew. He'll be lashed as his punishment."

Laurent frowned. "That wouldn't be usual in this situation."

"No," Damen agreed, "it would be usual for him to get his way and secure himself an omega by preying on the boy's heat, wouldn't it? But I think we can all agree that that's a tradition that can definitely fuck off out of our kingdoms."

Apparently, Laurent's foul mouth was infecting Damen even more than Nicaise's was with Nikandros. Nikandros certainly found himself using certain words more freely the longer they were together.

Or rather, the longer Nicaise was around him, he mentally corrected.

Laurent agreed to what Damen proposed in the end. Though Laurent did insist on the caveat that if both parties knew what they were doing with respect to ignoring Vere's taboo, and if they both freely consented anyway, the old traditions would stand. That would prevent alphas from assaulting heated omegas who didn't know better or couldn't fight back to get themselves a status-increasing spouse, while still preventing bastards from overrunning both kingdoms, Laurent had claimed.

Nikandros foresaw that they would run into problems when deciding the matter of 'free choice' in some situations involving heat, but he supposed that would be a matter to be dealt with when it arose. Certainly, he felt like today he didn't want to press his luck too hard in case Laurent snatched away Nikandros's victory. Though Nikandros supposed it was really Nicaise's victory, since he'd been the one who'd asked Nikandros to intercede in the first place.

So why, then, did Nicaise not look pleased, the way he usually would when he'd won at something? Surely he wasn't annoyed that Nikandros had succeeded where he'd failed (or that Damen had, to be fair about it)? After all, hadn't that been the entire point of bringing outside help in on the matter?

"Would you really have taken Isander on as your pet, or was that just a bluff?" Nicaise asked later. He sounded like he'd been mulling it over.

He probably already knew the answer. Pretences like that were more of a Veretian tool. They weren't Nikandros's style.

"I would have done it just to protect him, the same way Laurent has done with his pets," Nikandros said.

"Laurent isn't an alpha," Nicaise muttered. "And he's married. It's different."

"Isander was my responsibility once. How could I have done less, if it came to that?"

"All of Delpha is your 'responsibility'. And yet I don't see you offering a contract to every hard-done-by villager that scams their way into the castle looking for a hand-out."

Nikandros reminded him, "You asked me to fix it. Did you expect me to say no?"

Nicaise looked conflicted, as if he didn't know what to think of that.

"If he knew how vehemently you defended him, Isander would probably fall desperately in love with you," Nicaise settled for saying.

Nikandros didn't actually doubt it, unfortunately.

"He's not my type," Nikandros said. "And it's already resolved without resorting to that, so he has no need to know."

Nicaise looked like he was going to say something, then, but for once managed to hold his tongue. That was a pity, Nikandros thought. He'd have liked to know what kind of thing Nicaise would deem inappropriate to say out loud.

Chapter Text

It was easy to tell which Veretian nobles truly supported the alliance, and Laurent as King, compared with those who'd had their hopes that the former Regent of Vere would indefinitely sit on the throne foiled by Laurent running the man through and claiming his birthright. Nikandros knew that there were elite Veretian nobles who had only ever once shown their faces in Marlas in the four years since the alliance commenced. And that had been during Laurent's Ascension when their attendance had been mandatory to swear allegiance to him. They'd made their apologies the rest of the time, of course. They claimed the distance to Marlas from northern Vere was just too far to travel. Meanwhile, there were those like Lord Berenger, whose fort was about as close to the forests north of Vere as it was possible to get without crossing the border, and who openly missed his horses and the people of his village (not to mention the quiet of his own home) terribly when he was absent from them, but still managed to make it to Marlas for two months out of every year to support his King.

Those Veretian lords and ladies who only pretended at the thinnest façade of loyalty couldn't be left too long to their own devices in the far north. It made sense for Laurent and Damen to at some point go spend some time in and around the old palace at Arles, and to visit other areas of Vere on the way. That would allow them to weed out any potential problems at their root before they could truly grow into something troublesome. Even Nikandros had to admit that Laurent tended to be good at such things.

There was no particular rush, though, considering they'd already gone years without incident. So Nikandros thought that there might be a particular reason why Laurent had elected to journey to Arles now, when winter would almost be setting in by the time they returned, rather than waiting for spring and summer, when the Veretians usually travelled to court. And why Damen had agreed to go now as well.

Not everyone was quite so happy to go along with it, though.

"Why do I have to come with you, anyway?" Nicaise asked tiredly, practically a whine. Early mornings always made Nicaise sound less like someone fast approaching the cusp of eighteen, and more like Aeliana at the beginning of one of the tantrums to which she'd recently started subjecting them all.

"Because Nikandros will have more important things to deal with while he's standing in for us in meetings and fielding the petitioning sessions than preventing you from being destructively bored whenever you're left to your own devices. We'd rather have a relatively intact palace to return to, thanks," Laurent said. "Besides, don't tell me you don't want the opportunity to help stamp out any of my uncle's remaining influence in Arles."

Nicaise scowled, but didn't deny that. "Well, you could have at least had the decency to let me sleep for another hour. Why should I have to stand around waiting while servants take forever to load cases into the wagons?"

"I'm standing around without complaint, and I'm not even going on this trip," Nikandros pointed out.

"And it's pretty rich of you to complain about how long it's taking, considering more than half of those cases are yours," Laurent reminded him.

As long as Nikandros had known him, Nicaise refused to travel without practically everything he owned on hand. Even when they were just going straight across the border to Fortaine, or the few days' ride to Ravenel, Nicaise made a point of directing the servants to pack up everything, as if he might suddenly need his heaviest furs in summer and when they were going barely further north than Marlas itself. Even now, with his life a hundred times more stable than he'd ever probably imagined it could become, Nikandros privately suspected that Nicaise would never voluntarily leave behind anything of worth that he owned. Just in case.

The idea that Nicaise considered for a second that there was a chance he might not end up back at Marlas was surprisingly unwelcome to Nikandros.

"Besides," Laurent said, "I only asked for you to be woken so early because I didn't expect you to actually get out of bed and get ready straight away. I thought you'd make us wait for you for at least an hour after the time we're supposed to depart."

That would have been exactly what would have happened, had Nicaise actually been given that chance. Knowing that, Nikandros had personally gone to wake Nicaise rather than sending some hapless servant. As a reward for his efforts, Nikandros had been forced to duck something heavy being thrown at his head for daring to disturb Nicaise's sleep at such an early hour. Then Nicaise had groaned and pulled his bedcovers over his face in an attempt to ignore Nikandros's insistent orders to get up. He'd pretended he'd fallen asleep, only giving up the ruse to eventually tell Nikandros that he could take his wake-up call and shove it (including exactly where and how he could shove it, of course).

After that, Nikandros had taken no small amount of pleasure in stripping Nicaise's bed while he was still in it, capturing him in the sheets and lugging the whole pile, squirming boy included, towards the tub at the corner of his room. He'd then let the sheets fall loose and proceeded to dump Nicaise out of them and into the now-cool water that hadn't yet been drained after the previous night's bath. Hissing like a cat meeting the same fate, Nicaise had ended up bristling in the corner of the room, his soaked bed shirt dripping onto the floor, and his teeth bared angrily at his intruder, looking very much fully awake. Even now, his curls were still a little damp.

"Ugh. Don't rub it in. You have no idea how much I wish I was still sleeping," Nicaise told Laurent. "Especially if it meant not being here with that noise. Can someone make her stop already?"

He sent an annoyed look at Aeliana. She had escaped from the grip of her usual minder, Erasmus. Standing in front of the horses, she was chanting, "Pony pony pony," over and over (and over and over). She was also doing her version of excited dancing, which currently seemed to involve her waving her right hand over her head and spinning around and around until Damen leaned down and gently rested his hand on her shoulder to stop her before she made herself sick from dizziness.

No one made a move to quieten her. Nicaise sighed. He reached to pull over his head the sole piece of jewellery – a pendant featuring a large sapphire just a shade or two darker than his eyes – which he'd managed to get on this morning. Nikandros, who'd been standing outside his door and tapping his foot impatiently after Nicaise called for a servant to dress him, had made the executive decision that Nicaise was ready to go and frog-marched him from his room, leaving the servants to gather any other jewellery or assorted items he'd left behind into the last of the cases that needed to be brought down to join the rest.

Nicaise held the pendant out towards Aeliana, saying, "Here, kid, I know you like shiny things. At least you've got some decent taste going for you. Take this for a minute if it'll occupy you enough to shut you up."

"You can't let her play with that," Nikandros said. "If she puts it in her mouth she could choke on it."

Nicaise said, "There are currently about a hundred people watching her like overprotective mother hens, so how would she even get it into her mouth without someone stopping her? And isn't she too old now to be just sticking random shit in her mouth anyway?"

"It's still a stupid risk to take."

"Oh fuck off, she's fine."

"Fuck off!" Aeliana parroted happily.

"You can't swear in front of her either!" Nikandros said, appalled.

"Why not?" Nicaise asked. He sounded like he genuinely didn't understand what the problem might be.

Nikandros looked to Laurent, as if to say 'I can't always be the one to deal with this, you fix it'.

Laurent simply shrugged. "She might as well get used to telling idiots to fuck off now. It's a highly necessary life skill, in my experience."

Damen, of course, didn't speak up to back Nikandros up on this. Damen would in all likelihood be happy if his children turned out to be exactly like his husband, even if that meant they'd be abrasive and crude, so Nikandros didn't know why he would expect Damen to be any help in putting a stop to it.

Nicaise looked vindicated. "Exactly. Which means she should tell Nikandros to fuck off because he's clearly being an idiot."

Aeliana was too busy reaching for the shiny bauble to take Nicaise's advice, assuming she understood his meaning in the first place.

Nikandros snatched the pendant out of Nicaise's hand before Aeliana could get it, earning protesting sounds from both of them. Obligingly, Nikandros held the gold chain out with the pendant swinging from it just out of Aeliana's reach. He let her make a game out of trying to grab it. But he never quite allowed her to succeed. She watched the pendant spin with bright eyes, clearly loving the way the stone looked like it glowed when it caught the shafts of dawn sunlight.

Nikandros had remained at Chastillon while Damen and Laurent took Arles, so he'd never seen the palace in person. He'd heard it described, though. On the outside: white turrets that picked up the sunlight, with the shining effect amplified a thousand fold by the golden accents. On the inside: painted tiles and gold filigree absolutely everywhere, with tapestries and pictures etched into wood punctuating it all, dozens of times more elaborate than the Veretian influence on the palace at Marlas. Aeliana, with her enjoyment of all things beautiful and shiny, would be transfixed. Not to mention that Nicaise would surely look like he truly belonged there.

Aeliana's love of pretty things could only hold her captive for so long when it wasn't a whole palace-full at her disposal, though. So she eventually abandoned her interest in Nicaise's pendant. She was quickly back to going mad over the horses.

The fact that, of all the horses currently being hooked up to wagons or saddled up in preparation for their riders, Aeliana had picked out Damen's massive beast as the 'pony' she clearly wanted to ride was somewhat amusing. But Damen, being the overly indulgent father he was, looked to Laurent with a question in his eyes.

"If you let my daughter fall from that high up, I will make you sorely regret it for the rest of your very short remaining life," Laurent warned, his version of approval.

"Why do you always call her your daughter when you want to keep me in line, but my daughter when she does something wrong?"

"I think you just answered your own question," said Nikandros.

There was no real risk of Aeliana falling anyway once her father mounted the horse and reached for her, placing her in the triangle formed by his thighs and the pommel of the saddle. Damen took up so much of the saddle that Aeliana could barely even wiggle in place, let alone move enough to free herself of her father's grip. And Damen had an infallibly secure hold on her as befitted his precious cargo.

None of them would have probably dared agree to her travelling like that – in the open and vulnerable except for Damen's body as protection – in a different region, where the loyalties were less sure. But it was fairly safe on this particular short stretch (and it would be short, Nikandros knew, for Aeliana would grow tired of it and have to be handed off to ride with Erasmus and Kallias in the carriage in no time at all). Marlas was such a melting pot of the two cultures these days that it tended to be avoided by those who opposed the alliance. And there were additional guards and other people, including Nikandros, riding with the royal party to see them off at the edge of the city as well. Neither Laurent nor Damen seemed concerned by the small risk, so Nikandros kept a wary eye out but didn't comment.

The locals were certainly thrilled to get a glimpse of their little princess riding bravely atop a steed many hands taller than she was. Children waved and adults bowed and called out well-wishes. Damen tried to coax Aeliana into waving her hand a little in return. Apparently, she either realised that she was the centre of a very large amount of attention or she found the noise of the gathered crowds off-putting, though, for she instead turned her face shyly into Damen's cloak.

Knowing they would stop soon enough, Nikandros continued to ride with the group even after the last houses of the village were out of view and many of the additional guards had peeled off back to the palace, with only Nikandros's personal Guard remaining. On the empty road about twenty minutes later, Damen called for the brief halt that Nikandros had expected. Aeliana was making complaining noises where she was still propped in the saddle.

Erasmus was called from the carriage. He reached for Aeliana with that same wistful expression Nikandros lately always saw him wearing when he was caring for her. The same one he also donned when he was in the vicinity of Isander and his ever-rounding middle. And Kallias looked a little troubled by the sight of it as he usually did as well. Nikandros thought he was still trying to decide how determined he really was to keep Erasmus entirely to himself when it seemed he alone couldn't give Erasmus what he wanted.

Nicaise emerged from the carriage behind the one that the other two omegas had been riding in, apparently to stretch his legs even though it had only been half an hour. Nikandros steered his horse over to Nicaise's side. He held out the pendant that had still been clutched in his hand alongside the reins.

"I forgot to give this back to you earlier," he said. "Please don't just give it to Aeliana the minute I'm out of sight."

Nicaise gave him a long look, then shrugged. "I probably won't be able to help myself if she starts that annoying whining thing she does," he said. Apparently, he was entirely uncaring of the hypocrisy of that statement. "So you'd probably better just hang onto it for now so I can't be tempted."

The pendant was probably one of the most expensive things Nicaise owned. It was worth at least the entire contents of one of the seven cases he'd insisted on bringing with him, if not more. It could feed him for a few years if he could barter it for anything close to what it was actually worth.

Nicaise didn't ever leave anything of real worth behind. But he was willing to leave this with Nikandros.

"Don't think you can run off and flog it for coins," Nicaise warned. "I'll come looking for you the minute I arrive back in Marlas, so you'd better have it ready for me."

Nikandros nodded wordlessly, any verbal response lost to him. He had nowhere else to put it, as his chiton had no Veretian-style pockets, so he slipped the chain of it over his head. The pendant was just long enough to slip under the white cotton of his chiton, covered from the sight of any bandits that might be foolish enough to frequent the roads so near the capital. Although he could no longer see it, Nikandros could still feel the weight of it. Now that it was closer to his nose, Nikandros could also tell that the chain, which had been pressed against the bare skin of Nicaise's neck, still smelled a little of him.

Nicaise smirked as if Nikandros had done something funny. Perhaps it was just that Nikandros, who never donned anything that could be considered jewellery other than plain gold, was now wearing something so comparatively garish.

The break was over in moments, with Aeliana now safely inside the carriage with some toys and two minders to keep her well occupied. Damen rode over to Nikandros's side and clasped his shoulder in farewell. Even Laurent nodded at him in acknowledgement from some ten-horse-lengths' away. They were trusting him with their kingdom and their palace in their absence, and he felt the importance of it in the seriousness of their parting. But they would be back soon enough, Nikandros recalled.

Nicaise had climbed back into his carriage while Nikandros was distracted by the Kings. He didn't say goodbye or look out of the carriage as it was spurred into motion, leaving Nikandros behind.

Nikandros watched the company depart for a moment. Then he spun his horse around and rode for Marlas, his Guard quickly falling in at his heels. The pendant bounced slightly against his chest the whole way, a reminder.

Chapter Text

The royal party arrived back from Vere amid much fanfare. Aeliana, clearly getting worked up as a result of all the commotion, had evidently decided that she needed to contribute even more noise herself rather than going uncharacteristically quiet the way she had the last time she'd travelled this road. Apparently, she was less shy of the crowds when she was out of their line of sight. Or otherwise, in her time in Arles and visiting other places throughout the journey, she had simply grown used to the attention and now embraced it. But Aeliana's overly loud cheering as she was conveyed out of the carriage wasn't what caused Nikandros to blink and take a physical step back.

No, that would be the vast expanses of skin that confronted his eyes as a pair of bare legs, longer than he'd remembered, and an equally bare shoulder emerged from the next carriage. They were followed out by recognisable brown curls ducking beneath the top of the carriage door.

Nikandros wouldn't have called it particularly warm in Marlas at this time of year. Winter was just a week or two away from setting in. But apparently, compared with the much-cooler climate of Arles, Marlas might as well have been as hot as the sun-drenched stone bathhouses in Isthima. Nicaise complained that even his current level of coverage was too much to bear in this heat. This despite the fact that Nikandros had never seen Nicaise wear so little clothing even when he'd been in Ios in the dead of summer during his first year in Akielos. Even his sleep shirts were considerably thicker in material and provided more coverage than that.

Nikandros imagined that Nicaise could only have managed to acquire such a thing in Vere, where Akielon fashions surely hadn't spread that extensively, if they'd run into Charls somewhere up north. The man was an indulgent menace when it came to crafting whatever (usually ridiculously expensive) fashions Nicaise could think up just for the hell of getting Laurent to spend more money on him. Nikandros wished that Nicaise had thought to ask Charls to make him a cloak to cover himself while he was at it. As it was, Nikandros was only barely restraining himself from detaching his own cloak and throwing it over Nicaise, regardless of him claiming to be overheated. He couldn't be that hot, anyway. His cheeks weren't even reddened. They perhaps should be, with embarrassment if nothing else, but Nicaise had never shown the slightest traces of shame.

Nikandros barely even heard the request from Damen to join himself and Laurent in a meeting to update the Kings on what had happened in Marlas in their absence. He let himself be guided to the meeting room nonetheless, and forced himself to pay attention to providing whatever details hadn't already been included in the constant slew of letters Laurent had insisted Nikandros send to them while they were gone. Laurent's willingness to trust Nikandros to run the capital for them had apparently only stretched so far.

