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It had been over a decade since he left, but the castle loomed just the same, high on the hill like no time had passed at all. Dan hesitated for a moment, pulling back on the reins of his horse just to take in the sight.
The whispered rumors had picked up in every tavern Dan had passed through on the way as he got closer. The princess locked away in the tallest tower of the castle. The king’s omega son, imprisoned for refusing every mate selected by the king. Dan’s former best friend, trapped and alone, with no other options for rescue than one overly ambitious knight-errant.
Dan pulled himself out of his wandering thoughts and continued on towards the castle. He wasn’t expecting so many sights to hit him with memories he’d thought were long forgotten.
To the west was the edge of the woods where he and Phil ran away to play knight and outlaw as kids. Just beyond the castle, a flume of smoke rose from the shop of the blacksmith who Dan had once begged for a pair of toy swords. Over to the left were the old farmer’s fields with the big hay bales that were fun to play hide-and-seek in at first and much more fun to make out in when they got older.
Dan kept his visor down over his face as he rode through the castle gates with just a cursory nod at the guards. One was young, but Dan was surprised to recognize Robert next to him, his hair now completely white from the salt-and-pepper Dan remembered. Robert made no sign he’d recognized Dan and simply waved him past as soon as he saw the dark armor and well-polished emblem on Dan’s shield.
No doors were closed for the Black Knight, not even the doors to the king’s castle.
Dan had expected it, of course, but it was still a little gratifying to see his fame had reached all the way back to where he’d started. Giant slayer, dragon tamer, and monster hunter of legend. Only half the stories told about him were true, but he liked it that way. Even the bards’ tales that gave him a mysterious lady love in whose name all these heroics were done served their purpose by giving him an easy excuse when one grateful lord or another would try to offer up their eligible omegas to him.
Dan preferred the other tales, the ones that cast him as heartless heart-breaker. He embraced the moniker of the Black Knight, painted his armor to match, and perfected the art of not giving a damn any more. It was easier to just act like he didn’t have a heart at all.
He did it so well he was starting to believe it was true. But here he was, after having run so far without looking back, and now what he thought was solid ice in his chest was starting to show cracks.
Because over there, just past the gatehouse, was the courtyard that he and Phil had chased each other around until Phil tripped and scraped his knee and had to limp over to the kitchens so the cook could put a poultice on it. And over by the kitchen windows was the half-wall that he and Phil climbed and played on, pulling stones out at random to stack them up again until the structure collapsed on itself. And just behind the well was the bench that Phil had carried him to when he’d gotten in an ill-conceived fistfight with a squire three years older and a full head taller than him.
Dan wondered idly what had happened to that squire, if he was a knight now, and whether he was still as big of a bully all these years later.
It didn’t really matter; that wasn’t what Dan was here for. Dan rode his horse on towards the stables where he dismounted and handed the reins to an eager stableboy. Had Dan’s eyes ever been quite that big and guileless when he’d been in those shoes? Surely not. Dan lifted his visor up to give the boy a warm smile. None of the knights he’d hero-worshipped as a child had even given him the time of day, but he could do this small kindness now.
“I don’t expect to be long, so keep him saddled.” In truth, Dan didn’t know how long his mission would take, but it was best to plan for a quick getaway just the same. “Thank you,” he added. “I can see he’s in good hands.”
The stableboy’s cheeks turned pink. “Yes, Sir Knight.”
Dan tossed the boy a coin before flipping his visor back down and heading to the castle’s keep. A couple of servants looked like they wanted to interrupt his path but none actually dared to and so he walked into the great hall unaccosted.
The mid-day feast was already well on its way, the king seated at the high table with all his weaselly courtiers. Dan scanned over the rest of the room quickly. He didn’t expect to see Phil, but he still felt disappointed.
The hall slowly fell silent as more of the court noticed the Black Knight’s arrival. Dan ignored most of them, striding right ahead until he stood in front of the king, only the table between them.
“Sir Knight, welcome! We’ve of course heard tell of your many mighty deeds,” the king drawled drunkenly.
“Sire,” Dan returned. He inclined his head just a little, a bare hint of the bow that etiquette demanded. He had no interest in submitting to another alpha, even if it was feigned courtly submission to a king. Especially not to this king.
The king didn’t seem to notice. “Would you join our feast? We have wine and mead aplenty.”
“No, I won’t be long. I’d like to see the princess.”
The king had been gulping from his goblet and nearly choked at those words. “Philip? He won’t see you. He won’t see anyone.”
“I’d still like to.”
The king frowned. “He’s rejected eight earls, three dukes, and one prince just this month!”
Dan put a little more of an alpha growl into his voice. “He won’t reject me.”
He was bluffing, of course, but he figured Phil would at least be willing to speak to him. He hoped Phil would still be willing to speak to him, after how it all ended.
The king bristled visibly at the challenge in Dan’s tone but caved just the same. “Very well. I’ll take you to him.”
The king led Dan to the base of the tower. The narrow spiral stairs proved a challenge for the king’s inebriated state, testing Dan’s patience, but it wasn’t worth it to push past the king now and start an unnecessary confrontation. When they finally, finally made it to the top, the king swaying and out of breath, Dan moved past him to lift the heavy bar from the door. But when he tried to open the door, it remained stubbornly closed.
The king rapped his knuckles on it loudly. “Philip, my dear!” he called. “Unlock the door! I have a visitor for you!”
“Go away!”
It was the first time Dan heard Phil’s voice in far too long, and even muffled through the door it was the sweetest sound he’d heard.
“You don’t even want to know who it is?” the king asked. He was trying to feign incredulity, but Dan wasn’t fooled—this had happened before, many times. Even past the alcohol fumes, it was obvious how much fury was curdling the king’s scent. “You sent the Duke of Fairbanks away without even a word last week! I won’t let you do it again.”
“I don’t care!”
“You should! You’ll care if I get the blacksmith up here to take that lock off your door once and for all!”
Something shattered on the other side of the door. “That was just the first plate,” Phil warned coldly. “And I’ll break them all if you break down the door.” Another shattered right after.
The king swore through his teeth, forgetting himself, before glancing at Dan apologetically. “The last suitor’s betrothal gift,” he said. “Twenty hand-painted plates of imported porcelain. They’re worth half a fortune, and the stupid bitch—”
That was as much as Dan could stand. “I’ll try myself,” he said, pushing the king to the side. When the king made no move towards the stairs, he drew himself up to his full height and loomed as menacingly as he could. “Alone.”
“Ah, yes, yes of course, Sir Knight.” The king backed up, almost bowing on instinct in his haste. “I’ll, uh, just be downstairs. Do let me know if you want to call the blacksmith. I’m at my wit’s end with Philip, I truly am.”
Dan didn’t even want to dignify that with a response. He bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile instead and gave the king a terse nod. He wasn’t sure what his scent was doing, but he stopped trying to control it as much as he had been and let his emotions flood the small stairway, which finally chased the king away.
He waited for the king’s footsteps to stop echoing and then counted slowly to one hundred, trying to rein his emotions back in. The last thing he wanted was to see Phil for the first time smelling like an angry, aggressive alpha.
When he thought it was safe, he stepped up to the door and knocked again. “Phil. It’s me. The king’s gone.”
A sharp inhale. “Dan?”
“Yep. Can we talk?”
The lock clicked and the door swung open.
Twenty-five years ago
When Dan opened the large chest, there was already another boy inside, looking up at him with wide eyes.
Dan didn’t have time to waste. Wallace and his friends would be rounding the corner any moment. Dan had already gotten caught by them once this week and his black eye was only just starting to fade.
“Move over,” he hissed and jumped into the chest, knocking knees with the other boy in his haste to get the lid closed over the top of them.
It was harder to get situated in the dark, but Dan didn’t care. He curled up as small as he could, pushing into the wall of the chest and trying not to kick the other kid too badly in the process.
“Hi,” the other boy said after a moment. “I’m Phil. Who—”
“Shhh!” Dan glared in the direction of the boy, even knowing it was too dark to see. Didn’t this Phil know how to hide from bullies?
They sat in tense silence as Dan listened for any sign of Wallace. Eventually there was a rowdy stampede of footsteps down the hall, but no one stopped by the chest or tried to open it. Dan waited for as long as he could stand to wait, hoping it was long enough for everyone to be gone.
