In retrospect, it seemed absurd to Charles that he could have believed Erik actually loved him.
Erik had very much wanted Charles to believe it, of course. He’d put in an effort—but Charles knew he hadn’t been hard to convince. At the time, it seemed both amazing and completely natural that the omega he felt such an intense and immediate connection to would feel the same way about him. They were destined, meant to be, a fairytale come true.
Charles believed that, ridiculously enough. Believed it with his whole soul, right up until the moment he walked into their home an hour early—and found Erik in bed with another alpha.
Emma Frost had taken her leave without the least evidence of shame, blowing Erik a kiss that Charles pretended not to notice, because acknowledging that might actually tip him over into committing homicide.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Erik said, hands clenched in the bedcovers. “You and I have a mutually beneficial arrangement, that’s all. It’s not my fault you took so long to figure that out.”
“Arrangement?” Charles repeated.
“Yes. I get the hell out of Mr. Shaw’s house, you get a pretty omega to hang on your arm and take care of your house while you save the world.”
In better moments, perhaps, Charles would understand Erik’s desperation to get away from Shaw, the man who had taken in a destitute omega orphan and controlled every breath he took from that moment on. But in that particular moment, with Erik and their bed reeking of another alpha, he had no sympathy to spare.
“Get out,” he said, ignoring the hot tears that threatened to spill down his face. “Pack your things. I want you gone by morning.”
A hint of fear settled into Erik’s eyes, his clenched hands and bare shoulders. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“What do I care? Perhaps you can work out an arrangement with Emma Frost,” Charles snapped, and slammed the door behind him.
But Emma Frost wouldn’t take him.
“She said she loved me,” Erik said faintly, when Charles found him sitting on the front stoop the next morning. “She promised… but she won’t put aside her mate.”
How does it feel? Charles wanted to say, to scream. How does it feel to think someone loves you, and then find out they’re only using you? But he could see from Erik’s shell-shocked expression that it was feeling just as unpleasant as anyone could wish, and Charles found that he didn’t have it in him to twist the knife.
“There’s a village south of here,” he said instead. “Cholera outbreak. When they first asked me to go, I said I couldn’t take my omega anywhere so dangerous. Yesterday, after you left, I said I’d go. You can come with me, or you can take yourself off somewhere, divorced and penniless. Your choice.”
Erik stared at him in horror, but in the end he came with him.
It did not mean they were reconciled—far, far from it. Charles spent as much time as possible buried in his work, which wasn’t difficult, as the villagers really were in a bad way. When he did come home, he could hardly bear to look at Erik. Even Erik’s scent in the house was agonizing to endure, bringing up memories—lazy afternoons in bed, laughter over cups of wine, Charles tenderly tracing his fingertips along the edges of Erik’s face—that were as humiliating as they were painful. In some ways, Erik’s death would have been easier than this discovery that the Erik he loved had never existed.
And then, one day, he came home and the house was empty.
Despite himself, Charles’s first reaction was concern, though his second was anger. Surely it was more likely that Erik had run off than that he was in any sort of trouble. Erik had hardly bestirred himself to leave the house since they arrived, refusing to involve himself in what limited society this remote village could offer, letting the house and his own appearance go to pieces. It was a jarring change—Erik had always dressed to kill, and lived for the chance to hobnob with the Right People, people like Emma Frost who could debate poetry and politics—and it surely meant the man was miserable. Doubtless, he had simply had enough and decided to leave Charles after all, make his own way in the world however a cast-off omega might.
But there was no note, and all his clothes were still in the closet…
Charles stood at the closet door for a long time; in the confined space, the traces of scent on their clothes had mingled, as if they were a couple. As if this were a home.
It was pure chemical instinct, for an alpha to find his deepest satisfaction in that scent, to yearn above all things for that verifiable proof of… of what? His acceptability as a mate? No, it was deeper than that. Proof that he was loved, proof that he was fulfilling his purpose as the protector and guardian of a mate and family.