They didn't tell him what had happened in Arles in turn, probably because they wanted to keep the meeting short so they could rest after their travels. But the fact that they'd returned with two additional wagons full of men who were apparently set for trials spoke volumes on its own. Even without the Kings saying anything, with the way the grapevine in Marlas worked, Nikandros would probably find out what their alleged crimes had been, and how they'd been caught, before day's end.

When the meeting was over, Nikandros didn't make it very far at all before he ran into Nicaise, almost as if Nicaise had been specifically waiting for him. He was leaning against the wall of the hallway, his body a seemingly casual but artful incline. Even in the cooler stone interior of the castle, out of the supposedly hot sunlight, he was still wearing what could only be described as a child-sized chiton, despite his body patently no longer being child-like enough to suit it. When had that happened, anyway? Not in the space of just a few months, surely.

To distract himself, Nikandros silently held out the pendant Nicaise had left with him.

"Have you been carrying that with you the whole time?" Nicaise asked, amused.

He had, actually, but Nikandros wasn't going to admit that. "Just today, when I knew you were coming," Nikandros lied.

Nikandros, although a better liar than some of his countrymen (specifically Damen), was certainly not up to the standards to which Nicaise would have grown re-accustomed in Arles. Nicaise gave him a knowing look. But he didn't comment to draw more attention to the falsehood, which was unusual for him. Perhaps his tact had grown along with his limbs. Though Nikandros somehow doubted that.

Nikandros justified, "You told me you would come looking for it immediately. I'd hate to give you a reason to have my rooms entirely overturned looking for it. I already have to strip the place down and put everything to rights again every few months thanks to you as it is."

Though he hadn't needed to in the last few months. It occurred to Nikandros that Nicaise must have had a heat while he'd been in Arles. Presumably there, and not while they'd been on the road. Even with the Kings present and the men they had chosen to accompany them being loyal, an omega in heat with nothing but a slip of tent material between him and a camp half full of alphas who weren't all, like Nicaise's usual alpha guards, more or less immune to omegas, didn't bear thinking about. Nikandros wasn't quite willing to ask. But he strongly hoped that Nicaise had spent it safely locked away in his own set of rooms, with thick stone walls keeping him safe. And Nikandros also hoped that the experience hadn't been too terrible away from the familiar comforts Nicaise usually had during his time. But unlike Nicaise, Nikandros wasn't the type to bring up such things openly, especially unsolicited. So he kept his thoughts and hopes to himself.

Nicaise pushed away from the wall, standing straight as he stepped a little closer to Nikandros. They still weren't of a height, but it was a closer thing than it had been before.

"They must have fed you well in Vere. You've grown at least two inches, I think. Maybe more," Nikandros remarked. "I don't have to look quite so far downwards anymore."

With a strange look in his eyes, Nicaise said. "Those might be the last inches that I grow."

That was true, Nikandros realised. Nikandros was fairly certain he personally had stopped growing around Nicaise's age, or very shortly thereafter. If he recalled correctly, Nicaise's eighteenth nameday was only a few weeks away now. So he'd been considered a grown man by Akielon standards for almost a whole year, even if Veretians counted twenty-one as their age of majority. And anyone looking at Nicaise now would certainly consider him an adult. Even Nikandros. It would be difficult not to notice the shoulders that had taken on an unexpected broadness, usually hidden by Nicaise's clothing, from training with Nikandros and even with Laurent, and the way whip-thin child's arms had at some point gained a series of strong curves to them.

Difficult, but not impossible. Or it shouldn't have been. Nikandros was usually able to keep his mind more disciplined than this, regardless of the provocation. But his thoughts kept wandering back in an unwanted direction.

"The courtiers in Arles were surprised to find me much more grown than they remembered as well," Nicaise remarked. "And it's been a while since any of them have seen an unwed presented omega, apparently. Some of them forgot themselves entirely."

Horrified, Nikandros asked, "Did they touch you?"

"The only ones who tried accompanied us back here," Nicaise said. "They quickly found me - and Laurent once I pointed them out to him - not as accommodating as they expected, or hoped."

Nikandros was glad of it. He'd eagerly attend those trials, and see to whatever punishment came of them.

Then it occurred to him: "Did Laurent set that up on purpose?"

Nicaise scoffed, "He chose Kallias and me, of all his omega pets, to accompany him to Arles, and it's just now occurring to you that entrapment might have been his game? People will whisper 'treason' like an endearment because they forget we pets even have minds of their own attached to our bodies. As if pets aren't the most ambitious people in the entire kingdom. Oh relax, we were never in any real danger. And it was more fun than I've had in ages to goad those idiots into trying to impress the pretty omega by bragging about the so-called 'accomplishments' they'd been working on during the King's absence from the north."

It didn't sound like fun to Nikandros. He didn't want to think about what that 'goading' might have entailed.

"Though Erasmus was also responsible for more than his fair share of the criminals we caught in our net, if you can believe it. Personally, if I'd abused someone who was supposed to be under the protection of the Crown at the time – someone the King now claims as his own pet, even – I'd have turned tail and run the second I spotted that person, before he could spot me in return. But there's no accounting for stupidity, apparently. And I guess they wouldn't have expected Erasmus to have the spine to rat them out. Even I was a little surprised. Though I was less surprised when Kallias spat in their faces."

Nikandros, for his part, was surprised Erasmus had been persuaded to return to Arles at all, come to think of it. He knew some of what the boy had gone through there. His 'First Night', such as it was, would have been nothing like what he'd been trained to expect, and Nikandros knew that Erasmus kept his upper legs covered for a reason. Nikandros supposed that Erasmus had to have come a long way from that boy who'd been rescued from Arles in the first place, for Laurent to have thought that he could handle the return there.

Though apparently Laurent wasn't satisfied that his pets' words would be evidence enough against those who had mistreated them, for Laurent had organised an invitation to Marlas for a delegation from Patras who had happened to be present in Arles in the last month or so when the Regent of Vere had been claiming the throne for himself. Laurent claimed that he had called upon the Patrans to discuss problems with one of the trade routes, but Nikandros knew his true purpose the moment he'd heard of the timing of it. Trade negotiations could have waited until after winter had passed, since few merchants would be travelling that distance on the roads during the cold months anyway. The fact that Patras's visit to Marlas came very close on the heels of the Kings' arrival back in Marlas clearly meant there was a more pressing need for their presence.

Damen had complained when he'd learned that Prince Torveld in particular was coming. It didn't take Nikandros long to realise why. At least not once he'd seen the way that, even in a sea of beautiful darker-skinned Akielon men and women, Torveld's eyes immediately picked out the brighter hue of Erasmus and moved no further. He could probably have passed it off as his attention being grabbed by the screaming child in Erasmus's arms at the time, had he not continued to stare even once Erasmus had handed Aeliana over. Apparently, Torveld and Damen had similar tastes, at least physically. Of course Damen wouldn't appreciate having a would-be-competitor alpha prince so close to his omega. Especially since he understood that Laurent and Torveld had met twice before. Nikandros hadn't been present the first time, soon after they'd captured Ravenel, and he'd been too distracted the last time Torveld had been in Marlas to pay any particular attention to how Torveld had looked at Laurent (though Nikandros was surprised that Damen hadn't complained to him about it after either time, to be honest).

Kallias didn't seem to appreciate Torveld's particular tastes much either, judging by the way he growled low in his throat in a manner more reminiscent of a young headstrong alpha protecting his omega than someone who was an omega himself. Erasmus looked scandalised by Kallias's behaviour, especially directed as it was at a prince. Less than a year ago, Erasmus would have been flat to the ground with his nose pressed against the floor in apology for Kallias's rudeness. It seemed he really had changed, for he instead gave only a shallow and relatively quick bow.

"I remember you," Torveld said to Erasmus. "You were at Arles. You were one of the slaves gifted by Akielos that they paraded before us when we visited. You… were different then."

Nikandros was glad on Erasmus's behalf that Torveld at least didn't say it as though he felt the change was necessarily a bad thing.

Nikandros recalled Erasmus as he'd first seen him when Laurent and Damen had returned to Chastillon from Arles and converged with the rest of the army in preparation to march south to Ios. The slaves they'd brought with them had not been in good shape. At the time Nikandros had written it off as Veretians not knowing the proper way to handle slaves with respect and care. But he'd since witnessed that some Akielons had apparently been equally unable or unwilling to protect slaves where they couldn't protect themselves; cruelty towards the vulnerable existed everywhere, it seemed.

It was true that Erasmus did look different now. He didn't make eye-contact with Torveld still, but that was likely in large part because Torveld was a prince. Nikandros had seen many of the freed slaves in the palace recently starting to treat more and more of the lower-ranked occupants of the palace without such learned deference. Erasmus had never been one of them before, but there was a different air about him now than Nikandros was used to seeing from him.

Last time he'd been in Arles, Erasmus had left behind some of his innocence. This time it seemed he'd willingly abandoned something else while there. Obviously being able to play a part in identifying both the men who'd treated him poorly when he'd been a slave there and the men who would still mistreat him now, given the chance, and to have them be the ones confined and punished, had proved something to him. Perhaps it had even lifted some burden from his shoulders. What was left behind was apparently a kind of resolve. And Kallias looked so happy and proud now (when Kallias wasn't too busy instead bristling with jealousy, at least) whenever Nikandros saw them together, both walking with their backs straight and strong and their chins lifted.

"Of course he's different. Erasmus is a free man now," Laurent said. He was holding Aeliana now, having taken her from Erasmus. She was settling down from the tantrum she'd apparently been throwing now that she was in her father's arms. Another King might have told his daughter's minder to keep her away unless there was some problem more critical than her missing her parents. Laurent, on the other hand, looked utterly unperturbed to have Erasmus bring his screaming daughter to him in the middle of an official reception banquet in an effort to calm her when she'd clearly been crying for quite some time. Anyone who could be overheard whispering that it was unseemly received a glare, and were likely filed away in Laurent's mind.

Torveld, luckily for him, didn't seem to be put off by it. If anything, he appeared enamoured with the sight of two beautiful blond omegas caringly passing an equally beautiful – if red-faced and tear-streaked – child between them. Nikandros was glad that Damen was across the hall embroiled in some discussion with one of the other Patran delegates because he could only imagine Damen's reaction to that.

Torveld said, "We've heard much in Patras about the new state of affairs in Akielos. Is it true that there are no slaves left in your kingdoms at all?"

"There are some resistant pockets of illegal trade still," Laurent admitted, "but they're growing smaller and smaller. Soon every single person will be freed."

"And you haven't found the adjustment difficult?" Torveld asked. "Though I suppose I'm speaking to the wrong King on that front, since slavery would have been an all-new culture to you, coming from Vere."

"I wouldn't call slavery a culture. That would grant it an air of validity that it doesn't deserve," Laurent said, obviously not caring at all for the fact that the man to whom he was speaking himself came from a country still firmly built on the foundation stones of slavery. "The changes haven't always been a simple matter, but what of any worth comes easily? Perhaps Patras will look into the possibility of following our lead soon enough. It's worth it, I promise you."

Torveld laughed a little uneasily. Laurent, having made his point, let the conversation quickly lapse into something a little less confronting so as not to isolate his guest any further.

Kallias took the shifting focus as an opportunity to guide Erasmus away, throwing tiny suspicious looks back at Torveld as he did, as if he thought they would be followed. They didn't leave the hall altogether, obviously in case Laurent wanted to hand Aeliana back to her minder at some point. But they kept themselves firmly to the corners, with Kallias giving off a distinctive 'back off' vibe all the while.

Damen appeared by Laurent's side soon enough after that, apparently having finally freed himself from the other Patrans. He took Aeliana to give Laurent's arms a rest from the weight of her, settling her on his hip. Half-asleep now – probably worn out from her earlier histrionics – she pressed her head against his shoulder, eyes closed. Nikandros noticed the way Damen's other arm looped around behind Laurent, his fingers finding the small of Laurent's waist. Laurent didn't visibly react. In any other circumstances, he probably would have been surprised by the openness of Damen's affections, but he must have known just as well as Nikandros did what the reason for it was.

This is my family, was the evident declaration. Nikandros was fairly certain Torveld got the message.

The night grew late, but the festivities still didn't dwindle away into guests retiring to their rooms, which would have allowed Nikandros to retreat to his own rooms. His duties as Kyros meant that he couldn't leave until, at the very least, the Kings had departed. And Laurent was currently schooling some Patran noblemen on the fine art of card-sharking, so that might be some time away yet.

In lieu of being able to leave entirely, Nikandros at least found himself a quiet corner where his presence could be observed – and where he could also keep an eye on the more ambitious of the courtiers, as he always tried to do at these events – but where he gave off a clear signal that he wasn't inviting anyone to join him and strike up a conversation.

Nicaise, of course, ignored that signal.

"Why do the interesting gatherings all end early but the ones filled with stick-in-the-muds keep going strong into the early hours?" Nicaise complained.

That would likely be because Nicaise's version of 'interesting' usually involved things that made people want to disappear off with their respective pets or lovers as quickly as possible. But offering such an explanation would undoubtedly result in Nicaise wanting to talk about those things, so Nikandros remained silent.

Nicaise sighed. "It's so annoying. I'd rather just sleep than deal with this lot."

He slid himself into the seat beside Nikandros, shifting the wooden chair so that he was almost pressed to Nikandros's side. Then Nicaise leaned his head against Nikandros's shoulder, nuzzling into him slightly as if Nikandros were nothing more than a convenient pillow. From the outside, it might not have looked entirely dissimilar from how Aeliana had made an impromptu bed of Damen's shoulder across the room. But from where Nikandros was sitting, it was definitely much different.

It didn't escape Nikandros's notice that Nicaise soon tilted his head so that his nose was more or less tucked into Nikandros's neck, breathing in the scent of him. Nicaise's own scent tickled Nikandros's nose along with his curls. The slight scratch of Nicaise's jaw against Nikandros's bare shoulder also made Nikandros shiver. Omegas didn't tend to be able to grow proper beards, but they were still men. With anyone else, Nikandros might have broken the tension by laughingly pointing out that Nicaise's stubble could use a shave. But he knew better than to do that now. Nicaise would have jerked away and looked at him like he'd been burned. As if Nikandros had said something horrifying. He'd taken Nikandros's comments on his increasing height when he'd arrived back in Marlas better than expected, but Nikandros knew that Nicaise definitely still had his limits about discussing things that might serve as reminders of what had once been expected of him.

"No one is stopping you from leaving, if you wanted to go to bed," Nikandros said.

He felt Nicaise's shrug more than saw it. "You're stuck here, though. And you looked lonely."

Nikandros doubted that. He'd probably looked like he was enjoying the solitude, if anything.

Yet he found that he didn't particularly resent Nicaise for interrupting that solitude.

"If you fall asleep on my shoulder," Nikandros warned, "you probably won't appreciate how I choose to wake you up."

"Please," Nicaise said. "I bet you'd insist on carrying me to my rooms because you wouldn't be able to bring yourself to wake me up unnecessarily. You pretend otherwise, but you're such a pushover lately."

Nikandros wanted to say that he would happily tip a sleeping Nicaise on his ass. He would have done that without compunction until recently. Now, he wasn't so sure that Nicaise was wrong.

Nicaise didn't fall asleep anyway, in the end. But he didn't move his head either, and he didn't speak anymore, so Nikandros would almost have said that Nicaise might as well have been asleep, if not for the strange atmosphere that came with simply sitting and watching the crowds together until it was finally late enough – and enough people had excused themselves, the Kings included – for Nikandros to be able to leave and take Nicaise with him.

The quiet company was, surprisingly, comfortable. The realisation of that, not so much.

Chapter Text

"Baby," Aeliana said, reaching curiously.

"Ah!" Laurent said sharply. He caught her hand. "What did I tell you? He's still brand new. Only Isander and Paschal can hold him right now. But Isander might let you touch him in a few days if you're good now."

Aeliana let herself be put off, probably because she was too enthralled by the way the newborn started crying to make much of a complaint herself. Her mouth formed a little circle of surprise. Nikandros realised she'd never seen anyone near her own age, let alone younger, this close up before. It would probably be good for her to have other children around.

Apparently, Laurent agreed. He had a thoughtful look in his eyes. It had nothing on the obviousness of how Erasmus had looked at the tiny baby in Isander's arms before he and Kallias had slipped away so there wouldn't be too many people in the room at once. Yet it was along the same vein.

Nikandros excused himself once he'd established that father and son were both doing well. Just the thought of hanging around while Laurent discussed his personal experiences of childbirth and parenting with Isander made Nikandros seriously consider purposely bursting his own eardrums. And it wasn't as if Nikandros felt particularly comfortable in Isander's presence even without that disincentive. He couldn't help but feel some amount of guilt whenever he saw him.

Nikandros immediately came upon Nicaise waiting outside Isander's door. Nicaise had retreated from the room even faster than Nikandros. He'd claimed it was because the room was too small to cram them all inside, but Nikandros was fairly certain he knew the truth.

"It's just a baby, not some monster that's going to unlatch its jaws and swallow you whole if you spend more than five seconds in its presence."

Nicaise pulled a face as he fell into step beside Nikandros. "I'd take monsters over squalling brats any day. Though for some reason, most of the people in this palace are somehow actually surprised that I haven't already been married off and gotten knocked up myself."

"I can see how you'd think of that as a scary thought. I'm not sure this palace could handle a miniature version of you along with the full-sized model."

Nicaise glared. "These fools should be so lucky. Sadly for them, I just personally don't want that child-bearing shit. Although the other part…"

It took Nikandros a moment to realise what he meant. "You actually want to get married one day? I thought that you would have thought that was too boring for you."

"Yeah, well, it's not that way for Laurent, is it?" Nicaise pointed out. "He still gets to gallivant off freeing slaves like he doesn't have a kingdom to run. He still slinks around the villages in stupid disguises as much for the hell of it as to figure out what the common people are thinking. He's even now building a whole empire practically from the ground up. If he gets the best of both worlds, why shouldn't I? Or does an omega have to be King to not have to choose between having someone and having an interesting life?"

Nikandros would have told him that of course that wasn't the case; that there were plenty of alphas out there who would support someone like Nicaise in whatever he wanted his future to hold, even if that didn't include children. But Nikandros didn't get the chance, because Nicaise quickly added, "If that's true, why did I even bother coming back here with the others?"

The panicked feeling clawing from within Nikandros's chest took him by surprise. "You wanted to stay in Arles?"

