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Dimitri is behaving erratically.
So far, he’s done an admirable job hiding it. He smiles when he’s supposed to, laughs on cue, addresses his council with poise and patience. Dimitri’s continued ability to reason with the elder councilmen assures Felix that if it’s one of Dimitri’s fits, it’s not yet a severe one, but Felix has long since learned that ignoring the problem will only cause it to snowball. The worse Dimitri gets, the less time he spares to look after himself, and so it falls to Felix to badger his wayward king into resting.
But the thing is – Dimitri isn’t acting as he does in any fit of his Felix has witnessed. He doesn’t turn his head towards voices that aren’t there, doesn’t murmur in reply to words only he can hear. When Annette stops by the castle, he happily takes tea with her in the gardens instead of shutting himself in his office. No, his behavior is odd in different ways.
Namely, he’s avoiding Felix.
It’s not obvious at first. As the king of a newly united nation and the right-hand man of that king, they’re both incredibly busy people whose time is in high demand; they’ve had days and even weeks during which the only affection they have the time or energy to exchange is a kiss in the mornings and evenings. They carve out space for each other where they can, but their duties and their courtship are both still quite new. It’s a balancing act they have yet to entirely master.
But the days go by, and Felix hardly sees Dimitri at all. They don’t share their chambers every night, but it’s been days since Dimitri has invited Felix to so much as sleep beside him, let alone anything else. He’s nowhere to be found in the mornings, and he doesn’t take dinner with Felix in the evenings. He finds excuses to speak to people that aren’t Felix after every council meeting, until Felix is inevitably waylaid by some duty or another and can’t wait any longer to catch Dimitri.
What’s even stranger is the way Dimitri behaves when he isn’t mysteriously absent.
It starts with a heated argument with the privy council about the repatriation of stolen goods from Duscur. Ore and metal were ripped from Duscur’s lands during the years of occupation, with none of its inhabitants ever seeing any of the resulting wealth. The more traditional councilmen don’t see the necessity in reparations for past actions – Dimitri’s efforts at rebuilding and diplomacy are, in their minds, already more than enough. Naturally, Dimitri thinks otherwise, and Felix is inclined to agree with him.
It ends, as some council sessions unfortunately do, in a shouting match, which Felix wholeheartedly participates in so Dimitri doesn’t have to. The thing happens when Felix lifts a hand to slam it on the table during the new Count Rowe’s bumbling argument about Faerghan patriotism.
Count Rowe reaches over and grabs Felix’s wrist before it can connect with the wood. That would be insult enough, but then he snaps, “Let the alphas talk, omega,” and oh, Felix sees red. He bares his teeth and has a moment to enjoy the immediate regret on Count Rowe’s face before it happens.
Dimitri snarls.
It’s not a controlled command to settle the room before it descends into an all-out brawl. No, it sounds like the Dimitri from before – the Dimitri that snapped bones like toothpicks with a fanged grin, the Dimitri that exacted violence with not just savagery and precision but joy. Dimitri wrenches Count Rowe’s hand off Felix, and for a tense breath, Felix thinks Dimitri is going to break the man’s arm.
It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Dimitri is an alpha. He hasn’t had a rut in years, and Felix never had a good nose or good omega instincts to begin with. But this – the possessive way he yanks Felix away from Count Rowe, the shine of his bared teeth, the way the entire council chamber falls silent in the face of a prime alpha’s rage – this is making Felix’s knees weak in a way he doesn’t want to examine.
But then – but then, Dimitri dismisses the council, terse and quiet. He dismisses Felix, too, refusing to look Felix in the eye as he retreats to his office and locks the door. It leaves Felix bereft in a way he struggles to articulate. His stomach feels—empty. His skin itches. He paces the length of the empty council chamber once, then twice, and still feels unsettled and restless.
The rift he and Dimitri have just started to bridge is widening between them again, and Felix has no idea how to stop it.
Part of him wants to storm up to Dimitri and demand an answer, but the hurt and confusion is too raw – it’ll come out all wrong, and the cracks will only deepen. He needs help.
There aren’t many people Felix feels comfortable approaching with this sort of problem. His old man is… well, not the best option, but he’s an option, along with Dedue. But the two of them are in Duscur, and there’s no way Felix is writing this down in a letter. Ashe is in Gaspard territory and Annette has her hands full at the School of Sorcery. Mercedes is due for a visit to Fhirdiad soon, but there’s no telling how much the last of the springtime snows will delay her, and Felix isn’t the type to wait.
That leaves Ingrid and, either fortunately or unfortunately, Sylvain, who’s been in Fhirdiad for the last few months talking Srengi diplomacy with the privy council. Ingrid, happily unmated, tends to approach these issues with what Felix can only describe as “polite bafflement,” so Sylvain it is.
Felix corners him after dinner, corralling him into the room Sylvain has been using as an office during his visit. He shuts the door for privacy, then locks it for good measure.
Sylvain, leaning against the desk, watches him good-naturedly. “This is about Dimitri, huh?”
“Why do you assume everything is about Dimitri?” Felix asks waspishly.
“Oh, not everything. Just the things that get you acting” – Sylvain makes an up-and-down gesture at Felix’s person – “like this.”
“I don’t—ugh.” There’s no point in arguing this, especially because it is about Dimitri. “Just. Will you help or not?”
“My wealth of knowledge is yours to plunder.”
Felix grimaces. “Don’t say it like that.”
Laughing, Sylvain leans back on the desk with both palms. “Okay, okay, I’m done. What’s bothering you?”
Felix explains everything – Dimitri’s avoidance, the possessiveness followed by distance, the way Felix can’t parse a single thing Dimitri is doing.
Sylvain squints at him, lips thinned like he’s trying not to laugh.
“What,” Felix snaps.
“Nothing,” Sylvain says. “Nothing, it’s just—you’ve never had a very sensitive nose, have you?”
Felix rolls his eyes. “I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“Man, remember when you barged into Annie’s tent when she was in rut?” Sylvain shakes his head fondly. “Two paces away from her, and you still couldn’t smell a thing.”
Felix flushes. He isn’t sure who had been more humiliated back then, himself or Annette. (Mercedes, who had been accompanying Annette during her rut, had not been embarrassed in the slightest.) “Again, what does that have to do with how Dimitri is acting?”
The laugh Sylvain had been containing behind his pursed lips explodes out in a guffaw. “Man, you two really are just made for each other!”
Felix whirls around and stalks towards the door.
“Wait, wait, Felix,” Sylvain says with a wheeze. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Come back!”
“No,” Felix says, though he doesn’t turn the doorknob.
“Just talk to him, alright? I promise there’s an explanation.” Sylvain’s voice has dropped to something gentler and more sincere. “Neither of you are the best at communicating, so you’ll have to get used to meeting him in the middle. Don’t accuse him of anything, but don’t let him escape the conversation without telling you what’s going on, okay?”