Oh, why couldn’t Erik have been real? Every other flaw—even infidelity—Charles knew he would have forgiven, if only Erik had loved him.
In the next moment, he wasn’t sure that was right after all, wasn’t sure he could ever love the vicious creature he had inadvertently taken as his mate. Before they married, Erik had convinced Charles he was a man of sharp wit and deep feeling, that his difficult childhood had lodged a dark anger inside him, but one that could be tamed or at least channeled now that he had found an alpha who understood and would care for him unconditionally. That was the Erik he could have loved—had loved, and still loved, Heaven help him.
The real Erik was shallow, haughty, selfish, often generally unpleasant, and cared nothing for Charles at all.
Regardless of all that, he’d agreed to keep Erik on as his omega, and that meant that whatever trouble he was in right now, Charles had nothing less than a sacred duty to find him and help him. He closed the closet door and went back out the door, into the village to search.
He found Erik at the orphanage.
The cholera epidemic, not only in this village but several smaller, poorer ones surrounding it, had left a flood of orphans, all gathered here under the kind eyes of a group of French nuns. The orphanage had, thank God, had little need for Charles and his doctoring thus far, and Charles didn’t speak French, further limiting his reasons to go near the place. He knew well enough, though, that the building was small and messy, overrun with noisy children—very much the last place he would ever have expected to find his Erik.
The Mother Superior showed him into the courtyard where Erik was, but Charles did not at first approach him. He just watched as Erik—impatient, snappish Erik with his great concern for finery and high culture—danced in a circle with a dozen or more Chinese orphans, singing in loud French, with one little girl on his shoulders and a boy hanging off his arm.
“Mr. Lehnsherr has been a great help to us here,” Mother Superior said in halting English. “You did not know?”
“No,” Charles said. “But then, he’s been known to keep things from me before.”
Mother Superior blinked at this, but did not respond, merely smiled.
The song ended, and Erik shooed the children away, saying something in French that Charles thought might indicate ‘going home.’ The little girl on his shoulders began to wail, and Erik set her on a nearby brick wall, chattering at her in such concerned, affectionate tones that Charles felt kicked in the gut. Erik was capable of this?
And he’d had no idea Erik spoke such fluent French, a discovery that had no right to spark sudden heat deep in his belly.
“Jubilé is new to us,” Mother Superior said, nodding toward the little girl. “She did not speak. Then Erik came.”
Jubilé was certainly speaking now, sounding stubborn and cross. Erik only laughed and kissed the top of her head, saying, “Demain, demain” – tomorrow.
Then he looked up and saw Charles.
All happiness and warmth dropped from his face immediately, replaced—not with the cold contempt Charles expected, but uncertainty and guarded reserve. He ruffled the girl’s hair one last time and left her, walking slowly to Charles.
“So this is why the house is in shambles,” Charles said after a minute—meaning it as a joke, however weak, but somehow it came out much harsher.
Erik went even more rigid. “Yes, well,” he said. “At one point we had arranged for me to look after that, but I thought we’d since decided otherwise.”
Mother Superior was frowning. Charles wanted to bite his own tongue. Instead he merely sighed and held out his arm. “Let’s go home.”
Erik looked confused by the arm, but after a moment he took it, and they walked home together.
Dinner was cold leftovers and awkward silence, but Charles finally managed to say, “That little girl seemed very fond of you.”
Erik’s smile seemed to come despite his best intentions, but it was unmistakably fond—and the next thing Charles knew, he was getting the entire tale of how Erik had stepped on Jubilé’s foot in the market and ended up carrying her back to the orphanage, came back the next day to bring her a toy and the next day to bring the children a bag of sweets he’d never liked… And then dinner was done and Charles was trailing after Erik, absently helping him clean up the dishes, and then the rest of the mess clogging the house, while they talked.
“I can’t believe I let it get like this,” Erik muttered under his breath. “And you—stop, you don’t have to help.”