Nikandros thought of the pendant. Had Nicaise been lying when he'd claimed that he would be back for it? Even now, he still hadn't taken it back from Nikandros, despite Nikandros holding it out in offer on the day when Nicaise had returned. Had it actually been meant as some kind of parting gift rather than a kind of promise that he would return?

Nicaise shook his head, though. "Why would I want to stay in that graveyard? Most courtiers who have any real power these days come to the palace at Marlas for the season now. I'd be bored to tears. But I could have gone anywhere from there. Laurent would have fronted me the coin to travel anywhere if I'd asked."

"But if you'd done that, you'd miss being able to spend hours on end annoying me," Nikandros said. He'd meant it to sound dry. It didn't.

Nicaise started to answer, but then immediately interrupted himself to say, "Oh, fuck no. Are you kidding me? Who invited him here?"

Nikandros very quickly spotted who he meant. The man wasn't exactly easy to ignore, especially once he spotted Nicaise and Nikandros and his voice boomed down the hallway at them.

Makedon never came to the palace unless specifically called upon. He preferred being out in the fields, running patrols and guiding his men to prove their mettle. A castle half full of indolent Veretians, especially residing on the lands of Delpha, was an abhorrence as far as Makedon was concerned, and he wasn't one for politics regardless. So it had been about a year since he'd last been inside the palace. Nicaise, in particular, had clearly enjoyed the time away from Makedon, considering how Makedon bizarrely insisted on treating Nicaise kind of like a problem son whenever they met, much to Nicaise's dismay.

If it hadn't been a show of weakness, Nicaise would probably have turned tail and literally run for it to avoid dealing with the man now. As it was, Makedon slapped Nicaise on the back as soon as he arrived at their sides. If Nicaise had still been as short and untoned as he'd been the first time they'd met when Nicaise had been fourteen, the gesture would have knocked him straight over, but now he was able to more or less hold his position with only a slight stumble. He also looked as though he was considering whether it would be considered fair reprisal to punch Makedon in the face, perhaps breaking his nose for what must have been at least the tenth time in Makedon's life.

"He's shot up like a weed! What have you been feeding this kid, Nikandros? Though, is he a kid anymore? What are you, sixteen by now?"

"Eighteen," Nicaise hissed.

"Ah! Past time for you to prove you're a man at a tournament, then. I've heard Nikandros has at least put you through your paces with a sword, so I'd hope your performance wouldn't be too shameful."

"Go get some blades and I'll show you who's shameful," Nicaise challenged.

Stepping in between them, for he wasn't entirely sure they wouldn't come to blows after all given the look on Nicaise's face, Nikandros offered, "He fights better than you probably imagine. But he's not one for tournaments."

"Too much chance of getting a scrape on that pretty face?"

"Too many rules," countered Nicaise.

"Ah, the same reason King Laurent rarely competes!" Makedon crowed. "Though he won't admit it. Claims there's not enough real competition to bother. As if both kingdoms wouldn't salivate just to watch the two Kings fight each other again. And speaking of which, where are our venerated leaders?"

He said it without sarcasm, but there was still something less than entirely respectful about it, for it was too casual. But that was Makedon for you.

"King Damianos is in a meeting," Nikandros said.

"And you're not hovering over him like a mother hen? I never thought I'd see the day."

Sardonically, Nikandros said, "Yes, far be it from me to want to offer the King advice. As his advisor." But to be honest, Nikandros didn't need to be as worried about Damen's too-trusting nature these days. Even if Damen were disposed to make a ridiculous decision in Nikandros's absence, Laurent would just scoff in his face and tell him he was an idiot. It had caused a couple of fights loud enough to echo around the marble surfaces of the Kings' wing of the palace, but it seemed to work for them.

"And our other King?" Makedon asked.

"Laurent's busy cooing over the new ball of slobber," Nicaise added.

Makedon frowned. "A puppy?"

"A child," Nikandros corrected.

Makedon blinked. "They've kept that well under wraps. Was the presentation of another heir the reason I was invited to the palace?"

"The child belongs to one of Laurent's pets."

Makedon looked at Nicaise speculatively. "Not you, by the looks. Although you've surely managed to finally catch Nikandros's eye the way you want by now, grown up as you are, so perhaps soon?"

Nicaise's entire face turned red. Nikandros hadn't realised Nicaise's cheeks were even capable of it, for Nicaise was never usually embarrassed. Nikandros wondered whether his own face matched.

"Shut up!"

Makedon laughed. Nikandros had the strange feeling that he was supposed to be laughing at the joke as well, but he didn't quite feel like doing so, somehow.

He chose seriousness instead, redirecting the topic, though clumsily. "I daresay the exact timing of your arrival is to coincide with the hunt in two days. You know how King Laurent likes to rub it in your face that you're getting slow with age whenever he beats you to the mark. But more generally, the Kings have likely called you here to discuss moving your troops further north."

Makedon's thick eyebrows shot upwards. "Into Vere?"

"I doubt it will be 'Vere' much longer. Which is the reason for the move. The word 'empire' has been thrown around a lot recently. The Vaskians have apparently overheard it, and don't like the implications of having competition in the region. Some of the tribes are more demonstrative about it than others."

"So I'm to face off with a howling mad bunch of Vaskian warrior women?" said Makedon. "You won't catch me saying no."

Nicaise said, "I pity those Vaskians for having to look at your face, even across battle lines."

Makedon's laugh was full-throated, probably because he knew it would annoy Nicaise.

Makedon seemed surprised to find out that Nicaise was coming with them on the hunt on the day they rode out. Nikandros couldn't really fault him for that, for he wouldn't have been able to imagine it either a few years ago. Back then, Nicaise would have remained behind in the palace, or at best would have lazed around in the tents waiting for the riders to return victorious. Now Nicaise had a mount of his own – a beautiful animal that Laurent had picked out for him when Nicaise was fifteen – and he knew how to hold a spear, even while he rode. He wasn't likely to actually get a kill, but at least he would more or less fit in.

Or, at least as well as Laurent fit in amongst this crowd, which was to say that they both inevitably stood out, but not for their incompetence.

Nikandros rode several horse lengths behind his Kings the whole way, preferring to watch their backs over trying to track a kill. Nikandros already knew that he could take down a boar. He didn't think he had anything to prove. Though he knew many alphas' pride wouldn't let them purposely step back from a chance to shove their skills and potentially attain a victory.

Nicaise rode by Nikandros's side, keeping pace the whole way. Nikandros had to admit that his eyes occasionally strayed away from Damen and Laurent to take note of Nicaise's riding form. He found himself impressed, considering how little time Nicaise usually spent on horseback.

When the hunt completed with three boars and a deer all downed, the company pulled up alongside the tents that had been erected by the servants while they rode.

Once he'd dismounted, Nicaise threw his horse's reins to Nikandros, the same way Nikandros would do to a servant.

Nikandros found himself in control of two horses and wondering what just happened. He watched Nicaise walk away. Perhaps he looked a little more closely than he intended.

The tables were hastily erected, but even without the kills from the day – which would likely accompany them back to the palace and appear at the following night's dinner table – those tables were certainly well-stocked. The men who'd ridden out for the day, along with the pets and the ladies who'd waited for their return, certainly seemed satisfied with the array.

The drinks were also free-flowing, but apparently, Makedon couldn't ever quite contain himself when it came to offering up the griva.

"You should try some," Makedon told Nicaise. "It'll put some hair on your chest."

Nikandros grimaced. Bad word choice. Though Makedon probably would have still said it if he'd realised it would make Nicaise turn even more prickly.

"Are you trying to convince me, or make me sick even without me having to taste that slop?"

Nikandros grabbed the griva and downed it (suppressing a shudder of distaste) before Nicaise could 'accidentally' knock it all over Makedon to show the full extent of his displeasure at having it offered to him. "Nicaise doesn't drink anything that doesn't send the kingdom halfway to bankrupt. I'm sure King Laurent would be happy to drink with you, though."

Makedon chuckled, but took Nikandros's suggestion.

"Laurent's going to kill you when he finds out you said that."

"I can handle Laurent," claimed Nikandros.

"Famous last words."

Nikandros lost track of Nicaise not long after that. He refused to admit that one cup of griva was enough to dull his senses, but he wasn't quite as able to keep track of where Nicaise was as he usually found himself recently.

When he found him eventually, Nicaise looked tense. Nikandros realised why a moment later.

There was laughter drifting around the corner of one of the tents. Nikandros heard someone talking in Veretian about how King Laurent's prize pet had returned from Arles all grown up. But he hadn't grown up to be quite as beautiful as King Laurent himself, another person countered, despite them sharing a similar perfection in their youth. He said it with a dissatisfied sigh, as if Nicaise had let him down by falling just slightly short of the supposed pinnacle of perfection. There was a hearty round of agreement from the group as a whole.

Even putting everything else aside, the hypocrisy was sickening. Who the fuck in that group thought that they could hold a candle to Laurent's looks, or to Nicaise's for that matter? Nikandros certainly wouldn't claim that he could, though he thought he was doing relatively all right for himself.

"But since the King is taken," someone else said, "I suppose his favoured pet would do in a pinch. At least he's an omega too. And he's a whore. He'd probably spread for you for just a coin or two. He's certainly been obvious in his desperation to bend over for the Kyros, even without receiving any kind of contract offer from him."

Nikandros just barely restrained himself from stalking around the corner and making someone – or all of them – bleed. But he was Kyros, and they'd technically broken no laws. It was a near thing, though.

"Fuck them," Nikandros said. It might have been loud enough for the group of idiots to hear and recognise his voice. He hoped so. He hoped they scattered like the rats they were at the sound of his condemnation.

Nicaise jerked his head around to look at him. Despite all the ways Nicaise had rubbed off on him, Nikandros still cursed fairly rarely whenever they were in public, and not just because he was determined that there should be at least one person from whom Aeliana couldn't pick up such words.

"What?"

"Fuck. Them." Nikandros repeated firmly. "Ignore it. Or go tell them where to shove their opinions, if you prefer. Just know that they're wrong and that they're pathetic."

If it had been about anything else, Nikandros imagined that that would have been exactly what Nicaise would have done. He wasn't easily shaken. But Nicaise had spent years of his life being told that his beauty, and his worth in its entirety, would fade as he reached adulthood. Nikandros understood that it was a particular sore point.

"I'm not –" Nicaise started to say. He was blushing. Then, muttering, as if to himself, he said bitterly, "I know they're right."

"They're not," Nikandros negated.

Nikandros knew that Nicaise had been an indisputably beautiful child (as long his sharp tongue didn't distract from his soft looks, which, granted, had been rarely the case). But Nikandros thought that in almost the same way as Nikandros now thought that two-year-old Aeliana was beautiful; worthy of admiration, but certainly not attractive in the way those men were suggesting. Now that particular brand of childlike beauty was admittedly gone, but it had been replaced by something else.

It was true that Nicaise's complexion wasn't quite as clear as it had once been, between his slight stubble, and the occasional temporary imperfections that inevitably heralded the transition from childhood, and the way the Akielon sun had peppered his otherwise pale skin with constellations of freckles over years of exposure. His lips were also no longer quite as pouty as when he'd been fifteen. In general, Nicaise's youthful roundness had disappeared. It had left his jaw more angular, and his cheekbones prominent enough to cast slight shadows that sharpened his face. They emphasised his eyes, which were no less huge, or any less blue, framed behind long eyelashes that were dark even tonight, when he hadn't bothered painting them after the exertions of the hunt.

That was all just part and parcel of Nicaise now looking more like a man rather than a boy, in Nikandros's opinion. He looked different, but certainly not lesser than before to anyone who didn't prefer unripe, doll-like features. Nikandros knew that Nicaise was painfully aware of how men with such preferences did exist. Apparently, those courtiers might be among them. But Nikandros definitely wasn't. Nikandros kind of wished that he could claim that he didn't find the signs of Nicaise's maturity attractive, because it was Nicaise, but Nikandros wasn't a very good liar when it came down to it.

"You're more appealing now by far than when I first met you," Nikandros assured Nicaise.

Nicaise met his eyes, not quite hiding his surprise. Or his hopefulness. "Yeah?"

It sounded like he was asking for more than Nikandros's confirmation of what he'd just said.

Despite himself, Nikandros heard himself saying it anyway. "Yes."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Nicaise bumped his shoulder against Nikandros's. "You fucking sap."

Nikandros didn't respond. Nikandros was deep in thought.

As a rule, Nikandros liked to plan everything. He didn't appreciate it when unexpected things – like soon-to-be Kings of foreign nations commandeering his own soon-to-be King's heart, or used-to-be-boys being suddenly adult enough that Nikandros couldn't ignore it any longer – threw everything into chaos when Nikandros had long been trying to force it all into some kind of order, for his own sanity's sake if nothing else. He had a contingency plan for most possible outcomes. It was rare that anything took him so entirely by surprise that he wasn't more or less prepared for it.

He wasn't prepared for this. He probably should have been, but he'd never really let himself consider the possibility enough to plan for it. Until now.

But then, Nicaise had always taken pleasure in messing up Nikandros's ordered world, so Nikandros wasn't sure why he was even surprised.

Chapter Text

"What is this?" Nikandros asked as Aeliana grabbed onto his hand and started swinging herself from his arm like it was a vine, giggling.

"I thought you'd recognise a child when you saw one. Especially since you see this particular child almost every day."

"I mean," Nikandros said, exasperated, "why are there twenty servants trailing behind you with seemingly every single item Aeliana has ever been able to call her own?"

"Obviously that's because you might need any number of those items, since you'll be looking after her for three days," Laurent said. It wasn't phrased as a request.

Nikandros didn't have to ask for the reason. Even if the duration hadn't given it away, Nikandros could smell the looming prospect of heat rising off Laurent's skin.

"Where's her usual carer?" Nikandros asked.

"Erasmus is indisposed. And Kallias is with him."

Ah. The problem with having an omega serve as another omega's childminder was that such close proximity tended to eventually result in coinciding heats. Erasmus probably wasn't even the only one of Laurent's omega pets who was 'indisposed'. Though Nikandros happened to know that Nicaise wasn't, that could almost have been purely down to Nicaise's sheer bloody-minded determination to be contrary.

Nikandros had a strange feeling that he didn't truly want to know the answer, but he asked anyway: "And why exactly are the servants are bringing two sleeping pallets to my rooms rather than just one for Aeliana?"

"Oh, didn't I mention that? Obviously, you might be unexpectedly pulled away to see to certain things while Damen and I are absent from the court, so you need someone available to help you with her."

"Someone?"

"Nicaise."

Nikandros sighed. He knew he shouldn't have asked.

"In what universe would Nicaise be considered qualified to look after a child?" Nikandros asked.

"In exactly none of them," Laurent admitted freely (and smugly, the bastard). "Which is why I'll be holding you directly accountable if anything goes wrong while he's watching her."

He wondered what Damen thought of that choice, assuming that he knew of it at all. Nikandros couldn't imagine Damen himself choosing Nicaise to watch over his daughter. But then, Nikandros also couldn't imagine him putting up much of a fight if Laurent, smelling just hours from full heat, had given him one of those looks that could topple kingdoms.

"So you want me to constantly babysit Nicaise babysitting Aeliana, even though Nicaise will supposedly be there in deference to the fact that I might not be available to watch Aeliana at times."

"Exactly," Laurent said. "Don't tell me you can run an entire region, but that you aren't capable of something as simple as that?"

"Of course," Nikandros said sarcastically. "Why shouldn't I be capable of being in two places at once?"

"I do it all the time," Laurent pointed out.

"This is a little different than convincing everyone you're going to be somewhere while you go running off to somewhere else entirely."

"You're right; this is a far less complex operation."

"I'll get someone else to help me. You have about a million other pets who love letting your daughter order them around, and servants if none of them can do it."

Though it was true that the next option after Erasmus and Kallias would likely have been Isander. With a newborn child of his own, that wouldn't exactly be ideal. Aeliana was a handful on her own, let alone with a baby to care for as well.

Though, if Nikandros didn't miss his guess, Laurent and Damen might themselves be dealing with just that scenario soon enough. Laurent kept looking at Isander's baby in a way that suggested he'd forgotten his promise after Aeliana's birth to never again go through the process required to have another one of his own.

Laurent dismissed Nikandros's very reasonable suggestion out of hand by simply saying, "It would be good for Nicaise to get some intensive experience with looking after children, all things considered."

Nikandros gathered that 'all things considered' translated to 'since he's an omega and might one day procreate himself'. It was probably just as well that Nicaise didn't seem interested in that. Just the thought of miniature Nicaises running around, especially in the same palace as Laurent's children, was frankly one of the most alarming things that Nikandros had ever had to contemplate.

Actually, Nikandros suspected that this whole child-minding thing might have been engineered in large part because Laurent wanted Nikandros to suffer through how unsuited for parenting Nicaise was up close, so that Nikandros would never in a million years consider becoming the reason Nicaise ended up with children of his own. It seemed that at least half the palace thought they were already sleeping together, or were on the verge of it. It was unsurprising that Laurent might take measures to dissuade Nikandros. Nikandros supposed he should just be glad that Laurent wasn't taking more permanent action, protective as he was.

"There's really no point in arguing with you, is there?" There rarely was.

"Not at all," Laurent confirmed. "Nicaise will show up whenever he drags himself out of bed. You know what he's like."

"And he actually agreed to this?"

Laurent's expression was indecipherable. "You could say that."

Nikandros could hardly fathom it.

Laurent kissed his daughter on the forehead. "Your father and I will see you in a few days." It didn't escape Nikandros's notice that Laurent didn't tell her to be good for him, as Laurent would usually say when he was leaving her with Erasmus.

"No…" Aeliana whined when Laurent tried to walk towards the door. She latched herself onto his leg in defiance. Tears formed in her eyes.

"My lovely daughter," Laurent said, "if you don't let go of me so I can leave, I'm very shortly going to go into heat right here, and Nikandros is going to expire from pure embarrassment. Which would be funny, I'll grant you, but I need him alive for now to look after you, so let's leave that for another day, shall we? Also, I have a feeling your father will eventually grow tired of waiting for me to return. It will be a serious problem if he bursts in here and slings me over his shoulder like a caveman, especially if you're still hanging onto my ankle for dear life at the time."

The specifics of Laurent's speech probably went over Aeliana's head, but she definitely picked up on the underlying meaning that Laurent definitely intended to leave her behind. She didn't react well. Though that was an understatement. Nikandros wasn't sure that he could put up with three hours if it continued on like this, let alone three days.

