Chapter 44: Ch 44: The Picture and the Potion

Ch 44: The Picture and the Potion

The honey cake was slightly squashed, saved in a napkin in Abel’s pocket. The picture of Speckle was a joyous, chaotic scribble of brown crayon with four wildly different stick-legs and a splotch of yellow for the foal’s star. Orion praised it extravagantly, pinning it to the wall of their shared sitting room with a bit of wax. Abel glowed with pride.

He stood before the picture for several moments, admiring his masterpiece. Then he glanced at Orion, apparently checking whether the older man was still impressed.

Orion gave him another approving smile.

Abel beamed.

It was such a small thing, a child’s drawing pinned crookedly to a wall, but Orion found himself unwilling to look away from it. For someone who had once possessed everything, Abel seemed capable of finding happiness in the simplest things now.

A little cake. A wooden horse. A ridiculous drawing.

Perhaps that was what made Orion’s heart ache the most.

Dinner was a quiet affair. The Duke and Duchess were dining elsewhere, leaving them alone in the cavernous dining hall. Abel chattered about his day—lessons with Master Ferris, a visit to the kitchens where Hobb let him stir a pudding, an attempt to teach Horsey to jump over a book which ended with the toy horse under the sofa.

Orion listened, smiling, adding details of his own city trip. He described the market stalls, the clock tower, the taste of the mutton stew. He did not mention the apothecary, Lord Pellerin, or Aster’s protective arm around his waist. Those stories belonged to the shadows.

Abel listened with wide-eyed interest, occasionally interrupting to ask questions about some particularly fascinating detail. He wanted to know whether the clock tower had actual people inside it turning the hands, whether the market sold more wooden horses, and whether Orion had brought him anything.

Orion laughed at that last question.

"Must every trip I take end with a present for you?"

Abel considered this with the solemnity of a man facing a difficult philosophical problem.

"Yes."

Orion nearly choked on his drink.

"You shameless creature."

Abel grinned, apparently taking the words as praise.

For a little while, the world felt ordinary. There was food on the table, laughter in the empty hall, and a young Alpha happily recounting his adventures. Orion allowed himself to enjoy it, even as the memory of the afternoon lingered at the edges of his mind.

After dinner, they retired to their chambers.

The nightly ritual began.

Abel, who had the energy of a young colt all day, suddenly became soft and drowsy as bedtime approached. It was as if the setting sun wound him down. His earlier enthusiasm faded into yawns, and his movements grew slower as he prepared for bed.

He needed help with his buttons.

He stood patiently while Orion undid the fastenings of his shirt, his head bowed. In the lamplight, the pale, faded scars on his back and shoulders were visible—old training wounds, the map of a warrior’s past. Orion’s fingers traced them lightly, a silent question.

"Swords," Abel mumbled, as if reading his thoughts. "And falls. From before."

From when you were whole, Orion thought, his heart aching.

He helped Abel into a soft sleep shirt.

The scars were old, but they seemed to tell a story that nobody in this household wanted to finish. Orion wondered how many had come from training and how many from the accidents that had supposedly changed Abel’s life. He wondered whether Abel remembered the circumstances clearly or whether the memories had become as fragmented as everything else.

He wanted to ask.

He didn’t.

Not tonight.

Then it was Orion’s turn.

He turned his back, feeling Abel’s large, clumsy-but-gentle fingers fumble with the clasp at his throat, then work down the buttons of his tunic. It was an intimacy that still made Orion’s breath catch. An Alpha undressing his Omega. But there was no predatory intent in Abel’s touch, only a focused concentration on the task, like a child tying a difficult knot.

When the tunic was open, Abel’s hands stilled.

He pressed his nose against the back of Orion’s neck, right over his scent gland. He inhaled deeply, a low hum vibrating in his chest.

"Mine," Abel sighed, the word a sleepy, satisfied rumble.

It was instinct, pure and simple.

His pheromones, already thick in the room, seemed to intensify, wrapping around Orion in a warm, cedar-and-amber blanket.

A familiar, treacherous heat began to uncoil low in Orion’s stomach.

His skin prickled. His Omega biology, so ruthlessly suppressed by the day’s potion, stirred awake at the direct claim, at the proximity of its Alpha. It was a sweet, dizzying pull, urging him to lean back, to bare his neck further, to invite the bite that would make the claim real.

For one dangerous moment, Orion forgot everything else.

The warmth of Abel’s breath against his neck, the familiar scent surrounding him, and the quiet certainty in that single word all conspired against his carefully constructed resolve.

His body wanted to answer the instinct.

His mind remembered why it couldn’t.

Orion closed his eyes, gripping the edge of the dresser. He fought it. He thought of the vials in his inner pocket. He thought of Abel’s confused, innocent eyes.

Not like this.

"All yours," Orion whispered, his voice strained.

He gently pulled away, slipping the tunic off his shoulders. He kept his back turned as he folded it, using the moment to school his expression into something calm.

When he turned, Abel was already climbing into the large bed, yawning hugely.

The sight nearly undid him.

Abel looked so comfortable, so trusting, entirely unaware of the storm Orion had been fighting only a moment earlier. There was no calculation in him, no attempt to manipulate Orion. He had simply wanted to be close to his spouse.

And that made Orion’s decision all the more painful.

He quickly changed into his own nightclothes behind a painted screen. His fingers brushed against the small bottle in his discarded tunic pocket.

A cold spike of anxiety shot through him.