“Has he told you what’s happening?” Felix asks, whipping around to face Sylvain with a stab of hurt.
Sylvain shakes his head. “No, he hasn’t. I just have a good nose and a less biased viewpoint, and I figured it out from there.” He sighs. “Look, Felix, this is a conversation you should be having with him, not me. I know it’s hard for you, but just—talk to him.”
It’s infuriating when Sylvain is right about things. As much as Felix wants to snap that Dimitri is the one avoiding Felix, hasn’t that always been what Dimitri does when the problem concerns himself? He still has so many foolish notions of self-sacrifice rattling around in that beautiful, empty skull of his. He probably thinks he’s doing Felix a favor by not burdening him with his thoughts.
“Ugh. That idiot,” Felix mutters. He turns the doorknob, but before he steps out of the office, he manages to squeeze a “thank you” from his stubborn chest.
“You’re welcome,” Sylvain says softly as Felix leaves. “Take care of him.”
Felix doesn’t bother answering, because both he and Sylvain know that he always will.
Dimitri is, thankfully, still in his office when Felix barges in.
“We’re going to talk,” Felix says, kicking the door shut behind him.
Dimitri peers up at him from the pile of paperwork on his desk. “Hello, Felix.”
“Don’t you ‘hello, Felix’ me.” Felix storms over to the desk. He moves to slam his hands down on it, but there’s a precariously full inkwell right near Dimitri’s papers, so he settles for folding his arms instead. “Explain yourself.”
Very delicately, Dimitri sets his pen aside. He’s had this one for almost a week without breaking it. He’s probably overjoyed. “You will need to be more specific about what needs explaining.”
Felix can’t stand this man. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he says slowly. “And then there was that display in the meeting—”
Dimitri drags a hand down his face. “I apologize for my outburst—”
“I don’t want an apology, I want an explanation!” Felix snaps. “You can’t act like a teenage alpha during their first rut and then just leave!”
“That’s… more apt than you may think.” Dimitri sighs and pushes back from his desk. “I’m going into rut.”
Felix blinks, startled into silence. Rut? As far as he knows, the last rut Dimitri had was at the Academy. Maybe even before. (Felix hates that it bothers him that he doesn’t know.) Hell, Felix’s heats have long since slowed in response to Dimitri’s abnormal biology, growing infrequent and brief despite the lack of bond-mark. He’s long since accepted it as a quirk of Dimitri’s and therefore his own, but—
“Why now?” Felix manages to ask. “During the war, you didn’t—I thought—”
“I thought I was broken, too,” Dimitri says mournfully, and he continues speaking before Felix can bite back that he hadn’t meant it that way. “But the castle healers tell me that extended periods of stress and starvation can, ah, suppress one’s cycle…”
Felix remembers, unbidden, the way Dimitri had looked during the war. A wiry shadow, hunched over and haunted, eating only enough to carry his body through another battle. Even before then, at the Academy, he’d eaten infrequently and slept even less. It’s little wonder his natural cycles began to shut down, and Felix curses himself for not thinking of it sooner.
“But now that I am healthier in mind and body, my cycle seems to be resuming as normal,” Dimitri continues. “I will admit that it is something of an inconvenience. I had forgotten what it was like to be subject to these particular whims of my body.”
He says it wryly, like some kind of joke, but Felix isn’t laughing. “You’re afraid you’ll lose control?” he asks. He purses his lips at Dimitri’s wince. He thought so, but it doesn’t ease the ache in his heart any to be proven right.
“I can be… unpredictable, even under the best of circumstances.”
“Well, having me around will help,” Felix says, trying not to show how nervous the presumption makes him to speak aloud. “We haven’t mated yet, but it never hurts to have a willing omega when you’re rutting, does it?”
“Felix,” Dimitri says without meeting Felix’s eyes. “I believe it would be best if I spent this rut alone.”
Felix’s stomach drops. “What?”
“It’s quite early in our courtship, by traditional standards,” Dimitri continues softly. “The last thing I want to do is force you—”
“Everyone’s expected us to bond since the end of the war,” Felix cuts in, exasperated. “Even the elder councilmen don’t expect us to court for the standard two years—”
“Enough!”
Felix snaps his mouth shut, more out of surprise at Dimitri’s raw tone than anything else.
“Enough,” Dimitri repeats more quietly. “I have made my decision. I… I will send for you when my… when I am ready for company again.”
“Dimitri,” Felix starts, but Dimitri is already gathering his things to leave the room.
“I’m sorry,” Dimitri says, and before Felix can say another word, he’s gone. Presumably to lock himself in his chambers and ride out his rut. Alone. Even though he has a willing omega ready to help.
It… makes sense. Felix isn’t the kind of omega people want. Not the kind alphas want.
There’s a popular folk story in the north about omegas like Felix. Some omegas are built for carrying children, they say, their soft and gentle natures indicative of how kind their bodies will be to the children growing inside of them. Conversely, some omegas are built for war, and so it follows that any child trying to take root inside their bodies must fight a war to survive in them.
It’s a myth with no clear moral. Some take it to mean that all omegas should strive to be nurturing so as to nurture the life inside of them, while others think that a cold, warlike omega is the only one guaranteed to bear the kind of soldiers Faerghus needs. A winter womb, some people call it – an omega as cold and deadly as a Faerghan snowstorm, in more ways than one.
For better or for worse, Felix is the kind of omega people mean when they talk about a winter womb. For better or for worse, most people want an omega inside whom new life can flourish, not struggle and die.
Is Dimitri regretting his choice? They started their courtship when emotions were riding high and wild at the end of the war. It’s been almost six months since then – more than enough time for Dimitri to realize he’s gotten in over his head with Felix.
But the anguish in Dimitri’s face – it isn’t what Felix would expect, if Dimitri had merely tired of him. Taking a deep breath and swallowing his knee-jerk reaction of hurt, Felix walks back through their conversation.
An inconvenience, Dimitri had called it. I can be unpredictable even under the best of circumstances, he’d said. He’s afraid he’ll lose control. He’s worried about forcing Felix, and he’s willing to avoid Felix and push him away if it means protecting him.
That idiot. That thick-headed buffoon of a king. Was he planning to turn Felix away for however many days his rut lasted? Was he going to claim he was sick, like that wouldn’t make Felix worry even more? Hopeless. It’s a good thing he has Felix to look after him.
Too many times, Felix has let Dimitri leave. Too many times, Felix has only been able to watch Dimitri’s back, furious and worried and unable to follow.
Well. Felix is the King’s right hand now, and there’s nowhere Dimitri can go that Felix won’t follow him. Not anymore. Certainly not his chambers, where he’s presumably planning to ride out his rut in solitude and self-loathing.
Resolve steeled, Felix whips around and marches out of the office towards the king’s quarters.
