Warning: Reference to Captivity, Abuse, and Religious Sanctimony.
No "real" religions are referenced in this series.
Similarities are only coincidental.
Enzo sat in the room alone.
His fingers hovered over his expanded belly but refused to meet skin. As a child, he had never met his parents. They died before he was four years of age, with Roy and Marina existing as the only parents he's ever known. Even the idea of having children for most of his life was for other people.
Until now.
The door opened, and Enzo nearly spun around out of the chaise lounge when the Prince appeared, holding him up with little effort. His hands swung into his upper arm, and he felt the sudden twitch of his arm muscles--thickened by training and his strengthened alpha body.
"What's with the two of you?" the Prince said as his grip loosened, and he smiled down at him with that obnoxious royal-like curve. "You both look unsettled."
Enzo didn't feel like speaking, and he was still more than a little irritable; he only said, "I need your hands."
"Oh--that's--doable," the Prince blinked before he stretched out his hands.
The unofficial consort snatched his hands and delved them into his loose garments with a sigh as he took the Prince's firm hands around his cock. It didn't take much coaxing to get the Prince to see what was needed as both hands twisted around his cock in opposite directions--one up and one down.
He sighed as the Prince no longer needed his fingers to guide him in the twisting motion as a burgeoning weight pressed against his back.
"What's wrong," Enzo's head craned around to find the Prince's sullen expression. "If you want me to beg, you're going to have to try harder."
The Prince tucked his chin on Enzo's neck and slid his hands between each thigh, spreading them wide before he said, brazenly, "Lean forward so I can--" but his future consort had no patience. Enzo leaned forward and tugged on the Prince's arms before he perched above the royal's cock. And then, when his hips dragged over his cock, his insides sucked him in, he leaned back and sighed as the Prince used his hips to bounce Enzo. With his legs hooked under the Prince's legs, he felt like a toy ball on a string bouncing up and down, the pressure hitting that tender spot until the wave of delight blinded his sight. The Prince clutched his chest and rolled his fingers over it as if counting gold.
Kisses trailed across his neck and back, but his eyes were closed. All he could do was ride the amorous fervor of the Prince as his hips sped up and his cock wet his belly with slick.
The Prince hummed and then lifted Enzo as if he were a paperweight and shifted him around so that the two faced each other. He could feel his cheek redden as the Prince laid back, and he rolled forward, sinking deeper onto his cock, his body filled with every inch. His knees buckled, and the Prince held him still; he wouldn't fall.
"I found a physician for you with some trusted help," the Prince said as Enzo's hands clutched his abs and his eyes soaked in Enzo on top of him. Those eyes dragged over his cock to his stretched belly, to his perky nipples, reddened neck, and cheeks, to his eyes, and had his hands swipe across the trail. "We will be more than ready in a month's time."
He rolled his hips and moaned. Each time he lifted up, his body would pull right back down. It was something to get accustomed to.
"I'll set up a meeting with them, presuming they can be private."
The Prince nodded as he gripped his hips, grazing his fingers along his belly before clutching his hips tight, raising him then plunging him down on his cock. His sack tucked right against his entrance. He breathed out just as his cock left his heat and thrust in, "They're people Bentley has vetted. And Bentley was vetted by the past generations. Before everything." The Prince's hands squeezed his ass before lifting him up and then said, without an explanation, "Wrap your legs around me."
Enzo forced himself to move when the Prince stood up with a steady and immovable lift. His body bounced on the Prince's cock as he carried him through the corridors lulling his sensitive insides to echo a ringing pleasure. His hands clutched around the royal's shoulder, under his upper arm, with his sack plugging his insides from leaking. Before long, a door slammed shut behind him, and Enzo recognized the room for his bedroom with luxury thick silk blankets, a granite step leading to the bed, woven seatings engraved with gold and sewn with golden yarn. Everything about the room was red and gold--Enzo's favorite colors.
The Prince slid backward on the bed, loosening his grip as Enzo crawled on his chest, sinking back on his cock. Hands rifled around the silken blankets before the royal raised his closed fist to the other man's hand, opening it, and clasped a golden bracelet chained with diamonds to a thick golden ring encrusted with rubies and light blue gem with a snap.
Enzo raised it in the lighting but tossed a questioning glance down at the Prince, who only replied, "Just in case."
"In case?"