Finally, he risked slowly cracking the lid open to peek out. The hall was empty. He was safe.
In the dim light, he could finally get a good look at his new neighbor in their shared hiding place. The boy looked small, but something about his face made Dan think he was a little older. He had a strangely open expression on his face, like he wasn’t even worried about who Dan was or what he might want. Just curious and surprised.
“What are you doing here?” Dan asked. He thought he’d met all the children living in the castle—the cook’s daughter helping out in the kitchens, the handful of pages led by Wallace, and the gaggle of maids-in-training all too happy to ignore the grubby stableboy.
“I’m playing hide-and-seek,” Phil said.
Dan blinked. “So someone’s seeking you right now?”
“Well… sort of. Master Hubert’s definitely looking for me. But he doesn’t know I’m playing.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s supposed to be my grammar lesson right now, but Master Hubert’s so boring and doesn’t even really notice if I’m there half the time because he never looks up from his book so I snuck out because I wanted to play but I didn’t know anyone to play with so I’m just hiding.” Phil delivered the whole sentence in one breath and then flashed Dan a beaming smile. “But now you’re here! So we can play together.”
Dan stared back, trying to put the pieces together into something that would make the slightest bit of sense. Phil’s clothing was far too nice to be a servant’s, which made sense if he was rich enough to have grammar lessons and tutors. There were plenty of nobles coming and going at the king’s court, but they rarely brought their children along unless they were old enough to be pages or ladies-in-waiting.
It would come to him later, the obvious answer, but right then it didn’t really matter. There was a friendly boy looking at him, waiting for a reply, who didn’t want to laugh at him or hurt him or belittle him even after seeing how worn his clothes were and how much he smelled of horses.
“Yeah, let’s play together,” Dan said.
Phil’s face lit up even further, smiling like Dan had given him the greatest gift of all. “Great! This means we’re friends now, right?”
Who was Dan to reject such an invitation? He didn’t exactly have an abundance of friends himself. No one had ever asked him something like this before.
“Sure, we can be friends,” he said and didn’t think too much about how a stableboy and a rich kid could possibly stay friends for very long.
Now
Dan froze. He’d thought about this moment so often on his journey, wondering what Phil would look like now, if he’d changed, how he’d look at Dan. If he thought Dan had changed too much, or not enough.
If he would forgive Dan.
All those thoughts flew out of his mind as soon as he saw Phil standing there in the doorway. Here, now, just as radiant after all those years. Time had passed, to be sure—the edges of his face were just a bit sharper now, having lost some of its roundness, and his hair fell in fluffier wisps onto his forehead. The high-collared pink dress he wore shed an extra rosiness onto his snow-white skin. He looked angelic.
What really got to Dan, though, was how as soon as the door opened it suddenly smelled like home. Slightly citrusy with a hint of rose, the whole air in the room beyond the doorway saturated in Phil’s scent. Dan leaned in on instinct, but Phil stepped back away from him.
“You’re the Black Knight?”
Dan winced. He’d forgotten he was here incognito. He didn’t want—or need—to hide his face from Phil, though, so he removed his helm, cradling it under his arm.
“You’ve heard about me, then?” He watched Phil’s expression carefully, trying to get any sense of what was beyond those ocean-blue eyes.
“Everyone’s heard about you. It’s all anyone can talk about.” Phil gave him a long look and then shrugged. “Well, come in, then.”
He stepped back further into the room, leaving plenty of space between them even as Dan followed in. The whole tower was one octagonal room with just a single window, barred with vertical bars as if Phil would ever in his life try to climb out a window fifty feet above the ground.
Dan stepped gingerly over the white shards on the floor by the door. The rest of the room was just as much of a mess, though at least less of an injury hazard, with clothes and jewelry flowing out of half-open chests. A tray with a half-eaten meat pie and a largely untouched plate of vegetables sat on a round table covered in a beautifully embroidered but stained tablecloth. Several crates were piled in the corner, the top one open with some delicate crystal glasses poking out haphazardly. The whole thing was going to give Dan hives because he could just imagine Phil knocking it all over and probably poking his eye out with a glass stem.
Phil, though, didn’t seem bothered by any of it. He perched on an upholstered bench next to the window and waited for Dan to take in the room.
“They’re betrothal gifts,” Phil said with a wave at all the chests and crates. “Alphas keep sending them, as if I can be bought, so I just keep them and tell them no anyway.”
Dan cracked a smile, picturing the disgruntled suitors. They should have known better than to tangle with Phil.
“What are you doing here?” Phil asked abruptly. “Does my father know you’re back?”
“Of course not.” If the king knew he was the Black Knight, Dan would be lucky to find himself in the castle dungeons by now. “I’m here because—well, I heard you were in trouble.”
“Oh, you’re here to rescue me then?” Phil forced out a laugh, not a trace of real humor in his voice. “You are good with trapped maidens, I hear.”
Dan hunched his shoulders in a little. He wanted to disappear. Coming here was a mistake.
“It’s not like that,” he said, hating the whine that he couldn’t keep out of his voice. “I kept hearing all this stuff about you locked up. I was worried, okay?”
Phil’s expression softened. “Well, thanks, I guess. For worrying. And coming all this way.”
“Oh yeah, I really cleared out my busy schedule for this,” Dan bit out. He was a familiar target for his own sarcasm. “Had to fit you in between defeating all those dragons that seem to be multiplying faster than I can slay them, if you believe what the bards say.”
“Were none of the dragons real?”
If Dan didn’t know better, he’d think Phil seemed a bit disappointed at that. But why would Phil be paying attention to his heroics?
“There was one, over in Ashford, but all I did was drive it off from the farmland back to hunting in the mountains. Well, and the drake in Kellridgeton, but that barely counts, it was just a baby.” It had actually been very cute, and ended up following Dan for over a month before he managed to train it enough to leave it with a lovely old couple living by themselves halfway up a mountain who could really use some protection.
“You really left and got everything you ever wanted, didn’t you?” Phil winced at his own tone. “Sorry, that came out harsher than I meant. I’m really happy for you. I’m messing this up, aren’t I?”
“No, I’m sorry, I clearly shouldn’t have come.” Dan wanted to leave, except that he wasn’t sure that Phil didn’t still need rescuing.
“No, it’s good to see you, really.” Phil moved over on the bench and patted the space next to him. “Come on, let’s try again. It’s been so long, I’m sure there’s a lot to catch up on. You can tell me more about those dragons!”
It was all a little forced, but Dan wanted the out too badly not to take it. He sat down next to Phil, leaving a very respectable space in between them, and tried not to be too obvious about taking in Phil’s comforting scent again.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
Phil studied his face for a moment, which gave Dan the excuse to do the same in return. He wanted desperately to smooth away the persistent dip between Phil’s eyebrows, to press his lips to the crow’s feet at the corners of Phil’s eyes, to trail kisses down Phil’s jaw—
“I want to know everything,” Phil said. “But maybe you can start at the beginning?”
The beginning was an awful place to start, but Dan was good at editing his own story for an audience. “I’m not actually a real knight, you know. You have to be a noble and then actually get knighted by someone. I just kind of… stumbled into this on accident.”
“You just stumbled into your dream life on accident?” The skepticism in Phil’s voice also seeped into his scent in a spike of bitter citrus.
Dan hoped his own scent wasn’t doing anything too embarrassing. “Well, I knew how to fight well enough to get hired on with a mercenary troop.” It had also helped that he was an alpha and clearly on the run and desperate, willing to put up with stingy wages and cruel commanders. The less said about that particular experience, the better. “When I bought out my contract, I had enough left over to buy a sword and a horse. I wasn’t really trying to pass myself off as a knight, but I didn’t exactly correct people when they made assumptions.”
“When they were thanking you for saving them, you mean?” The bitterness in Phil’s scent had smoothed out, replaced now with something else that Dan couldn’t quite identify. Concern? Jealousy?
“Well, sort of. That was an accident, too, the first time. I was just looking for another job, maybe to get hired as a guard or something, but I got stopped at a bridge by a troll who was insisting on fighting and eating anyone who tried to pass. So I killed it.”