"Aeliana," Laurent said sternly, which was enough to make her cries quieten to a more manageable level, for Laurent rarely spoke to her with anything but utter indulgence, preferring spoiling her over scolding her, even when she deserved the latter. Laurent continued, "Do you want a baby brother or sister? Because you definitely won't get one if you don't let me go." Muttered so only Nikandros would hear, he added, "Unless you think Nikandros is going to father it."

Nikandros grimaced at the thought of it.

Aeliana seemed to think this over for a moment. Her words were slightly jumbled, but Nikandros thought he made out: "Come back with baby?"

Laurent smiled wryly. "If it was that easy, you'd probably already have more siblings than would fit inside this room."

Nikandros thought of Nicaise. Of the pets, many of whom tended to treat Laurent almost like a parent even if he was actually younger than some of them. She already did, in a way.

Aeliana let Laurent go, but it only took about twenty seconds after he'd disappeared through Nikandros's front door before she seemed to regret that decision. Nikandros sighed as the crying started.

By the time Nicaise sauntered into Nikandros's rooms as casually as if they were his own (which Nikandros supposed they would be for the next few days), Aeliana's tears had well and truly dried and had instead been replaced with laughter as she jumped (somewhat painfully, for she weighed more than appearances would suggest) up and down on Nikandros's ribcage while he held her hands to keep her upright.

When she caught sight of Nicaise, Aeliana squealed happily and stumbled off Nikandros so she could run to Nicaise's side. She certainly looked happier to see him than the reverse. Though he didn't push her away when she grabbed at his leg in a less desperate mirror of how she'd gripped at Laurent earlier.

"The rumour mill would be astonished to know that it's apparently this easy to get you on your back," was Nicaise's idea of a greeting.

Nikandros rolled his eyes but pushed himself upright. "They might be more surprised to know that you're going to more or less be tolerating a two-year-old child for days on end. Whatever they might think of you being an omega, they can't have missed that you don't exactly give off a paternal vibe."

Nicaise snorted indelicately and redirected Aeliana back towards Nikandros. She basically face-planted in his lap and then proceeded to go back to climbing all over him. Nicaise commented, "You seem to be more than willing to put up with pint-sized terrors, though. People think it's strange that you don't have any of your own by now. Or are there a horde of your bastards running around the countryside of Delpha?"

"I would have taken responsibility for them if they existed."

"Then you do want children." Nicaise's tone was probably less casual than he'd intended.

"I wouldn't be sorry to have them," Nikandros said. "But I'm a busy man. Enough so that Laurent recognised that I couldn't look after his daughter alone for even a few days. Unlike the Kings, I can't just bring my children into meetings whenever I feel like it, or announce that I'm taking a day off from my duties because I want time with my family. And if I can't prioritise them that way, I would probably prefer not to have them." Nikandros shrugged. "Besides, the title of 'Kyros' is awarded, not necessarily inherited, so I have no real need for an heir. My personal possessions and inheritances can go to the Crown. If Laurent had anything to say about it, I imagine he'd do something like set up a massive orphanage or a free school for the commoners in my family home, using my money to fund it. Let those children be my legacy, if it comes to that."

It felt like an offered reassurance. He wondered if Nicaise took it that way. Nikandros wasn't even entirely sure whether or not he wanted him to.

Aeliana, apparently annoyed that she wasn't currently the centre of attention, started slapping Nikandros's jaw. Nicaise didn't even have the tact to hide his laughter. Nikandros grabbed her hand and said, "And if I do want to spend time with children, I'm sure the Kings won't mind keeping me busy with this little one and her brothers and sisters." Nikandros guided Aeliana over to the chest full of diversions that the servants had brought along with her clothing and other 'necessities'. She quickly picked out a few wooden figures and started babbling some story about them too quickly for Nikandros to pick up more than every few words. Part of what she was saying was in Veretian, part was in Akielon, and the rest was in childish gibberish.

Nicaise seemed less supportive of her noisiness than he was of her hitting Nikandros. "Ugh. I can't believe Laurent seriously wants another one. What's wrong with him?"

There were many things wrong with Laurent, in Nikandros's opinion. He didn't say as much, though, because Nicaise would have been only too happy to pass that along to Laurent himself, who would probably make Nikandros sincerely regret saying it.

As Laurent had anticipated, it didn't take too long before a servant arrived to deliver a message that Nikandros was needed. Apparently, two of the pets were at each other's throats again, literally. Nikandros might have actually preferred to spend the afternoon dealing with Aeliana's tantrums than pets having their own tantrums and scratching at each other like angry cats.

He also hesitated to leave Nicaise to deal with Aeliana alone, even though it was apparently what Laurent had intended. It wasn't that Nikandros thought that Nicaise would actually let any harm come to Aeliana. But he did expect that he would return to his rooms to find that Aeliana was an hour into a screaming fit because Nicaise had failed to pay her the attention she thought she was due.

But Nicaise basically lived to defy Nikandros's expectations.

There were no sounds of distress or anger when he passed the guards outside the door into his rooms and pushed inside. The room was (perhaps disturbingly, given the circumstances) almost silent.

Aeliana never let anyone but Laurent touch her hair. After one of Laurent's previous heats, he'd emerged to find his daughter's hair an absolute mess and Erasmus's face tear-streaked because he felt like he'd failed to look after his charge the way he was supposed to. According to Kallias, there had been three separate occasions of trying to sort out her mop of curls, only to have her start screaming bloody murder and not stopping until her face went blue. The third time, she bruised her foot from kicking it angrily against the floor, which only made her cry all the more. It was no wonder Erasmus looked kind of haggard by the end of it. Nikandros could hardly believe that Erasmus had still somehow emerged from that feeling wistful about lacking children of his own.

Granted, that had been at the absolute height of her disagreeable phase, which slowly seemed to be starting to get a little better, but still. Nikandros had been fully prepared to just let Aeliana's hair tangle its way slowly into a bird's nest and then deal with Laurent's complaints when he had to undo the damage. Instead, there was this strange tableau.

Nicaise was running his fingers through Aeliana's hair, pulling it gently together into the palm of one hand. There was a ribbon wrapped around his wrist, apparently ready to tie the hair back into place. Rather than being filled with tears, Aeliana's eyes were drifting shut, as if the repetitive motions of Nicaise's hands were lulling her half to sleep.

It was such a quiet moment. Despite his honesty during their earlier conversation about wanting children, Nikandros still found that his heart thumped noticeably at this particular sight.

When he saw the way Nikandros was looking at him, Nicaise rolled his eyes. "What? I spent years threading tiny fucking seed pearls into my hair on a daily basis. You think I don't know how to deal with curls better than Laurent?"

That did make sense. But the fact that Aeliana had apparently known that well enough to give Nicaise access to her hair without a fight suggested that this wasn't the first time they'd sat together like this, with Nicaise caring for her in such a basic but important way. It seemed so unlikely, from what Nikandros had observed of Nicaise's usual attitude toward her, but he supposed that the evidence spoke for itself.

Nikandros made a point of watching the way Nicaise acted towards her more closely during the rest of the day, though he was absent again for a few hours prior to the evening meal to attend a meeting, so his time with them was admittedly a little more limited than he would have liked. Nicaise mostly acted like he wished Aeliana would leave him alone, but he didn't ever just leave her behind, even though he could have as long as Nikandros was with her. And occasionally he seemed to not mind her so much. Usually that was when she was being quiet, which was admittedly rare, but still.

Nikandros chose to take dinner in his rooms that first night, and he assumed Nicaise had earlier done the same for the midday meal in Nikandros's absence. He knew how Aeliana tended to refuse to eat in favour of flinging her food at people she didn't like the look of when she ate in the main hall. Laurent might encourage that kind of thing (and Nicaise would have undoubtedly taken up that role in his absence, given the chance), but Nikandros would like to maintain at least a tiny bit of discipline as long as he was supposed to be in charge of her. She still made something of a mess, but at least it was only of herself rather than a group of affronted courtiers. A messy child was more easily dealt with than the hurt pride of narcissistic adults.

After a bath, Nikandros put her to bed. And then again when she left her sleeping pallet in favour of tracking down Nicaise asking for a story. And then again when she was put down without Nicaise reading to her.

"There's a mountain of books in one of those cases that you could read to her," Nikandros suggested.

"The only stories she's getting from me are the same ones you get at meals."

Hastily, Nikandros grabbed a book and Aeliana to take her to read a story himself. Thankfully, she accepted the change in narrator from what she'd hoped for easily enough.

It was strange once she finally fell asleep, though, for Nicaise was still in Nikandros's rooms, and would be for another two days or so yet. It wasn't as if they didn't often spend hours in each other's presence, but it was still different somehow, knowing that it wouldn't end as the hour drew late. There was an awkwardness about it. Nikandros tried not to show his discomfort as much out of habit as anything, as Nicaise tended to jump on the slightest show of weakness. Tonight, though, Nicaise said nothing about it. Nikandros barely knew how to handle that.

It was almost a relief to retreat into sleep after a few hours of that.

Aeliana woke once during the night, but was easily soothed back to sleep. Nikandros quickly followed her back into slumber.

But there was no falling back to sleep after he was woken the second time, early in the morning, when he was hit with a wave of cold. Nikandros spluttered, spitting out water that had found its way past his lips.

Even if the cold wetness hadn't woken him, Aeliana's ensuing clapping and cheering noises would have undoubtedly done so.

Nicaise stood over him with an empty bucket, still dripping. His grin could only be described as evil incarnate.

"What the fuck?" Nikandros asked.

"What happened to not cursing around the girl?"

"I think this one time it's well-earned." It wasn't anything she hadn't heard innumerable times before by now, anyway.

Cheekily: "The water was earned too. Or have you forgotten throwing me into a tub of water when I was barely awake?"

"That was months ago!" exclaimed Nikandros.

"They say revenge is best served cold. So of course I was going to wait until the dead of winter."

Nikandros certainly was curled around himself shivering, it was so cold. He didn't think it would be overly funny if he ended up with hypothermia. Apparently, Nicaise disagreed. Aeliana too.

"Also, the kid woke me up with the light of dawn. And if I have to be awake at this disgusting hour, you can bet your balls that you're going to be awake as well." Nicaise glanced at Aeliana, who was still giggling. She seemed to be grabbing for the bucket in Nicaise's hands as if it might hold more water to be thrown around. "At least she's a little less annoying when she's properly entertained."

Nikandros was unpinning his soaking clothing – which felt almost like it was flash-freezing to his skin, even though Nikandros logically knew that it wasn't that cold in the palace – before his brain caught up with his hands. His movements stuttered to a stop. He looked at Nicaise. He clutched the cold, wet cloth closer instead of shrugging it off.

"Oh, don't mind us," Nicaise said lazily. He reached over and covered Aeliana's eyes, but didn't look away himself. "There. Go right ahead."

"Get out," Nikandros ordered.

Nicaise, of course, didn't take orders.

It was quite some time before Nikandros was able to get out of his wet clothes. In the interim, Nicaise pointed out that the white material had gone partially see-through. Nikandros doubted he could tell as much past the cloak that Nikandros had thrown over himself, but he tugged the thicker material of the cloak tighter around himself all the same on the off chance that it was true.

It was only the start of the second day, Nikandros recalled. They weren't even halfway through. He wasn't sure how he was going to make it the rest of the way through this.

Chapter Text

Nikandros had spent the last three days darting between meeting rooms and his own private rooms. As such, most of the discussions he'd taken part in had involved Nicaise critiquing Nikandros's apparently 'piss-poor' child-minding skills, Nikandros trying to corral a two-year-old in a tantrum and an eighteen-year-old in an often almost equally foul mood, and moderating meetings including both Damen's and Laurent's advisors (which bore a strong resemblance to dealing with the two-year-old, except worse, because there were nearly a dozen of them). All in all, by the end of it Nikandros was rather glad to hand the Kings back both their daughter and their kingdoms.

Though he was somewhat mollified by the fact that Aeliana didn't leap desperately from Nikandros's arms into Laurent's the moment her fathers were in sight. Whether it was true or not, Nikandros took that as a sign that she'd appreciated his efforts. It seemed to be the only appreciation he was going to get. The chances of getting a thank you from Laurent were less than zero, and Damen had been too focused on his daughter after three days of separation to pay any attention to Nikandros whatsoever.

Not that Nikandros blamed him. If he'd had a child of his own, Nikandros couldn't imagine spending days on end without so much as catching a glimpse of him or her. Which was exactly why, given the requirements of his position, Nikandros had told Nicaise that fathering children wasn't necessarily a priority for him.

Having his time split down the middle between the Council rooms and his apartments for nearly half a week meant that Nikandros had had no real opportunity to catch wind of the kind of talk that was usually exchanged over meals or in the halls by courtiers and pets with too much time on their hands. Normally Nicaise would have filled him in on any particularly pertinent gossip, but Nicaise had also been mostly holed up in Nikandros's rooms looking after Aeliana even when Nikandros himself was drawn away, so he was out of the know as well. That was a rarity, Nikandros thought. The only other times that Nicaise had been out of the loop on the palace rumours since the palace itself had been constructed in the first place were probably during Nicaise's heats and the few months he'd been away in Vere.

Nikandros had imagined that Nicaise - who made no secret of sincerely enjoying not only knowing the gossip, but also often playing a large role in driving the direction of it - would immediately seek to remedy that deficit by darting off to the pets' quarters, or even perhaps to the banquet hall, where there were bound to be at least a few of the more indolent courtiers already made loose-lipped by drink despite the early hour of the afternoon. But actually, Nicaise had stuck to Nikandros's side as Nikandros went to check in with the palace guards. That was despite Nicaise having spent at least the last day or so complaining about being stuck with no one but Nikandros and Aeliana for company.

So the first indication Nikandros had that anything was amiss was hearing one of the guards laughing about how he'd heard that King Damianos apparently wasn't alpha enough to satisfy King Laurent without some assistance. Orlant met Nikandros's eyes just a moment after he'd said it and swore, knowing he'd just really stepped in it.

Before Nikandros could decide whether he should be defending his King's prowess with a duel, Nicaise distracted him by starting to laugh so hard that tears eventually started coursing down his cheeks. Once he'd calmed down enough to speak, Nicaise said, "You know, if it weren't for that stupid face that he thinks looks flirty but that always makes me want to ram a sword pommel into his teeth, I could kiss Lazar right now."

Nikandros frowned. His frown deepened when Lazar himself looked Nicaise over consideringly and nudged Pallas with raised eyebrows. The words 'ménage à trois' were audible. Lazar must have suggested such a thing before, at some point, because Pallas had absolutely no problem interpreting the meaning of the Veretian words. His face screwed up in distaste, unsurprisingly. Pallas's tastes famously did not run in the direction of omegas. Good. If he warned Lazar off, then Nikandros wouldn't have to.

As if he hadn't noticed Lazar's commentary, or more likely as if he just didn't care, Nicaise continued. "Honestly, I can't believe I didn't think of spreading that kind of thing around myself. It's too good. Seeing Damen's face when he catches wind of it might even be enough to make the days' worth of resisting the urge to shove a gag in his kid's mouth totally worth it."

Someone stifled a laugh at that. That was a mistake. It brought Nikandros's attention back to the men.

Nikandros, glowering, crossed his arms across his chest and ordered the guards to explain the subject of the gossip, since he doubted Nicaise would enlighten him until he was good and ready to divulge whatever he knew, and he knew that that wouldn't happen as long as Nicaise found humour in keeping it from Nikandros. Nikandros would rather not wait that long, since anything that could amuse Nicaise that much couldn't be good.

Unfortunately, everyone present seemed to decide that they'd rather be disciplined for remaining silent than to repeat whatever gossip Orlant had been spouting off while looking the Kyros in the face. Nikandros sent Orlant to the stocks with the promise that anyone, especially Orlant himself, who spoke disrespectfully about the Kings again would earn themselves the whip instead. He doubted that would entirely stop them, but they'd at least be more wary of being overheard. He ordered the remainder of them to undertake a particularly gruelling set of drills that would, considering it was already nearly mid-afternoon, undoubtedly take them until well into the night to complete.

It took Nicaise what seemed like forever to stop laughing, though that might have had something to do with how he was also gleeful about watching the guards submit to punishment for their silence when he obviously knew there would be no consequences for him withholding the same information from Nikandros. Not unexpectedly, he'd just shrugged and grinned when Nikandros had asked.

"I don't want you to go warn Damen before I get to see his face," was his explanation.

Nikandros sighed.

The second sign that something strange had apparently been going on for the last few days was when Nikandros and Nicaise encountered Erasmus and Kallias practically stumbling down the hall together, leaning against each other. It took Nikandros a long moment to realise that they weren't drunk, or at least not from alcohol. They were laughing together, almost as exuberantly as Nicaise had been earlier. In fact, Erasmus, in particular, looked happier than Nikandros had ever seen him, and certainly more so that he'd been in the last several months. He still showed signs of being tired and strained, the way all omegas did in the day or two after their heats, but his grin could nonetheless have lit up a room entirely free of candles. Certainly, it was enough to light up Kallias's face as well.

As they passed by, they were obviously too caught up in each other to notice that they were being observed. It was very different from how things would have been during the earlier days of their time in Marlas, when Erasmus in particular would have been hyperaware of Nikandros, as both alpha and Kyros. Neither of them even paused in their steps when Nicaise made exaggerated gagging noises in their direction, as if their display of togetherness made him sick.

Meanwhile, Nikandros whipped his head around, following the couple's progress as they walked away up the hall.

"Why does Erasmus smell like Pallas? And pregnant?"

"Because I didn't want him to smell like you," Nicaise said nonchalantly.

Nikandros blinked. "You… What?"

"And obviously Laurent wouldn't have been impressed with him going about the palace smelling like Damen either. Though it would have been amusing to see how some of Laurent's advisors would have gone insane over that."

Nikandros was failing to process this. It wasn't as though Nicaise didn't regularly involve himself in (or rather, head) a range of bizarre schemes. Even so, Nikandros somehow couldn't imagine him contemplating whoring out Nikandros, or even Damen really, to father a child with Erasmus. And even if he'd decided on Pallas instead, the logistics of that made no sense either. It was rather crude of Nicaise to go around openly calling Pallas 'defective', but the point underlying the insult still stood. The idea of Pallas doing anything but running for the hills (or perhaps hiding his face away between Lazar's thighs) in response to the smell of an omega in heat was laughable. Nikandros definitely couldn't believe that Pallas could ever get an omega pregnant, despite all the current evidence to the contrary.