"This bracelet is a family heirloom," the Prince said with hands sliding back to cup his ass and thumbing his hips. "It's finite proof that I chose you as mine. No one, not even my father's closest confidantes, would be able to deny it. The gold used to make this bracelet comes from a mine that my great-grandfather mined before he became emperor. Rose gold mines are rare, and it's even rarer to find a jeweler who could make something so delicate in today's era."
"I didn't know there was such an heirloom, but," Enzo said as his own hands finally gently caressed his expanding belly. "It makes sense."
The Prince sat up and kissed his lips from the corner inward, his hands rolling his body over his cock before a release slowly inked out as Enzo locked his arms around the Prince with tongues writhing until they were both breathless. With his head tucked under Enzo's neck, the Prince mumbled against his neck three words, and the man's heart stopped.
"I know you don't believe me, but I understand this isn't how you imagined it, you and I," the Prince said as his lips pulled away from his skin. His hands pulled Enzo off his cock and cradled him in his arms in such a way his hand could thumb over his belly as Enzo gazed at him from his lap. "I understand that you imagined being my advisor, hiding in the shadows as I married a lesser omega, while your shape could only be there as my lover in the night. I understand that this kind of love is different than your brother and his wife, so I know I have not proven it yet. Your infinite value to me. Yet, when I return, we will have the time to learn. I swear it. For now, let me commit to memory my consort's pregnant belly and our heirs. "
Ordinarily, he would pull away, swat at his gestures. As today was one of the last few days before the Prince shipped off without Enzo, he merely sighed as the royal began speaking muffled, indecipherable words against his belly, caressing him as if there were jewels in his hold, and said nothing as gentle movements tickled under his skin.
Elizabeth Marie was married in properly in the summer garden of the inner city by her family's royal palace. There were white roses plucked and bright primped in vases, vining down statues, decorating tables, and in her blonde hair, twisting with the rose petals as a crown, tucked her hair underneath the veil circlet. And her fiancé, Lord Ziegler, was ever so handsome and dashing in a gold, green, and white tunic. A sword tucked at his side was gifted to him by her father. Such a sword glimmered under the shining sun with his brown curls fringing over his face bright like the blue sky.
Her father and the young lord were good friends when it came to politics, land, and, of course, taxes. Lord Ziegler owned some of the most diverse plots of land and essential crops needed in an empire that faced famine generations prior.
She was no fool.
The young lord smiled like a shark with sharp teeth and an unabated hunger, but she knew being the Lady of such a man was a boon to her family. It was a boon to the empire. And it was a boon to her status. So, she acquiesced to her father's diligence, but she should've known.
Her father is the devil.
"Princess," one of the servants called. "Your bath is ready."
Although she was of the Carolingian Empire, her servants were of the Zhuong. They dressed in the wrappings of Zhuong and tidied their hair up with metal sticks like those of the Zhuong. They wore no veils and head coverings. The lack of religion and piety was spread among them.
Not that it mattered.
She stood up from the layered bed, stitched with soft and temperate cloth and breathable satin pillows. Her damned belly weighed her down, and she hissed out in frustration as her hand used the wall to help push herself up. A servant grabbed her and eased the pressure, but she smacked the hand away as soon as her back straightened up.
That man removed the hard, wooden casing of the bed when she tried cutting her throat with the chipped shards, and pillows were makeshift into a cloth that couldn't suffocate a child--for obvious reasons.
This Lin household residence was built under the catacombs of a former church. He told her it was done to, "Send off shipments in the day and move the workers in the night." Candles flickered outside the gate that separated her room from the rest of the catacomb, especially the upper level of the Church.
Her room was nothing less than a prison. Personal servants watched her day in and day out, following her as she went to the bathroom, slept, ate, and washed.
"Princess Elizabeth," another servant said, dragging that sobbing child into her formerly quiet room. "Khuri wishes to see you."
She never named the thing, never touched it after its birth, and was interested even less in its comfort. The thing dragged a toy in its arm as its long hair trailed down, and those small hands rubbed its nose and sniffled.
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's not an it," Anna strolled in and immediately hummed in the thing's ear, quieting its tears. "She's your daughter."
"Much like you," Elizabeth snapped. "It's nothing more than a nuisance, but at least it's an alpha. It has some use."