The village on the other side hadn’t been able to get a trade caravan through for weeks, but Dan hadn’t known that. He hadn’t even really expected to defeat the troll when he fought it, it was just the only thing to do, so he did it. And when he won, just barely, scraping by on a lucky blow and half bleeding out in the process, the villagers had rallied to help him recover and heal. Once he could walk again, they persuaded him to stay for a celebratory feast where he tried to decline all their gifts and meager coin. He ended up leaving with only a third of what they’d tried to offer him, not knowing that the real gift would follow in his wake—a new ballad.
“A bard had gotten trapped on the other side of the bridge,” Dan went on, skipping past all those embarrassing bits about people thanking him. “And when I left, it turned out he was looking for new inspiration and next thing I knew, the whole countryside knew me as the mysterious Black Knight slaying evil giants.”
That had been before he’d even gotten any plate armor to paint black, the moniker originating from his dark humor and refusal to give his real name over the course of the village feast.
“Then I happened to ride by a group of bandits in the middle of kidnapping a merchant and his daughters. Honestly, the daughters were more helpful in that fight than I was—never mess with a ten-year-old with an embroidery needle—but to hear the merchant tell it later, I’d single-handedly fought off ten bandits at once!”
“I think you’re underselling your heroics a bit, there,” Phil said. “Not everyone would have stopped to intervene.”
Dan shrugged. He’d been just as uncomfortable accepting credit back then, but even so he couldn’t refuse the merchant paying for a fresh suit of armor for him at the next town.
“Anyway, next thing I knew, word spread to places I hadn’t even been yet. I had people seeking me out with wild tales of everything from dragons to penny-pinching barons. Which, come to think of it, really had the same solution: scaring them straight to stop messing with the farm folk. But it wasn’t like I planned to make my life this. It just happened.”
More and more rose bloomed in Phil’s scent as he listened. “Isn’t that what real heroes do? Save people just because they’re the ones there in the moment.”
It was so Phil of him to try to find meaning in Dan’s purposeless wanderings. It did feel good to be someone’s hero, to do the right thing and help the helpless and maybe make a bit of difference in this world. But that feeling never lasted long, not when no matter how far Dan traveled, he still couldn’t ever go home.
“I don’t always do the right thing,” he said finally. There were all the times he’d failed—the bandits who got away, the giant who crushed a farmhouse in the heat of the fight, the witch who’d killed the little girl before Dan had even arrived—but only one came to mind just then, his first mistake which he could never apologize enough for.
When Phil met his eyes, he could see the same thought crossing Phil’s mind as well. “Yes, well, no one’s perfect.”
It was pretty far from forgiveness, but Dan didn’t dare ask for more. Besides, it didn’t matter whether Phil forgave him. Dan wasn’t here for that. He was here to save Phil. It was time to get to business.
Dan stood up, readjusting his sword on his belt. “So I thought we could do this quietly or not, depending on what you want. If you say you’ll agree to be the Black Knight’s mate, I can just take you away from here without anyone saying a word about it. Or you can run now and I’ll cover you from the guards.”
“What are you talking about?”
The genuine puzzlement on Phil’s face was throwing Dan off his game. This wasn’t how any of this went in his head all the times he’d thought about it on the way here.
“Ways to get you out of this tower,” he said. “So which is it going to be?”
“What? Neither! I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t need to be rescued.”
“What do you mean?”
Phil stood up. He looked as serious as Dan had ever seen him. “I don’t need your help. I’m doing just fine here. If this is all you came for, you can leave.”
Fifteen years ago
The battlements at the top of the southwest tower were Dan’s favorite place in the castle. They were wide enough to sit on comfortably and had the best sunset view. And, best of all, there was a direct route up the castle wall from Phil’s bedroom, so he could sneak out and join Dan.
For all that Phil’s life had gotten busier and busier ever since he presented as an omega and started taking on courtly princess duties, somehow Dan managed to see him every day, if only alone for a moment. They stole time late at night to stargaze, or in the mornings before the court was up to explore the woods together. The best was when the king retired early, releasing the rest of the court from their obligations, and Phil could sneak off for a leisurely evening up on the battlements.
Dan dangled his legs over the edge fearlessly, laughing at Phil’s horrified reaction. If Phil even thought about getting this close to the drop over the wall, Dan would tackle him back to safety, but fortunately Phil was aware of his own clumsiness and let his healthy fear of heights guide him into better choices.
It wasn’t that Dan didn’t fear falling, but teasing Phil about it was well worth the risk.
“Stop it!” Phil pulled back on Dan’s sleeve. “Come on, I just had to dance with Baron Stratham and it was the worst experience, you can’t keep stressing me out like this.”
Dan caved every time and this was no exception. He drew back until he was sitting side by side with Phil. These days, he was tall enough that his feet were still left dangling over the air, but he was in no danger of actually falling.
“What was so terrible about this baron?” he asked Phil. “Let me guess, did he have awful breath? Or two left feet?”
It was a common game with them. Phil hated having to meet the ever-rotating cast of nobles coming to pay their respects to the king and the best way Dan found to help him unwind was to make fun of whatever annoying earl or baron Phil wanted to complain about.
“No, it was worse. He kissed my hand at the end of the dance and it was so slobbery.” Phil rubbed the back of his hand on his sleeve. “I can still feel his slippery tongue on my skin. Absolutely disgusting.”
This was where Dan was meant to laugh and make some terrible pun about this awful baron. Instead, he felt a growl rising deep in his throat and had to suppress it with an awkward coughing fit to avoid acting like a crazy alpha out of nowhere.
What even was that? Sure, Dan always hated how much of the court treated Phil like an object to possess ever since he presented, but he wasn’t used to his instincts being so out of control.
“Gross,” he said instead, adding more lightness into his tone than he felt.
“So gross,” Phil agreed.
He leaned a bit more of his weight against Dan’s shoulder. Their closeness let more of his orange blossom omega scent waft towards Dan’s nose and Dan felt a pleasant shiver run down his spine. This right here was everything to him: safety, friendship, comfort. He pressed his shoulder back against Phil’s in answer to an unspoken question. Yes, he was here, he’d always be here for Phil to lean on.
Phil broke their companionable silence first. “If you could do anything, anything at all, what would you do?”
“Eat more of Cook’s cinnamon apple pie,” Dan answered instantly.
Phil elbowed him. “Come on, take it seriously.”
It was a question Dan had never let himself think about. He was starting to be too old to be a stableboy anymore and though he loved the horses in his care, he wasn’t called to it truly, not like some of the other grooms. The biggest problem was the stablemaster who had noticeably soured on Dan ever since Dan presented. The stablemaster mistrusted alphas with animals, frequently muttering about hotheaded alphas with too many uncontrolled instincts making the horses nervous.
Dan hadn’t noticed any difference in how in the horses he cared for reacted, but then again he wasn’t going off getting drunk and rowdily pawing at barmaids like the alpha squires were every other night. He’d tried, once or twice, to salvage his reputation among the other castle alphas by joining them in their carousing, but it ended in predictable failure: his, at believably looking interested in their posturing alpha behavior, and theirs, at letting him into their crew without subjecting him to mean pranks and sharp insults. He couldn’t pass their tests, and so he would never truly be one of them, and Phil remained his only true friend.
But Phil was less and less around these days, busy being paraded around like a piece of meat by his own father. Having his hand slobbered over by barons. Dancing with courtiers and knights, like the knights that the squires would eventually become.
If Dan was a knight, he could attend the balls that the king was always throwing. He could challenge that gross baron to a duel and win. He could ride in a tourney with Phil’s token and win him a victory in tribute. He could make it so Phil never had to put up with another terrible alpha ever again.
“I want to be a knight,” Dan said. The idea took shape as he spoke the words, an idea he’d never have had on his own but which now seemed to him the only dream he could possibly have. To become a knight and finally be able to stand between Phil and everything the world tried to throw at him. It felt right, it felt like the most alpha choice he could make.
“Really?”
At Phil’s surprised voice, Dan suddenly felt stupid. Who was he, a poor stableboy, dreaming of knighthood? Only nobles could be knights. He sat up, turning to face Phil fully like he was bracing for a fight.
