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A log splits inside the fireplace, sending a spray of crackling sparks up the air, some of them falling like shooting stars on the stone floors, their glowing orange light immediately turning to black soot on impact. Carl watches the spectacle of the hearth, the front of his body warm from it while his back keeps breaking into shivers, half from the cold, half from the thought of what is about to happen.
Outside the door, footsteps echo, faint at first, and then louder as they get closer. His heart in his throat, Carl straightens up and clasps his hands in front of him, knuckles gripping white around each other. He knows those footsteps, could conjure them from memory alone, so he knows exactly when they finally reach the room.
The door creaks open and Carl sinks to his knees.
**
The Lord of Hilltop hums where he’s examining Carl.
“How old?”
Carl’s mother is quick to answer, “Eighteen, my Lord.”
The man hums again.
“Show me your teeth, boy.”
Carl sends his mother a bewildered look but Lori just gives him a sharp nudge.
“Come on,” the Lord complains, “I don’t have all day. Ah.” His clear blue eyes light up when Carl purses his lips. A hand spotted with age grabs him around the chin and Carl has to force himself to stay still as Gregory Barrington examines him like a mare. He smells of the roast pigeon that is growing cold on the table next to them. “Alright, that will do.”
The hand retreats and Carl’s cheeks burn when he finally relaxes his jaw. In front of him, the Lord of Hilltop brings his fingers to his nostrils and whatever scent is there makes him frown.
“He’s in heat.”
“His very first, my Lord,” Lori confirms.
This is clearly the wrong thing to say.
“His first? Why? The boy is eighteen, he should have had his first years ago.” His face pinches and his beady blue eyes flash with suspicion. “Is he defective? I will not bring a defective Omega to Hilltop.”
“No!” Carl’s mother hurries to say. “Not defective in any way, my Lord! Carl is a late bloomer that’s all. I assure you,” she insists when the man seems unconvinced. “Would the King keep a defective Omega as his cup-bearer?”
This seems to mollify Lord Barrington.
“Hmm, I suppose that’s true. It is quite the honor,” he remarks almost pensively. “Usually reserved for the King’s own children.” His blue gaze lights up with hope this time. “Are you two related to the King in some way?”
“No, my Lord,” Lori admits and Carl watches the obvious disappointment on the man’s face. “But the King is very fond of Carl. Why else would he keep him as his cup-bearer for the past four years?”
Because he doesn’t care who pours his wine as long as his cup is always full, Carl thinks though he knows better than to say anything. His mother is doing what she always does, spinning her web to advance their social standing. She has been successful so far, making them ascend from poor refugees who came begging at the gates of Sanctuary eight years ago, to launderess for the royal harem and cup-bearer of the King respectively. And now, she’s working to get them even higher – by securing a match between Carl and the Lord of Hilltop.
She thought it would be easy. Gregory Barrington is well over sixty and a widower for over ten years. He’ll jump at the chance of getting re-married to a young and pretty Omega, especially one who has been serving the King himself, Lori said when she told Carl of her plan. Apparently not.
“I tend to prefer Betas,” Lord Barrington says. “I don’t particularly enjoy the King’s… leftovers.”
Carl goes tense. His heat only announced itself during the night and by morning his mother had come up with a plan to secure him a match. It is noon now, the Lord of Hilltop’s luncheon still only half-eaten when Lori had managed to sweet-talk her way in the guest apartments he was granted on his visit to Sanctuary. But they all know where Carl will be tonight. Where all Omegas go when they have their first heat.
“The King is entitled to the first taste of all the Omegas in the land, my Lord.” This time, Lori’s tone is cold, more vinegar than honey. “My son will perform his duty tonight with great honor, just as countless Omegas have done before him. To suggest otherwise would be treason.”
The Lord of Hilltop blinks, clearly taken aback by Lori’s sudden change of mood. The mention of treason is enough to make his thin face go pale.
“Of course, I never said otherwise,” he rushes to say, blue eyes darting around like he expects someone to pop from behind the curtains of his apartments.
All those who dwell in the Sanctuary fortress know that gossip will spread faster than wildfire and that the King has countless spies around the castle, from cooks to chamber maids and stable boys. People here know better than to badmouth the tradition of the King claiming his share of an Omega’s first heat, but the Lord of Hilltop must be used to his remote mansion in the countryside. There, the terror that their King inspires is more distant than at Sanctuary, where traitors’ bodies swing from the castle walls in the breeze, next to decapitated walkers with their heads mounted on spikes as a warning to all, outsiders and castle inhabitants alike.
“Fine,” Gregory finally says. “I’ll marry the boy. I’ll petition the King this afternoon. Then we can leave for Hilltop once my business here is done.”
Carl’s heart sinks like a stone inside his stomach. Next to him, his mother smiles, and there is a pleased twinkle in her eye that Carl recognizes. She knows something that Lord Barrington doesn’t.
“You honor us, my Lord.”
**
Carl waits for a command, or just an acknowledgement, but none comes. The King’s footsteps echo on the stone floor as he goes straight to his desk, as if he didn’t see that Carl was standing in the middle of the room instead of his usual place – five paces behind the King at all times.