The guards, used to the Duke calling on the King at all hours of the night, don’t waylay him. The door is locked, but one of the first things Dimitri did when they began courting was give him a key.
Felix steps inside, eyes taking a moment to adjust to the single candle flickering on the bedside table. Dimitri is a hulking silhouette by the window, hand gripping tight to the sill, brisk night air filling the room.
“I told you to leave me be,” he says wearily.
“And I’m telling you that you’re being an idiot.” Felix flicks the lock on the door, ensuring that they won’t be disturbed. “I’m here. I’m not leaving.”
Dimitri shakes his head, still refusing to turn. “You shouldn’t have to deal with me when I’m… like this. It’s not fair to you.”
“No, what’s unfair is you putting words in my mouth and assuming you know what I want better than I do.” Felix steps closer. “Close the damn window, will you?”
Sighing, Dimitri acquiesces. The room isn’t much warmer for it, but at least the icy breeze has stopped. “Felix…”
Felix takes another step. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” And another. “You keep acting like I haven’t already seen you at your worst.”
“Felix, if you knew the things I want to do to you—” Dimitri whirls around, single eye shining fever-bright in the dim light, pupil blown. “You should—while I still—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Felix snaps. “How many times do I have to repeat myself to get that fool notion out of your head already?”
Dimitri’s hands flex as though he wants to reach for Felix. “No, I mustn’t… I…”
And Felix has had enough of it. He’s had enough of the self-sacrifice, the self-recrimination. He’s had enough of Dimitri denying himself what he wants because he thinks wanting makes him a monster.
He grabs one of Dimitri’s hands and wrenches him closer. Like this, their chests are inches from touching, and Felix can feel the heat rolling off Dimitri’s rut-addled body. Even Felix’s blind nose can pick up on Dimitri’s scent from here, thick and strong and alpha. He grits his teeth against the stupid rush of omega want twisting in his belly.
“Do you think you scare me?” Felix asks through the fog of alpha, alpha, alpha. He tilts his head back to look Dimitri in the eye.
“Felix…” Dimitri’s hand clenches around Felix’s. His eye flickers between Felix’s lips and the door. For someone so terrified of falling prey to his own instincts, he’s being frustratingly stubborn about giving in to them.
“Because you don’t,” Felix continues. “You infuriate me. You make me crazy. But you don’t scare me. You never have.”
Dimitri’s gaze slips to the side, ashamed. “Perhaps I should.”
This isn’t working. Felix has never been any good with words. He’s always been better with his actions – with his body. If Dimitri’s rational brain won’t listen, maybe his alpha brain will.
Felix steps fully into Dimitri’s space, looping his arms around Dimitri’s broad shoulders. Dimitri’s entire body tenses in his grip, but this close, Felix can tell that his scent isn’t soured with fear or discomfort – quite the opposite. He smells like a virile, hungry alpha inches away from claiming his mate, and all that’s stopping him are his damn notions of propriety and self-punishment.
It’s enough to make the space between Felix’s legs uncomfortably wet, but he bites his tongue. As much as his stupid omega brain wants to drop onto all fours and present and hope that his alpha will do his duty, Dimitri needs a gentler touch.
“Tell me,” Felix says against Dimitri’s mouth. “Tell me all those things you want to do to me.”
“I—I want—” Dimitri whines and hides his face against Felix’s throat, like even now he thinks there are things about him Felix can find repulsive, like there’s any part of him that will ever turn Felix away. “I want to…”
“What do you want to do, alpha?” Felix nudges his nose against the side of Dimitri’s head. “Tell me. Do you want to fuck me?”
“Yes,” Dimitri whispers against his neck.
“Do you want to claim me? Make me yours?”
“Goddess, yes.”
Felix grabs a handful of Dimitri’s hair and gives it a yank, forcing him to lift his head and look Felix in the eye. “Alpha,” he starts. He swallows, his confidence wavering – a winter womb, a body in which a pup goes to die – but Dimitri is staring back at him with so much wonder, so much love, so much want.
“Felix,” Dimitri breathes, like a revelation, like a prayer.
“Dimitri,” Felix says. He presses their foreheads together. “Do you want to breed me?”
Dimitri snaps, lunging forward to crash their lips together, heedless of Felix’s grip tugging his hair. Between frantic, biting kisses, Dimitri’s voice is a breathless gasp. “Yes, Felix, yes— I, I want to claim you, I want you full of me, I want you to be mine—”
“I’ve always been yours, you fool king,” Felix manages to gasp when Dimitri shifts his attentions from Felix’s lips to his throat. “You just need to take me already.”
Dimitri’s teeth sink into his throat, not quite a bond-mark but close enough to Felix’s scent gland that it feels like a promise.
Felix has never been a good omega. He’s mouthy and belligerent, and the instincts always seemed weaker in him than the other omegas he’s met; alpha voices that made Ashe tremble and bare his throat usually just irritated Felix more than anything. He’s been as nose-blind as a beta for most of his life.
But with Dimitri’s voice in his ear, his scent in his nose, his teeth in his neck – maybe it was never that Felix was a bad omega. Maybe he’s always been perfect for one alpha alone, because all those dead instincts are crashing over him now, leaving him weak and whimpering in Dimitri’s grip. There’s no need to submit to anyone else when the only alpha he’s ever wanted wants him back.
“Felix, Felix…” Dimitri laps at the bite mark, loving and possessive in equal measure. “If you only knew how sweet you smelled. I can’t… I won’t be able to…”
“If you try to hold back, I’m going to pin you down and ride your knot myself,” Felix hisses. He yanks Dimitri’s hair again. “You want me, don’t you? You know I won’t make it easy. Hold me down and take me, boar.”
Felix can feel the way Dimitri bares his teeth against his skin. The room lurches as Dimitri sweeps Felix up in his arms, and Felix’s omega sings when Dimitri finally, finally flings him onto the bed.
He’s ready to take him, like a proper alpha takes his omega. He’s going to earn Felix’s submission with his claws and teeth and cock. He’s allowing himself to lose control, and he’s trusting that Felix will accept him, boar and king and man, with all the affection every part of Dimitri deserves.
Dimitri’s rut has been building for almost a week, so Felix is unsurprised that Dimitri is already hard in his pants when he presses Felix’s body down against the mattress. What does surprise him is how roughly Dimitri tears at Felix’s clothes, ripping his shirt open with an effortless strength that makes Felix slick. The tatters of his shirt unfurl around him like the petals of a flower.
“Felix, you… you are without compare,” Dimitri breathes. Infuriatingly tender, even now, even with his claws digging indents into the bare jut of Felix’s hips and the unforgiving bulge of his cock pressing against Felix’s thigh. “To think that you could be mine… that I could…”
“Are you planning to touch me, or are you just going to stare?” Felix snaps, trying to hide how much Dimitri’s words undo him.