“Who wouldn’t want to be a knight?” he said defensively. “Anyway, what would you want? It’s your question so you have to answer, too!”
Phil’s face went pale and then flushed suddenly. “I want…” He licked his lips, more nervous than Dan had ever seen him before. “I want a kiss,” he blurted out. “A real first kiss, I mean. Before Father makes me court someone gross and three times my age.”
Dan’s heart stopped. He couldn’t help glancing down at Phil’s lips—they were right there, rosy pink, smoother than Dan’s own chapped lips were. Phil said he wanted a kiss, but he didn’t say from who, and Dan wasn’t sure if he dared. But his body moved anyway, leaning forward just a hair, reeled in by the breathtaking look in Phil’s eyes as he leaned in, too.
It was Phil who crossed that last distance, oh-so-gently brushing against Dan’s lips. It was only an invitation, and a tentative one at that, but not one Dan would let slip him by and so he answered the kiss with everything he had. Dan very, very carefully brought up his hand to cup Phil’s cheek and was rewarded with the blooming of sweet roses, a new note to Phil’s scent that Dan had never smelled before.
They pulled away, both breathless and giggling at their own daring. Dan could feel the stretch of his cheeks with how widely he was smiling. That was—he didn’t even have the words. If he could just have this forever, he’d never need anything else.
“I’m great at fulfilling wishes,” he joked instead of saying all the other sappy nonsense that was in his head. “Well? How’d I do? Was that everything you’d ever wanted?”
Phil looked back at him with unbearable softness and for a second, Dan was afraid he’d say something sincere and break their playful banter. He didn’t think he could handle sincerity right now, not without baring his own soul in return and probably admitting something deeply embarrassing.
But Phil must have seen something of Dan’s panic on his face, because he just laughed instead. “You know, I’m not quite sure. I think we might have to try again.”
“Practice till it’s perfect?”
“Exactly.” Phil kissed him again.
From then on, there were far more interesting ways to spend their evenings on the castle battlements than just watching a sunset.
Now
There was no chance in hell Dan was going to leave Phil in this tower. He stared at Phil, trying to understand what was happening. Had all the isolation gotten to him? Or was there some other hero Phil was waiting for, someone he was faithfully turning suitors down for?
“What do you mean, you’re doing fine? There are bars on your window and your door’s locked!” Dan thought this was a quite reasonable observation, but his words seemed to have touched a nerve because Phil puffed himself up to give Dan his best Princess Philip look.
“And I like it here! I can lock the door too and no one ever comes in. Where would I even go if I could go outside? Honestly, it’s pretty great.”
It would’ve worked on anyone else, but Dan knew when Phil was putting up a façade of cheer. Which meant he was getting somewhere. If Phil was trying to hide something from him, Dan knew how to get to the bottom of it.
To disguise his intentions, he wandered over by a shelf filled with a menagerie of gold animal statuettes. At least a couple were missing and one had a hole in its side, revealing that it was just gilt covering a hollow lead figurine.
“And you’re just going to stay here your whole life, then?” he asked without turning back.
“Well, I don’t know about my whole life, but I’m fine for now.”
“How long has it been?”
“Oh, I don’t know! The suitors started coming almost as soon as you left, and then with one thing or another, I think my father gave me the ultimatum two or three years after? That’s when all the betrothal gifts started getting really expensive, too. I think my father tried to keep some of them for himself but I insisted I wouldn’t even entertain any proposals without seeing what kind of gifts they would bring. So I started locking my side of the door around then, too.”
That made what, ten or eleven years trapped in these same eight walls? Dan would’ve lost his mind by now. He didn’t know how Phil hadn’t set fire to it all already.
Then again, maybe Phil had. Dan moved on to one of the chests with fabric spilling out of it and absently picked one up, expecting smooth silk, but the fabric was rough against his fingers. Once he pulled the brightly colored cloth up, below it the chest was stuffed with plain, undyed bolts of linen.
He glanced back in the direction of the door. All the shards on the floor—and there were far more than there should be from just two plates—were plain white, not a speck of paint on them.
“Are all your suitors such cheapskates?” Dan asked, turning back to see if Phil would lie to his face or not. “What am I missing here?”
Phil laughed, delightedly this time. “That was quick! Look, none of that expensive stuff was doing me any good just lying here, was it? So I have a bit of an arrangement with the maid who brings me my meals. I slip her a plate or a necklace or a dress to sell, and she brings me a substitute to pad things out in case my father ever does break down that door.”
“And who gets the money?”
Phil shrugged. “I told her to distribute it among the servants and the villagers. She seems like she’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’ll put it to good use.”
“What do you mean, she’ll put it to good use? Phil! What if she’s just keeping it for herself?”
“Then she’ll get better use out of it than I would!”
Dan could hear his voice climbing in pitch, but he couldn’t stop himself. The whole situation was just too much. “You can’t just trust a random maid, Phil!”
“Why not?”
“Because—because, well you just can’t!” Dan sputtered, too many reasons rising to his lips at once. A million worst-case scenarios came to mind at once, all kinds of ways this maid he’d never even met might be taking advantage of Phil and using that money for evil.
Granted, the actual nature of that evil was a bit blurry in Dan’s mind as he struggled to think of what a maid could reasonably do with a lot of illicit money while still staying a maid in the king’s castle. But still! The fact remained. It was stupid of Phil to just trust anybody like this. And yet it was so very Phil to do that and not even see the danger of letting someone get too close to him.
“I can trust her, and I do!” Phil shot back. “Besides, I know exactly what she does with the money. I can watch her over the castle wall from here every time she goes back to the village. I know whose houses she goes to. I can see the miller’s kids running around in brand new shoes replacing their old worn-out ones and the shepherd finally fixing the hole in his roof.”
Dan followed Phil’s gaze out the window. It was true, he could see a lot of the village from here, almost as good a view as they used to have from the battlements.
“Giving money to the people? That’s what this is about?”
“Not to everyone, just those who—who can’t get help elsewhere.” Phil grimaced. “Mary knows everyone and everything. She’s told me whose petitions have been unfairly turned down from the common courts, who just had a spot of bad luck and desperately needs time to get back on their feet, whose children are going to starve this winter with no one to step in. And before you say anything, I know she could be making it all up but I’ve seen it, too, out the window. And she wasn’t making it up when we first started this.”
“How did you start?” Dan tried to make the question as neutral as possible, getting a grip back on his scent and emotions. He didn’t have any right to be protective of Phil, anyway.
“It was my idea first,” Phil said defiantly, as if expecting Dan would argue. When he didn’t get any expected opposition, he wilted a little, a sad look crossing his face. “She’d been crying one morning. She tried to hide it, but her eyes were still red when she came in with the breakfast tray. And I heard her sobs in the stairwell. She didn’t want to tell me, but I wouldn’t let her leave until she did. I probably frightened her.”
Dan snorted at the incongruous image of anyone finding Phil frightening or intimidating, but Phil threw him a dirty look.
“I did! She didn’t know me then, and any royalty is frightening to a scullery maid.”
Dan couldn’t remember ever being frightened of the king but he acknowledged the point. He’d hated the king at times and found him pathetic, but even as a child he’s been more afraid of the bullying of older alphas than he had been of the royal family. Maybe that was stupid of him, and he should have cultivated a commoner’s healthy fear of royalty. Maybe then he would never have overstepped so far as to hope for friendship, or more, with Phil.
“When I finally got her to talk, she told me she was crying because of her older brother,” Phil continued. “He’d tried to leave his alpha husband, but while the common courts would grant his divorce, he was an omega and remained mated to him. His former husband still had a legal claim on him and he didn’t have the money to flee somewhere where he wouldn’t be found.”
Dan felt his heart drop down to his stomach. He could imagine all too well how easily Phil had put himself in this unfortunate omega’s shoes.
“She was so afraid for her brother. No one was willing to do anything, not even her family.” Phil met Dan’s eyes steadily and added, bitterly, “Mates are supposed to be forever.”
“Of course,” Dan whispered, his lips barely moving in his horrified stupor. Of course, when no one else would step in to help an omega with an unwanted mate, Phil had to do the impossible.