Did the King even notice that his cup-bearer had been replaced for the day? When his heat came during the night, his mother had sent for Patrick to replace him and Carl had to compress four years’ worth of knowledge about the King’s habits into barely a few minutes. The King always rose at dawn and he’d expect to break his fast first thing so time was of the essence. Carl was afraid Patrick wouldn’t be up to the task, still blinking blearily at Carl, his brown curls half pressed against the side of his head, his cheek still bearing the imprint of his pillow. But considering the King’s lack of acknowledgement, maybe Patrick had done such a good job that Carl’s absence wasn’t even noticed. He doesn’t know how he feels about that, about his presence being so inconsequential that any boy able to pitch a flagon of wine could replace him so easily. Relieved, he supposed. Anything is better than to inconvenience the King.
The King’s chair creaks as he sits down, the sound immediately followed by the ruffle of papers and then the quiet scratching of quill on parchment.
Carl waits, his eyes cast down to the floor, to where the fire is sending large shadows dancing across the room. He knows every inch of the King’s bedroom by heart: the rich tapestries on the wall, the massive furniture carved with thousands of tiny details, the large desk by the window sporting heavy leather-bound books, the dark sheets and warm furs on top of the four-poster bed… And yet, when he stepped through the door at sundown, his mother’s excited words about Lord Barrington’s having presented his petition to the King still ringing in his ears, it felt like he saw all of it for the first time.
Because Carl isn’t the King’s cup-bearer tonight. Tonight, he’s an Omega having his first heat.
**
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Carl whines. “I don’t have to get married right away. Sophia isn’t married.”
“Sophia is sixteen,” his mother counters. “She still has time. You’re running out. You’re already old for a cup-bearer. The only reason you’ve been able to last this long is because you haven’t had your heat yet. But now it’s here, and we have to think about the future.”
“Then let’s find someone else,” he implores.
“Hilltop is a rich province. Lord Barrington reports to the King’s right hand directly. We’ll be rich.”
“But—”
“Enough,” Lori interrupts. She meets Carl’s scared eyes and her expression softens. She reaches out and strokes his cheek. “You have to trust me. This heat is a blessing. I’ve been preparing for it for a very long time, I know what I’m doing. I need you to trust me and do as I say,” she insists.
Carl lets out an exhale and automatically leans into her gentle touch. His mother hasn’t steered them wrong so far, even after the deaths of his father and Shane. She got them this far, from the Southern land of Senoia all the way to the kingdom’s capital city. She kept them alive when the dead tried to eat them and the living tried to kill and rob them. She knows best. And whatever plan she is concocting, she’ll tell Carl when the time comes.
**
“Whose idea was it?”
Carl startles. Time passed by slowly, no sound in the room except for the crackling of the fire and the scratching of quill on paper. The King’s deep voice is like a boom of thunder amid a clear sky, frighteningly unexpected.
“Y-Your Grace?” Carl stammers, his eyes still locked on the stone floor. His legs, asleep from kneeling for so long, now start to sting painfully, like a thousand of needle pricks inside his veins.
“The marriage with that old fart from Hilltop. Was it his idea or your mother’s?”
Carl is about to answer before he remembers Lori’s instructions on what to say should the subject of the wedding come up tonight.
It’s a habit by now, to obey his mother word for word, to trust her judgement above all, so he doesn’t think anything of it as he drones, “Mine, your Grace. I love Lord Barrington with all my heart and I am honored he has accepted me as his Omega.”
There is a huff behind him, which Carl recognizes as the King’s laughter.
“That’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all day.”
Carl waits for more but nothing comes. After a few seconds, the quill starts its scratching again.
It’s unnerving, to have the King at his back instead of the other way around. Carl has spent the past four years staring at the back of the King’s head, watching his every move, learning his every habit, from the food he likes to which way he prefers his books arranged on top of his desk. His mother insisted that Carl pay attention to the most minute detail, to the point where the King is now a recurrent appearance in his dreams – always from the back, either hunched over his desk or sprawled on a sofa or briskly walking to the throne room.
Carl knows everything about the King’s back, from the slope of his shoulders to the shiny tips of his slicked back hair to the way Lucille moves against the strides of his tall, tall legs. He knows his voice and his footsteps and his breathing and what he sounds like when he laughs and what he sounds like when he’s angry. And yet, his face is still a mystery, nothing but a blurry memory from when Carl first arrived at the castle, back when he was ten and ran into someone that he only learned later was the most important man in the country – dark hair and dark eyes and dark beard. This was over eight years ago though. The servants aren’t allowed to look at the King directly, the honor reserved for the great Lords and Ladies of the court, not to the wife and son of a distant Sheriff from the southern lands.
Discreetly, Carl resettles where he’s still kneeling in front of the fireplace and prepares to wait for the King to take him to bed.
**
“Honestly, it wasn’t that bad,” Sophia tells him as she helps Carl bathe. Carl never thought he’d need anyone to help him bathe once he was grown enough to do it himself, but he also never thought the first person he would lie with would be the King. His mother gave Sophia stern instructions on not letting Carl out of the bath until every inch of his skin was scrubbed clean.
“It didn’t hurt?”
