The fire crackled.
Orion sat on the thick rug, his wedding robes pooling around him like a dark lake. He held a wooden horse in one hand. Its carving was rough against his palm. He turned it slowly, watching the firelight dance across its painted mane.
Across from him, Abel sat with his legs crossed, utterly absorbed in arranging a line of wooden soldiers. His brow was furrowed in concentration. He moved each piece with careful precision, his large hands surprisingly gentle.
This is absurd, Orion thought.
The thought didn’t come as a shout. It was a quiet, cold whisper in the back of his mind. A fact. Like the time of day or the color of the sky.
He was supposed to be knotted tonight.
He was supposed to be claimed.
Bitten.
He was supposed to be fulfilling his duty, lying in that enormous bed while his Alpha husband took him, bred him, hopefully planted an heir deep inside him. That was the purpose. That was the transaction. His body for an alliance. His future for his family’s stability.
Instead, he was playing with toys.
A laugh bubbled up in his throat. He choked it back. It tasted bitter.
His gaze drifted from the wooden horse to the man sitting opposite him. Abel’s golden hair glowed in the firelight. He looked peaceful. Happy, even. He hummed a tuneless little song under his breath as he placed another soldier.
Orion had cried the night before the wedding.
He hadn’t sobbed. He wasn’t a child. He had simply sat on the edge of his bed, the silence of his room pressing in on him, and felt the hot tears slide down his cheeks. One after another. Silent and efficient.
His old nanny, Martha, had found him. She had said nothing. She never did. She just sat beside him, her own bones aching, and let him hold her arm. He had gripped her frail wrist, his fingers trembling, and pressed his forehead against her shoulder.
"It will be alright, little lord," she had whispered, her voice like dry leaves. "You are stronger than you know."
He hadn’t believed her.
He had met Abel at the altar.
The chapel had been cold, despite the crowd of nobles packed into the pews. Orion had walked down the aisle, the heavy wedding veil obscuring his vision. He could see shapes, colors, blurred faces. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart.
Then he had stopped.
He had looked up through the thin white fabric.
And he had seen him.
Abel stood beside the priest, dressed in ceremonial black and gold. He was taller than Orion had imagined. Broader. He stood perfectly still, his head slightly tilted as if listening to a distant sound. He wasn’t looking at Orion. He was looking at a stained-glass window, his expression blank.
For a fleeting second, Orion saw the ghost of the man Abel used to be. The proud heir. The military prodigy. The sharp, commanding presence everyone still whispered about.
Then Abel blinked.
He turned his head.
His eyes, a startling shade of gold-brown, found Orion’s through the veil.
And he smiled.
It was a small, confused smile. A little lopsided. Not the practiced grin of a politician, but the genuine, unguarded expression of someone who saw something pleasant.
Orion’s breath had caught.
The ceremony was a blur. Words were spoken. Vows were exchanged. Orion repeated his lines in a flat, numb voice. Abel recited his perfectly, his tone clear and confident, as if he’d memorized them without understanding their weight.
Then came the Biting.
The final seal of an Alpha-Omega marriage. The claiming bite. Permanent. Painful. Sacred.
The priest gestured. Orion, his heart hammering against his ribs, had bowed his head slightly, exposing the side of his neck where his mating gland lay beneath the skin. He closed his eyes. He braced for the sharp, tearing pain. For the feeling of being claimed, owned, bound forever.
He felt Abel step closer.
He felt the warmth of his body.
He smelled his scent—warm cedar and amber, surprisingly comforting.
He waited.
And waited.
A soft, hesitant touch on his shoulder.
Orion opened his eyes. He turned his head just enough to see Abel’s face from the corner of his eye.
Abel was frowning. He was looking at Orion’s exposed neck, then at the priest, then back at Orion’s neck. His nose wrinkled slightly.
"It will hurt him," Abel said suddenly, his voice loud in the hushed chapel.