Phil looked at Dan for a long time, but whatever he was searching for, he didn’t find. Eventually, he shrugged and looked back out the window. “I offered to help. If all she needed was money, I had money to spare. And after her brother got away safely, I was the one who asked her if there was anyone else she knew who needed similar help. So you see, it was my idea first. She never tricked me into it. I knew what I was doing. I still do.”
Dan found that he’d been slowly backing up, taking small steps away from Phil until he was halfway across the room. Good. He didn’t want Phil to think he was crowding him. More space was probably better. The still-open doorway behind him beckoned, but there was one more thing Dan had to do, and properly this time.
It was the least Phil deserved from the alpha who’d carelessly mated him.
Thirteen years ago
Dan’s rut always came on slow and then hit all at once, which meant he had to live with the anticipation for days. Every time, he could feel it approaching like impending doom, crashing into his life as his temper ran hotter, his patience snapped, and he wanted to claw out the eyes of anyone who even breathed wrong in Phil’s vicinity.
The waiting was even worse this time because he’d be spending his rut with Phil. The sane part of him knew it was a terrible idea, but he couldn’t talk Phil out of it. To be fair, he hadn’t tried very hard to, because just the thought of finally getting to knot Phil went straight to his dick.
Phil knew this all too well and shamelessly used it to talk Dan into this insanity. Well, first Phil tried to convince him they should spend Phil’s heat together, but Dan had to put his foot down for that. The risks were just too high. Phil’s heat was tracked meticulously by the king and half the court so that they could turn it into an entire ceremonial circus, complete with knights guarding the heat room, an army of servants supplying a steady stream of watered-down wine, broth, and fruit, and a frankly embarrassing public escort out of the heat room when it was over. Dan didn’t rate his chances of sneaking himself in—or Phil out—above slaying a dragon with a pitchfork.
But no one paid much attention to the former stableboy, now an errand hand frequently at loose ends. Certainly no one had reason to notice if he didn’t spend his rut in the usual inn room rented to alphas without a private bedroom of their own. When Dan pointed this out, not intending to put the idea in Phil’s mind but just as a contrast to Phil’s own situation, Phil seized upon it with such relish that it became clear this had been his goal all along—start with a more impossible suggestion to make Dan’s rut seem a more reasonable option by comparison.
And Dan wanted it, too, so badly. He only argued because it scared him. The consequences of getting caught would be so much worse than if they were just having sex. And the likelihood of getting caught was higher, too—not as high as with Phil’s heat, but all the pressure would be on Phil to keep him quiet, to keep anyone else from entering Phil’s room, to get Dan food and water and keep them both safe while Dan was out of his mind with lust and hormones.
But more than that, Dan was scared he’d hurt Phil. He knew that the image of a rutting alpha completely out of control was a myth more than anything. He knew himself, too, and knew from every rut he’d spent by himself that his instincts just wanted him to make his omega happy and safe, and that while he could get protective and possessive, he would never be violent.
But he’d never had someone there with him. He’d never had Phil there with him. What if that changed things? What if he hurt Phil without even meaning to, just by being impatient or inexperienced?
It was a stupid fear. Phil had clearly thought so, when Dan had brought it up in their argument.
“What if I hurt you?” he’d blurted out, the last trump card he had to play before he caved.
“You won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
Phil had looked at him like he was an absolute idiot. “Because I know you. You’ve never hurt me yet.” Then a wicked look had crossed his face as he reached up to touch the spot on his collarbone where Dan had sucked a mark into his skin just the night before. “Not in ways I didn’t like, anyway.”
The conversation had quickly devolved after that, but the worries never quite left Dan’s mind. It was true that they’d already slept together and done pretty much everything two eager young men could think to do together to get off. Dan was always so, so careful with Phil—careful not to push too far, not to leave any marks where they would be seen, careful not to be too much.
He was afraid of what would happen when he didn’t have such perfect control over himself.
But not so afraid it overrode his rising excitement as his pre-rut kept building and building over the whole week until he knew he was hours away from the crash. This was it. A real rut with his omega, Dan’s first chance to be a proper alpha to Phil.
Dan managed to hold himself back until nightfall, but only barely. He’d snarled at a beta footman who’d brushed past him on his way to his post and only his clear rut pheromones kept him from being dragged up in front of the steward for discipline. That was likely still waiting for him when he returned to his post, but that was a problem for later.
Right now, Dan had to make his way to Phil’s bedroom window.
The plan was simple and thus, hopefully, foolproof. Phil was supposed to spend the day laying groundwork for the violent indigestion he would come down with the next morning, justifying locking himself up in his room and demanding simple to eat food to be delivered to his door. Dan’s rut rarely lasted more than a day and a half, so with some luck this excuse would last them until Dan was ready to sneak back out with none the wiser.
They wouldn’t get caught. And even if they did, Dan knew he could take the consequences all on himself. He would be the uncontrollable alpha in rut who’d forced himself on Phil. Phil wouldn’t be the one to blame. Not that Dan told Phil this part of the backup plan, but he was prepared to follow through with it.
For now, he refocused his straying thoughts on pulling himself up onto Phil’s windowsill and knocking on the glass pane.
Phil was there in moments, opening the window and helping Dan in. “Are you okay? Did anyone see you?”
“I’m fine, everything is good.” Dan leaned forward to kiss Phil and immediately got lost in his soft, perfect lips. His omega was so good for him. “Better now.”
Phil raised an amused eyebrow. “You’re really in rut, aren’t you.”
A rumble rose in Dan’s chest in response and he had to fight to keep his mind clear enough for actual words. “You sure about this?”
“Oh, stop talking.” Phil grabbed his shirt and pulled him in closer, walking backwards to take them both to his bed, piled high with blankets and pillows making the most beautiful nest Dan had ever seen.
Dan held himself back just a moment, waiting for Phil to climb into the nest and then beckon Dan in. Once he had permission, he pounced, burying his face in Phil’s neck as he filled his lungs with sweet citrus and rose, a taste of safety and happiness, excitement and something else, too.
Phil’s mouth found his, hot and eager, and Dan finally identified that last note in Phil’s scent as lust. It was that easy to lose himself in it, too, and let his rut swallow him whole.
Everything came to him in pieces, later. Phil’s blissful moans, calling his name, calling him alpha. Fingertips trailing down his bare skin in a line of shivers that left Dan begging, not sure if he wanted it to stop or keep going forever. Phil drawing him deeper into himself, whispering filth into his ear the whole time. His knot swelling against Phil’s impossible tightness as he came deep in his omega. Surrounded the whole time by orange blossoms and sweet roses.
There were flashes of clarity, too. Phil, raising a cup of broth to his lips. Both of them giggling over the mess they’d made of the blankets and sheets. Dan letting himself rumble for real, now, with Phil purring in response.
It was in one of those more lucid moments that Dan said, without thinking, “I want you to be mine.”
Phil raised his head up off of Dan’s chest. “I am yours.” He traced a hand up to Dan’s nipple and tweaked it. “My alpha.”
The words sent a shiver of pleasure down Dan’s spine. “Yes, yours. All yours.” A new wave of arousal flushed over him. But there was something he’d wanted to say, something his omega wasn’t— “But I want you to be mine,” he said with a growl. “My love, my omega, my mate.”
“I want that, too,” Phil said and kissed him hard.
Between the words and Phil’s tongue, that was all Dan needed to slip back under into pure instinct and desire. More flashes—Phil on top this time, guiding him inside and leaning closer for another kiss—Phil’s clever fingers finding every sensitive spot on Dan’s chest—Dan licking his way down Phil’s neck, his teeth grazing Phil’s scent gland—
“Can I?” Dan gasped, wanting nothing more in the moment than to sink his teeth deep and claim Phil for himself, once and for all.
“Do it,” Phil urged. “Bite me. Please.”
And Dan did.
Now
Dan slowly lowered himself down on one knee, right there in the middle of the room. The helm he still held was in his way, so he put it to the side. There were more important things to focus on. He unsheathed his sword and placed it on the floor, the hilt near Phil’s feet and the naked point aimed toward himself. Even if he wasn’t a true noble knight, he knew enough of chivalry to know the right thing to do.
“I’ve trespassed against you, omega,” he said, taking refuge in the formality of the words. “You’ve the right to strike a blow if you wish.”
Phil flinched back, staring at the sword like it was a snake. “What?”