Sophia makes a face which is answer enough. “It was quick at least,” she says, evidently trying to cheer him up.
Carl doesn’t answer, just keeps rubbing his skin with the lavender soap that his mother paid too much money for. There is no expense too great for the King’s comfort, she said when Carl remarked that a soap from the same artisan that supplied the King’s harem was far above their station. He hates when she does this: spend their hard-earned wages on shallow things which she thinks will make Carl stand out. No matter how many times Carl tells her that the King doesn’t care for how he smells or looks, probably barely even knows who Carl is, his mother still insists on starving herself to make him fit for his title as royal cup-bearer, like Carl is accomplishing some sacred duty instead of trotting five paces behind the King and making sure his glass is never empty.
After, when Carl is dried and dressed, Sophia tells him, “Don’t make the same mistake I did last year. Once the King is done, gather your things and leave, even if you’re still naked.” Catching Carl’s shocked glance, Sophia gives him an embarrassed smile. “I took too long getting dressed after he dismissed me and he got very cross with me. Said he wished to go to sleep without me bothering him.”
Carl swallows uneasily. He knows all too well how quickly the King’s mood can sour, has seen it happen far too often. It never lasts long, though, his foul temper lifting just as rapidly as it came down, too fast for anyone to follow properly. Some would call the King mercurial but if they did, they’d be hanged from the castle walls with their tongue cut out.
“Leave as soon as he’s done. Got it,” he mumbles.
**
The fire has reduced by almost half when the King finally addresses him again.
“Take off your clothes.”
Carl expected those words, has braced himself for them from the moment he entered the King’s bedroom. But that was hours ago. Now, he blinks, dazed, his mind turned sluggish from too much time spent kneeling in silence, lulled into a doze by the hypnotic sound of the King working at his desk.
It takes him long seconds to uncurl his legs and get up. For a moment, he can’t feel his feet underneath him, and he’s afraid he’ll just tip over and make a fool himself, but then the blood rushes to his legs again, and he suddenly feels the painful rush of it underneath his skin, like fire ants crawling all over him.
He tries to make it quick but the pain in his legs is distracting, and he feels clumsy as he removes his clothes, first his belt and his official tabard in the King’s black and gold colors, then his shoes, tunic and trousers. He hesitates when he’s left in his underclothes, goosebumps breaking over his skin now that he only has a thin layer of linen to protect him from the chill of the room.
“Do I need to repeat myself?” the King asks behind him, his voice suddenly cutting.
Carl immediately shakes his head. “No, your Grace. My apologies.”
He pulls his chemise over his head and lets it fall to the ground on top of the rest of his clothes. The fire of the hearth does nothing to protect him from the cold that assails him and his shoulders hunch forward, his whole body now exposed.
Behind him, the chair creaks as the King gets up, quiet footsteps that Carl tracks like a deer on alert for the hunter’s approach. They stop, too far for Carl to pinpoint where the King is standing. He waits for another command but the King remains silent, busy with whatever he’s doing at Carl’s back.
A whiff of something catches his nose and he realizes belatedly that it’s coming from him, from between his legs, his senses still unused to the heat he will now have twice a year for the rest of his child-bearing age. It smells unfamiliar, musky and irony like blood, like metal, and even the lavender soap his mother spent too much money on can’t hide it. Now even more self-conscious than before, he tightens his clasped hands into a bruising grip, afraid that the King will smell it too and be displeased about Carl making a stink.
He’s never been naked in front of anyone who wasn’t his mother or another Omega in years, not since he was thirteen and his designation appeared for the first time. He never cared much about it before, never had any second thought about bathing with all the other servant boys his age. But now, he’s harrowingly aware of the fact that he’s not just a boy among his peers. His body changed when his designation showed, his genitals staying small when his hips grew wider, but other parts of him never seemed to catch on with the fact that he became an Omega, like his hair, which he knows is too dark, his hands and feet, which are too big, or his height, which is too tall and makes him look oafish compared to the other Omegas.
Carl never thought much about his appearance until now, but it’s all he can think of in this instant – how his body might appear grotesque to the King, whose harem is exclusively filled with the most beautiful Omegas in the land. He thinks about Amber, who used to be a launderess with his mother and who shared a room with Carl and Sophia until her own first heat, when she apparently pleased the King so much that he made her a concubine in his harem after spending the night together. Amber was as tall as he is but her proportions were better, her figure pleasing and graceful as she moved, and her long blond hair shone like gold under even the grayest of skies. Even Sophia for all that she has mousy blond hair and bony limbs, is still praised by the old spinsters working in the kitchen as delightfully petite.
Standing in the middle of the King’s bedroom, the firelight casting bizarre shadows on every plane and valley of his body, all the hair on his skin standing up and his nipples pebbling from the cold, Carl suddenly feels… ashamed. He swallows heavily but his tongue is dry, a series of knot tying his throat, constricting his lungs and squeezing his stomach.
