"Eight years." The voice was cold and back turned in a disappointment so palpable in those words. "Has it been perhaps eight years since the day of your debutante, Nathaniel?"
Nathaniel, head lowered and lips pursed tightly, nodded mutely.
"Words, my dear child. I ask you to speak."
"Yes, father."
The man turned to look at him, eyes narrow and critical as he assessed his Omega son.
"I see that you understand." He took a step forward. Then another and another, till the distance between them was all but naught. "Then why is it that nary a singular match established has succeeded?"
Nathaniel flinched, hands clenching tightly in the skirt of the dress he chose carefully just this morning. In response, he chose silence.
An Omega, no matter of what social standing, served one purpose. Mate with strong Alphas and produce heirs worthy of respect. Marry into the class you're born in, live the life you are given.
Obey your parents. Obey your husband. Obey the master of your thread.
Nathaniel, do not you dare raise an eye. Nathaniel don't you dare rebel.
Be obedient. Be beautiful. Be gentle.
Oh, dear one, the fire in your heart? Douse it. What of dreams, you ask? Quit such whimsies. Oh, Nathaniel, your passion? Smother it under your duty, dear.
"None of them appeared worthy, father." Nathaniel raised his head, the amethyst of his shivering gaze meeting the ice of his creator.
The Alpha's face twisted into an unlikely sneer. Something between scorn and disbelief at the Omega's audacity.
"Worthy?" His father breathed out, clearly restraining his mirth. "What makes you believe, my son, that an Omega far beyond an acceptable age has a right of choice?"
The Omega flinched again, biting a gasp back at the cold harsh words.
He could not believe, for even a moment, those were his father's words — the man he knew his whole life.
This could not be his father. This was an interloper he did not know.
"Father?" He swallowed, voice tight and dry. "How could you—?"
"Enough." The Marquess Ashmore raised a hand and put a distance between him and his son. "I have pampered, spoiled you, taught you what you wished to know. This is, perhaps, the least you can do to repay."
The Omega stepped back, eyes wide and welled with tears. "Repay?" His tightly clenched fists shook until his delicate knuckles turned white.
Slowly, heat began crawling up his neck. "Why, father, did you have a child with expectations of compensation for your flesh and blood?"
His father released a breath. The longer that silence prevailed, the greater Nathaniel's fury grew.
"Father, answer me!" He snapped, surging forward to seize the Alpha's arm. "Answer me! Am I not your son? The pride and joy you so boisterously proclaimed?!"
He stared up, amethyst eyes glistening with furious tears he did not allow to escape.
"What am I to you? A mere pawn of your liking? A champion medal to be traded and paraded among your peers?!" The Omega demanded, voice harsh and rough, lacking sorely the elegance others praised him of.
In the face of betrayal like this, he could hardly care.
"Father, why are you silent?" Nathaniel shook the Marquess' arm, desperation making itself known in the growing pit in his belly. "Was it not you who taught me to dream? To be ambitious? Was it not you who taught me to read stars?
"Answer me… What am I? A marionette of your liking and a commodity to be traded when of no use?"
The Marquess let him vent, face stone cold and without any remorse. He wanted to see how much longer the Omega could cause a scene.
"Father… Please." Nathaniel whispered, voice breaking at seams at his father's prolonged silence. "Please, answer me."
Now that he had said his part, poured his heart out, the anger that suffocated his breath escaped him.
It left behind only bone deep fatigue and an ice cold realisation —
To his father, Nathaniel had always been a pawn of his gambit, used only to forge an alliance of choice.
"Oh."
To most, this world had two kinds of people: ones with advantage and the ones with disadvantage.
Nathaniel Ashmore, renowned as one of the beauties of Kairos, was 26 when he realised:
He belonged to the third kind. Someone born in disadvantage disguised as privilege. A bird taught to dream but disallowed flight.
The fate of perhaps all the Omegas born in the nobility of the Kairos Empire was the same.
Without another word, Nathaniel turned around and fled the suffocating room where his father towered over him like a death knell of his dreams.
…
Lorcan Velyanov breathed out a heavy sigh, using his forearm to wipe away the beads of sweat clinging to his forehead.
Rolling his neck to ease the growing strain, the Alpha looked up at the night sky, green eyes bright as arsenic taking in the sight of numerous stars decorating the dark palette.
"Oh, how swiftly the time passes." He commented, a lazy smile dancing on his lips as he stepped through the threshold of his newly purchased shop with the last of the day's boxes. "I am quite weary."
The Alpha groaned, hands on his waist and stretched, glancing briefly at his own reflection in the cheval mirror placed in the corner, and could not help but frown grimly.
"These sloppy arses. Could they have not covered at least the mirror?" He trudged to the mirror and reached to throw a cloth over it. "What do I give them money for?"
Rid of the most pressing issue, Lorcan stood tall, hands planted on his hips and sleeves of his white silk shirt rolled up, observing the building thoughtfully.
Stark was the peculiarity of his blackened veins wrapped around his throat and arms as they moved alongwith his movements, the emerald ring resting upon his second finger was glinting even in the dark.
Mentally, the Alpha gave himself a pat on the back for choosing wisely the place and the neighborhood to open a new shop.
"I pray everything here remains peaceful as before."
Though as he said those words, the strain behind his smile could not be hidden.