“I won’t make you live with an unwanted mate,” Dan explained. His whole body felt cold as his resolve settled. He hadn’t ever been sure that this was something he could add to his pile of mistakes, but listening to the pain in Phil’s voice as he’d described the omega he’d helped escape settled that question for him. He’d thought that the worst thing he’d done to Phil was endanger him and that staying away was the best way to keep him safe, but clearly Phil saw it differently. And if Phil regretted having Dan’s claim on him, there was only one way to end that.
“You think I’m going to kill you?” Phil’s voice rose to an alarming pitch. He looked horrified.
Dan didn’t understand why. “You’d be free of my claim. You said mates are forever, but this would end it.”
Phil looked angry, now, truly angry. He closed his eyes and took a big, deliberate breath, and then crouched down and pulled at the collar of his dress, tearing the button without bothering to undo it. He turned a bit so Dan could see it, the claim bite now healed but still a raised red scar on his scent gland.
“You think I want this gone? This was the only way I knew you were alive! As long as it didn’t fade, I knew you were out there somewhere, living your life like you’d always wanted.” Phil’s mouth twisted. “The only part of it that hurt was that you’d left me.”
Now it was Dan’s turn to flinch. The hit landed—he had abandoned Phil here and as far as anyone knew, he’d managed to turn his childhood dreams of knighthood into reality. What did it matter that he hadn’t intended it to go this way? That his victories felt hollow, that his heroics, while giving his life purpose and meaning, failed to make up for the loss of the only person who’d ever mattered to him?
He couldn’t say any of that, though. Excuses heaped on excuses. What good would they do? And even if Phil didn’t want him dead, that didn’t mean he didn’t regret the claim. It didn’t mean he’d earned any forgiveness there.
“I’m sorry,” Dan said finally. “I shouldn’t have bitten you. I don’t know what came over me, I don’t know if you tried to stop me—It doesn’t matter.”
“What? I asked you to bite me! Maybe I shouldn’t have, if you weren’t in your right mind—”
“No, I knew what I wanted,” Dan cut in, unable to listen to the all too familiar doubt creep into Phil’s voice. “I thought maybe you hadn’t, or you regretted it once all the consequences came down.”
Phil shook his head decisively. “No. I asked you for it. That’s how I remember it. And I was proud to be your mate.”
“But I shouldn’t have risked you like that. A claim bite on your neck? You’d be ruined if anyone found out.” Which raised a good point. “Wait, how did you keep it a secret all these years?”
“I’m really good at lying,” Phil said with a shrug. He tugged the dress up again primly. It didn’t quite close without the button, but it was high enough to cover the claim mark again. “High collars are very chaste and proper, you know. I’m not going to let just anyone take a look at my bare neck! It would be so scandalous!” He punctuated it all with a perfect courtly giggle, exactly like he used to impersonate the nobility to make Dan laugh.
It made Dan smile again, lightening the mood for a brief moment. But he had to be sure, that there was nothing more unsaid that could haunt his memory from here on.
“Then, do you forgive me?” he asked. “For biting you and causing all this trouble?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Phil replied with no hesitation. “Neither of us thought it through all the way, but I’ve never regretted it for an instant. And we were both young and in love. What else would you expect of us?”
Dan chuckled. It was true, they’d both been desperately in love and all the stupider for it. But it was hard to blame the young alpha and omega they’d been, just doing the best with what they had.
“What I never understood,” Phil said, his face closing off again, “is why you left.”
“I had to.” Dan scrambled for the right words to explain himself, but they all just sounded like flimsy excuses to him. “We were going to get caught and it was better if I was gone.”
“Better for who? For you?”
“No, for you! I was just putting you in danger. Especially after what I did.” Dan couldn’t keep from looking down towards where Phil’s dress covered up his mating bite, and when he met Phil’s eyes again he saw that it hadn’t escaped Phil’s notice.
“What we did,” Phil corrected him quietly.
Dan shrugged, acknowledging the point without accepting it. Knowing this now hadn’t changed how he’d felt when he left, and he’d need more than one day to let the truth of it sink in properly.
“I thought you’d forgotten me,” Phil said. “That you ran because it was all too much for you, and then you never wanted to come back.”
“I could never forget you.” The mere idea of it set Dan’s heart aflame. He’d tried so hard to forget, to move on with his life, and it never worked. “I didn’t know you wanted me to come back. I thought you’d—moved on, or married, and I would have ruined it all if I returned.”
“You idiot.” Phil scrambled closer, both of them still on their knees, and reached out to tip Dan’s chin up so he had to meet Phil’s gaze. “I could never move on. You’re my mate.”
This close, Dan could see the hurt in Phil’s expression all too clearly. He’d missed those beautiful eyes—mostly blue, with hints of green and even yellow in the right light. Somehow in all the years that passed, he’d never forgotten the sight of them.
Dan’s shoulders slumped. He wished he could turn back time to before that fateful rut, and make it all better this time. Make it right. So that Phil would never look at him with so much hopeless longing.
“I’m sorry I left,” he blurted out.
Just like, all the pain in Phil’s eyes melted into something much softer. “For that, I can forgive you.” He cracked a small smile and added, “But only because you came back.”
Dan could hardly believe it. Didn’t Phil want to send him on a dozen impossible quests to earn his forgiveness? If Phil had asked, Dan would have fought a hundred dragons or giants or evil sorcerers.
He hadn’t even done anything to deserve it, but here Phil was, looking at him with the same gentleness as he had all those years ago. Dan was caught up in the relief of it all, burning with a love he’d pushed down for so long. Phil’s face was so close, his lips right there, and Dan was only human, after all.
He leaned in, breathless with desire, and searched Phil’s expression for permission. Phil’s eyes crinkled with a smile and he leaned in, too, just a hair.
A sudden clang of metal behind Dan interrupted the moment. He recognized it at once—the sound of someone moving in armor. Then he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in a long, long time, and his blood froze.
“Well, isn’t this sweet.”
Thirteen years ago
Dan woke up suddenly, drawn out of his post-rut sleep. Something was wrong. He knew that even before he opened his eyes, from Phil’s scent curdling with fear and from the panic in Phil’s voice as he whispered, “Dan, Dan please wake up!”
He sat up immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“You have to hide, the maid’s coming—quickly, quickly!” Phil pulled Dan up by his arm, shoving him towards the tall wardrobe and returning to the mess of sheets on the bed to hide the most damning ones under the covers.
Dan’s mind struggled to catch up. The maid was coming? He had to hide. Because he’d spent his rut here, with Phil, and no one could know, and—
His eyes caught on the mark at the base of Phil’s neck. A mating bite, clear as day.
“Fuck.”
No wonder there wasn’t a note of sweetness remaining in Phil’s scent. Dan had claimed him in the throes of his rut without even thinking. What were they going to do now? How could they ever hope to hide this?
Phil caught Dan’s stare and winced. “Right, that too.” He grabbed a silky scarf from a drawer and wound it around his neck just as someone knocked on the door. “I’ll distract her, just hide!”
Dan had to obey. He hid in the wardrobe like a coward while the omega he’d taken liberties with and marked as his mate went to the door to lie to a maid who could bring down everything around them. Dan had never felt as helpless and pathetic as now. All he could do was stand there in the dark and listen as Phil drew attention away from the messy room, claiming a restless night with illness. When the maid still tried to insist on coming in to light the fire and take the laundry down, Phil convinced her to instead help him to the kitchens where there would already be a fire lit and the cook could brew him a medicinal tea.
It was a masterpiece of distraction and lies piled on top of each other, and it worked. Once Phil and the maid left and Dan could no longer hear their footsteps, he spilled out of the wardrobe, heartbeat hammering.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
He stripped the bed first, hiding the sheets and blankets in an out-of-the-way basket in a corner he hoped no one ever looked in. He opened all the windows, too, so that the breeze would carry off his scent and hopefully leave no trace of what had happened. It all felt uncomfortably close to covering up a crime, but he had to keep Phil safe.
The least he could do now was keep Phil safe.
He didn’t know how much time Phil had bought him, so once the worst of the evidence was gone it was time for him to flee, as well. It was already morning—they’d hadn’t accounted for how much Dan’s rut would exhaust them and slept too long.
