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Malik pulled out. Beneath him, Altair was a mess of slick, semen and sweat. He rolled onto his side, exposing his back to the Omega. A lifetime ago, he would think twice before turning away from the man, especially in a private setting such as this. Perhaps Malik had come to trust him… perhaps he was too tired with everything, and wouldn’t mind being put out of his misery with a knife to his back.
Slowly, Altair’s breath evened. An arm was then thrown over the Malik’s waist; a warm body was pressed to his damp back and warm air tickled his ear.
“You’re not going back to your chamber?”
Malik craned his neck to look at the other man, their noses touching. “Depends. Are you planning on killing me tonight?”
Altair’s face was unreadable in the dim room. “Depends.” He said almost softly (because Altair could never truly be soft) “Are you going to execute me in the morning?”
Malik didn’t say, but there was no doubt as to what the answer was. So the king slept easily and the consort… what he did after their nightly meetings wasn’t Malik’s business.
The to-be-consort was tall and lean, his body all sharp lines and hard muscles, made visible by the frilly see-through clothes he had been forced into. If not for the telltale scent of an Omega on the brink of heat, Malik would’ve mistaken him for anything else.
He looked nothing like how a Breeder should be. Breeders were delicate and sheltered. Even a peasant could afford to keep their daughters and Omegan sons free of blemishes. This man looked like he hadn’t been pampered a day in his life. A scar marred his lips; and even more faded and old ones crisscrossed his exposed torso.
Malik’s mind went to Kadar. Like the Omega, no one thought him an Alpha at first glance either. With his boyish beauty and soft feature, the younger Al-Sayf had caused a fair share of confusion when people came close enough to catch wind of his scent.
He had been boyish and soft still, when he died.
Anger choked his lungs. Such an ugly emotion, and he was always full of it.
“He hasn’t given us a name,” Rauf, his close advisor and friend, said, nervousness dripped into each syllable. “… hasn’t said anything, really. I suppose he might be mute.”
Rauf had a heart too big for a man of his position, a sense of compassion that should’ve beaten out of him after uncomfortable long years of dealing with royal affairs. He knew what would become of the consorts, and he pitied them. This was nothing new. What was new, however, was the undertone of fear directed at the nameless omega. What danger could he pose, cuffed and outnumbered as he was?
“Bring him to the concubine chamber.”
Malik never marked any of his consorts. Due to a bond’s nature to drive mates to protect one another, it would cause complications. He was thankful that his queen, Tazim’s mother, had died long before Kadar did. His blade wouldn’t have been able to cut her down otherwise.
Yet the first time Malik laid with Altair, he wanted to mark him.
Altair wasn’t the best bedmate, he was the worst. Many consorts before him had tried their hands at seduction in the hope that the king would fall for them and spare their lives. They made the prettiest noises and put on a show of enthusiasm that had weaker men’s knees weak in seconds. Malik either wasn’t fooled or was far gone in his grief induced madness to be charmed. When morning came, their bodies laid lifelessly at his feet all the same.
Altair - close to heat as he was - was maddeningly unresponsive. He stared Malik down with bored eyes, the only signs of exertion being the rosy hue of his cheeks and beads of sweat on his temples.
Malik had a moment of self-doubt, then determination as he hiked the consort’s legs over his shoulders and drove in harder, faster. For all his effort, Altair’s breath hitched, but what little other sound he made was drowned out by Malik’s own grunts. A half smirk bloomed on his face, mocking and challenging.
Malik wanted to bite him right then, sinking his teeth into the mating gland at the base of the Omega’s neck. What sound would Altair make? Would he cried out in pain, in pleasure? Would his smugness be replaced with sheer horror at the prospect of being the mate of a monster king?
Only through will power did Malik stop himself from giving in. But the thought was still there with him until he finally came and collapsed on the Omega.
When his knot finally deflated and his lust sated, he pulled away from the consort in disgust. He would deal with him in the morning, in the same way he did with all the others. Now, Malik wanted nothing more than to put on his clothes and head back to his own chamber.
“A whore would’ve been a better lay than you.”
“I’m not a whore.”
The disorientation of hearing the Omega's voice, after being so sure of him being mute, almost costed Malik his life. He didn’t see until Altair was already on him and gravity took him by surprise. The Omega sent both of them onto the ground. A dagger gleamed in the dark, plunging down toward Malik’s chest. The Alpha snatched the offending hand holding it and was taken aback by the force that greeted him. The blade hovered a hair’s breadth off his chest, being pushed downward by one man and pushed away by the another. Altair’s eyes found his, no longer dull and bored or cruelly mocking. He was a bird of prey staring down at a rat caged in its talons. And yet, what terrified Malik wasn’t the prospect of impending death, but the fact that he was aroused. He wanted to take this spirited Omega as his own.
And so he did.
Before Malik knew it, their positions were reversed. The dagger had been knocked away, lost somewhere in the shadow of the room. His mouth tasted of sweat and blood and Altair, finally, was whimpering pretty broken sounds under him.
The court had a fiery day when they learned that the king had marked the consort they brought in. Words spread fast. Before noon, even the servants working on the other side of the palace were aware of what went down in the concubine chamber.