"You look shocked," Nicaise commented. That was an understatement. "You can't tell me you weren't sick of seeing Erasmus looking at every child he saw with that hangdog face, and Kallias stressing about whether he should do something stupidly self-sacrificing like let some alpha cock near his man? I personally can't deal with that shit anymore. Of course I did something about it."

"And what you did was persuade Pallas to bed Erasmus?"

Nicaise snorted. "Look, I know I'm good, but not even I could convince that man's cock to get hard for anyone who isn't an alpha. Besides, do you really think Kallias would be strutting around like he had balls big enough to shoot from a ship's cannon if the kid wasn't his?"

"But then how…"

"Honestly, I wouldn't have thought you'd be under the same ass-backwards misconceptions as the decrepit old Veretians who go around saying mindless drivel like 'every omega should belong to an alpha because that's the way nature intended it'."

"I don't think that," Nikandros protested.

"But you think it takes an alpha to knock up an omega, right?"

"Well…" Nikandros frowned thoughtfully. Certainly, at the very least, it was rare for it to be otherwise. He couldn't honestly think of any couple he'd ever heard of where an omega had ended up with a child from someone who wasn't an alpha. Then again, he couldn't think of many omegas he'd known until recently that had paired themselves up with someone other than an alpha in the first place. He supposed that that didn't mean it never happened, particularly in the lower classes where Nikandros might not hear of it as readily. "I did think so, yes. But I take it that's not true?"

"Obviously. Why do you think I always put up with going through heats alone instead of getting a beta to help me through it the way most unmarried Akielon omegas normally do? Not that there are any betas I want anywhere near me, but there are at least a dozen other omega pets who would have happily obliged me, especially if I would return the favour during their heats. I haven't lacked for options, no matter how much you and Laurent have seemed determined to drive everyone away from me."

It sounded strange when Nicaise said it like that. Nikandros had only been worried that Nicaise was still too young, and hadn't yet gained enough distance from what he'd been conditioned to do when faced with an older man's offer not to fall back into that mindset. And then recently Nicaise hadn't been approached at all to Nikandros's knowledge, general leering from a distance and Lazar's earlier borderline proposition notwithstanding. Nikandros had a fair idea that he knew why, considering some of what he'd heard recently. People had convinced themselves that Nicaise was already taken. But Nicaise could have disabused them if he'd wanted to.

"So you put up with all that discomfort because you were worried you'd end up with a child?" Nikandros asked.

Nicaise rolled his eyes. "Well that's not the only reason. But yeah, even if odds were slim, especially since I always take preventative herbs, it'd still take more than some soft ex-slave or wishes-he-were-an-alpha courtier to make me willing to take that chance."

"But how did you even know the chance existed?"

If it was widely known in Vere, surely their practices with regard to their taboo against bastards would have looked different.

Sounding highly pleased with himself, Nicaise admitted, "I might not have heard about any presented omegas in Vere bending over for anyone but an alpha, but what I definitely did hear is how, once I presented, I couldn't possibly continue on as a pet, even to a beta. An exception was made for Laurent, but that was less because Laurent's an omega himself than because Laurent basically told his Council to go fuck themselves if they seriously thought there was the slightest chance he was going to stick his dick anywhere near any of his pets. And because everyone was so embarrassed over supporting the pretender King over the true heir that they weren't really willing to go against him over someting so 'small' at the time. Anyway, it's a complete fucking travesty that no one in Vere ever apparently put together two brain cells to think about why it became a tradition for omegas to not be allowed to act as pets for betas and other omegas if it was impossible for that to result in bastards."

Nikandros felt foolish that he'd never thought of that himself, for he'd been exposed to Veretian culture for several years now. But this, unfortunately, wasn't the first time that Nikandros had been made aware that he simply hadn't thought to question something because it didn't directly affect him. Nicaise hadn't had that luxury in this case, obviously.

"And why shouldn't it be possible?" continued Nicaise. "I mean, any man can knock a woman up. So why should it be different with an omega? What's an alpha got that a beta or omega doesn't?"

A knot, Nikandros thought. Nicaise would have mocked him infinitely for the flush that would probably have stolen across Nikandros's face if he'd actually said that out loud. But Nikandros had been unfortunate enough to be assigned, by a highly amused Laurent, to oversee a large order from the local glassmaker after Nicaise's discussion with Kallias had revealed how under-informed and under-prepared the ex-slave omegas were. So he happened to know that Erasmus and Kallias could have managed a substitute for a knot well enough. The only other thing that was missing, then, was…

"Oh," Nikandros said. "All of Laurent's other pets have so far been kept away from alpha scents during their heats."

"Yep," Nicaise said, popping the 'p' sound smugly.

"So you fixed that. Pallas, though?" Nikandros asked. "I can see why you went for an Akielon's scent over a Veretian's, but why Pallas? He's of noble blood. It could cause problems if people speculate that Erasmus's child is his, considering that Pallas is unlikely to have legitimate children of his own."

"Come on. Do you really think that Laurent and I didn't think this through better than that?"

Of course Laurent had been in on this too. Much like Nicaise, when wasn't Laurent plotting something?

"No one whose sanity is even half intact is going to believe that Pallas really managed to get it up with an omega for long enough to knot inside him," explained Nicaise. "But as long as everyone catches Pallas's scent all over Erasmus today, no Veretian alpha with an inferiority complex can try some 'he said he said' garbage to convince everyone that he was the one who did it and that he should be allowed to claim Erasmus."

Nikandros sighed. It was perhaps a worrying sign that he'd spent too much time with overly complicated Veretians that all of that made perfect sense to him in retrospect.

Still, Nikandros asked, "Does Pallas at least know you did this?"

"I hope not, since it will be gold for him to catch his own scent on a pregnant omega when he's not expecting it. I don't think he even asked questions when Laurent asked for some of his gross stink-filled clothing."

Nikandros distantly recalled the way Nicaise had complained that Nikandros's cloak had smelled of alpha when he'd won it from him a few years ago. Unless Nikandros's memory was drastically failing him, Nicaise hadn't spoken with even a fraction of the disgust with which he now talked of Pallas's alpha-scented clothing.

Nicaise added, "But even if Pallas were oblivious, it looks like Lazar had figured out that Pallas's scraps were going to be used for someone's heat. He just apparently thought it would be Laurent's."

That explained why everyone suddenly thought Damen wasn't alpha enough on his own to satisfy Laurent. Though anyone who really thought Damen would tolerate having another alpha's scent within fifty feet of Laurent during heat mustn't have met Damen. Though Laurent might purposely use such a thing to provoke Damen, if he was in that kind of mood.

And there was a train of thought that Nikandros didn't particularly want to think too hard on.

Nikandros instead opted for saying, "So what you're telling me is that for the past few days you've done nothing but altruistically set things up so your friends could have the child they desperately want, as well as minding Laurent's child for him without any real break, even though you personally hate children?"

Who was this suddenly more mature young man and what had he done with Nicaise?

Slyly Nicaise corrected, "But you're forgetting the most important thing I did over the past few days."

"Oh?" Nicaise had done something else? Not that Nikandros had seen.

"You're so blind about this that I can hardly stand it sometimes. But I guess this is just a whole fucking day full of revelations, isn't it? Obviously, I spent almost all my time in the last three days with you, in your rooms, without you trying to kick me out at first opportunity. You treated me like an adult almost the whole time. You were even too exhausted by Aeliana to try and move when I fell asleep lying half on top of you last night. Forget getting to laugh at Damen; that was what was worth every minute of the rest. At least to me."

Nicaise's expression was nothing if not intense as he said all of that. He had leaned in at some point without Nikandros realising and now stood what felt like bare inches away. They'd been even closer than this at multiple points across the past half a week, but it abruptly didn't seem like nearly far enough.

Nikandros's heart was set to pounding almost as hard as it usually did after half an hour fighting full-on in the ring.

Oh. Oh fuck.

He'd suspected that Nicaise might have a bit of a crush on him, of course. How could he not consider it when everyone kept practically telling him that outright recently? But Nikandros would have to admit that he hadn't really expected Nicaise to sound so serious about it. Nor, perhaps more importantly, had he anticipated the strength of his own reaction.

Just what had Nikandros gotten himself into here?

Chapter Text

From the moment he had interceded on Isander's behalf nearly a year ago, Nikandros had more or less seen this coming. He'd known that insisting on different rules for Akielons and Veretians couldn't really work. Not when their countries were already so heavily blended, especially around the border regions. Certainly it was a status quo that couldn't be maintained if they ever expected the alliance to progress towards something greater, which he knew was exactly what the Kings were hoping for. To be fair, Laurent and Damen knew that as well. And yet Laurent just couldn't seem to let go of the pointless Veretian taboo that formed one of the biggest barriers to equality among the people of their respective countries. That had been bound to eventually cause trouble.

Now the system that Laurent had built up to protect those omegas who he saw as being unable to protect themselves without assistance seemed to be about to crumble, unless Vere's current position on preventing bastards collapsed first. Nikandros knew which of those things he himself would definitely rather see disappear. Now he just had to try to do his part to make that happen.

Nikandros always dreaded sitting in on meetings including the full Veretian advisory Council. Vannes purposely trying to antagonise Nikandros because she seemed to derive pleasure from disagreeing with him was bad enough. Damen allowing himself to get distracted by glaring at Enguerran every time the other alpha was apparently a little bit too supportive of Laurent was counterproductive. But the worst thing was how the older men like Jeurre and Herode – whom Laurent had allowed to remain on his Council as an assurance to his subjects that there would still be some level of continuity in a time when everything else was rapidly changing – insisted on a lot of circuitous pontificating. Nikandros would much prefer to just identify the heart of the issue, deal with it, and move on to the next thing of importance. That was what Nikandros was best at. Far more so than dealing with doublespeak and veiled references that he couldn't always entirely understand because he didn't share the Veretians' background, and because his understanding of their language occasionally fell a bit short. Today, however, was a little different than the usual joint Council sessions, because for once none of Laurent's advisors seemed to be interested in unnecessarily beating around the bush.

"I don't see why this is so difficult to grasp," Councillor Jeurre aimed at the Akielons, who'd been arguing against his point. "It's always been our way that omegas can't be pets because of the risk of them bearing bastards. We made an exception for the King because it was believed that that problem couldn't exist between two omegas. But now we have evidence that that's not true. Obviously the King cannot continue to have an entire host of omega pets under those circumstances."

"If I'm the sole exception, then there's no problem here that I can see," Laurent challenged. "Surely you can take my word as King that I'm not putting any of the required body parts anywhere near those pets at all, let alone when they're in heat. And I'm never with any of them unchaperoned, in any case, so it's irrelevant."

"Not even Nicaise?" Vannes asked, clearly already knowing the answer. "You spend time with him alone when he's in heat, from what I've heard."

That seemed to bring Laurent up short. Unlike the freed slaves, Nikandros knew that most of the time Laurent forgot that Nicaise was even supposed to be considered his pet. Whatever might have been written on paper, Laurent and Nicaise were closer to brothers these days. Or, if not brothers, then some other strange unnamed familial-style bond that bore no resemblance to the master-pet relationship from what Nikandros had seen over the past several years.

Vannes added, "Look, considering this palace is basically packed to the brim with men, the rules preventing unchaperoned contact between anyone who can create children together obviously just make my life considerably more difficult. So, personally, I'm all for scrapping those restrictions." That might just have been the very first thing Nikandros and Vannes had agreed on in the several years of their (grudging, particularly on Nikandros's part) acquaintance. "But if you aren't going to do that, then you have to admit it doesn't look good for you to flout your own laws like that."

Laurent's face was thunderous. "I'm not flouting anything, considering I'm not fucking Nicaise. Or fucking any of my other pets either, for that matter."

Councillor Herode spoke up, like the voice of reason. It was just a pity that he wasn't being particularly reasonable, from Nikandros's perspective. "None of us actually believe you are," he said placatingly. "But it's about the perception of impropriety, Your Majesty, not necessarily the reality. And it's even more important to avoid any perception of wrongdoing involving you, as King, than with anyone else. More than one of your pets have turned up pregnant, and there might be more still in the future. Pets under contract are generally intended for their master's exclusive use, barring public performances. So if a pet ends up with child and their master is capable of fathering it, isn't the obvious assumption that it's the master who has fathered the child? What if the people of Akielos decided you'd broken your marriage vows and had a child with another? Wars have been started for less."

"Not in Akielos, they haven't," Damen countered. That wasn't strictly true, from what Nikandros remembered of his boyhood history lessons, but Damen wasn't about to accuse Laurent of infidelity anyway, so the point still stood. Damen added, "The state of our marriage is no one's business but ours regardless."

When it looked like Herode was gearing up to further argue the point, Nikandros interjected, "To claim that mere rumours would be enough for Akielos to break the alliance is ridiculous. We are not the problem here."

"Your opinions on this matter have already been registered, Nikandros," Laurent said. "Multiple times."

"Everyone's have been," Nikandros pointed out. "It can't have escaped you that we're at the point of just talking in endless circles now."

And yet for all that the opinions were all already on the table, ready to be weighed against each other, there was still no resolution reached by the time the meeting broke apart for lunch, which left Nikandros feeling largely frustrated with no real outlet.

He didn't particularly feel like looking at the same bunch of recalcitrant fools over the lunch table as across the Council table. So Nikandros retreated to the quiet of his rooms instead, and had a servant organise for food to be brought to him there. He asked for two servings, in fact. It was no surprise when Nicaise pushed through Nikandros's door without even knocking not long after Nikandros had arrived. It was hardly the first time. He'd been making himself entirely comfortable in Nikandros's rooms for the past two weeks since he'd stayed in these apartments to help with Aeliana.

Nicaise took one look at Nikandros's expression and said, "Fuck. It's going that well, is it?" He collapsed heavily into the chair across from Nikandros as if he'd been the one who'd spent tiring hours arguing apparently just for the sake of arguing.

"I hate every single one of your countrymen," Nikandros announced.

"Really? You just decided that now? I thought you came out of the womb already determined to despise all Veretians. Though I know I'm the exception, of course."

"Oh no. You're the most annoying Veretian of the whole bunch."

"Above even Laurent? Excellent. I'm glad you consider me the crème de la crème."

"It's not a compliment."

"You sure about that?" Nicaise grinned at him, almost tauntingly.

Nikandros gave him a scathing look. He was too worn out to really deal with this today. But he didn't send Nicaise away even though that would have granted him some much-needed peace.

Nicaise picked at the food in front of him for a few moments as his knowing smile slowly fell away into a more serious look. Eventually, Nicaise said, "You know, I knew this was a strong possibility when I helped Kallias and Erasmus. I figured I could convince Laurent to tell his Council to go fuck themselves and break away from these stupid traditions. But so far he hasn't listened to me any more than he did when Isander was in trouble."

"You're not alone," Nikandros said. "Damen and I support the change that would allow you to remain a pet, if that's what you want. Damen's other advisors are all taking our side, because they find the whole thing bizarre. And even Vannes seems remarkably open to it. Apparently it's difficult being a female Councillor when every private conversation with men must be chaperoned."

"None of that will make much of a difference. Have you actually met Laurent? He's not likely to cave in that easily once he's dug his heels in. So there's a very real chance that not going to be allowed to be a pet anymore. And I've pissed off enough people that I'd be fucked, literally, if my contract with the King wasn't holding people back. There's a reason Laurent's claimed so many men as pets. Laying a hand on the King's personal pet without the King's permission is a death sentence. Doing the same to some former pet without a drop of noble blood in his veins might get them a whipping at worst."

"That isn't going to happen." The words came out more vehemently than Nikandros intended. "Laurent isn't going to hang you out to dry like that. And even if he decided to go along with his Council, do you think I'd leave you unprotected? I'd make sure you have a proper place here."

"What, are you going to offer to marry me?"

Nikandros nearly choked on the food that he'd just put into his mouth.

After a moment, Nicaise added, "Have I ever mentioned that blushes look good on you? You're so adorably flustered right now."

Nikandros's face suddenly felt even hotter. He wasn't sure how to react to being called 'adorable', never mind the rest.

"Oh relax. I'd at least insist on making sure you weren't terrible in bed before I ever considered letting you make an honest omega of me."

"Nicaise…"

Nicaise leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, expectant. "Oh, here we go. This is the part where you condescendingly try to explain why it couldn't happen, right?"

Nikandros didn't mean for it to be condescending, but... yes, otherwise that was exactly what he was going to do. What he had to do. "I'm almost twice your age. I think you've had enough of older men taking advantage of you for one lifetime."

Nicaise kicked him under the table. Nikandros fought not to wince. "Idiot. You and they are worlds apart. And trust me, you'd know if you were doing something I didn't want. I'd break your fingers before they could touch me if that were the case."

That startled a short laugh out of Nikandros. He'd never thought it would be so oddly comforting to be threatened with broken bones.

But still, it wasn't quite that easy. Nicaise might have treated it like a joke, but the fact remained that Nikandros was a little too aware that pairing up with someone in Nikandros's position might be one of Nicaise's few options to make absolutely certain that he was protected, assuming he really could no longer rely on Laurent.

It wouldn't exactly be the first time Nicaise had taken such a stance. Nikandros still clearly remembered back when the alliance was new, and Nicaise still hadn't entirely accepted the idea that he would no longer have to buy his continued security with his body. Nicaise had directed quite a lot of unwanted attention Nikandros's way then, and had done the same towards Nikandros's top guards, and just about any Akielon alpha he met who had enough money and power to take care of Nicaise if (or when, Nicaise himself seemed to have believed) Laurent eventually refused to honour his word that he personally would ensure Nicaise's ongoing well-being. Nikandros had very firmly had to warn his men off taking Nicaise up on his offers; a fact that Nicaise had certainly not appreciated in the slightest at the time. Nikandros had therefore grown accustomed to seeing Nicaise's shows of 'interest' as a means to an end, not something he did because he actually wanted what he was asking for. He wasn't yet used to the idea that Nicaise might legitimately want him just for the sake of it - because he just liked Nikandros, rather than because he wanted Nikandros's money or position - any more than Nikandros was used to wanting Nicaise in return.

"Ugh," Nicaise said. "Do me a favour and stop looking so tortured. Debate with yourself about stupid things that shouldn't even matter if you want. It's not like I haven't mastered the art of waiting by now anyway." He pushed his still mostly-full plate away from him and rose to his feet.