He peered carefully out of the window that was furthest from the main courtyard. No one seemed to be nearby, so he heaved himself over the windowsill and carefully found steady footholds in the stone wall. Picking between speed and stealth, he favored stealth and moved slowly. Any loud noise could draw eyes, but if he was lucky enough no one would have reason to pass by this way or to look up.
He just managed to drop down to the ground and its safety when a voice behind him sent his heart back to his throat.
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice drawled. “What do we have here?” A heavy hand grabbed Dan by the shoulder and spun him around.
“Wallace,” Dan spat out.
Of course it was Wallace. He was one of the oldest squires now, eagerly awaiting his own rise to knighthood. Dan had long stopped seeking out the company of any of the squires or alphas at the castle, but it didn’t mean their paths never crossed. After all, there were endless tasks for squires to pass along onto a lowly errand hand, and Wallace took particular relish in finding excuses to heap humiliating work onto Dan.
“I have to admit, I didn’t think you had the balls.” Wallace twisted his hand in Dan’s shirt so tightly the collar began to choke him. “What a gutless little upstart alpha, and yet here you are, fucking the princess behind all of our backs!”
Dan snarled back, taking satisfaction in seeing his spittle land on Wallace’s face. “Fuck you, I wasn’t—”
“You’re just sneaking out the princess’s window in the morning for a perfectly innocent reason? I’m sure the king will see it that way, too.” Wallace sniffed and wiped his cheek with a demonstrative slowness. “Let’s try that, shall we? Do you think the king will have you drawn and quartered for treason, or just hanged like a commoner?”
Blood pounded in Dan’s ears. The panic rose higher and higher. He couldn’t bring Phil down with this, he just couldn’t. If they questioned Phil now, with the mating bite’s obvious proof of his ruin…
Wallace pulled Dan in closer, practically breathing into his ear as he went on. “But first, I want to know, what was it like? Is fucking royalty any different or are all omegas the same? Did he beg for it like a common whore—”
Dan ripped himself out of Wallace’s grip and punched him in the face. The hit landed, but Wallace didn’t even flinch. With a slow, angry grin, he began to draw the sword at his belt.
Dan turned and ran.
He went straight for the north gate, moving on instinct. Wallace was big and strong, but Dan was fast. He couldn’t beat him in a fight—and what was the point of trying anyway? If he left Wallace alive, he’d still have to face Wallace’s accusations later, and if he killed him, he’d be dragged in front of the king just the same, but for murder instead.
Dan escaped from the castle and took off through the fields, not even bothering to look back. He could hear Wallace still chasing him, still shouting threats. Maybe he wouldn’t even bother bringing Dan to the king’s court. Maybe he’d just gut him here, with no one to see.
There was a ravine with a stream running through it to the northwest of the castle. Dan sharply swerved towards it. Parts of it were just narrow enough to jump, if he had enough of a running start. And a fair amount of luck.
Dan risked one look over his shoulder. Wallace was still bearing down on him, fury giving him a speed Dan hadn’t expected. The edge of the ravine approached. Dan had one shot at this.
He leaped.
Clay and rock crumbled under his feet as he landed on the edge. He scrambled forward, the jump giving him just enough forward momentum to take another step forward onto firmer ground. He couldn’t stop so he just kept running and running, Wallace’s curses fading behind him.
Eventually his legs gave out under him and he collapsed on the ground under a tree. He hadn’t even noticed when the woods began, but at least he’d be hidden for now. Now that he was no longer running for his life, the reality of his situation started to set in. He couldn’t go back. He’d almost certainly be executed the moment he did, and the trial would expose every last one of Phil’s secrets.
Maybe Wallace would do it anyway, claim some runaway servant had deflowered the princess. But that would be a bold claim to make without evidence, and at least Phil had a chance to talk himself out of that as long as no one saw the claim bite on his neck.
Fuck, the claim mark. How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he controlled himself? This is why he should never have agreed to spend his rut with Phil in the first place. This was everything he’d ever feared and more.
But what was past was past. Now, Dan had to figure out how to move forward. The very idea seemed preposterous: what was there to move forward to if he could never go back to Phil? But he started with the basics. He didn’t want to die. Which meant he needed food and shelter, which he’d need money for, which meant he needed a job. To do that, he needed to find people.
Since Dan had no other choice, he kept walking through the woods until he found a village where he could offer a day’s labor in exchange for a meal and a night’s rest. That let him get as far as the next village, and then the next town where his luck struck true for once and he found a mercenary captain hiring.
The captain was a brute, the work was miserable, and the less said about his fellow soldiers, the better. But Dan put up with it because he had nothing better to do, and didn’t he deserve to be a little miserable after the mess he’d left Phil in?
He sent one note by courier, spending his entire first month’s paycheck to bribe the man to slip it to Phil directly, letting no one else see. It only said two words: “I’m sorry.” Dan couldn’t think what else to say. There was both too much and too little, and all of it incriminating if the note fell into the wrong hands.
Dan couldn’t stop thinking about the last time he saw Phil and that bite mark on his neck. His memory betrayed him. Some days he remembered asking Phil first, before biting, and others he thought he’d made it all up and that Phil never wanted it. As the years passed, he couldn’t be sure which was the truth and it drove him mad.
The only thing he was sure about those last days in the castle was that he’d betrayed Phil entirely by claiming him, whether it was with Phil’s permission or not. And it wasn’t until he heard tell of the princess locked away by his father in a tower that he found the courage to swallow all of that down and return anyway.
Now
Dan spun around and stood to block Phil from the danger. He knew Wallace at once, even though it was a knight he faced and not an overgrown squire. Wallace was even broader than he used to be, his massive bulk aided by the armor he wore. Old armor, Dan noted distantly, with a few dents and scrapes. This armor had seen battle before.
Wallace strode into the room, unhidden malice in his eyes just visible from behind his helmet’s visor. His sword was already unsheathed, but he held it casually pointed toward the ground, not yet in a ready position.
That could change at any moment. Dan’s hand twitched towards his hip for the hilt of his sword but of course it wasn’t there. It was still on the floor with Phil.
“I really thought you were dead,” Wallace said, looking Dan up and down. “Have you been sneaking in all this time? Fucking our virgin princess?” He smirked, glancing past Dan.
Dan growled. How dare he even think to look at Phil? But before he could block off Phil from this threat completely, Phil stepped up beside him with a furious omega hiss.
“Is that how you speak to a royal princess?” Phil asked, drawing himself up to perfect princess posture. “And how dare you enter my room without permission? I order you to—”
“I don’t think you’re going to be doing much ordering once the king hears about this,” Wallace interrupted.
“When the king hears of this, I’ll have you thrown in the dungeons!” Phil shot back.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Wallace shook his head a little, as if he found this all a hilarious joke. In that, he’d barely changed from the bully Dan remembered, always enjoying playing with his victims a little too much.
This was good, this was buying Dan time, as much as he hated listening to Wallace’s jabs and threats. The trouble was, Dan didn’t know what he could do with this time. Lunging backwards to grab his sword off the floor, wherever it was, would take too long. He was well within a single swing of Wallace’s sword and, worse, so was Phil. The situation was impossible.
And Wallace was still idly musing aloud, just to make them squirm. “In fact, I bet I’d get a reward. Maybe a nice little castle of my own. Once the king hears I killed the interloper trying to have his way with the princess.”
“You can’t—”
Wallace laughed in Phil’s face. “And what will you do about it? Tell your father what a slut you are, inviting strange alphas in?”
“I’ll tell him you’re a liar, I’ll tell him it was you who tried to attack me and the Black Knight defended me!” Phil postured like he was unbothered but Dan could see the blood draining from his face and smell the sharp fear in his scent.
A slow smile dragged across Wallace’s face as his eyes darted down to where the collar of Phil’s dress had flapped open. “And you think he’ll believe you with that bite on your neck?”
Instead of doing something reasonable like backing up to safety, Phil stepped forward again. “I think that I’m his son, and you’re just a nobody. Why do you think—” Abruptly, still mid-way through his own words, Phil grabbed the biggest, heaviest gilded figurine off his shelf and flung it down at Wallace’s wrist, knocking the sword right out of his hand.