Dimitri slides his hands up Felix’s torso, palms large enough to span almost the entirety of Felix’s heaving ribcage. “Don’t worry,” he says, face dark with beastly promise. “I’m going to do more than just touch.”
Still straddling Felix’s thighs, Dimitri sits up to divest himself of his shirt. The hard planes of his torso make Felix’s stomach drop with want, even more so now that there’s a layer of fat over those powerful muscles. Dimitri’s always been beautiful, but this – this is an alpha in his prime, healthy and strong and ready to fuck his mate stupid.
One of Dimitri’s hands buries itself into Felix’s hair, yanking the tie out to let it flow freely onto the bed below him. The other cups Felix’s jaw as Dimitri leans down to steal another kiss, wet and filthy.
The friction of their cocks through their pants is enough to make Felix cry out into Dimitri’s mouth. He’s wet enough at this point that Dimitri has to be able to feel it – there’s no way he hasn’t soaked all the way through his breeches. But still Dimitri teases him, the hand in his hair yanking Felix back every time Felix tries to get too greedy with his kisses.
“Dimitri,” Felix whines, the hot, yearning emptiness from earlier returning with a vengeance. “Dima—”
“You’re so impatient,” Dimitri says, nibbling on Felix’s lower lip. “Am I not supposed to be the one in rut?”
Yes, but— Felix’s heats have always been linked to Dimitri’s ruts, ever since they presented. Like their bodies always knew they were meant for each other. Between the overpowering scent of Dimitri’s rut and the promise of a bond-mark on his throat, it was inevitable that his heat would come to match his mate’s vigor.
Felix squirms beseechingly against his alpha’s clothed cock. Good. Good. If Felix is in heat, his alpha’s seed is more likely to take. He’ll let Dimitri fuck him, knot him and keep him full, breed him until there’s no question at all that Felix will grow round with his child.
Felix can tell the moment his growing heat-scent hits Dimitri, because Dimitri’s eye widens and his own scent deepens. “You really are made for me,” Dimitri says, breathy with wonder.
“Then stop screwing around and take me already!” It doesn’t sound like a command, not like Felix wants it to. It sounds like what it is – a desperate plea.
“As much as I want to savor you,” Dimitri says as he starts undoing Felix’s belt, “I can’t wait any longer, either.” He makes quick, if clumsy, work of Felix’s pants before practically tearing off his own. Felix dazedly wonders if any of their clothes will survive the night intact.
Dimitri’s cock is – Felix knew it was big, but on his back with his legs spread, Dimitri’s length resting between his thighs with precome dribbling into Felix’s navel, Dimitri looks huge. It makes his cunt throb and his cock twitch. Some omegas might quail, close their legs, worry if it will fit, but not Felix. Felix is made to take everything Dimitri has to give him, and this is no exception.
“Do you want it?” Dimitri asks, fisting his cock and giving it a few pumps.
“Yes,” Felix says through a mouth full of drool.
Dimitri grins, and there’s a hint of the beast behind his smile. He shuffles on his knees up Felix’s torso until the head of his cock rests on Felix’s lips, his thighs bracketing Felix’s face. “Show me,” Dimitri whispers, and Felix is too drunk on heat to do anything but comply.
He’s sucked Dimitri’s cock before, but never in this position and never during heat or rut. Thankfully, Dimitri doesn’t seem to expect him to take him much farther than the back of his mouth. As much as Felix wants to let Dimitri fuck his throat, the angle is difficult, and there are better places for him to spend than into Felix’s mouth.
He swirls his tongue around the tip and down the shaft, his hands coming up to worship what his mouth can’t reach. Dimitri is a heavy, satisfying weight on his tongue, all salt and precome and alpha, and Felix’s lips curve upward around the fat girth of him when he hears Dimitri moan above him.
“Good,” Dimitri groans. “You’re so good. Your mouth—”
Felix redoubles his efforts, bobbing his head up and down the hot shaft. He fondles Dimitri’s heavy balls as he dips his tongue into his slit, hoping that he’s shown his alpha how much he loves his cock, how much he wants it, how eager he is for Dimitri to put his dick to work and breed Felix properly.
“Enough.” Dimitri pulls back, gripping the base of his cock. “You—your scent, your mouth—I haven’t had a rut in so long…”
Oh. Felix had almost made him come, just with that. He grins, flicking his tongue out to clean the drool and precome from his lips.
The sight of Felix’s tongue must do something for Dimitri, because he clambers off of Felix and flips him over onto his belly with a snarl. This—this, Felix’s omega knows what to do with. Without a single thought in his head, Felix lifts himself up onto his knees and presses his chest to the bed, offering his wet, eager cunt for his alpha’s use.
“Felix,” Dimitri says, strained. The head of his cock catches on Felix’s slick, swollen folds. “We can still – I can use your, ah…”
Even now, Dimitri tries to play the gentleman, like he hadn’t eyed his come smeared on Felix’s face like a wild animal proud of marking its territory. If he tries to fuck Felix’s ass instead of his cunt, Felix may scream.
“No,” Felix grinds out. He went into heat for this man, and Dimitri still isn’t getting it. He glowers over his shoulder. “Take responsibility and breed me, alpha.”
The first thrust punches all the air out of Felix’s lungs. Dimitri is huge, and neither he nor Felix had exactly had the patience for foreplay. But Felix is his, has always been his, and his heat makes the passage slick and easy for Dimitri’s fat cock to slam into him.
It seems the last vestiges of Dimitri’s control left him when he buried his cock in Felix, because the movement of his hips is fast and brutal, sawing Felix open with every thrust. Felix wails into the sheets, staccato ah, ah, ahs of pain and pleasure as Dimitri reshapes his insides.
Dimitri plants a hand between his shoulder blades. Felix doesn’t realize he’s thrashing until the weight of his alpha pinning him down forces him to still.
“Dima,” he hears himself whine.
“You take me so well,” Dimitri growls into his ear. “So tight, so perfect—”
The praise twists hot and tight in Felix’s belly. He lets out a helpless sob as Dimitri snakes a hand under his body to thumb at his neglected cock.
“Dima, Dima—” Every inchoate thought ends in Dimitri’s name. There’s nothing for Felix but the heat of Dimitri’s body, the thrust of his cock claiming him, owning him, breeding him.
“You feel so good,” Dimitri pants. His hips stutter against Felix’s ass, thrusts growing uneven and sporadic. “Felix, I—I want to— can I—”
It takes Felix’s heat-addled mind a moment to catch up to what Dimitri is saying. “Alpha,” he says, trying to sound steely despite the way his voice trembles. “I already told you yes.”