He doesn’t know how long he stays like this, naked in the silent room, not even the scratching of a quill to help him pretend that he isn’t being inspected, the same way Lord Barrington assessed his teeth earlier. Carl has always known that he’s nothing but a body to the Lords of the court. That is what a servant is, after all. A body meant to perform tasks, like filling a King’s cup and fetching him his meal and gathering his plates when he’s done eating. Cup-bearer to the King is one of the most honored positions a common boy like him can hope for and he likes it well enough, likes spending his days in the King’s bedroom or in the throne room, listening to the King’s commanding voice, knowing that he’s doing his part, however small it might be, in making the King’s day easier. After four years watching the back of the King, Carl has become familiar with the burden that is kingship, and he likes knowing that by being a faithful servant, he might ease some tiny part of it. In spite of his volcanic temper, the King has never been cruel to him, and because he never finishes his plates, Carl is always eating his leftovers when he brings them back to the kitchen. Eight years ago, he and his mother were starving on the road after the Great Plague suddenly made the dead rise from their grave and fall upon the living like ravenous packs of wolves, but now here he is, gorging himself on the King’s half-eaten lemon cakes.
He has always been grateful for it, for this position the King picked him for, among all the other youth at the castle. And ever since he declared as an Omega, he knew this day would happen to him, like it did to Sophia and Amber before him.
He just never expected to feel like a piece of meat hung and left to cure in the middle of the room when it happened.
Tears suddenly well up in his eyes and Carl bites his tongue to force them away. He will not cry. Not here, when the King is watching the display of his nakedness and assessing whether he’s worthy of his time. The King has denied himself his bounty only once before, when the son of one of his Generals got his first heat at eleven, much earlier than the norm, and even then, the King still asked to have the boy brought to him when he turned fifteen. Carl cannot be the first Omega that the King turns away. If he is, all in the castle will know, and any hope of a match will die, no matter how many pretty lies his mother spins.
“Get on the bed,” the King finally says and Carl can’t tell if his stomach flips in relief or anticipation.
**
“He will mount you from behind and spill his seed inside you,” his mother says as she brushes Carl’s hair. She’s using the silver and mother-of-pearl comb that Carl’s father gave her on their wedding night, the only relic from their past that she refused to sell when they fled Senoia. “But you won’t get pregnant. It’s your first heat so you won’t become fertile until it’s done. This is why the King gets to have you before your husband does. Just let him take his pleasure. Show him how agreeable you are, how honored you feel to be in his bed. An Omega’s first heat is the King’s bounty and no one else’s.”
**
He turns, the stone floor deadly cold under his feet, sending shivers up his spine, and he climbs on the bed, assumes the position his mother told him about, on all fours, hands and legs spread, head cast down.
The furs on top of the King’s bed are slightly rough under his palms but softer underneath that first coat, the dark tips of the bristle turning to a downy gray where his fingertips sink inside. They smell like the King’s bedroom, only stronger, a mix of acrid firewood, cold metal and those heady oils that the King uses on his beard and hair, the names of which Carl always gets mixed up, some exotic spices that are brought along the river on huge ships with their cargo laden from foreign goods.
Show him how agreeable you are, he thinks, but the meaning of the words escapes him. Tears threaten to come back and he’s grateful that his face is angled down, away from the sight of the King as he squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lower lip. Then, he remembers what Sophia said, about how it didn’t last long when she was the one in his position last year. He clings to it, to when the King will be done and Carl will be able to gather his clothes and run out of the room. At least he knows the King, knows this bedroom, this smell that wafts from the furs under his palms, which is more than he can say for what awaits him later, once Lord Barrington whisks him miles away to Hilltop. It helps, to know that this first time will not be with a complete stranger with beady blue eyes and fingers that smell of pigeon meat, and Carl manages to keep breathing without bursting into tears.
The footsteps start again, closer now as the King approaches. There is a metal clinking that he recognizes after a beat as the King unbuckling his first belt, the one holding his great sword Lucille. Carl has seen the King do this enough that he can conjure the image from memory alone, his tall back clad in dark leather as he carefully sets her close to the bed, within reach of him at all times. The King keeps his concubines and wives in the harem but the sword he named after the late Queen is always by his side, closer and more faithful to him than any Lord or servant. Then, there’s another metallic clink – the King’s second belt, the one sporting his dagger – followed by the quiet snick of clasps unbuckling – his leather doublet, Carl assumes – and ruffle of layers being shed. He’s not sure why the King isn’t calling for his valet to undress him, but he’s grateful for this coincidence, so that no one else has to bear witness to him waiting naked on all fours atop the King’s bed.
Carl keeps waiting for the moment when the King will climb on the bed with him, mount him like his mother and Sophia told him about, but he’s confused when the footsteps – softer now that the King has removed his boots – retreat instead of coming closer. There is a series of new sounds he can’t identify but which remind him of glasses clinking against each other.
He’s still trying to identify the source of the noise when suddenly a hand grabs him by the ankle, skin on skin, and Carl jumps as he gets roughly pulled backward. A shocked gasp escapes him as he scrambles to get his bearing, but it’s useless and he just ends up flat on his stomach as he slides along the furs. The hand leaves him when his feet are dangling over the edge of the bed and Carl tries to get back into position but a hand pushes at the center of his spine, forcing him back down.
“Keep still,” the King admonishes, like Carl is being needlessly stubborn.