"You're not going to finish your food?" Nikandros asked.

"You're already done and about to leave to go back to your meeting, aren't you? Do you really think it's the food I came here for?"

No, Nikandros supposed not.

Before he left, Nicaise pointedly said, "You know, I may be younger than you, but I've been old enough to make decisions for myself for a while now."

Nikandros couldn't really argue with that.

When Nikandros was on his way to the afternoon session of the combined Councils' meeting, Nikandros accidentally happened upon the Kings stashed away in one of the alcoves in an otherwise abandoned hallway. Their voices echoed, loud enough for him to recognise.

Usually, Nikandros would have gone out of his way not to linger around his Kings when they were having a private moment, but they stood between Nikandros and his destination, so he had little choice but to either pass them and thereby interrupt, or to wait and allow them to continue undisturbed. If it had sounded like Laurent was simply making Damen forget himself in public, Nikandros would have interrupted without compunction. Instead, they sounded serious.

"You know we can't ever make Akielos, Vere and Acquitart into a proper empire until we at the very least decide on uniform rules," Damen was saying.

"Of course I'm aware of that, or we'd have just done it already. But I'm not entirely convinced that Akielos shouldn't be the one to change when it comes to this."

"I'm sure that you didn't used to have overwhelming distaste or distrust for bastards like some other Veretians, back when I met you."

"I didn't used to have personal experience in how their resentment can negatively affect others, either." He didn't say Kastor's name. He didn't need to. "Is it so wrong that I want to make sure our children never have to go through what you did?"

"They won't have to," Damen said. "You know there's no chance of that. I only ever want you, and you know it. There will be no illegitimate children."

"Don't forget that I also know of your reputation from before you met me. Or are you trying to tell me you kept track of all your flings across the years?"

Nikandros could imagine Damen's sheepish expression right then, because he happened to know that Damen probably couldn't even remember the names of half the people he'd bedded over the years, never mind checking in with them months or years later to be sure there hadn't been an unexpected outcome of their time together.

Laurent added, "But regardless of that, we have to think of future generations as well. There are good reasons why Vere's current restrictions came into effect."

"But don't you think it's more important that we protect our people however we can now than that we hold onto traditions that should have fallen by the wayside centuries ago? That's what you told me about slavery once."

"It's not the same thing."

"Why not? Aren't we still talking about leaving people unprotected, including many of those same slaves, and restricting their freedom to choose?" Damen asked. "I know you care about what happens to those omegas, or you wouldn't have insisted on taking them in in the first place. It makes no sense to abandon them now over some possibility that may never come to fruition."

Laurent made a vaguely negating noise, but he didn't elaborate on it. Nikandros thought that the silence that followed had an almost thoughtful air to it.

When Nikandros next saw Laurent's face, after the Kings had relocated to the Council rooms and Nikandros had trailed in shortly after, he noted that Laurent's jaw looked a little less firmly set in place. Nikandros hoped that meant that eventually they could come to some agreement that would do away with these archaic rules after all.

If nothing else, at least then Nikandros could be sure that Nicaise didn't feel like he'd been forced into anything life-changing by circumstance alone.

Chapter Text

Nikandros was usually woken by the light of dawn filtering through his eyelids, or sometimes by the calls of the early-rising birds that tended to perch in the small copse of trees off to the eastern side of the palace. This morning, however, he was fairly certain that what instead drew him from sleep was the strange sensation tickling at the underside of his chin. Frowning, and still half-asleep, Nikandros shifted his face away from the source of the irritation as he sucked in a lungful of oxygen in a yawn. Then he stilled himself entirely, suddenly tense and jerked fully into awareness. He didn't even have to crack his eyes open to know what he would see when he did. The scent under his nose, combined with the weight dipping the mattress at his side, told him more than enough.

It was incredibly telling, Nikandros thought, that Nicaise had somehow stolen himself into Nikandros's rooms overnight. For one thing, Nikandros's otherwise very diligent guards had apparently thought nothing of letting Nicaise pass through the doors of Nikandros's private apartments in the early hours of the morning. Nikandros supposed he only had himself to blame for that, since he hadn't stopped Nicaise from inviting himself into Nikandros's rooms whenever he pleased, which was more and more frequently as of late. Even more revealing, though, was the fact that Nikandros's battle-trained mind would normally have automatically startled awake the moment someone entered his rooms at all, let alone when someone insinuated himself right into Nikandros's personal space. If nothing else, the sudden influx of omega scent in the vicinity should immediately have registered as foreign and put his alpha instincts on edge. But Nicaise's scent was so familiar, and frankly already formed so many layers over the furniture that Nicaise tended to sprawl on whenever he was in these rooms, that Nikandros's unconscious mind had apparently detected nothing particularly amiss in having the source of that smell tucked under his nose.

To be entirely honest, it still somehow didn't seem entirely out of place to him. Even now, when he found himself staring down at the young man who he knew very well wasn't supposed to be half-buried under Nikandros's curling arm, the sight didn't jar at his mind like something discordant. Nikandros could almost imagine waking up exactly like this again in the future. The only part of it that seemed wrong – or more like surprising, really – was how, even though Nikandros had been reticent about it, he truly found himself wanting that future for them.

Nikandros should not have found himself moved. He should, in fact, probably have thought Nicaise's uninvited presence was annoying, and that he looked ridiculous rather than endearing, with his sleep-wild curls and the subtle crease marks left across the side of his face by the sheets that his grasping hand had slightly bunched beneath him. And yet when Nikandros stared at Nicaise – for once himself unobserved and therefore able to look as long as he wanted – he noted how sleep had relaxed the sharp edges of Nicaise's usual expressions. How his long eyelashes rested against the soft skin beneath his closed lids. How he had turned his face, perhaps instinctively, towards Nikandros's collarbone. He might have been just sheltering his eyes from the morning sunlight. Or he could have been searching out Nikandros's scent. The thought of that, and what it implied, made Nikandros's heart rate increase a little. Nicaise, with his ear only an inch from Nikandros's chest, might almost have heard the shift had he been awake.

Nikandros shifted away, purposefully, from where their legs were practically touching. He watched as the movement caused an annoyed crease to form between Nicaise's eyebrows. "Fuck off," Nicaise ordered blearily. But, belying his order, he shifted himself back closer to Nikandros, as if chasing his warmth. Nikandros extracted himself from Nicaise entirely before he could embarrass himself, sitting up on the mattress a foot away from him. The covers puddled in his lap. The air that hit his arms was cool, and welcome for it.

"You can't order me to fuck off when you're the one in my rooms," Nikandros remarked. "Why are you even here?"

The twin lines of dark eyelashes parted, revealing a blue made iridescent by the refracting dawn light. For all that he'd staged a strategic physical retreat, Nikandros didn't flinch away from meeting Nicaise's eyes at least. Whatever Nicaise saw in Nikandros in that moment must have amused him, for his lips quirked up slightly. Nikandros had never once, until then, known him to ever do anything but scowl for at least the first hour or so after he woke up.

"Why shouldn't I be here?" Nicaise asked. "It's comfortable. Or at least it is when you're not waking me up at the crack of fucking dawn for no reason."

"I have a perfectly good reason, actually. I have to be at a meeting in about an hour. And you could have felt free to sleep as long as you wanted if you'd stayed in your own bed," Nikandros pointed out.

"Sleep? In those rooms? You think so, do you? Obviously that's because you've never had to put up with Laurent and Damen having obnoxiously loud and enthusiastic sex just down the hall for hours on end. For the second night in a row. I lived through this the first time. A blacksmith could hardly have separated those two with a pry bar for about a month straight after Laurent got knocked up with Aeliana. Fucking hormones or alpha self-satisfaction or whatever. Let me tell you now, I'm staying well clear of that shit this time."

Nikandros, who had been away in Ios for the majority of Laurent's first pregnancy, could have happily gone the rest on his life without knowing that. "Thank you for that mental image," he said dryly.

Nicaise responded, "Pretty sure I'm the only one with grounds to complain here."

It was refreshing to hear Nicaise able to grumble unabashedly about his proximity to the Kings' rooms. Only a week ago, he'd been legitimately worried that he would lose his position and everything that came with it, the rooms and his proximity to Laurent included. Thankfully, Laurent's stubborn determination to cling to the old Veretian traditions had slowly crumbled away when none of the other proposed solutions for providing continued protection to his omega pets seemed viable. Nicaise hadn't said so in as many words, but the return of his confident attitude in the days since the decision had been passed down spoke volumes of how pleased he was to have his importance to Laurent clearly affirmed as being well above and beyond Laurent's caring about any laws or the difficulties that would inevitably arise as a result of changing them. Nikandros was glad on his behalf. He knew what it meant to Nicaise.

Nicaise made a complaining noise when Nikandros's body warmth disappeared completely from his side as Nikandros rose from the bed. Apparently annoyed at the sudden loss of his living furnace, Nicaise buried himself completely under the covers to shield himself from the crisp late-winter air.

Nikandros had one of his guards outside the doors pass on a message for a servant to bring breakfast. He didn't feel like eating in the dining hall this morning, and Nicaise would probably spend the next week bitterly complaining if Nikandros didn't at least organise breakfast for him in recompense for waking him this early.

Nikandros actually thought that Nicaise might have fallen back to sleep by the time the food arrived, though, for he'd lapsed into silence and stillness in the interim. But without even pushing back the covers from on top of him, Nicaise's voice, slightly muffled from under the covers on top of him, demanded, "Bring some of that over here."

"Demanding brat." It came out sounding fonder than it probably should have. "Come out to the table if you want it. You're not getting crumbs in my bed."

"Mmm. Fair enough. I wouldn't want to have to sleep on bits of food tonight." Nicaise dragged himself from the bed, but he pulled the layers of bedcovers with him, wrapping them around him like oversized furs as he shuffled to the table. For the second time that morning, Nikandros considered that what should have looked humorous was instead bringing a different kind of smile to his lips.

"You really think you're sleeping here again?" Nikandros asked.

"You think I'm going to back to my rooms, where I'll have to listen to Laurent crowing at the top of his lungs about how well his alpha fucks him?" Nicaise countered.

Even when Nicaise was at his most maddening, Nikandros couldn't imagine wishing a punishment quite that cruel on him.

"What's the big deal, anyway? We've slept beside each other before. It's not like I'm going to pounce on you at first opportunity." Slyly, Nicaise added, "That is, of course, unless you want me to?"

Nikandros pointedly didn't answer that. Instead, he quickly suggested, "You could just stay in the pets' quarters for a while."

"Are you suggesting or ordering?" Nicaise asked.

Nikandros was perfectly capable of telling Nicaise 'no' when he wanted to. He'd proved that many times across the years they'd known each other. Pushy imp though he may often be, Nicaise wouldn't actually ignore Nikandros's wishes if he put his foot down and outright told Nicaise that he didn't want Nicaise in his private space. There was nothing saying he had to agree to this.

But Nikandros imagined waking up tomorrow morning, and perhaps the next several after that as well, as he had today. He said nothing. Nicaise (rightly) seemed to take that as a win, for he looked like the cat that got the cream for the remainder of breakfast.

As soon as Nikandros had emptied his plate, as well as the parts of Nicaise's plate that Nicaise turned his nose up at, he'd closed the door between his bedroom and outer rooms so he could quickly exchange his bedclothes for a proper chiton out of Nicaise's line of sight. Nicaise had slipped away by the time he emerged, presumably in search of a bath and day clothes of his own.

Before he left his rooms himself, Nikandros considered calling on a servant to organise an extra pallet in his room, since it seemed he would have a guest for a while. But Nicaise would probably just refuse it in favour of Nikandros's far more luxurious bed anyway. He had high standards, after all. It was actually a wonder he hadn't tried to do that the last time he'd stayed in Nikandros's rooms, while they'd looked after Aeliana together weeks earlier. So, ultimately, Nikandros didn't bother wasting his time.

Instead, Nikandros went straight to his meeting with Laurent's physician. One of the prerequisites that Laurent had insisted upon before agreeing to change the Veretian laws was that Nikandros would organise mass orders of the preventatives Akielos had honed over centuries to prevent the kingdom from being entirely overrun by unintended children. The apothecaries would certainly be glad for the sharp increase in business.

They actually weren't the only ones who'd seemed to welcome the decision to do away with all the Veretian rules and restrictions that had been built up around their taboos for centuries. The soldiers in particular had celebrated raucously in the barracks once they'd realised that they could now bed women and even heated omegas without risking being whipped within an inch of their lives or forced to marry (not that many of them, looking as they did, could actually have enticed a woman or omega to lay with them without dishing out a small fortune for the privilege, Nikandros suspected). Others like Vannes were also pleased to be rid of the cumbersome need for chaperones. Laurent's pets in particular all breathed a sigh of relief that they could stay in the palace, protected, and in their own little supportive community full of like-minded ex-slaves (for the section of the pets' quarters designated to Laurent's pets certainly had a less adversarial feel than where the more traditional Veretian pets congregated).

But, at the same time, not everyone had been pleased in the wake of the shift. Much like the abolishment of slavery in Akielos, it wasn't the kind of change that could happen instantaneously and without a hitch, for there were certain beliefs and practices that were ingrained and difficult to shake, especially for those people who had no personal reason to want change and might even be disadvantaged by it. Some of them seemed to desperately want someone to blame. Nikandros had heard that Laurent had casually engineered financial ruin for a courtier who had accused Nicaise and Laurent's 'harem' of pets of seducing their King into forsaking their country's traditions. Everyone else in the court had fallen abruptly silent on the matter after that, taking the example to heart, and deciding that pregnancy apparently hadn't turned King Laurent soft in the slightest. Nikandros personally though the man had gotten off easy. Had he been the one to overhear it, Nikandros would have duelled him. And Nikandros didn't lose.

Nicaise himself didn't particularly seem to care if people spewed invective at him, as long as he retained the position that protected him from having more than words directed his way. Nikandros nonetheless promised himself he'd keep an eye out for anyone who looked like they wanted to take their frustrations out on him.

When he was done with Paschal and was on his way to lunch, Nikandros paused when he overheard his own name being batted back and forward between voices that sounded like they belonged to Nicaise and Laurent. Knowing the two of them, Nikandros's first instinct was that they had to be scheming something.

He heard Laurent say, "Nikandros, though?"

Nicaise said, "It's none of your business."

"I just hope you realise that the fact that he was the first person you found that you could actually stand to be around doesn't mean you have to bed him."

Nikandros blinked. That didn't sound like scheming. He didn't move to reveal himself regardless.

"I manage to put up with you as well," replied Nicaise, "but I wouldn't fuck you unless my life legitimately depended on it. I know the difference. And surely you, of all people, should understand why I'd be interested in someone who's about as different from my previous experience as it's possible to get."

"I would have thought that you would prefer someone who you could play like a puppet on a string, though. Akielons may look like brainless savages, but Nikandros is no fool, and he's not going to just allow you to lead him around by the cock and let you get away with doing whatever you want."

"I have actually met him, you know," scoffed Nicaise. "And you're not giving me much credit if you think I would make a choice like this based on who I could bend most easily to my will. How boring. Don't you know by now that I prefer a challenge?"

"Every challenge comes with the possibility of failure," Laurent remarked.

"So?" Nicaise said. "You think that's enough to make me not want to try? And what happens if it doesn't work, anyway? Neither of us is exactly going anywhere. I mean, I'd make his life hell if he fucked it up, of course, but that's not exactly much of a difference from our version of normal. It's not going to ruin anything to try. I won't let it."

Listening to that, Nikandros's chest felt oddly lightened. It was something he thought he'd needed to hear. Apart from Damen, Nicaise was the biggest constant in Nikandros's life over the past few years. He was as important to him as anyone Nikandros had ever known. Perhaps even more so, Nikandros had been recently realising. More than he wanted Nicaise like that, Nikandros didn't want to hurt Nicaise, or to otherwise lose him. So it was oddly comforting to hear that Nicaise was determined to stick around and annoy him and bicker with him more or less as they'd always done even if they did somehow mess up the rest of it.

Laurent audibly sighed. "As long as you know what you might be in for."

"I do," Nicaise said. "I daresay Nikandros does as well now, even if he didn't already before." Pitching his voice louder, he added, "Oi, Nikandros, I thought I was the one who enjoyed eavesdropping. You think I can't tell when you're around? I can fucking smell you, idiot alpha."

Laurent murmured, "I'm actually surprised you managed to pick up on it when you're already carrying the stench of him around on yourself."

Nikandros couldn't really pull off the kind of charmingly sheepish look that Damen had long since mastered. Nor could he manage an absolutely unbothered expression as convincing as Nicaise's or Laurent's. So his face, when he rounded the corner, ended up being an embarrassed cringe instead.

He caught Laurent's expression. One pale eyebrow was arched at him.

"You'll find that I'm more than willing to assign a new Kyros to the capital if, say, you should happen to mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again," Laurent informed him in a disturbingly conversational tone.

"Hey, Laurent?" Nicaise said sweetly. "Fuck off. If we want your input, we'll ask for it."

Nicaise grabbed Nikandros by the elbow and dragged him away from Laurent, towards the table where lunch was about to be served.

Behind them, Laurent laughed. Nikandros didn't like the sound of it at all.

"Did you just say all of that because you knew I could hear you?" Nikandros asked once he'd been pushed down into a chair and Nicaise had claimed the one beside him.

Nicaise looked sideways at him for a long moment before bursting out laughing at him. Nikandros somehow didn't mind that nearly as much as when Laurent had done it.

"Really?" Nicaise asked. "You choose now to finally stop being dense about all this? Better late than never, I guess."

Privately, though, Nikandros didn't think he was late at all. The timing actually seemed fairly perfect to him.

Chapter Text

Even in Marlas, pets were usually still paired together when they were up on stage, their movements designed to mirror the style of performance they would traditionally have been called upon to showcase in Vere, though less overtly. However, the pet currently on the stage was alone. He was performing a rendition of a popular Akielon tale made into a more Veretian-style dance, a hybrid performance designed to appeal more to Akielon sensibilities. His primary intended audience was made obvious by how he had pointedly locked eyes with Nikandros at the start of his performance. According to Nicaise, the young man, Jules, had a reputation as being particularly ambitious, and with the exception of the Kings, there was no one higher ranked in this court than the Kyros of Delpha. It seemed that Jules was among those few enterprising pets who had recently seemed to realise – as relations now fell more in line with Akielon standards – that if they could manage to temper their image as unbearably spoiled and primped dolls and trade the risqué for something more subtly appealing, there might actually be a plethora of companionless highborn and rich men and women who could be persuaded to show interest in a contract.