He sweeps his hair off the back of his neck and tips his head down in invitation, and it’s all Dimitri needs to lunge forward and take. His fangs sink deep into the scent glands at the nape of Felix’s neck, and oh, nothing Felix ever read or heard could have prepared him for this. His entire body goes limp and liquid beneath his alpha. It feels right—complete—like Felix could spend the rest of his life on his belly beneath Dimitri and never want anything more than his tongue and teeth and cock—like a question he asked when he was only a child has finally been answered with yes, yes, yes.
Helpless, pinned, speared on Dimitri’s cock and held tight between his teeth, all Felix can do is clutch the pillow and moan. The beast in him positively luxuriates at how thoroughly he’s been bested, at how much his alpha deserves to have him.
Dimitri’s hands slide beneath Felix’s prone form, his teeth leaving Felix’s neck as he flips Felix over onto his back. Felix barely has a heartbeat to adjust to the new position before Dimitri is plunging his cock back into Felix’s willing heat.
“Dimitri, Dimitri—” Felix’s voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, but it’s enough to beg. Alpha hasn’t knotted him yet. Why hasn’t alpha knotted him yet? He reaches down to touch his abdomen, where the thick weight of Dimitri’s cock is so heavy in his belly that he swears he can feel it under his palm every time Dimitri thrusts into him. “Please, I—I need—”
Dimitri hooks Felix’s legs over his shoulders and rises up onto his knees to pound into Felix’s pliant body with even more ferocity. The force of it has Felix wailing, scrabbling at Dimitri’s shoulders as Dimitri uses Felix’s cunt to chase his own pleasure.
Dimitri plants one hand onto the mattress and uses the other to fist a handful of Felix’s hair, wrenching his head up and pressing his face to Dimitri’s neck. They’re both beyond words now, but words aren’t necessary for what Dimitri is asking him to do. Felix bares his fangs and bites.
It’s less intense than when Dimitri claimed him, but it’s still a heady rush of emotion and instinct that leaves Felix quivering against Dimitri’s body. Dimitri clings to him in turn, his grip on Felix’s hair painfully tight, his hand bruising Felix’s hip, but the pain tumbles into pleasure in a kaleidoscope of sensation that just leaves Felix wanting more of it.
And finally, finally, with Felix’s fangs in his neck and their bond mutually sealed, Dimitri shoves that last impossible inch of his cock into Felix as his knot swells to tie them together. The warmth of his come floods Felix’s belly, and he swears he can feel it spilling into his womb. He lets out a muffled sob against Dimitri’s throat as he comes alongside his alpha. He’s full, so impossibly full – Dimitri’s cock alone is huge, and his knot is almost unbearable. But Felix can take it. Felix is made for this. Made for Dimitri, made to take Dimitri’s cock and knot and seed, made to bear Dimitri’s pups.
“I love you,” he whispers. “Goddess, I love you, Dimitri, I love you—”
Dimitri seizes his lips in a fierce kiss, and between shared breaths, Dimitri says it too— “I love you, I cherish you, I can’t wait to see you round with my child—” as Felix trembles and clings and says it over and over. Those words he’s shaped his soul around for so long, spoken aloud between their lips. I love you. I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Their coupling doesn’t end with one knot. Dimitri hasn’t had a rut in years, and Felix’s last heat was six moons ago and lasted two unsatisfying days before his body seemed to realize his alpha wasn’t responding in kind. Now that their dormant instincts have woken up, it’ll take some effort to quiet them back down.
Dimitri takes him again and again. Facedown with his cheek shoved into the pillow, over the desk, against the window – Felix is covered in bites and dripping with his alpha’s seed by the time their stamina fails them, and even then, Dimitri finds the energy to use his tongue and fingers to shove as much spend as possible back into Felix’s gaping cunt.
The bed is a mess, but there’s no helping it. They roll onto the cleaner side of the mattress and curl up together in the temporary lull of their instincts, Felix enjoying the cushioned warmth of Dimitri’s chest as Dimitri massages his scalp.
Dimitri’s hands pause in Felix’s hair. “Did… did I…”
“If you ask me if you hurt me, I’m going to fling you out the window,” Felix informs him, snuggling closer in protest to Dimitri’s growing worry. “It felt good for me. Did it feel good for you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then shut your mouth.” Felix leans up to steal a quick, tired kiss. “You’re insufferable.”
Dimitri huffs out a helpless laugh. “You truly are a wonder, Felix.”
Felix shoves his face into Dimitri’s neck to hide his growing flush. “Mm. Go to sleep, boar.”
“Yes, my love. Anything you say.” Dimitri’s hand, blessedly, starts to comb through Felix’s hair again, thumb occasionally pausing to brush across the fresh bond-mark on his nape. They’ll likely be subject to the whims of heat and rut by tomorrow morning, but for now, they can sleep. Satisfied, Felix closes his eyes.
It takes multiple heats and ruts for many couples to conceive. Considering the kind of omega Felix is, he doesn’t have high hopes for any potential pups of theirs, despite Dimitri’s unwavering optimism that it will take.
But weeks pass after Dimitri’s rut, and Felix catches himself arranging their bed more and more like a nest. He pilfers cloaks from Dimitri’s wardrobe to tuck around his pillows, and he spends far too much time fussing with the position of their quilts and furs. Dimitri watches him with indulgent amusement and does not comment, but Felix isn’t completely oblivious to what his own instincts mean.
The morning sickness is the tipping point. The castle healers confirm it when Felix goes for a checkup – he is, without a doubt, carrying the heir to the Kingdom.
It’s too early to announce it in any kind of public capacity (and Felix is frankly so sore and miserable that he can’t fathom announcing it to anyone, let alone the people at large), but Dimitri excitedly tells their inner circle as soon as they receive the news.
Sylvain pats Felix on the back like a proud older brother, and Ingrid awkwardly offers them a clumsy, hand-knit baby blanket that belonged to her when she was an infant. Annette cannot and will not stop crying. Mercedes offers to stay on as Felix’s doctor until the pregnancy ends, which Felix gratefully accepts, as the castle healers have already seen more of his body than he will ever be comfortable with. Ashe writes that he’ll visit from Gaspard as soon as he’s able, and Felix tells him that there’s no need to come until the baby is actually born unless he feels strongly about seeing Felix round and cranky.
Dedue and Rodrigue receive the last letters they write, mostly because Felix struggles to figure out what to say to his father. Rodrigue knows they’re courting, but a pup—it doesn’t feel right to break such news to his father in a mere letter. Eventually, he decides against writing it down at all.
A letter, written in a sharp but neat hand:
Old man,
I hope you aren’t troubling Dedue much. Try not to push yourself too hard in your old age – he’s too polite to tell you if you go too far and end up being a burden on him.
Dimitri The King and I have officially mated. I’m sure you’re thrilled to hear it, considering how hard you cried when you heard we were courting. No one seems to know what my title is going to be. If you start calling me Queen, I’m going to throw you off one of the turrets. I don’t care how old you are.