He freezes, afraid of messing up even further, and just stays where he is, face pressed against the furs that smell so much like the King, uncomfortably aware of the rough bristles tickling the soft skin of his nipples and genitals. His belly churns and he feels like one of the pinned frogs that the King’s physician keeps in his laboratory and that nearly made him throw up when he was brought there two years ago, when he caught a coughing fit and the King sent him to his personal physician to assess whether Carl was about to contaminate him with some sickness. The order might have been callous and selfish, but Carl was all too grateful to see the royal physician for free rather than have his mother spend more her wages on those healers at the marketplace of the citadel, two out of three selling snake oil and toad’s drool as miracle remedies.
He startles when something wet suddenly trickles over his ass.
“What did I just say?” the King growls.
“I – I’m sorry, your Grace,” Carl squeaks, trying to quiet the panicked flutter of his heart as more liquid drips down between his cheeks. Lori and Sophia never told him about this. They just said the King might check him with his fingers before getting inside but nothing like this.
The mattress tips near his right knee, then his left, and there’s a rush of air as the King is now above him, his warm breath ruffling Carl’s hair. The King’s hand appears in front of his eyes, big and tan and right next to Carl’s own among the fur. He instinctively withdraws his hand and brings it closer to his face, his whole body hunching in on himself, making himself as small as possible, but it does little when the King is so close he can feel the warmth of his body only inches above him.
He’s so focused on the King’s hand in front of him – on the golden skin made even darker by the fire glow, the big veins snaking along the top, the long fingers with black hair dusting the knuckles, the clean round nails the King keeps short – his soul nearly jumps out of his body when the King’s other hand wraps around his hip, so hot it feels like a brand on Carl’s cold and naked skin, and pulls him up, forcing Carl to bear on his knees and rise his backside in the air.
All the breath freezes in his lungs when his cheeks bump against the King’s– something, just a flash of warm and slightly sticky flesh before Carl immediately plasters himself down on the fur again, terrified that he touched the King.
He immediately regrets it when the King clicks his tongue, obviously annoyed. “Seven hells. Hasn’t your mother explained to you what this is?”
It takes a beat too long for Carl’s mouth to move, for his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth. “Sh—She has, your G—Grace.”
“Then why do you keep fighting it? Just stay still, damn it. I feel like I’m wrangling a wet fish.”
The King’s deep voice is chastising and Carl withers. He murmurs an apology and decides it’s safer to close his eyes and go limp. He keeps all his focus on his limbs, forcing them to be lax as the King grabs him once more, angling Carl’s ass up and against his–
Carl squeezes his jaw shut, biting back the whimper that threatens to spill when the King’s hard flesh slides between his cheeks, spreading the wetness he put there. His shaft feels soft and slightly slippery as it ruts along Carl’s taint, the smoothness of it a stark contrast to the rough drag of pubic hair tickling his tailbone. Soon, their skins are gliding against each other with no resistance, whatever the King used making everything oily and tacky. There’s no pain while the King does this, and Carl is almost hoping that Sophia was wrong, that it won’t hurt when the King slides in.
He flinches when the King unexpectedly stops, the hand on Carl’s hip moving, and suddenly something pokes at his entrance. A finger, he recognizes, and it takes all he has not to squirm when it pushes inside, each knuckle stretching him as it sinks in.
“See?” the King rumbles and Carl automatically opens his eyes at the sound of his voice. “Nothing to be afraid of. You were made for this.”
Carl blinks, his mind muddled with panic. Everything feels foreign, like fear has cast a spell on his eyes and he doesn’t recognize any of his surroundings, not the large hearth made of carved stone and not the voice of the King, deeper and breathier than he remembered.
The finger inside him pulls out and Carl’s pelvis automatically follows until it pops past his rim. He hides a wince of discomfort into the fur.
“Good,” the King says, and Carl doesn’t know what he did to earn the praise, but before he can find the answer, the tip of the King’s cock is suddenly pushing at his hole, knuckles bumping against his cheek where the King must be holding himself with a fist wrapped around the base.
It’s larger than a finger. So large Carl is convinced it will never get in, not without splitting him clean in half. Out of nowhere, Carl thinks of that knight from Alexandria, the one with the fiery hair and beard who refused to kneel in front of the King after his land was annexed to the kingdom of Sanctuary. He was brought to the throne room, in chains, and given one last chance to acknowledge the King as his new sovereign in front of the whole court. When he refused and spat his contempt, the King took Lucille and let it fall on his head, so brutally that the great sword sliced through him like warm butter, his entire body cleft in two.
It’s that bloody spectacle that now replays in front of Carl's eyes as the King forces his way in. It’s a terrifying image and Carl tries with all his might to open his body, to show the King that any resistance he finds there is no fault of his own, but with every second that passes he can feel the King’s frustration growing, the jerk of his hips turning rougher as he keeps shoving the head of his cock forward.
Without warning, the King pushes him down, the great bulk of his body pressing Carl even harder into the furs beneath, until he’s almost smothered by the bristles filling his nostrils, their animal musk more concentrated where the roots meet the tanned hide. Against his ear, the King huffs a half-groaned curse, clearly losing patience, and his movements turn shorter, more erratic.