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
The priest flustered. "My lord, it is the tradition. It is a blessed pain—"
"But it’s an ouch," Abel stated, as if explaining something very simple to a very stupid person. "You don’t give someone an ouch on a happy day."
Orion stared straight ahead, frozen.
Abel’s large hand, which had been hovering near Orion’s shoulder, gently patted it twice. "No biting," he declared firmly. Then he leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper meant only for Orion, though it echoed in the silent chapel. "It’s okay. I won’t let them."
He had taken Orion’s hand instead. Held it tightly. And led him back down the aisle, leaving a stunned priest and a whispering aristocracy in their wake.
There had been no bite. No mark. No claim.
Just the warm, solid grip of Abel’s hand around his.
Now, by the fireplace, Orion touched the side of his own neck. The skin was smooth. Unbroken.
He looked at Abel, who was now trying to balance a wooden soldier on top of a horse.
"Why didn’t you bite me?" The question left Orion’s lips before he could stop it. It was quiet, almost lost in the crackle of the fire.
Abel didn’t look up from his precarious balancing act. "I told you. Ouch."
"It’s supposed to ouch."
"Then it’s a stupid rule," Abel said simply. The soldier fell. He huffed and picked it up again. "You don’t look like you like ouches."
Orion had no answer to that.
He watched Abel’s face. There was no deception there. No cruelty. No pity. Just a straightforward logic that bypassed centuries of tradition and social expectation. You don’t look like you like ouches. So he hadn’t given him one.
It was the first act of kindness Orion had received in this entire arrangement. And it had come from the man everyone called mad.
A lump formed in Orion’s throat. He looked away, back into the flames.
He placed the wooden horse on the rug between them. "Your turn."
Abel looked at the horse. Then at his own line of soldiers. He seemed to ponder deeply. Finally, he picked up a soldier and carefully set it astride the horse. He looked immensely pleased with himself.
"He’s the captain," Abel announced.
"Is he?"
"Yes. He’s in charge. But he’s nice. He doesn’t yell." Abel pointed a finger at another soldier lying on its side. "That one yells. He’s grumpy. I don’t like him."
Orion felt the ghost of a smile touch his lips. "Why is he grumpy?"
Abel shrugged, his big shoulders moving under the fine fabric of his wedding tunic. "Dunno. Maybe his feet hurt. Or nobody gave him a horse." He picked up the grumpy soldier and stood him upright, patting his wooden head. "There. You can have this one." He gave the soldier a smaller, uglier horse.
The care in the gesture was so unexpected, so utterly sincere, that Orion’s chest ached.
He wasn’t being handled with kid gloves. He wasn’t being pitied or manipulated or managed. He was just... there. Sitting with a man who lived in a simpler, clearer world. A world where you didn’t bite people because it would hurt them, and you gave grumpy wooden soldiers a horse to make them feel better.
"Abel," Orion said softly.
Abel looked up. His golden eyes were bright, open, waiting.
"Thank you," Orion whispered. "For not biting me."
Abel’s smile returned, warmer than the fireplace. He nodded once, as if accepting a great secret between them. Then he went back to his soldiers.
Orion leaned back on his hands, letting the heat of the fire seep into his bones. The tight knot of dread and resentment that had been sitting in his stomach since his father’s study began, slowly, to loosen.
He was still married to a stranger. His future was still a tangled mess. His family had still discarded him.
But here, now, on the floor of a too-grand bedroom, he was not being claimed. He was not being used. He was just playing with toys.
And for tonight, that was enough.
The fire crackled on. The wooden captain sat proudly on his horse. The grumpy soldier, now mounted, seemed slightly less grumpy. And Orion, for the first time all day, took a full, deep breath.
Outside their door, the rest of the estate slept. Servants whispered about the unconsummated marriage. The Valerian family wondered what to do with the new, unbitten Omega. The world kept turning according to its ruthless, complicated rules.
But inside, by the fire, there was only the soft click of wood on wood, the whisper of flames, and two husbands who did not yet know what they were to each other, quietly learning how to share a space without drawing blood.