It’s not exactly traditional to mate before the official courtship period ends, but our King is making a habit of bucking tradition anyway, and it isn’t as though you have any illusions about my own inclinations. We’ll marry in the summer or something. Maybe autumn, during harvest season. I don’t know – Dimitri is more excited about it than I am, so I’ll just let him decide. Seeing him happy is It’s easier that way.
I might be with
I’ve been ill in the
Congratulations, you might be a
Come visit soon. It’s easier to talk about this rot in person.
Felix
Rodrigue and Dedue return to the capital mere weeks after Felix’s letter, which is both embarrassing and unsurprising. The first thing Rodrigue does is tug Felix’s fur collar down to admire the bond-mark like he would a wedding ring.
“Oh, Felix,” Rodrigue says, proud and teary-eyed.
“Shove it,” Felix says, but he doesn’t push Rodrigue away.
“And Your Majesty!” Rodrigue sweeps past Felix to cup Dimitri’s cheeks with all the affectionate joy of a father. “You’ve finally made an honest man of my son, have you?” Like it was a foregone conclusion. Like Rodrigue never had any doubts that Felix, for all his protesting, would end up back at Dimitri’s side. Felix doesn’t know whether to be humiliated or relieved that everyone had so much faith in them.
“And he of me, Rodrigue,” Dimitri says, somewhat shyly pulling his own lapel aside to reveal Felix’s bite. “Though we won’t be married for many moons yet. We’ve decided to wait until, ah…” His eye flickers over to Felix.
“Until the pup is born,” Felix finishes for Dimitri.
“The pup,” Rodrigue echoes.
Dedue, who was informed quite effusively in Dimitri’s letter to him that the royal couple is expecting, has already sent them three tea recipes to ease morning sickness, one of which actually kind of works. He does not react to Felix’s declaration.
“The pup,” Rodrigue says again.
“Have you gone deaf in your old age?” Felix starts to ask, but Rodrigue cuts him off by sweeping him into a hug.
How long has it been, Felix wondered, since his father hugged him last? Or since he last hugged his father? The damn infant must already be making him sentimental, because when he loops his arms around Rodrigue to return the embrace, he finds himself tearing up.
“Come here,” Rodrigue says, his voice tight and wet, and oh no, Felix’s father is crying. He’s crying and gesturing to Dimitri to join the embrace, and this is altogether too much.
But Felix doesn’t step away, even when Dimitri kisses him in front of his father and proudly declares that they conceived on their first try. He flushes bright red and sends Dedue a pleading glance, which Dedue traitorously returns with nothing but silent amusement, but he doesn’t step away.
It’s the first time he’s been in the company of his father and Dimitri and felt closer to the living than the dead.
Dimitri’s cursed Blaiddyd genes are wreaking havoc on Felix’s carefully honed body.
Oh, Felix knew he’d look like a beached whale by the end of this. He just expected he’d have longer than three months before he started showing, and longer than four and a half before he was struggling to fit into his pants. It’s humiliating.
“You could just stay in bed,” Dimitri says helpfully, wrapping his arms around Felix and resting his (stupidly large) hands on Felix’s belly, where his (stupidly large) baby is making a mockery of Felix’s attempt to get dressed.
“And let the privy council run roughshod over you? No.” Felix rolls his eyes as he reaches for a more forgiving pair of breeches with longer laces in the front.
Dimitri laughs. “It’s true that I appreciate having you there. You have a talent for saying exactly what I’m thinking but cannot speak aloud.”
“It’s a gift,” Felix says with a grunt as he wrestles with another pair of pants. “They might not like me much, but it’s your opinion I care about, not theirs.”
“Mm. My brave shield.” Dimitri kisses his cheek.
Felix flushes, jerking his face to the side to get away from Dimitri’s embarrassingly soft lips. “Yeah, well, you and your boarlet have made your brave shield too big to fit into any of his breeches.”
“You look good, carrying my child.” Dimitri nuzzles the topmost knob of Felix’s spine. “I love seeing you tear the council to shreds looking like this. Looking… looking like you’re mine.”
“I am yours,” Felix says. It comes out breathier than he wants it to. “You beast. You’ve marked me up and bred me full, and you still want to parade me around so everyone knows I belong to you, huh?”
“You haven’t seen the way people look at you.” Dimitri scrapes his teeth across the bond-mark. “An omega of your status… of your beauty… but now they see my mark on you and my baby in your belly, and they know they’ll never have you. Not like I do.”
Felix squirms in Dimitri’s hold, biting his lip at the way those words make his omega yearn. “It was never—never anyone but you.” He gasps as Dimitri’s hand drifts lower, past his swollen abdomen to palm him through his pants. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” Dimitri says, more softly. His hand retreats. “I—if these urges make you uncomfortable—”
“I never said that.” Felix turns around in Dimitri’s grip, looping his arms around Dimitri’s neck. There’s no point in pretending it doesn’t make his omega preen, knowing how proud his alpha is to have him, and Dimitri marking Felix so thoroughly is just as much of a reminder that the King is well and truly spoken for, too. “Well, alpha? Are you going to remind them who owns me?”
Dimitri’s eye darkens.
They are late to the council meeting. Felix, smugly wearing evidence of Dimitri’s possessiveness like a collar around his neck, doesn’t bother to make excuses.
Felix’s chest is sore.
It’s not entirely new. He’s been sore since the beginning of the pregnancy. But the feeling of it is – different, swollen, like there’s a full, heavy ache instead of just a generalized dull pain. After almost seven months, he thought he’d gotten used to the indignities pregnancy would enact upon his person (goddess, he can’t even get out of a chair without help sometimes), but when he strips off his layers in the chambers he shares with his King, he finds that his body can still surprise him.
The dampness on the inside of his shirt is not just sweat from the stuffy council room. No, there are twin stains on his undershirt, right where his nipples touch the fabric, and touching his breasts only pushes more liquid out of them.
He flushes, and when Dimitri follows him into the bedroom, he whips around to glare.
“I’m leaking,” Felix says accusingly, jabbing a finger against Dimitri’s chest.
“You’re… leaking,” Dimitri echoes.
“Yes!” Felix gestures angrily at the visible wet spots staining his undershirt. “Your boarlet doesn’t have the good sense to know that they won’t need milk until they’re born, evidently!”
“Oh. Oh.” Dimitri’s eye darkens as he studies Felix’s chest, and Felix freezes, suddenly self-conscious. Dimitri has been nothing but enthusiastic about the way pregnancy has changed Felix’s body, but will this be what disgusts him? Will he—
That particular line of thought dies very quickly when Dimitri’s hands slide up Felix’s shirt to massage his breasts.
“Felix,” Dimitri says with wonder. He hikes Felix’s shirt up entirely to expose the swollen, tender flesh of Felix’s chest. “Oh, Felix…”
“You see?” Felix says. The irritation in his voice has bled out almost entirely under Dimitri’s attentions. “Look what you’ve done to me.”