Carl could cry when the head finally slips through – and he can feel the King relaxing over him, the great sigh he heaves where his torso rests on top of Carl's, that same sigh he lets out after a long day of difficult meetings and audiences, when it’s just him and Carl left in the room and he leans back on his chair and his joints pop from exhaustion – but his relief is short-lived, quickly turning to ash under the burning pain of his rim stretched past its ability.
“Tight fit,” the King groans in his ear.
Carl can barely make sense of the word, his eyes filling up with salty tears, his vision so blurred he can’t even see the King’s hand resting in front of his face. He thinks he hiccups an apology, but he can barely hear himself over the pounding of his heart, the rush of his blood at his temples. The pain is like a blade spearing him through the ass, like those suckling pigs that get skewered and roasted over the fire, their tender meat glistening with fat as they’re served to the King’s table with an apple stuck in their mouths. That’s how Carl feels right now, like he’s being skewered and roasted, his skin blistering hot where he’s crushed between the furs and the King’s warm body.
There’s another push, this one even more excruciating as the King slides deeper in, and Carl is certain he’s about to break, to be ripped at the seams, but suddenly he feels the King’s sack rest against the curve of his ass and everything stops, harrowing pain turning into a dull throb as his rim keeps clenching around the intrusion, like a hungry mouth failing to close around a too-full bite.
“Gods.” The King’s breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and Carl feels everything inside him twist when a pair of lips closes around the lobe, wet tongue sucking at it. A nip of teeth before it stops and the King pants, “You—”
Carl waits, trying to focus on the King’s voice to distract himself from the pain, but nothing comes.
Instead, the King starts to move, a slow grind at first, but then quicker as he starts to jostle Carl with his hips, the bottom half of his body rocking while his torso keeps Carl pinned to the bed. For a little while, he’s busy getting used to those strange sensations, to having someone reach parts of him he didn’t even know he had, but quickly, too quickly, the King’s pace starts to quicken, his pelvis churning, his dick stabbing Carl almost violently as he pants and groans wet puffs of breath against the side of his face.
Please, let it end, Carl thinks. Sophia said it would be quick but all notions of time are too complex for him to track when the pain is enough to make him want to scream. Please, just let it end.
He doesn’t expect it when the King suddenly pulls out, and Carl is so shocked by it, by the sudden emptiness inside of him, that he doesn’t react at first, too confused by the fact that it’s apparently over.
Except, it isn’t, because the King grabs his shoulder and flips him on his back, so fast that Carl’s teary eyes look straight at him for a second – his mind registering nothing more than a blurry face with black and silver hair and a short beard – before he averts his gaze. The sight that greets him then is so surprising, so utterly perplexing, that it takes him long seconds to realize what’s happening, what he’s looking at when the King pushes his thighs open and slots himself between them, hard shaft using Carl as a sheath once more.
It’s him. The person looking back at him is him.
Carl frowns, blinks away the tears that roll down his temples and disappear into the sweaty strands of his hair. His vision clears enough for him to understand what’s happening, his brain so busy making sense of what’s in front of him that he feels barely a twinge of pain when the King starts moving again inside him.
A mirror. There’s a mirror on top of the King’s bed, affixed to the upper panel of the four-poster bed. Carl never noticed it before, hidden as it is by the long velvet curtains that surround the bed, but the whole canopy is a mirror, its edges slightly tarnished, but its center still polished enough for Carl to see himself – or rather the parts of himself that poke from underneath the King’s long body.
Carl’s gaze, until now stuck to his own flushed and disheveled face, falls to the King, to the back of the head that he knows so well, the King’s dark slicked back hair that curl behind his nape and around his ears. Every thing below the King’s neck is a foreign sight, however, and Carl wonders at it, at the wide pane of the King’s naked shoulders, at the long arch of his spine, at his flat backside that rocks as he keeps fucking into Carl, the cheeks jiggling slightly as his hairy thighs flex to guide his movements.
Carl is so amazed by this, by this almost sacrilegious sight, that he realizes several minutes later that there’s barely any pain, nothing but a distant echo of discomfort. The King’s body is warm on top of him, his slightly soft stomach pushing at Carl’s genitals, squeezing them between their bodies. His face is tucked in the crook of Carl’s neck, the scratch of his beard teasing the skin there, his nose pressed right behind Carl’s right ear as he breathes loudly in and out, and the feel of it stirs something inside Carl, something warm and liquid that spreads through him as he watches himself get fucked by the King.
When he’s dressed, the King is a tall and terrifying presence, so big and majestic that Carl never dared look at him directly, always focusing on his hands or his shoulders or the back of his head instead. But the man chasing his pleasure between Carl’s legs is naked, his golden skin and surprisingly thin limbs dotted with dark markings that Carl recognizes from the Saviors that make up the King’s army, abstract drawings made from needles dipped in ink and poked through the skin during a long and painful process. He doesn’t look like a King as he fucks his hard dick inside Carl. Instead, he looks like any soldier of Sanctuary, groaning his way to orgasm between the legs of a common serving boy who agreed to have him for a few coins.