Unfortunately for Jules, though, he would have done better to look to a different Akielon. Nikandros imagined the performance was probably relatively appealing, objectively speaking. He wouldn't really know. It hadn't held his attention for more than about twenty seconds.

At that point, Nicaise rose from Nikandros's side. He pulled Aeliana, who had been squirming restlessly by his side for the past several minutes, along with him to an area slightly off to the side from the seats and stage where she could move around. When she was encouraged to unleash her excess energy – probably obtained from the astonishing amount of sugary sweetmeats Nicaise had let her shove into her mouth when Laurent wasn't looking – into dancing to the music, Aeliana's movements were an uncontained explosion. Some of the eyes that inevitably shifted from the main entertainment fondly rested on the princess's childish exuberance, undisputed darling of the court as she was. The rest, however, lingered far less innocently on Nicaise's more fluid movements as he danced along with her. Jules should perhaps have stopped and taken notes on how to seduce a room full of Akielons and Veretians alike, for Nicaise did so effortlessly, even without displaying the slightest sexual undertones. He certainly held Nikandros's attention for far longer than twenty seconds. Nikandros did his best to push down the annoyance that welled within him at being only one of many. That was made slightly easier by the fact that Nicaise ignored them all.

Eventually, Aeliana's wild dancing slowed, and she grew droopy-eyed enough that Erasmus came and scooped her up, likely to take her to bed on Laurent's orders. The crowd clapped the end of their 'performance', almost as if the entertainment on stage wasn't still ongoing. When Nicaise returned to his seat as the real stage performance did finally draw to a close as well, he collapsed against Nikandros. He let his head fall to Nikandros's shoulder as if he was exhausted himself, even though he wasn't even breathing hard.

Nikandros saw Laurent watching them in a way that made his skin crawl slightly. But Nikandros returned the stare for a moment, and pointedly didn't move an inch.

"Did you accomplish what you set out to do there?" Nikandros asked when he turned his full attention back to Nicaise.

"You tell me," Nicaise said. "Was there anyone actually still watching the other pet dancing?"

"There was another pet?" Nikandros said lightly. "I didn't notice."

Out of the corner of his eye, Nikandros caught Nicaise's smile. It was genuine, rather than one of his more usual smirks. Nikandros liked knowing that he was the cause of it.

"You charmer," Nicaise said.

It took Nikandros a moment to identify the word, spoken in Veretian. "That's not something I've ever been called before. Especially not by you."

"Well you weren't trying to charm me before, were you?" Nicaise pointed out. "It's about time you fixed that oversight. I deserve to be flattered, you know."

"I think you probably flatter yourself enough for both of us."

In retaliation for that comment, Nicaise reached under the table and pinched Nikandros's thigh, though he didn't do so even a quarter as viciously as Nikandros was all-too-aware he was capable of. Nikandros quickly caught Nicaise's hand, but instead of pushing it away from him, he intertwined their fingers. Lightly, meant to just hold Nicaise more so than to hold him back from attacking Nikandros's leg again. Nicaise stilled, surprised. His fingers flexed in Nikandros's, before relaxing.

Had their roles been reversed, Nicaise would probably have then brought Nikandros's hand to his lips for a moment, and then impudently asked whether that was charming enough for Nikandros's liking. Nikandros was not quite that bold, especially in public. He settled for tracing his thumb over the smooth skin of Nicaise's palm. Nicaise pressed the side of his thigh against Nikandros's, an acknowledgement.

"I'm not interested in other pets, you know," Nikandros said. "You don't have to distract me from them."

"Ha," Nicaise said, "who said it was about you? I just wanted to see Jules frustrated when he couldn't hold the court's attention for even the space of one measly performance. Serves that fucking peacock right."

"Are you really so bored that you need to pick fights with all the other pets?"

Nicaise squeezed his hand. "I'm not bored." But then he let go, and finally removed his head from Nikandros's shoulder so that he could look at Nikandros properly. "Though obviously I need something to keep myself occupied while you go running around the country for a few days, don't I? I heard from Laurent that you're leaving the palace."

"For Fortaine, yes," Nikandros confirmed. "It's a short ride. I should only be away overnight, assuming it's something that can be quickly resolved. I haven't been provided with details, unfortunately."

"Fortaine's not even in your jurisdiction."

"The borders are blurring these days," Nikandros pointed out. "And my jurisdiction is wherever the Kings ask me to oversee."

Nicaise made a discontented noise. "Laurent probably just wants an excuse to send you away."

"Actually," Nikandros said, "Laurent wanted to go to Fortaine himself. It was Damen who asked me to go instead."

Nicaise narrowed his eyes. "Hmmm," he said. "Was it Lord Clovis who called for the visit?"

"No," Nikandros said. Despite his close proximity to the new capital, the Lord of Fortaine had tended to pointedly try not to draw the Kings' attention to himself and his family after his father's execution. "I understand it was Lady Loyse."

Nicaise looked thoughtful. It seemed likely he knew, or at least suspected, whatever it was that had made Damen meet Laurent's suggestion that he would journey to Fortaine himself with a very serious look and a silent shake of his head that brooked little argument, even from Laurent. Nikandros had initially thought Damen's denial was because Damen was worried about Laurent's pregnancy, even though it was early enough that Laurent probably could have ridden on horseback still, let alone managed a half day's carriage ride in either direction. But Damen had taken Nikandros aside and, cryptically mentioning only that Fortaine brought out the worst in Laurent, asked Nikandros to go in their stead. If Nicaise did know what Damen had meant, though, he seemed no more willing to enlighten Nikandros that Damen himself had been.

Nikandros woke up even earlier than usual the following morning. It seemed that at some point during the night, his fingers had somehow ended up buried in Nicaise's curls, cupped around the back of his head. He carefully extricated them, trying not to wake Nicaise. He looked too peaceful to disturb. Nikandros tucked the bedcovers back around him where they'd fallen when Nikandros had pulled himself from the sheets. His hand lingered at Nicaise's shoulder as he pulled the covers up, his knuckles brushing over a bare patch of skin where Nicaise's loose sleep shirt had fallen to the side, slightly tangled. Nikandros caught himself after a moment and pulled away silently.

Nikandros made breakfast a quick affair and departed the palace without ceremony as soon as his guards were assembled. The air that whipped past him as his horse covered the distance wasn't as cold as he'd expected. That combined with the passing landscape seemed to announce that spring was on the way.

Hours later, Lord Clovis received Nikandros without giving any sign that he resented having to accept an Akielon into his fortress at all, even when he was forced to treat Nikandros as his political superior. He made every indication that he intended to treat Nikandros as an honoured guest, short though his stay would be, and invited Nikandros to join him for a late lunch. Nikandros would have accepted the offer, even though he and his men had eaten a basic meal packed for them on the road. But the moment the bare minimum pleasantries required of a Lord and Kyros had been exchanged, Lady Loyse had requested an immediate conference with Nikandros instead. Clovis had frowned and apologised for his mother accosting their guest like that. But Nikandros could see the deep worry in the woman's eyes. He took pity on her and agreed. He had no real desire to draw this out, anyway. The sooner he could determine the problem, the sooner he could return home.

Clovis offered to accompany them 'for propriety's sake'. Loyse, sounding every bit the chastising mother despite her son having children not too far from adulthood himself, said, "Even if King Laurent hadn't sent out word that there's no longer a need for chaperones, no one would for a moment believe that this handsome young man would have any interest in an old woman like me. I'm sure we'll get along just fine on our own." She left no room for negotiation, giving Nikandros a glimpse into what he might be facing here.

"I'm afraid I haven't been briefed on what brought you to call for the Kings to send a representative," Nikandros said once Clovis and the servants had all departed and Loyse had closed the door, lending herself and Nikandros the privacy she seemed to want.

"I'm concerned for my son. My youngest son, rather. Aimeric."

Like Loyse herself, Nikandros understood that Loyse's fourth son was still under house arrest in Fortaine. But where Loyse might have succeeded had she ever bothered to petition to have her own house arrest lifted once she'd been widowed, for there had never been any evidence that she'd actually supported her husband's actions while he'd lived or since, the same could not be said for Aimeric. He had apparently been fully on Guion's side, even if he hadn't been as active in his pursuit of treason.

Nikandros dipped his head slightly, indicating Loyse should continue.

"Aimeric has been so terribly angry for years now, even since before his father was executed. I think that was keeping him going all this time. But now he's grown withdrawn, and he's started saying these hopeless things and acting in a way that makes me fear he'll do something truly terrible to himself. This captivity is slowly killing him. I must ask for mercy on his behalf."

Gently, but firmly, Nikandros said, "He's been given clemency already. The King could easily have visited a harsher sentence on him than this. I understand that you would be concerned for him since he's your son, but I'm not certain what you expect me to do about it. I can hardly just let him go free."

"I know my son is not entirely blameless. I know that he's earned censure, as have I. But you must understand that his father set him down this path when he was still just a child. His course was set from the moment my husband let that man near our son. I was so glad when the King wrote that it was you who would be coming, you know. I've heard that you're very close to one of the other boys that monster got in his clutches. You must understand what it's like for them. How hard it is to move past that. Especially when Aimeric's stuck here with all the memories of it."

Nikandros tasted bile as he realised what she meant.

"It happened here in Fortaine?" he asked.

Loyse was visibly distressed. "Yes. I should have stopped it the moment I knew what my husband had agreed to. I should have slit that man's throat and accepted the sentence for my treason happily, rather than allow him to touch my son. I had a choice. I chose wrongly. Aimeric never had that option at all. He thought he did, though. He thought he'd chosen it. He built his entire mindset around that idea, and what he'd convinced himself had happened. But now Clovis's eldest children are around the age he was then, and I think he's realising how very young they still are. Too young. He's not dealing well with what that means for him. He needs the chance to get some distance from this place, and from the constant reminders, if he's going to come to terms with it without it destroying him completely. If he must remain confined, at least let it be elsewhere."

Nikandros got the impression that Loyse was someone who was more used to ordering than asking. And yet she took a knee in front of Nikandros and bowed her head slightly as she said, "Please." Her voice broke slightly on the word.

"Stand up," Nikandros instructed. "I only require you to state your case, not for you to beg."

"Begging is a small price to pay, for his sake, and for what I've failed to do to protect him up until now."

Nikandros sighed. "Show me to him. I won't make any decisions until I can at least speak with him."

Aimeric was in his rooms. According to Loyse, he was almost always in his rooms lately.

"I can't remember the last time he saw actual sunlight," she said.

Certainly, he looked pale enough when Nikandros laid eyes on him. The effect was exacerbated by the fact that he was wearing a stark white undershirt. He was clearly not prepared for company, or simply didn't care to make an effort to dress. Almost the only splash of colour on his entire body was the spot of darkened red that was dried on the inside of the bandage peeking out where the wrist of his shirt was unlaced. Ah, Nikandros thought. So that was why Loyse had been treating the matter as suddenly being so urgent.

Aimeric's gaze and the set of his jaw were both unfriendly, to say the least, when he saw Nikandros. Nikandros was half-surprised Aimeric didn't try to spit at him or something similar. Apparently, his self-preservation was at least a little higher than Loyse suspected, though, for he made no move to antagonise Nikandros, other than glaring. And speaking.

"So the pretender-King sends his dog rather than deigning to visit his subjects himself, does he? Typical. Is it cowardice that keeps him away, or is he just too busy with bending over for your King, and probably half the rest of the palace while he's at it?"

Nikandros clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to reach for the knife sheathed at his waist.

"Aimeric," Loyse rebuked.

"What does it matter what I say to him? I don't know what you think will come of this, Mother, other than maybe having my sentence increased to an execution. These savages don't bargain. They kill."

"You may yet earn yourself that execution if you continue to slander my Kings. Your attitude is of no assistance to you. But if you instead show some respect, you might receive some in turn," advised Nikandros.

"Respect him? Some omega upstart who only got this kingdom under his control by whoring himself out to Akielos?" Aimeric asked. "Don't make me laugh."

No wonder Damen had been so insistent that Laurent should not be the one to come here. Nikandros could only imagine how spitefully Aimeric would have received Laurent himself, if this was his attitude towards him even in his absence.

After what Loyse had revealed, Nikandros couldn't help but spot some parallels between Aimeric now and how Nicaise had acted in those early days, when Nikandros had first met him. Nicaise, too, had been standoffish and quick to lash out, even when he was smart enough to know that it would just make things worse. He had been verbally brutal even towards people who had done nothing to earn his ire, where now he reserved his real nastiness for when it was at least somewhat deserved. He'd also related everything back to sex, as if he'd been convinced that that was underlying absolutely everything. And he'd been convinced that Akielons were all murdering beasts as well.

So would this have been how Nicaise might have turned out over the years, under other circumstances, if there had been no one there to stand with him?

But no. They weren't the same. Nicaise hadn't been foolish or naïve enough to convince himself that he was actually loved by the Regent of Vere, or that the man should deserve his loyalty over his rightful future King. He'd been the one to decide to stash himself away with Vannes to escape from Arles, rather than waiting for Laurent or anyone else to act on his behalf. He'd even provided Laurent with what he needed to succeed against the man who'd held Nicaise's contract. At only fourteen, Nicaise had forged his own future. He was still doing so now. The fact that he now had support while he did so didn't detract from that at all.

But Nikandros couldn't unsee what similarities did exist. He couldn't deny that it had an effect on him, or claim that he didn't wonder if things might have been different for Aimeric, had he had someone better than his father to turn to. Or if he'd never gone through that in the first place.

Nikandros didn't ask about Aimeric's situation or his past. He didn't particularly want to hear the sickening details of it, or imagine them applied to someone else. And he doubted anyway that Aimeric would be willing to talk about it with a stranger, let alone an Akielon. To be honest, Nikandros had no real desire to talk to Aimeric at all now that he'd seen him, and heard the things that came out of his mouth. Nikandros pitied him, in a way that he'd never felt he needed to pity Nicaise, but that certainly didn't mean he had to like him, or that he wanted to deal directly with him, given the choice. He turned to Loyse instead.

"Do you have family that would take him in elsewhere, under the condition that he would be under house arrest there as well?" Nikandros asked Loyse.

She hesitated for a moment. "His other brothers won't agree."

"I wouldn't go to them anyway," Aimeric claimed. "They suck up to that upstart they call King and decry Father as if he didn't do what he did for their sake."

"I do have a sister, though," Loyse said, "in Varenne."

There were several Lords and Ladies in Varenne, like Fara or Berenger, who were more or less unquestionably loyal to Laurent and to the alliance. It would be possible to monitor Aimeric there to make sure he didn't escape or cause any real trouble, Nikandros considered.

Assuming Aimeric would actually agree to it, of course.

"She married a merchant! You want me to go to some offshoot cousins with no title or proper land to their name?" Aimeric asked, sounding appalled. It was clear that he was spoiled in a very different way than Nicaise was. Nicaise relished having power, wealth and position because he knew exactly what it was like to have nothing instead. For Aimeric, that was unknown and incomprehensible. He clearly considered even a relatively comfortable life to be below him just because it wasn't the aristocratic existence he'd known until now. Too bad for him. This wasn't meant to be a reward.

"Aimeric, please," his mother said. "This place is slowly killing you. It would be a chance for you to start fresh."

Nikandros nodded to her. "I'll provide my recommendation to the Kings." Then, to Aimeric, he said, "But let me be clear: the Kings have no reason to care to save you from your own bad decisions. If they give you a chance despite that, it's up to you to take it, or not. If you then choose to stay here out of resentment or pride, the Kings will wash their hands of the matter without the slightest guilt about what happens from there."

Loyse nodded her understanding, looking grateful. Aimeric's expression didn't change from stubbornness. Nikandros suspected Loyse would do her best to convince her son to accept the offer, presuming Damen and Laurent agreed to extend it. Nikandros personally would have doubted that Laurent would agree to go out of his way for someone who so clearly hated him, but he'd already given Aimeric more leeway than he deserved, so it wasn't out of the question. Perhaps Laurent saw something of Nicaise in Aimeric as well and showed compassion to him because of it.

The lively dinner that was organised that evening in his honour was a strange juxtaposition to the otherwise fairly depressing nature of this trip, Nikandros thought. Even if thoughts of Aimeric hadn't lingered in the back of his mind, Nikandros didn't think he would have enjoyed the experience much. It was usually Nicaise who went out of his way to make such events less dreary for Nikandros. If Nicaise had been here, he'd probably have spent the whole night making Nikandros by turns laugh and groan with his speculations about the men and women who had gathered in Fortaine seemingly to have an opportunity to bend the ear of a man so close to the Kings. As it was, Nikandros took any carefully-worded complaints or suggestions that were brought to him seriously, as he always did, but he still missed the occasional breaks in the monotony of it.

He remained in Fortaine overnight, put up in a set of rooms clearly designed for visiting lords. It was colder than he'd been the last couple of nights, even though Fortaine was barely further north than Marlas. The bed felt larger than he was used to, and the room more silent. Those things probably shouldn't have registered as unwelcome, but they did.

Nikandros and his guards rode out in the morning straight after Clovis provided them with a hearty breakfast. Nikandros found himself keen to get away from that place even after less than a full day there. He'd been treated well enough; better than he'd expected, actually, given everything. But it felt claustrophobic inside, in a way that wasn't explained solely by the closed-in defensive nature typical of the ancient Veretian forts compared with the new palace at Marlas, which had been fused with a little more of a sun-drenched Akielon aesthetic. Knowing what he did, and seeing how Aimeric had been clearly stewing in it for years now, the place seemed filled with the shadows of dark history, and with evidence of how things might have gone so very differently. How Nikandros might never have even known what he was missing, if Nicaise hadn't developed such a sharp mind, or found that inimitable inner strength of his, so young.

For all that it was home, and had been on and off for years now, Nikandros still couldn't recall ever before being quite this happy to return to Marlas. Certainly never when he'd barely been away for a day and a half. It wasn't just what he was riding away from that had him feeling that way, though, but rather what he knew he was going back to.

He pushed his horse onwards a little harder.