Dimitri rolls a thumb over one of Felix’s nipples, lips parting at the bead of liquid that forms at the movement. Felix should really expect what happens next, but it somehow still surprises him when Dimitri ducks his head to lap the drop up with his tongue.
“Dimitri!”
“You taste sweet,” Dimitri murmurs. He nibbles lightly at the pebbled flesh, grinning as Felix’s breast offers more milk in response to his ministrations.
“I know you can’t—can’t taste—” Felix jerks with a gasp when Dimitri latches on properly, sealing his mouth around Felix’s tit and sucking in earnest. Dimitri’s eyes go half-lidded as he drinks, one hand cupping Felix’s back and the other drifting to his swollen belly.
The pressure in Felix’s chest alleviates with every pull of Dimitri’s mouth. It feels—strange, but not bad, and it’s never a hardship to enjoy Dimitri’s eager mouth regardless of where it is on his body.
“Bed,” Felix gasps as Dimitri releases his tit with a satisfied smack of his lips.
“As you wish.” Dimitri sweeps him up into his arms effortlessly, even with Felix’s belly as swollen as it is. It makes Felix’s toes curl as Dimitri deposits him gently, always gently, on their bed.
“Well?” Felix says imperiously, scooting back to lean against the pillows. “Are you going to finish what you started?”
Dimitri’s eye darkens as it fixates on Felix’s other breast. “Gladly,” he says, low and promising, as he crawls over Felix’s body to lower his lips again. “Goddess, I love you like this, Felix.”
“Get on with it,” Felix whines, looping a leg around Dimitri to kick him with an impatient heel.
“You look radiant,” Dimitri continues. His body is a firm, warm line against Felix’s side, unable to straddle Felix properly with the size of his pregnant belly but still managing to make Felix feel delightfully crowded as he leans down over him. “Full of me. Full of our child.”
“Yes, yes, you love seeing me with a Blaiddyd in my belly,” Felix says. He lifts a hand to cover his reddening face. Even now, Dimitri’s compliments turn him to jelly. “Just—just—”
“Shh. Let me spoil my mate.” Dimitri spreads a hand over Felix’s belly, fingers tracing reverent lines across the stretch marks. “You carry our pup so beautifully, and now—” His other hand reaches over to toy with Felix’s still-swollen tit. “Now you provide for them so beautifully, as well.”
Felix trembles as Dimitri’s fingers give his nipple a gentle squeeze. “Dimitri—Dima—”
“I’ll give you what you need, beloved,” Dimitri murmurs. Keeping a possessive hand splayed across Felix’s belly, he kisses the bead of liquid forming from Felix’s pebbled nipple. “As long as you give me what I need.”
Before Felix can respond, Dimitri seals his lips over his tit and sucks hard enough to make Felix whimper.
If Dimitri emptying Felix’s breasts before bed becomes a habit, well – it’s just an alpha doing his duty to keep his omega comfortable, and it isn’t as though his child needs it yet.
There isn’t a doubt in Felix’s mind that their firstborn is a Crest-bearer.
Such things don’t matter much to Felix. Reliance on Crests is one of the things Dimitri is trying to change about Faerghus, and Felix has always thought more highly of ability than bloodline. It will probably ease the minds of the nobility if there’s a Crest-bearing Blaiddyd set to inherit the throne – the northern nobility in particular – but Felix follows his King in these matters, and his King would rather a wise, kind ruler succeed him than a Crest-bearing one.
But the baby in Felix’s belly bears the Crest of Blaiddyd, without question.
It’s not that Felix has some kind of preternatural omega instinct. Neither he nor Dimitri have tried to get the baby tested in the womb like a noble desperate for an heir. No, Felix knows their baby is a Crest-bearer because their infernal hellspawn has cracked not one but two of his ribs in as many weeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Dimitri says mournfully when Mercedes leaves them. He wraps Felix’s hand up in both of his own, pressing a kiss to Felix’s knuckles.
Felix rolls his eyes as imperiously as a person eight months pregnant in an infirmary bed can manage. “I think we should be blaming Blaiddyd, not you.”
“Still…”
“Oh, get that sad look off your face, boar.” Felix reaches his free hand up to rap his knuckles against Dimitri’s forehead. “I was a general for years. Your boarlet is going to have to try harder if they want to best me in combat.”
That, at least, startles a laugh out of Dimitri. “Will they prefer the lance or the sword, do you think?”
“Sword,” Felix says. “But we’re teaching them to write first.”
“Imagine. A future in which Faerghan children learn their letters before their battle stances.” Dimitri’s eye shines with a combination of humor and genuine emotion. “Our ancestors must be rolling in their graves.”
“Ugh. Let them roll.” Felix lays a hand on the swell of his abdomen. As if responding to their father’s touch, the baby nudges against his hand in a small flutter of movement. Goddess, but they make Felix weak. He used to think he was good for nothing but war, but both this damn child and Dimitri are doing their best to domesticate him.
He can’t imagine raising this child to fight and die on the battlefield. He doesn’t know how his father bore it.
“I was thinking,” Dimitri says after a long moment.
Felix snorts. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Dimitri swats him on the shoulder, as playful and gentle as a kitten. “Speaking of our ancestors made me wonder. What are you thinking for a name?”
Felix falls silent. He knows logically that the child will need a name, of course, but they still feel more like a part of him than a separate entity.
“I… thought perhaps Lambert, for a boy. Or Glenn.”
Felix’s eyes drift down to his swollen belly. He can hardly imagine burdening such a tiny, vulnerable thing with that kind of legacy. They’ll already bear the burden of the names Blaiddyd and Fraldarius. Their first name, the name they’re called by the people they love – it should belong only to them, not the people that came before them.
“For a girl…”
“I don’t want to name them after anyone,” Felix interrupts.
Dimitri glances up at Felix, eye wide. “Not even Glenn?”
To see his brother’s face every time he looks at his child – to know Dimitri is seeing Glenn – Felix shakes his head. “Especially not Glenn.”
“Felix,” Dimitri says, soft and sad. “I know you dislike dwelling on the past, but—”
“I don’t want our child to be born with a gravestone around their neck!”
Dimitri flinches. Immediately, Felix regrets his tone.
“Look,” Felix says, trying to soften his voice. He’s not built for delicacy, but Dimitri makes him want to try. Always, Dimitri makes him want to try. “I don’t mind it as a middle name, or something. But their first name… I…” He frowns, struggling to find the words.
“No, you’re right.” Dimitri’s shoulders slump. “I apologize for pushing. All this talk of building a future for Faerghus unhindered by its past, and I still…”
“Don’t turn this into something it’s not.” Felix taps Dimitri’s temple on his blind side, as if to shake those self-loathing thoughts out of his brain. “I’m not upset with you. I don’t think we should forget the people we lost entirely. But I don’t want us to think of them every time we look at our child, either.”