The thing wobbled over and clutched her leg with watery eyes. But all Elizabeth could see in those murky, dirt-like eyes were its father's--Akira Lin. Her hands pretended to pat the thing's head and searched around its garments until finding the note she'd been waiting for. Her fingers shook as her eyes drew over the servants lazing about the room. They were looking in the other direction or speaking with Anna. The note slid over her wrist and into her sleeve.
"You're always so unnecessarily cruel," Anna retorted before picking up Khuri and taking it back with her.
The servant trailing behind them bowed briefly before leaving, while her bathing servant wandered back into the room. "The water is ready," she said.
"I'm coming," Elizabeth sighed and then winced as her hip burned under that parasitic weight. When the servant turned around, her eyes surveyed the room and then quickly snatched out the note, reading its contents.
I've found a moment for you to break free. Akira is bringing his men over in a merchant ship. It will ring five times. At the third ring, one of my trusted friends will take Anna away. On the fourth, you will find a man named Ahanu to travel with to Zhuong. On the fifth ring, the ship will depart.
You'll be freed when you arrive on the other side.
Don't be late.
It had been years since she felt the rush of tears fall down her cheeks. She crumpled and then shoved the missive in her sleeves as she followed the bathing servant. The water would do well enough in erasing any evidence on the missive and on her face.
She undressed and handed her clothing, if it could be called that, to the servant. Her standard attire consisted of a string-tied top and a skirt that fell to her ankles. Clothing that would stand out and humiliate her if she ever tried to escape. And sat in the water as the servant said, "Are you excited?"
Her blank expression was all the servant needed.
"The Prince is returning soon," the servant ended and then began humming as she began cleaning her shoulders.
The Princess gritted her teeth when she thought about her mother and brother. In what world was she supposed to worry about two people who never tried to save her? Who sat in their gold palace as she suffered for years.
But her voice had a mind of its own, as she said, "When?"
"On the next merchant ship."
Prickling ran up and down her skin as she thought how easy it might be to get his help, but now, after all this time, she wondered if he even would.
"I'm done," is all she said then.
She wasn't sure how many days had passed when she bathed, ate, laid in bed, and then slept. Her arms rested over her belly when she slept, and she could tell as the days passed that her belly was getting larger and larger. After the missive, part of her hoped to get rid of it before it grew, but now it was too late.
Her hand cupped her belly, and she could feel the blood strumming under her fingers as the creature squirmed beneath it. She wondered if omegas were cursed to be the incubators for monsters to simply bear them more monsters in their image.
It was grotesque.
More nights passed, and she started to lose hope. Perhaps the note had been written by Akira or the Archbishop, whose humor ran in such a way.
Finally, it was one morning, after a restless night, when she awoke that she could hear the noises of the Church above and the loud whispers in the halls as people--not only servants--trampled through the halls. The halls were oddly silent, and she heard a breeze of air push through as her door squealed. It appeared unlocked, with only a cloak hanging in between the hinge to muffle the sound.
Elizabeth slid out of the bed and rifled around her belongings for a makeshift circlet and, unraveled her hair from its loose braids and then snatched the cloak, wrapping it around herself, pushing open the iron door for the first time since Anna was three years old. Her bare feet tiptoed through the disquieted corridors as she crept along the wall. Throughout the many days and nights, she had imagined the many ways to end her suffering. Those flickering candles reminded her of filling her drinks with melted dyed wax, the red and yellows especially, as they were made with nightshade and belladonna, respectively.
She resisted such urges as she had no use for them, but the thoughts ambled around in the back of her mind like an ogre standing at the door, watching her back. Clutching the cloak and its hood to her body, she ran.
The memory of her first entrance into the catacombs was fraught with Lord Ziegler's voice laughing with Archbishop Cordero and the sound of clinking crystalline wine glasses, only found in the Church's midst as the heavy doors closed behind her. Metal shackles tied to her ankles weighed down on her wrists as they dragged her down the stone steps into the catacombs. Never seeing the sun again--until now.
Her hands pressed up against the wooden doors, and they creaked open, swinging upwards until the sun bared down on her. Her eyes could barely handle the brightness and began to water as she stepped out of the prison and into the forests behind the Church. Pockets of rosa gallicas, purpled flowing petals on roses, symbolizing love, sprouted along the trees ahead like a trail. These roses were her favorite. The white roses were drenched in powder and dye. Hours after the wedding, they withered and furled into shriveled-up versions of their former selves.