He had to take the dose. Now. Before the warmth of the bed, the smell of Abel on the pillows, weakened his resolve.

"I’ll be right there," he said, his voice thankfully steady. "Just going to wash up."

He took the vial and slipped into the adjoining bathing chamber.

He closed the door softly, leaning against it for a second in the dark. The only light came from the moon through a small window.

For a moment, he did nothing.

He could hear the faint rustling of the bedsheets from the adjoining room. Abel was probably arranging his pillows or searching for Horsey beneath the covers.

The ordinary sounds made Orion feel strangely guilty.

He was hiding something from his husband. Something that concerned his own body, his own instincts, and the future of their marriage.

Yet he could not bring himself to regret the decision.

His hands trembled as he uncorked the small bottle.

The smell was bitter, herbal, medicinal. It smelled like secrecy and shame.

He counted five drops into the ceramic washbasin, then turned the tap to let a thin stream of water dilute it. He cupped his hands, brought the bitter water to his lips, and drank.

It tasted awful. Sharp and green, like crushed nettles and regret.

He swallowed it down, grimacing.

The bitterness clung to his tongue long after he had finished. He rinsed his mouth, splashed water on his face, and stared at his pale reflection in the dark glass of the window.

For a moment, he barely recognized the man staring back.

This is to protect him, he told the ghostly face.

This is to protect you both.

He had not chosen this marriage expecting happiness. He had certainly not expected to find himself caring so deeply for the man who had been placed in his care.

Yet here he was, hiding medicine in his clothes and calculating how to protect a husband who trusted him without reservation.

Orion lowered his gaze.

Whatever happened next, he would have to live with his choices.

When he returned to the bedroom, Abel was almost asleep. He had burrowed under the covers, one arm flung out across Orion’s side of the bed, holding Horsey with the blue ribbon. His breathing was deep and even.

Orion slid in beside him, careful not to disturb him.

Immediately, Abel shifted.

Still mostly asleep, he rolled over and curled around Orion, his front to Orion’s back, his face nuzzling into the nape of Orion’s neck. His arm came around Orion’s waist, heavy and secure.

"Cold," Abel murmured sleepily.

Orion wasn’t cold.

He was burning up from the inside.

The suppressant warred with the instinct Abel’s closeness provoked. It was a confusing, uncomfortable sensation—a dull throb of need smothered under a blanket of chemical numbness.

He lay very still, waiting for the internal conflict to settle.

Abel’s breath warmed his skin. His scent was everywhere.

In the quiet dark, with the solid weight of Abel wrapped around him, the fears of the day crept in.

Aster’s words. Whispers of a broken wheel. A surgeon dismissed. A spare heir waiting in the wings.

The fragments refused to leave him alone.

Earlier, Orion had tried to convince himself that the day’s discoveries were nothing more than unfortunate coincidences. A carriage accident. A family disappointed by the consequences. A surgeon who had failed to restore what had been lost.

But Aster’s expression had told him otherwise.

There were questions the Duke had avoided answering, and there was a tension in the household that made every polite smile seem like a carefully drawn curtain.

Orion looked at the arm draped over him.

This strong, gentle limb that could lift him effortlessly, that had once wielded a sword with legendary skill.

Was it really just an accident?

Or had someone looked at this magnificent man and decided to break him, to leave him just like this—sweet, harmless, and utterly out of the way?

Orion’s jaw tightened.

He thought of the scars beneath Abel’s sleep shirt, the way the household treated his husband with a mixture of affection and disappointment, and the strange silence surrounding the events that had destroyed Abel’s former life.

Perhaps the answers were buried somewhere in those silences.

Perhaps someone was counting on nobody being willing to dig them out.

A fierce, protective rage bloomed in Orion’s chest, hot and bright.

It burned away some of the shame from the apothecary’s alley.

This wasn’t just about his own body or his own morals. This was a battle. And Abel, in his innocence, was the prize. Orion was the only guard on the gate.

He placed his hand over Abel’s where it rested on his stomach.

He laced their fingers together.

Abel made a soft, contented sound in his sleep and held on tighter.

Orion stared into the darkness, his mind clear and cold for the first time all day.

The rules had changed.

He was no longer just a reluctant spouse trying to navigate an awkward marriage. He was a defender.

He had a chemical shield. He had a network of soldiers who loved the ghost of the man in his arms. He had an enemy, shadowy and unnamed, but present in the Duke’s cold calculations and the Duchess’s disappointed sighs.

And he had Abel.

Trusting, loving, broken Abel.

Orion’s fingers tightened around his husband’s hand.

He didn’t know who had caused the accident, or whether the person responsible was still lurking somewhere nearby. He didn’t know what Aster suspected or how much the Duke had discovered himself.

But he knew one thing.

He would not stand by and watch Abel suffer simply because the rest of the household had grown accustomed to his suffering.

"I won’t let them use you," Orion whispered into the dark, the words a vow. "I won’t let them hurt you again."

Abel, deep in dreams, did not hear.

But he sighed, as if soothed, and his hold on Orion relaxed into something even more profoundly trusting.

Orion remained awake for a long time, listening to his husband’s steady breathing. He thought about the city, the apothecary, the questions he needed to ask, and the people he would have to approach carefully.

He would have to be patient.

He would have to be clever.

And above all, he would have to ensure that nobody realized he was looking.

Sleep came slowly for Orion, chased by plans half-formed and a resolve newly forged.

The last thing he felt before drifting off was not the thrum of unwanted desire, but the steady, sure beat of Abel’s heart against his back.