Something in Dimitri’s face loosens at that. Hopefully, he’s realized that part of it is for his sake as well. Dimitri is haunted by enough ghosts. There’s no need to turn their child into a specter, too.
“We’ll give it more thought, then,” Dimitri says. “But… I believe Glenn would suit a boy, as a middle name.”
Felix thinks of how unbelievably smug his brother would have been to have a nephew named after him. He wonders what Glenn would have named his children, had he lived to bear any. This small remembrance, this piece of legacy – it’s enough for a child of Blaiddyd and Fraldarius to carry. “I think so too.”
Adrien Glenn Fraldarius-Blaiddyd is born on the eighth day of the Guardian Moon. Were he smaller and the labor shorter, he may have been born on the seventh, but all nine stubborn pounds of him take sixteen hours to deliver.
He is in perfect health, Mercedes assures Felix. He is also apparently the largest baby she has ever delivered, which fills Felix with a bizarre sense of satisfaction. Of course their baby is impressive. Dimitri and Felix are his parents – there’s no way he could be anything less.
Mercedes has since excused herself, giving the parents a few moments alone to bond with their child. Exhausted, in pain, but aglow with affection and pride, Felix cradles his newborn to his breast and watches him nurse. Adrien had ceased his post-birth crying the moment he latched onto Felix’s nipple and figured out there was milk in it.
Like father, like son, Felix supposes.
“He’s so small,” Dimitri whispers.
“Not according to Mercedes,” Felix says, though privately, he agrees with Dimitri. Adrien is tiny – Felix had no idea babies could be so small.
“Felix,” Dimitri says, audibly choked with tears. “He’s perfect.”
It seems like Adrien is done eating for now. He releases Felix’s nipple with a soft, content smack of his lips, and Felix takes the opportunity to lean forward and shove Adrien into his other father’s arms.
“He is perfect,” Felix says. “Which is why you should hold him.”
Dimitri’s eye widens, and slowly, tentatively, he wraps Adrien up in his massive arms. It’s almost comical how tiny Adrien is in comparison, but mostly, the sight of Dimitri being so gentle with their son is making Felix want to cry. Adrien barely stirs, blinking open his eyes to gaze up at Dimitri with an easy, open trust that flays Felix’s heart wide open.
Goddess, now that Dimitri is holding Adrien, the resemblance between them is all the more obvious. Perhaps he’ll grow to look more like Felix in the coming years, but with his golden hair, his wide blue eyes, his strong grip despite his tiny, tiny hands – for now, he’s all Blaiddyd.
“Look at you,” Felix says, brushing Adrien’s wispy blond hair off his forehead. “Couldn’t even have the good grace to look like me, huh? You know I was the one who lugged you around for nine months, right?”
“He has your nose,” Dimitri says reassuringly. He shifts Adrien in his arms, face soft with adoration as he peers down to meet Adrien’s curious gaze. “And I’m told that infants often outgrow their blue eyes.”
“Relax.” Felix rolls his eyes and readjusts Adrien’s blankets. “I don’t have any complaints about the way you look, so it’s not like I’ll be angry if we end up with a tinier version of you.”
Dimitri flushes.
Before the conversation can continue, there’s a soft knock, followed by the door creaking open.
“May I come in?” Rodrigue asks quietly.
Dimitri glances at Felix and doesn’t answer, which makes Felix more emotional than he’d like to admit. His alpha, deferring to his omega when it comes to matters of their nest and their child.
“Get in here, old man,” Felix says.
Rodrigue slips into the room and shuts the door behind him, very gently. “How are you feeling?” he asks Felix, though he keeps glancing at Adrien in Dimitri’s arms. Not that Felix can blame him. Adrien is perfect and incredible.
“Fine. Sore.” Felix rolls his shoulders and leans back against the pillows. “Go hold your grandson. I know that’s why you’re here.”
“Felix,” Rodrigue says, half in protest before he catches sight of the smile upturning Felix’s lips.
“He’s been quite cooperative so far,” Dimitri says. He maneuvers the swaddled bundle into Rodrigue’s arms. “But if he’s anything like Felix, I suspect he’ll find something to cry about very soon.”
“I just pushed a nine-pound infant out of my body. Can’t I have a single day of peace?”
Dimitri chuckles, leaning down to press a kiss above Felix’s eyebrow. “My apologies, love. You are very strong and impressive, as is our son.”
Rodrigue doesn’t say anything, too enchanted by Adrien’s quiet fussing, and for all that Felix’s relationship with his father has improved, seeing him with Adrien is like looking at him for the first time. The gray streaks in his hair, the tired lines around his eyes, the awkward way he holds the shoulder that took the blade for Dimitri on Gronder Field – he looks old, almost frail. But there’s also a gentle joy that lifts his face as he offers a finger for Adrien to grab, a softness to him that Felix remembers from his own childhood. Something inside Felix’s chest aches.
“He looks just like you and Glenn did,” Rodrigue says, voice somewhat tight.
Despite himself, Felix scoffs. “He looks like Dimitri.”
“Yes, but there’s Fraldarius in him, too. It’s in the nose,” Rodrigue says. He presses a playful finger against the cute upturn of Adrien’s nose, smiling when it earns him a giggle.
“That’s what I said,” Dimitri says with a triumphant glance at Felix.
“Ugh.” Felix rests his head back against the pillows. “I’m going to sleep.”
He dozes off to the feeling of Dimitri’s hand combing gently through his hair and Adrien’s soft coos. Not even a day in the world, and already Adrien knows that he’ll be safe here. He’ll be loved. He’ll never fight the same wars his parents did.
Just as Dimitri predicted, Adrien’s eyes darken from a bright blue to Felix’s brown as the months go by. Privately, Felix doesn’t know whether to be glad or disappointed. Seeing such an obvious part of himself in his son’s face warms his heart, but he mourns the loss of the Blaiddyd blue.
As he gently rocks Adrien’s bassinet one night, the thought returns to him. The room is dark, lit only by a candle by the window, and the quiet nighttime atmosphere combined with his son’s sleeping face has Felix speaking more openly than he’s used to.
“I’ll miss his blue eyes,” he admits softly. Dimitri hums against his nape, arms looped around Felix’s waist as they watch their son sleep.
“You know,” Dimitri says, rubbing his thumb against Felix’s belly. “Our next child could have blue eyes, and Fraldarius still needs an heir.”
Felix huffs out a laugh. “Unbelievable. Your son isn’t even a year old, and you’re already talking about giving him a sibling.”
“I don’t hear you protesting, my love.”
“No.” Felix twists around to press a kiss to Dimitri’s stubbled jaw. “You don’t.”