Dan didn’t wait to see what would happen. He lunged for his own sword and spun back around as quickly as he could.
Wallace was the immediate threat, but Dan’s first priority was always Phil. He lost a precious moment looking to see if he was okay. Apparently, Phil’s sense of self-preservation had finally kicked in—he was standing on the bed, all the way across on the other side of the room, as far out of the way as he could be. He didn’t look hurt, but when he met Dan’s eyes he shouted and gestured back at Wallace’s menacing figure.
Dan just managed to block the incoming sword’s blow. Now all his attention was on the fight ahead. He swung broadly, hoping he could force Wallace back a step or two and get some room to maneuver. Even though they were both armed, Dan was at a disadvantage with his opponent in full armor and him missing a helm. He could see the joints he could aim for, places where cloth rather than chainmail peeked out from between the armor plates, but it would require some finesse, while all Wallace had to do was get one lucky hit in at his head.
And Wallace knew it, too. He didn’t bother with defensive moves, letting Dan’s own blows clang against his armor while he sliced at Dan’s neck. Dan ducked and pivoted his stance, trying to step in to where he could make pinpoint thrusts and Wallace’s heavy swings would be limited by the closer range. But he was too slow – Wallace had already recovered from his miss and Dan scrambled to block another hit.
He retreated back again, getting out of range to give himself time to breathe. Wallace came at him like a raging bull but this time Dan sidestepped neatly, and in one smooth motion stabbed Wallace under the shoulder, right where his breastplate met his pauldron. Wallace howled with pain and tried to stab at Dan in return, but Dan was ready for it and stepped away again, circling around out of reach.
Wallace panted heavily, his sword-arm dropping a bit as the blood started to drip down it. Dan kept his sword up, knowing better than to take a wounded opponent for granted.
But he wasn’t above a little gloating.
“Had enough?” he called out. “You can call for mercy whenever you want.”
“I’ll kill you,” Wallace roared and charged again.
Well, if he was going to be an idiot about it, Dan couldn’t let that go unpunished. He executed the same neat maneuver, stabbing through Wallace’s other shoulder. This time, Wallace dropped his sword and dove at Dan, tackling him in blind fury before Dan could even pull his sword back out.
As they hit the ground, a blow to the temple from Wallace’s heavy gauntlet sent Dan’s vision spinning. He tried to blink past the pain but suddenly there were fingers pressing down at his throat and it was all Dan could to do hang on to the last bit of air he’d managed to gasp into his lungs.
The fingers pressed harder and harder, all of Wallace’s weight behind them, and somewhere far away someone else was screaming, someone Dan loved, someone he had to get to and protect, if he could only get another breath in—
And suddenly he could, one heaving breath and then another, as the great big weight pressing him down was gone. He looked up and saw Phil, face blotched with anger, standing over Wallace and holding—the ends of a bedcurtain, of all things? Wallace was tangled up in it, struggling and swearing, and Phil had his feet planted on the ground, desperately pulling on it to keep Wallace off of Dan.
Dan wasn’t expecting the pang in his heart at the sight. But of course that was Phil, his brave omega, coming to his rescue. He grabbed his sword before Wallace could untangle himself and pointed it at Wallace, aiming its tip at the sliver of bare neck just under Wallace’s helm.
“Will you yield or not?”
Wallace glared at him with nothing but murderous alpha rage in his eyes. “I should have killed you last time, when you ran like a scared little rabbit,” he spat.
“You should have,” Dan conceded. “But you couldn’t then, and you won’t now.”
He flipped his sword around, grabbed it by the blade, and swung down hard. The pommel smashed into Wallace’s helm, denting it right into the side of his head, and Wallace collapsed. Dan waited to see if he would try to get up, but once he was sure there was no sign of movement, he sheathed his sword.
“Dan! Dan, are you okay?” Phil rushed to his side. “How did you—that was incredible, I can’t believe it—are your hands okay?”
Dan laughed and held out his hands, the palms well-protected by the leather of his gauntlets. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse, believe me.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think.” Phil glanced down at Wallace. “What did he mean, about killing you last time?”
It had never occurred to Dan that Phil wouldn’t have heard the whole story in all the sordid gossip. “Oh, nothing, just—he caught me, climbing out of your window. He chased me all the way to the ravine. I got away, and then I just… never came back.”
Phil stared at him, slack-jawed.
Dan shrugged. “I thought you knew.”
“I had no idea. I’m sorry. Of course you never came back—you couldn’t.”
“No, I could have.” Dan didn’t even know why he was arguing, but he didn’t want Phil to absolve him so swiftly. “I came back now, in disguise. I could have before, too.”
“But it wasn’t safe for you. It’s not even safe now!” Phil threw a furious look back at Wallace. “Is he dead?”
“Probably not, but I don’t plan on waiting long enough to find out. We just made a lot of noise, so we either need a really, really good cover story for when the guards get here or we need to run.” Dan grimaced as he remembered Phil’s earlier refusal. “I know you didn’t want to leave here, but I don’t think you’re going to be safe here if Wallace recovers enough to start talking. If you need to stay, I’d have to kill him. Maybe if I run, you can blame it on me and say Wallace died saving you, or something.”
“What?” Phil’s scent took on a note Dan couldn’t identify—not quite frustration or anger, but something in that vicinity that was mixed with fondness and the sweetness of roses. “I’m not letting you leave like this! And I’m definitely not making that asshole out to be some kind of hero.”
“It would be safer for you—”
“I don’t care!” Phil glared at him. “I would always rather be with you than safe here in this stupid tower!”
That froze Dan in his tracks. He ran through everything Phil had said before in his mind, trying to make some sense out of it. “I thought you liked it here.”
“I was lying so you wouldn’t pity me! I wanted you to be here because I’m your mate, not because I’m some helpless damsel that needs a hero to save him!”
“Since when are you just a helpless damsel? You literally just saved my life!” Dan gestured at the fallen bedcurtain and the shattered figurine on the ground. “And do you really think I’d cross the whole kingdom for just anyone? Of course I’m here because you’re my mate.”
“Oh.” That cut the legs out from underneath Phil’s rapidly building anger. He deflated, looking a bit lost, like he was surprised to find his anger disappearing so quickly. “Really?”
“Really,” Dan assured him. “Once I heard the rumors, I couldn’t bear knowing you were in trouble. I save lots of people, sure, but it’s not the same. I don’t love them like—” He cut himself off before he could say anything too incriminating, but it was too late.
“Like what?” Phil asked quietly, as if Dan was a skittish animal he was trying not to spook. “Like who?”
When backed into a corner like this, Dan knew the only way out was to charge forward, consequences be damned. “Like you. I… well, I know it’s been years, but… I still love you. I never stopped. I’m sorry.” Mortifyingly, he could feel his eyes welling up.
“You idiot. You keep apologizing for the wrong things.” Phil stepped forward and reached out to cup Dan’s cheek, brushing the sudden wetness away with his thumb. “I love you, too.”
Before Dan could react, Phil pulled him closer in and finally, finally kissed him.
Phil’s lips were just as soft now as they had been thirteen years ago. The scent of roses enveloped them both, brighter and sweeter than ever before. Phil kissed like he was starving for it. Maybe Dan was, too, as he matched Phil step for step, breathless and desperate like he was a teenager again.
Dan pulled away just for a moment, just so he could be sure. “You really love me?”
Phil laughed, his head shaking just a bit—not a denial, just disbelief. “Of course I do.” He pressed another kiss to Dan’s lips, a quick one this time, but no less precious for it. “You said the guards might be coming?”
That cleared the lovestruck haze from Dan’s mind in a flash. “Yes, we have to get out of here.” He peered out the window looking into the courtyard. There was some movement, idle servants and such passing through, but nothing that signified an alarm being raised. “If you need time to pack, I can hold off the guards—”
Phil was already rummaging under his bed. It only took him a moment to pull out a leather bag bursting at the seams. “Are you kidding? I’ve been packed for years.”
Dan could feel a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Let’s go, then. Are you ready to run?”
“With you? Always.” Phil slipped his hand into Dan’s and they took off down the stairs, across the courtyard to where Dan’s trusty steed was saddled and ready to take them away from this castle and everything its walls held.
They never once looked back.