Except Carl isn’t some kitchen wench bought to spread his legs. And this isn’t some common soldier rutting inside him. This is a King. The King. Carl’s King. And Carl is the one in his bed, with the softest of pelts at his back, watching himself get fucked on a mirror so big it probably took months to make and no doubt costs more money than Carl and his mother will ever make in their life. He’s the one responsible for those breathy moans and guttural groans coming out of the King. He’s the reason the King’s thrusts are turning erratic, sharp stabs of his hips so quick that Carl is jostled like a ragdoll, each one sending him slightly higher up the bed, inch by inch, a stop-and-start journey that he watches from the mirror above them.
“Fuck!” the King suddenly shouts and Carl sees his spine tense, his whole body going taut and rigid as his shaft pulses inside Carl. There are dimples on the King’s tailbone, right on top of his cheeks, and Carl watches them, watches the flesh of his backside, which is several shades paler than the rest of his body, flex as he shoves forward once, twice, three times, like he’s trying to reach the deepest part of Carl to leave his seed there, so high up it can never come back down.
There is a strange sensation pulling at his rim, tugging at it, but the King pulls out before he can identify it, his hand going down to wrap around himself, and Carl has to avert his eyes and turn his head toward the fireplace to avoid catching a glimpse of the King’s face.
Without the weight of the King on top of him, Carl realizes that his body is cold and sore, the tips of his fingers and toes icy even as his back and ass are chafed nearly raw from the rough drag of the furs along his skin. The worst of it is in his ass, though, his abused rim clenching around nothing, his insides twisting and churning from the sudden emptiness of his channel.
In front of him, the King gets up from the bed and pads his way across the room, to the pitcher of wine that Carl is usually in charge of. He almost wants to follow the King and fill his cup for him but of course he doesn’t move, not until the King tells him to.
“Are you thirsty?” the King asks.
The question is so surprising that Carl blinks at the logs in the hearth, their surface now cracked white with ash in the middle of the bright flames. “No. Thank you, your Grace.”
He waits to be dismissed but the King doesn’t speak again, just drinks from his cup before setting it back down on the table, the heavy gold thudding against the wood. More footsteps as the King makes his way back to the bed, and Carl waits, his nipples so tight from the chill in the room that it’s almost painful.
His pulse quickens when the mattress dips and the King climbs back into bed, no doubt ready to sleep. Carl is about to get up, gather his clothes and exit the room like Sophia instructed him, but he freezes when the King throws one arm across his belly and drags him back toward him, until he’s plastered against Carl’s back, his soft genitals nestled between Carl’s cheeks, his breath warm and sour-sweet from wine against his neck. The King doesn’t say a word.
**
“Finally,” Lori greets him when Carl enters their cramped room in the servant’s quarters. “You stayed for so long, I was wondering if the King would let you leave before morning. Tell me everything,” she says in a hush, mindful of Sophia and her mother sleeping in their cots behind the meager bedsheet they use as a privacy curtain.
“I’m sorry, I had to wait until the King was asleep.” It took long hours, the fire nearly extinguished when the King finally started to snore and his arms went lax over Carl’s torso, letting him slip out and grab his clothes, with only the dying embers inside the hearth to guide him toward the door.
“You were there for hours. I take it the King was satisfied?” she asks, looking very pleased in the light of the single candle next to her bed. Then, before Carl can answer, she asks eagerly, “How many times did the King have you?”
“I—Once,” Carl answers, puzzled by her question.
His mother looks equally confused by his answer. “Only once? But you were there for almost the entire night.”
“He worked for a long time when I was there. And then when he finally… took me to bed, he…” Carl blows a frustrated breath, less skilled than Lori at spinning the vulgar into something elegant. “He performed and then went to sleep.”
“…That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it.” Carl doesn’t understand the disappointment on his mother’s face.
“I don’t understand,” she says, and Carl doesn’t understand either. He did his duty. He satisfied the King. And now he’s free to marry Gregory Barrington and go to Hilltop. He thought she’d be happy but instead Lori looks crestfallen. “I don’t understand,” she repeats but this time she’s looking at the wall instead of at Carl, like she’s talking to herself. “I was so sure. After what happened with Amber, I—And the way he looks at—I just don’t understand. I could have sworn he—”
Carl watches her bury her face in her hands, nothing but nonsensical fragments coming out of her mouth.
“What’s happening?” he finally asks after long seconds. “Did I—Did I do something? I did everything you said. When he asked me about the Lord of Hilltop, I said exactly what you told me to.”
His mother looks up at this, and Carl is relieved to find her eyes dry. “Right,” she says flatly. “Well, at least there’s that. That old weasel will have to do.” She ignores the bewildered look that Carl sends her and instead blows out the candle, plunging them into darkness. “Just go to sleep. All will be well. We still have the Hilltop.”
**
“That one is ripped,” Sophia remarks, brandishing a linen chemise with a hole in the middle.
She blinks when Carol takes it from her and folds it with care. “It’s not ripped. It’s a bridal shift. It’s what you wear on your wedding night.”
“But why is there a hole in the—Oh.” Her frowns clears with understanding and she sends Carl an uncomfortable glance.