Chapter Text

The ride between Fortaine and Marlas was blessedly short. Nikandros was back at the palace by early afternoon. Though the ease of the ride certainly didn't make him tempted to visit Fortaine more often.

Nikandros's guards peeled off towards the barracks as soon as Nikandros had arrived safely through the gates of the palace, their duty completed. Nikandros himself made a beeline straight for his rooms, hoping to wash away the dust of the road along with the air of Fortaine that had seemed to cling to his skin.

Nikandros's first clue was the four alpha guards blocking off access to the corridor leading to his rooms. The second was the scent that teased at his nose in wisps. Most of that scent was wafting from all the way down the hallway. But some of it was emanating from Pallas, as if he'd touched him –

Nikandros had grabbed the front of Pallas's chiton where it smelled of Nicaise before he could stop himself. But thankfully his rational mind managed to exert itself over his urge to swing his fist at his former guard – since elevated to the King's Guard – who Nikandros knew was certainly not interested in touching an omega in heat.

Pallas's hand came to rest on Nikandros's elbow, though probably in an attempt to anchor him more so than to hold him back. If his Kyros threw a punch, Pallas would probably just stand and take it, even if he'd done nothing to deserve the blow, for he was as loyal as any soldier Nikandros had met.

"He wouldn't leave the entrance hall until after it had already hit," Pallas explained. "I had to carry him back here."

He'd been waiting for him, Nikandros realised. Fuck.

"Thank you," Nikandros said emphatically. He let the material of Pallas's clothing slip from his fingers, gripping at the wall instead, as if that would stop him from doing something stupid. Several alphas stood between himself and Nicaise, and a barely-buried instinct was telling him that he should just carve a path through them. Apart from maybe Nestor, whose nose had been so thoroughly bashed in years ago that he might not be able to smell it at all, Nikandros didn't understand how these other alphas could possibly look so unaffected themselves.

But then, Nikandros had personally never before been this affected by an omega in heat either. He'd never had his entire body and half his mind crying out that that was his omega, and that he was supposed to be there with him.

Nikandros forced himself to take one staggering step backwards. Pallas's hand on his arm stopped him from taking a second. Nikandros had been too distracted to even realise that Pallas was still holding onto him.

"My apologies for overstepping my bounds, Kyros," Pallas said. "But we were instructed to let you past when you returned. And I was personally told to tell you 'not to act like a noble idiot'. Sorry." Pallas looked appalled at his own words. It was clear that he would rather have done anything other than relaying them to his superior. Anything, it seemed, other than get on Nicaise's bad side by refusing to deliver the message. Nikandros could certainly understand that.

"When did he say that?" Nikandros asked.

Pallas seemed to understand what he really meant by the question. "Before his scent shifted."

When his mind was still relatively unclouded by what his body would now be telling him in no uncertain terms that it wanted, then. And Nicaise had already made it more than clear that he knew his own mind.

Nikandros took another step, but forwards this time. None of the guards stopped his progress down the hallway, for all that they would clearly have detained any other alpha who tried it.

Opening the door to his rooms was like being hit in the face with a cannonball of scent. He pushed the door shut behind him so that he could lean on it for support for a moment. Nikandros sucked in oxygen, though it did little to steady him when it was flavoured with heat pheromones.

"Laurent?" he heard Nicaise call out tremulously.

"No," he responded gruffly. "It's me."

"Nikandros."

His name on Nicaise's lips, said with such obvious relief, conveyed him past the threshold of the bedchambers in an instant. He didn't even recall crossing the distance in between.

Nicaise was curled up on one side of the bed. It was the side that Nikandros had taken to sleeping on since Nicaise had invited himself into these rooms on a more permanent basis, Nikandros noted distantly. Nicaise extended his hand. Nikandros stepped into his range and let his own hand be grabbed. Nicaise's fingers smelled strongly of himself. The implications of that made Nikandros's entire body seem to throb insistently. He barely stopped himself from bringing their combined grip to his mouth so that he could taste the source of that scent.

Nicaise used that grip to drag Nikandros closer, practically rolling Nikandros on top of him as he pulled him down onto the bed. He pressed his face unceremoniously into the crook of Nikandros's neck and inhaled deeply, as if it didn't matter in the slightest to him that he'd already been surrounded by Nikandros's scent in these rooms. Nikandros didn't push him away. One hand splayed between Nicaise's shoulder blades, while the other found the curve of his back. Having Nicaise in his arms, smelling like that, did things to Nikandros's self-control. Not long ago that would have been enough to make him hesitate, to worry that he shouldn't be reacting this strongly. But now was no time to run away unless Nicaise told him to.

"You have the worst fucking timing, you know," complained Nicaise. He said it casually, though he was visibly squirming in discomfort. "How'd you manage to pick right was I was about to go into heat to fuck off out of the palace?"

"Are you all right?" Nikandros asked urgently. "Pallas said you went into heat outside."

"Trust me, it could have been worse. My stupid fucking instincts were telling me to jump on a horse and come after you," Nicaise said.

Nikandros had heard stories of omegas who couldn't help but seek out their alphas when they'd been 'abandoned' as their heat approached. And given how things had been between them recently, Nikandros didn't doubt for a second that Nicaise – and Nicaise's body – considered Nikandros to be his alpha.

"I'm sorry," Nikandros said. He brushed Nicaise's curls, slightly damp with sweat, back from his face and pressed a soothing kiss to his forehead. Nicaise froze for a moment, surprised, then relaxed further into him. Though perhaps 'relaxed' was the wrong word for it when Nicaise's entire body felt like it was shaking against him.

"Are you going to stay with me?" Nicaise asked.

"You really do want this?"

"As long as it's you."

The way Nicaise said that left Nikandros half-breathless.

"I thought I would be able to court you properly first," Nikandros confessed.

"Do you really think you're the one who's been doing the courting here?"

That was probably fair. But still. "I just want to treat you as well as you deserve. I didn't want to rush it like this."

Nicaise snorted. "I've heard of glaciers in northern Vask that move faster. Consider me already well and truly won over at this point. I'm done waiting. I'm dying to fuck you."

His straying fingers flicked purposefully at the back of the skirt of Nikandros's chiton, making it clear what exactly he meant.

Nikandros was stunned momentarily sober. "Oh. I… I've never done that before."

Nikandros had never really thought he'd be interested in that. And he'd been raised the first-born son of a high-ranked nobleman, an off-shoot of royalty from generations past, even before he'd been named Kyros after Delpha had been taken back, so he'd been too highly ranked for anyone to have dared to ask such a thing of him unsolicited. Anyone but Nicaise, apparently, who didn't bend to such unspoken rules.

"I haven't done that either," said Nicaise matter-of-factly. Meaningfully.

Oh. That was half the point, wasn't it? And the other half was probably that it was the opposite of what their bodies were actually pressing them to do. It would irrefutably be not something driven only by heat.

"I'll be gentle with you," Nicaise said. It was only half-mocking.

Nikandros hesitated for an extended moment. Then: "All right."

Like a reward for providing the right answer, Nicaise leaned in toward him, obliterating whatever small amount of space had remained. Nikandros's lips on Nicaise's forehead earlier had been meant as a comfort. This was something else entirely. Nicaise's hot body slid against his, vibrating with unreleased tension. Though Nikandros suddenly felt like he was the one overheating.

Nikandros would have liked the first time he kissed Nicaise to be an unhurried exploration. To show him that whatever he might have known before, Nikandros would take things at Nicaise's pace. He supposed that was exactly what they were doing, though; Nicaise's pace was apparently a lot faster than his. And there was something to be said, Nikandros decided, for how desperately Nicaise's lips sought his, the kiss almost devouring. And for how, even when Nicaise's mouth fell away from his, his hands continued travelling Nikandros skin confidently, knowing what he wanted and not hesitating to seek it out.

Nicaise took Nikandros's hands and guided them to the hem of Nicaise's clothing, which was already pushed up so high that the material was barely covering anything at all. Nikandros made a brief mental note to explore the smattering of freckles that had somehow managed to climb up to the very tops of Nicaise's thighs (how and when had he worn anything that short in the sunlight?) some other time, when there weren't more pressing things to think about.

Nikandros was glad that Nicaise usually tended to opt for something closer to Akielon fashion than Veretian, for he was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to handle a thousand laces right now. Instead, even trying his best to savour it the way he would have done if this had been happening under other circumstances, it took less than a minute to unwrap Nicaise like a gift.

A thousand thoughts flitted through Nikandros's mind in an instant, too elusive to fully grasp one at a time. The details overlapped into one big impression of 'so beautiful'. Nicaise would probably have laughed at him if he knew.

"Well? Hurry up and prepare yourself," Nicaise ordered. "I don't have all day here."

They had several days, actually, but Nikandros valued his life a little too well to point that out right now. Though he did roll his eyes at Nicaise's imperiousness. "I have no oils," he pointed out.

"Don't be an idiot." Nicaise drew Nikandros's hand down to the slick coating the inside of his thighs, coating his fingers for him. If Nikandros hadn't already been achingly hard, that would have been more than enough to fix that. Helplessly, Nikandros leaned down and followed the path of his fingers with his tongue. The taste was sweeter than Nicaise's lips. The noise Nicaise made was sweeter still.

Nicaise was so on edge, it seemed, that it only took a few thrusts of his fingers and a long, slow lick to make his whole body seize up, his back arching slightly. Slick gushed over his fingers and his tongue. The wetness of Nicaise's spend spilled over the back of Nikandros's shoulder as well. Meeting Nicaise's eyes, Nikandros reached back to scoop it some of it up, and then licked that from his fingers as well. Nicaise watched him do so, eyes heavy-lidded.

"I was going to fuck you," Nicaise panted.

"You still will," Nikandros assured him. "Don't be so impatient."

Nikandros was actually very glad for the extra time to adjust to the new sensation of his own fingers inside himself. Eyeing Nicaise's cock as Nicaise coated it with slick, once he'd been brought back to firmness again by his evident interest in what Nikandros had been doing, Nikandros was glad he wasn't quite as large as an alpha there. He couldn't imagine any amount of preparation would have been enough for him then. As it was, Nicaise was going to be more than enough for Nikandros.

When Nicaise decided he was done waiting and that they were both ready, he pushed Nikandros onto his back and said, "I want to watch you fall apart."

Nikandros's lips fell open on a low gasp.

It was not the most comfortable sensation, and Nicaise's movements had the awkwardness of learning as he went. But that constant reminder that this was Nicaise's first time doing this, and that he was purposely sharing that with Nikandros, would have been enough to make it worthwhile even if Nicaise hadn't eventually found a fairly enjoyable rhythm. Nikandros knew he wouldn't come from this alone, though. Perhaps in the future, after much practice and learning what each other liked (the thought of which pleased him immensely), but not today. Nicaise seemed to realise the same for himself, though for a different reason.

He pushed himself off Nikandros, saying with a frustrated tone, "Fuck, I need a knot."

"We should send a servant to your rooms to get your supplies," Nikandros said. A blush touched his cheeks. Speaking of how Nicaise had spent his previous heats shouldn't have still been embarrassing at this stage, considering. But Nikandros thought it would probably take a long time to adjust to the idea that those heats were no longer something that should be entirely off limits to him.

Nicaise glared at him. "You're kidding, right? What do I need a poor substitute for, when I have the real thing?" His hand closed around Nikandros's cock, over the more sensitive skin where his knot would form. Nikandros bucked under his grip.

"But… you don't want…"

Nicaise silenced him with a look. He looked sure. Nikandros didn't question it further.

Nicaise didn't need seemingly endless preparation, as Nikandros had. It was clear that he'd already opened himself up well enough before Nikandros had even arrived. That was a welcome thing. Nikandros wasn't sure how well he would be able to hold himself back at this point. Luckily, Nicaise's pleased cry as Nikandros first pressed the head of his cock against him suggested that he had no desire for Nikandros to restrain himself.

It didn't take much more than a few good thrusts, in the end, for Nicaise was obviously already right on the edge, only needing to be properly filled in order to topple. When Nicaise spilled, his teeth found Nikandros's neck, around where his alpha scent was strongest. The dull pain of that, the surge of their combined scents in the air, and the tightening clench of Nicaise around him, all combined to make Nikandros groan. His knot thickened and caught, which had Nicaise almost howling into his skin, clutching harder at him, pushing them closer still. Nikandros thought that words might have cascaded out of his own mouth at that moment, but he was too far gone to recall. He hoped Nicaise hadn't heard or remembered either, for he imagined it must have been something terribly embarrassing.

He finally slumped against Nicaise as his cock continued pulsing in slow bursts. Eventually, when he had enough breath to do so, Nicaise said, "You're fucking heavy." But he made an annoyed sound when Nikandros tried to shift them onto their sides. "I didn't tell you to move."

Nikandros's lips twitched. He pressed a quick kiss to Nicaise's shoulder to hide his smile from view.

"Whatever happened to not wanting children?" Nikandros asked.

He felt Nicaise shrug under him. "I always take my herbs. Though if you do still manage to knock me up, you're the one who has to raise the kid until it's old enough for me to at least train into a useful little palace spy," Nicaise warned.

Despite himself, Nikandros laughed.

Nikandros had seen Nicaise with Aeliana. And while Nicaise complained about her loudly and endlessly, he was always careful with her even when he was pretending he wasn't trying to be, and she clearly loved him. And he'd practically adopted some of the ex-slaves, the most fragile of whom had at least initially been as innocent as children in their own way. He looked after those who couldn't easily care for themselves. So Nikandros thought that, if it did come to it, it might not play out quite how Nicaise had described. The fact that Nicaise had described it at all, though, was enough to convince him that the decision wasn't entirely just a whim brought on by hormones.

"All right," Nikandros said. "I'll look after the children and you can be Kyros, how about that?"

"Don't joke," said Nicaise. "If Laurent caught wind that you'd offered that, he'd probably replace you with me just to spite you."

"Please don't talk about Laurent while we're in bed together," Nikandros begged.

By the time the fever of his heat broke over a day later, Nicaise looked exhausted (which Nikandros could sincerely empathise with, for Nicaise had hardly let him sleep all the while). But he looked more contented to Nikandros's eyes than he'd usually been in the days after his previous heats. Nikandros was glad to see that.

"Get off me and go take a bath or something," Nicaise said. "You reek."

"That's not what you were saying a few hours ago."

Nicaise shoved him, but playfully.

It was true that Nikandros's skin was currently perfumed with a mixture of the two of them, his own alpha smell made muskier than usual, overlaid by the sweet odour of Nicaise's heat. A delicate sniff at Nicaise's neck revealed that he smelled similarly (and not in the slightest of pregnancy). They would probably have to scrub themselves raw if they didn't want to broadcast exactly what they'd been up to over the last few days to the entire palace the moment they set foot outside the doors. Though people might have already heard that Nikandros had spent Nicaise's heat with him regardless, knowing how such news tended to echo through the halls of Marlas. At the very least, Nikandros was probably not going to be able to look at any of the men who'd taken shifts guarding them in the eyes for a while.

It took a while for a servant to be called and prepare a warmed bath. It was apparently too long, in fact, for Nicaise to think it made sense for them to each wait their separate turn. He eased himself into the tub alongside Nikandros, making some of the water splash out over the edge onto the marble floor. There wasn't really enough room for the two of them in there. Nikandros still didn't tell him to get out. He reached over to scrub Nicaise's back. Nicaise looked smug.

While they bathed, the servant dressed the bed in fresh sheets so that Nicaise could collapse tiredly into it once he was clean. Nikandros wasn't quite lucky enough to be able to sleep the rest of the day away, though, so he left with a kiss to Nicaise's cheek. Nicaise probably didn't even feel it, as Nikandros was fairly certain he was already halfway to dreaming by then.

Nikandros wasn't surprised how quickly Laurent found him once he was out of his rooms. Even if the guards had sufficiently held their tongues and the information hadn't become widely known in some other way either, Laurent would have been aware of why his Kyros and his pet had disappeared at the same time. Laurent knew most everything that happened in this palace, from what Nikandros could tell. Laurent would usually have visited Nicaise during his heat to check on him. The fact that he hadn't this time meant he certainly knew that Nicaise hadn't been alone.

"He's young still," Laurent warned. "Much younger than you."

Nicaise was young. Barely more than half Nikandros's age, really. But more and more often lately, Nikandros found himself no longer seeing his youth. He only saw Nicaise himself.

"You weren't even two years older than he is now when you met Damen," Nikandros reminded him.

"But I didn't fall in love with Damen when I was only sixteen," countered Laurent.

"He's still old enough to know what he wants," Nikandros insisted. He'd thought about this long and hard enough to be well convinced of it now.

"And do you know what you really want? Or is this some whim for you?"

"I know," Nikandros said firmly. "I wouldn't have gone near him if I wasn't sure."

Laurent sighed and said, "I suppose that, of all the available options, he could have done worse."

Flatly, Nikandros said, "Thanks."

But at least it seemed as though he might not have to worry about Laurent plotting ways to dispose of his body once he'd had Nikandros killed anymore.

Nicaise didn't appear out in public until much later in the day, only minutes before dinner was set to be served. Laurent found him immediately as well. They looked deep in conversation. Probably talking far more openly about what had happened during Nicaise's heat than what Nikandros would prefer Laurent to know of his bedroom activities. Laurent kept looking over at him, smirking.

"Your husband is irritating," Nikandros informed Damen quietly.

Damen laughed. "Is that any way to speak of your King?" he asked, but clearly wasn't offended. Nikandros was allowed to speak his mind however he liked whenever it was only the Kings (or Nicaise) who could hear him. Damen had made that clear after the first few weeks of his elevation to King, when Nikandros had been so careful to call Damen 'Exalted' and make himself act as Damen's subject at all times. In privacy, Damen had insisted, they were friends first, even if the same could no longer be entirely true in public.

"Laurent would probably be glad to hear me say I'm irritated by him," Nikandros countered, "since that's rather the point. He does it on purpose."

"Perhaps you shouldn't rise to his bait, then," Damen suggested. That was rich, coming from him. "Anyway, you seem to manage with Nicaise, and he puts way more effort into annoying you than Laurent does."

As if he'd sensed himself being talked about, Nicaise looked over and saw that Nikandros was staring over at him. He blew a kiss at Nikandros across the hall.

Nikandros blushed, wondering how many people had seen.

Beside him, Damen said thoughtfully, "You know, though, I'm starting to get the feeling that Nicaise might actually be kind of interested in you."

Nikandros choked on air.