She followed the trail of rosa gallica into the forest from tree to tree until she heard the sounds of the ocean and could see the flags in the distance through the shrubbery leaves. A trail that should've had rocks and sharp weeds never pricked her feet as she followed the roses further, deeper into the forest. Exhaustion built in her shoulders as she hadn't felt such heaviness in the long, long years. Fingers grazed the boulders sticking out from the ground as the winding trail finally opened up, and she could see the harbor in the distance and a few small vendors, even a tavern.
The Church faced the opposite direction and stood over a large hill. This backtrail led her to a small, winding, sandied decline covered by large shrubbery. Her spine bared the greater pressure as she walked down the decline, even as the increasing pressure weighed on her. And then the unbearable sting struck her hips as pain reverberated through her body. She refused to let the pain deter her from finishing the path when the first bell rang. People entered the harbor, chattering and laughing.
Her eyes peered around the shrubbery and found it--frightening. People were living their daily lives, fishing, eating, drinking, and packing, all while unbeknownst to them, people were kidnapped and used for nefarious purposes right at their side.
She had never met another person like her, but the catacombs were extensive. The way Lord Ziegler treated her in the early days was so well-practiced, learned as if he had done this a hundred times before, likely to women with far less status and renown.
The Carolingian Empire's Princess disappears from the public eye and news, but no one bats an eye. It was open season for any other omega then. Arrogance had been born in her veins, but the plight of all omegas was not something she could escape. Her youth offered her the grace of seeing her mother and thinking she was weak. Now, she wonders how her mother ever managed to survive.
A second bell rings, and people begin to disperse from the harbor, with peddling vendors starting to pack up. She hears Anna arguing with someone, the sound of tussling as she shouts, "You can't just sell me like this! Please!"
As the figures come into view, she sees Akira Lin dressed casually in Zhuong attire. His hair slicked back, and his cold, neutral stare. She slides back behind the bush and kneels, entirely hidden behind it, as she listens.
"Your real father has use for you," Akira sighs and clasps his hands behind his back with a forward nod to some of his guards. A few of them were familiar to her, and a few were not. "There's nothing that can be done when a benefactor makes a request. You should understand. It's really all in business and fairness."
She can hear Anna struggling as garments swish in the air and a few rips sound, but ultimately, it ends in a frustrated shout.
There's only silence left behind with the squawks of birds overhead.
"Take her to the ship and bind her; be careful and do not hurt her," Akira scoffed. "The last thing I need is for Won Sakai and Catalina to refuse payment."
The Princess froze then.
Her best friend and childhood confidante is Catalina.
For a moment, she felt her heart stop. She couldn't hear a thing as anything outside of her mind felt too far away, too much, and out of her body.
The third bell rang, and she exhaled sharply before peering around again.
Akira was gone.
She ran to the port, stumbling but never falling, reaching the boardwalk where a soft foreign-looking man stared her down. He looked neither Zhuong, Carolingian or of Sonhrai.
"Ahanu?" She said with hope in her eyes that she hadn't held in a lifetime of waiting.
The man opened his arms and said, "The ship leaves soon. My husband will be here, and he'll try to stop us. We need to hurry."
She stumbled into his arms as he corralled her into the ship like a frightened lamb and felt a similar weight on his body to her own. "You're--with child too?"
His green eyes flashed, and he said, "I am indeed. Hurry now; it's time to get you somewhere safe."
She huddled close to him as they walked the starboard leading to the cargo hold. Her eyes trailed the laborers and crew as they ran around, ignoring her presence entirely.
The cargo hold was clean, tidy, and surprisingly comfortable. Although the breeze was cold, the air felt warm. There was nothing particularly hot or cold about the space. He led her further into the cargo hold.
Dingy and dark, there was a bright lanterned area at the end of the cargo hold with a figure waiting in a section that was unlike the rest of the ship or a ship at all. It was as if someone had moved a section of someone's residence into this corner. A Zhuong residence with bamboo flooring, carved wood furniture with a figure waiting--clearly of Zhuong origins but wore some of the customary clothing she saw a Sonhrai ambassador wear once.
"Sit," the omega said with a polite smile and a gesture to the ottoman in front of him. "We have much to discuss."