Carl’s stomach twists but he tries to convince himself it’s just hunger. It’s past dawn. Carol, Sophia and Lori are packing his things before the work day starts. The King will give a ruling on Lord Barrington’s marriage petition after breakfast, and Lori wants him to be ready should the Lord of Hilltop wish to depart the Sanctuary before lunch. Carl watches the preparations made on his behalf with a distracted mind, his focus elsewhere.
Patrick will be up already, going down to the kitchens to fetch the King’s first meal of the day. The King is an early riser and his new cup-bearer will be the one filling his glass when he wakes.
There is a hard knock on the door and Carol says, “That will be Barbara. I asked her to—”
Before she can edge in another word, the door suddenly swings open, far too forcefully for the meek Barbara, and they all turn toward—
Carol lets out a shrill cry, immediately followed by Sophia’s own terrified squeal. Carl just has time to catch a glimpse of a black shadow on his peripheral vision before his mother’s hand shoots out to grip his head, forcing him down on his knees. Around him, he sees Sophia and her mother similarly throw themselves down, so fast that their knees hit the stone floor of their room with a hard thump.
It’s the smell that hits him first, an Alpha smell so strong and masculine that it immediately fills their small chamber, followed by the footsteps he could recognize in his sleep.
The King.
For a second, Carl is certain he must have gone mad from hunger and lack of sleep. There’s no other explanation as to why the King would be here, down in the servants’ quarters, so many levels under his own bedchambers, in the little room where all of their undergarments are drying on a clothesline.
“Out,” he says and Carl’s entire body shivers from the King’s voice. “All but him.”
Carol and Sophia immediately scamper to their feet, keeping their heads bent low to avoid looking at the King as they squeeze past him and out the door.
His mother stays where she is, her fingers tightening around the nape of Carl’s neck.
“Your Grace,” she says, the slightly breathy tone of her voice the only thing betraying her anxiety. “Please, have mercy on a poor mother. If my son has displeased you in any way, I—”
“Do I really need to repeat myself?” the King asks, the threat in his voice cutting sharper than Lucille.
From the corner of his eyes, Carl sees his mother’s shoulders sag, her head bending lower.
“No, your Grace,” she murmurs. Her fingers linger on Carl’s skin for a second before she rises up and makes her exit.
There’s a hollow sound as the King kicks the door closed and then silence, so heavy and deafening that Carl’s ears ring from it. His blood grows cold in his vein when he hears the King unsheathe his sword. Sir Abraham’s cleft face flashes in front of his eyes.
“Hands out on the floor in front of you.”
Carl is surprised to find himself obeying before his mind even registers the words, like his soul has left his body entirely and he’s watching it happen to somebody else.
The King steps forward until the shiny toes of his boots appear in Carl’s field of vision. The point of his great sword stabs the stone an inch away from his fingers.
“Who are you?”
Unlike when the King ordered him to prostate himself, this question sparks no reaction, instead bouncing mindlessly inside him like the inflated pig’s bladder he used to kick around as a child in Senoia.
After a beat of silence, Carl forces his lips to move. “I—I don’t understand, your Grace.”
“It’s a simple question. Who are you?”
“I’m Carl, your Grace.” Then, just to be sure, he adds, “Your cup-bearer.”
“And who am I?”
This is a dream, Carl thinks. Surely he’s still asleep and this all the fanciful product of his overexcited mind.
“You’re the King, your Grace.”
“Good,” the King says but the praise sounds cold, nothing like the warmth of last night. “See, when I woke up this morning, I had a doubt. Because you,” he lifts the sword and points it straight at Carl, the sharp tip just brushing the fringe of his long hair, “weren’t in my bed, even though I have no memory of dismissing you last night.”
Realization falls down on him like a shower of tar, slow and burning hot enough to scald the skin clean off the bones. He didn’t. The King never dismissed him. And Carl left anyway, because Sophia told him the King hated to be disturbed in his sleep. Except Sophia had gotten a clear leave. Carl hadn’t.
The sword grazes his forehead when he throws himself belly down on the floor. “I’m sorry, your Grace,” he implores, his heart beating so hard in his throat he has to clench his jaw to stop himself from puking it out at the King’s feet. “I—I’m so sorry. I thought—I thought I was going to disturb you and I—I’m so sorry,” he repeats, tears welling up in his eyes.
But apologies are no use. He disobeyed his King. There is only one punishment for that.
Carl squeezes his eyes shut, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. At least he won’t have to marry Lord Barrington now, though the thought brings only a meagre comfort compared to the grief that will fall on his mother when she finds her only son bloodied and hacked to pieces on the floor of their room.
“I accept your apology.”
Carl is so haunted by the horrific vision of his own body cleft in two like Sir Abraham’s that it takes a long second for the words to register. When they do, his eyes fly open and he takes a trembling breath.
In front of him, the King steps back, turns, makes for the door, only to stop halfway there. Through the salt stinging his eyes, Carl sees the point of his sword pick up one of the clothes that his mother was in the process of packing. His bridal shift, he recognizes distantly.
The King huffs a laugh before letting the linen fall down in a heap.
“Tell your mother to unpack your stuff. I’m denying Gregory’s petition for marriage. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve proven you know how to obey your King.”
“I—Yes, your Grace,” Carl stammers, but it’s too late.
The King is already gone.