“What, because alphas are too good to clean? I certainly helped make the mess.” Almost defensively, at Erik’s surprised look, he added, “I’m usually too exhausted to care, when I get home, but tonight I… tonight I feel better.”
“I do too,” Erik said after a beat, then turned away, busy with some papers, before Charles could respond.
Erik continued to feel better, in some indefinable way, as a week passed, then two, and the choking cloud of anger and despair that had filled their home dissipated. Instead of coming home far into the evening to eat and sleep in all-but-silence, Charles came home early enough to help with dinner, chatting about his day and asking after the children at the orphanage. Conversation was wary, still, and superficial, but Erik… Erik, to his own surprise, enjoyed the company. He had given up on taking much care with his appearance, when Charles dragged him into the godforsaken countryside; now he found himself taking pains again, if only to see the warmth in Charles’s gaze when he did.
Not that Charles was always able to come home early in the evening; a doctor’s work didn’t always fit into banker’s hours. Erik had first resented this, when they married, then used it to his advantage, filling the hours with the company of others. For the first time, now, he realized how hard it was on Charles himself. One night Erik finally gave up and went to bed, only to wake hours later and find Charles asleep at his desk, head down on his folded arms over a sprawl of medical notes.
For a long time, Erik just looked at him there, the dim golden light of the desk lamp spilling gently across closed eyes and mussed hair. Erik wondered if the patient he had stayed out with so late had lived or died. Charles fought so hard for each of them, friend or stranger, young or old… Erik was ashamed that he had ever sneered at Charles’s dirty hands, his threadbare clothes and ugly medical bag. He hadn’t known anything about Charles.
It was close enough to dawn now that if he woke him, trying to lead him to bed, Charles would likely insist on starting the day. Instead Erik pulled off the topmost blanket and tucked it around his alpha as best he could, even managing to ease a corner of it under Charles’s head, before going back to sleep.
When he woke in the morning, Charles was already gone again, but the blanket was returned to the bed—tucked around Erik as carefully as it had been around Charles.
A few days later, a new baby came to the orphanage, sickly and small, and Erik asked if Charles might not come by to look at him.
“Ah, here’s our little fellow,” Charles murmured, his voice warm and low, as he took the baby from the sister charged with his care. He bounced the boy in his arms a moment, smiling down into his wide-eyed little face with such delight that Erik felt… entirely wrong-footed, somehow. He watched from the doorway, completely arrested, as Charles unwrapped and examined the baby, soothing him when he began to cry, and stopping to kiss his tiny belly before wrapping him up again.
“I think he’s quite all right, really, only he’s not had the best nutrition,” Charles told the sister. “Ah—Erik, can you translate?”
Erik shook himself and did so, conveying that the babe needed only time and care to be strong again, and then translating the sister’s relief and thanks back to Charles.
“You’re very quiet,” Charles observed as they walked home again, arm in arm as had somehow become their custom.
“Only distracted,” Erik said, and smiled. He didn’t mention that what had distracted him was the mental image of Charles cooing over another baby, one that was his and Erik’s. It was not an idea that had ever held any appeal for him before.
That night, leaving Erik to finish dinner, Charles rummaged through every trunk in the house until he found his old chessboard, and brought it into the kitchen with a “Ha!” of triumph.
Erik blinked at it. “I didn’t know you played chess.”
“You always assumed I was too stupid and rustic and boring to play chess.” Charles arched an eyebrow to take the guilt-sting from the statement, though he was not entirely displeased when Erik flinched anyway. “Come, we can have a game while we eat. Though I admit I haven’t played in years.”
One corner of Erik’s mouth tipped up. “I’ll go easy on you.”
He didn’t, but Charles, rusty as he was, put up a very good fight. After losing miserably twice, he beat Erik so soundly in the third match that Erik himself insisted on breaking out a bottle of wine to celebrate.
And they talked—for the first time since they’d met, Charles realized, they were really talking. They disagreed on virtually everything, louder and more vehemently with every passing hour, and it was wonderful because before, Erik had smilingly pretended to like everything Charles liked, feel everything he felt, desperate to get Charles to marry him and take him away from Shaw. This Erik, the real Erik, liked hideous sentimental poetry, hated cilantro, and had alarmingly radical ideas about government. Charles liked him immensely.
More than once, during their wide-ranging hours-long argument, he caught Erik looking at him in a way that—well, that made Charles’s skin heat down to his toes, a look that made him realize he’d never truly had his omega’s undivided attention before. He had it now, and it was exhilirating.
When they finally went to bed, Charles dared to lean forward and press their lips together—briefly, softly, asking nothing further. “Goodnight, Erik.”
“Goodnight,” Erik whispered, and, astonishingly, pulled him back for another kiss, slightly longer than the first.
They went no further than that, not yet. But they faced each other, smiling as they closed their eyes, and for the first time in months, the bedroom didn’t feel like a graveyard.
Charles woke the next morning with burning thirst and an agonized cramp in his belly, the first symptoms of cholera.
London
Three Years Later
“David, slow down!” Erik jogged to catch up with his son, who giggled and tried to duck behind a newspaper stand.
“Papa, put me down!” he shrieked, kicking happily as Erik swept him into the air.
“Oh no, little escape artist, you’re going up!” Erik swung the little boy onto his shoulders, to the tune of more delighted shrieking. “And stop kicking or Papa will have to bite your feet off—beg your pardon, ma'am…” He felt his smile drop like an anchor as his eyes focused on the alpha he and David had nearly knocked over.
“Well, Erik,” said Emma Frost, her voice surprised and cautiously pleased. “I did hear you were back in London!”
“Ms. Frost,” Erik managed, bobbing a careful bow. David tipped against his head and laughed.
“And who’s this?” Emma asked, smiling at the boy—though she drew subtly back from his reach.
“My son David.”
She tilted her head. “And how old is young Master David?”
“Two and a half!” David said eagerly, holding up two fingers and a bent thumb.
Erik could see the math clicking in Emma’s head, her eyebrows arching. “Two and half, is it? A shame we’ve never met, David, but I haven’t seen your papa in … just a little over three years, isn’t it, Erik? Of course a lot can change in that time.” In a more hushed, deferential tone, she added, “I was so sorry to hear about your husband’s illness, of course. Cholera is a terrible thing.”
“Yes, it is,” Erik said curtly.
“Daddy got sick,” David said, suddenly solemn.
“Nevertheless, life must go on,” Emma said. “I’m having a bit of a gathering tomorr—”
“Very kind of you, but I must decline,” Erik said. “Goodbye, Emma.”
Leaving Emma with her mouth open, he turned on his heel and marched back the way they’d come.
“Papa, who was that lady?” David asked.
“Nobody important,” Erik said.
They turned a corner, and found Charles just where they’d left him, now holding hot pretzels for them all. David cheered and squirmed as Erik let him down into Charles’s arms. As far as David was concerned, Daddy being in a wheelchair mostly meant there was always a lap available.
“Don’t choke on it, darling, chew!” Charles said, laughing. “Erik, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Erik said, with perfect honesty. “I’m not the one still too sick to walk. Are you all right?”
Charles rolled his eyes, but admitted quietly, “We should probably go back soon. Here, take your pretzel before David eats it.”
Erik bent to take the pretzel—and stayed there a moment to kiss Charles on the lips, a little more heatedly than he even intended.
“Well,” Charles said, smiling and breathless, when Erik drew back. “It’s just a pretzel, you know.”
“Yes,” Erik said. “And you’re just a country doctor with a better omega than you deserve.”
Charles snorted. “Cranky mess of an omega who spends all my money on clothes. He is very pretty, though.”
Erik grinned and let Charles kiss his knuckles. “Let’s go home.”