“It’s one thing to execute a consort… but a mate… the people wouldn’t look kindly…”
“That’s enough, Rauf. I’m not planning to.” His body yearned for Altair. Malik recalled when he first bonded with his late queen. The longing had been intense, but not to this degree.
Besides him, Rauf’s expression was a cross of concern and weird excitement. He knew what the advisor was thinking.
“I won’t make him my queen.” Malik declared. “And he’ll still die at my hand, just not today.”
Despite what he said, Rauf’s optimism remained glaringly obvious for the rest of the day.
Malik didn’t seek his new mate out the next day. He distracted himself with other tasks (A king’s duties were, after all, endless). It wasn’t until his faulty conscience - drugged and tricked by the new bond - grew too unbearable (reminding him that his Omega was in heat and he needed him) that Malik finally relented.
Concubine chambers were always guarded in case consorts tried to escape. After the incident with Altair, Malik questioned the competency of his men and whether having them outside the chamber really made a difference. At the moment, two guards were stationed at the ornamented door. Their attention laid not with the resident inside.
“Why does he keep the whore if he isn’t going to satisfy him?”
“Don’t know. Think he has trouble getting it up?” The second guard chortled. “That’s why he killed all the other ones. He doesn’t want them to talk. This one is mute.”
He nudged his friend, expecting him to laugh along at his speculation. The first guard couldn’t find the heart to do it when he at last saw the king approaching them.
“Don’t let him hear you calling him that.” Malik said calmly, taking silent pleasure in their mounting horror. “You won’t like it when he does.” With that, he pushed pass the petrified guards and went inside.
“What’s your name?”
“Altair Ibn-La’Ahad.”
Altair’s voice was rough from disuse. It should weird Malik out by now how quiet the man was when they fucked. It would’ve put a dent in his pride, if he hadn’t noticed how his teeth would sometimes bite into his bottom lip to prevent making a sound, or how his eyes momentarily lost its usual intensity when Malik played his card just right.
Altair wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended to be. He was enjoying this. And while he was still more in control than other Omega this far into heat, it was apparent that carnal lust was nibbling away at his composure.
Malik’s eyes traced the impressive collection of scars on his back. Altair was lying on his front, appearing loose limbed and relax, although what little experience Malik had with him suggested that he was anything but that.
He wondered if they could’ve belonged to a unsatisfied lover. Someone like Abbas, who took anything other that total submission as a slight against him personally. That man was a pain to deal with in council, and intuition told Malik he was just as aggressive everywhere else. He thought of Abbas’ cruel belittling, his hands tightening around the column of Altair’s neck, his fist bruising the Omega’s cheeks…
He scoffed at the idea’s absurdness. Lover or not, Altair didn’t look the type to stay still and let anyone lay a hand on him.
Altair Ibn-La’Ahad,
The Flying one, Son of None.
“Your name suits you.”
“You think I look like an orphan?”
The absurd reply drew a snort out of the king. Malik considered it for a moment before saying truthfully. “You look like a wild beast that is meant to be free. You belong to no man. You have no past, no bound, no obligation. You just are. Everything is permitted if only you will it.”
Altair cocked his head. The movement made the bonding bite at his neck, raw red and large, stretch taunt and become even more blatant. “I’m not a free man. I belong to you now, am I not?”
No. If it weren’t for the newly formed bond flooding both parties’ senses with confusing signals, and - ultimately - if the Omega really wanted to, he would rid himself of the king. Malik wasn’t going to delude himself into thinking otherwise. When this high was over, Altair would try to kill him again.
And he would do the same.
The investigation into Altair’s name came up empty handed. Neither did questioning the guards who brought him in prove to be any more enlightening. It took some prodding, but what Rauf gathered for him was this:
They’d found Altair in one of the many nameless alleys of the poor district. It was unclear whether he had been living on the street - a vagabond of some sort, or he had been unlucky, stupid and/or careless enough to be outside when his heat struck.
“They fear what you may do to them if you know that they’ve brought in a vagrant as tribute.”
Malik sneered. “They’re foolish men then.” It made no difference to him if a consort were a peasant or of royal lineage. Why would it when their union would never bear fruit.
When they were all the same, pretty airhead little things, like Kadar’s killer.
“You will have to excuse them. You haven’t exactly built a benevolent image for yourself.” Rauf said bluntly, only because he’d known the king since they were children and they were alone in his study.
What Rauf failed to tell Malik, or what the guards failed to tell Rauf in the first place, was how Altair had been caught. Of all the people, it was Al Mulim who informed him.
2 dead guards. Would’ve been 3 if the 4th one hadn’t been competent enough to call for backup.
“The nature of your mate has been brought to my attention… Sire, surely there are more agreeable candidates?”
‘One of the female ones’ was left unsaid, so was ‘blood purity’ and ‘royalty' and other madness the council liked to talk about in their echo chamber. Nobles disliked the idea of male Omega (narrow hips unfit for bearing children), of mutt (“Have you seen how light his skin was? Unnatural.”) , and of poverty ( the poor district, where illnesses and savagery bred, where the Omega was found). Altair was all three and more.
“Much as I appreciate your concern. I will deal with him when the time is right.”
Al Mulim stroked his beard thoughtfully. His one blind eye gazed straight into Malik’s soul. “You must make haste, sire. People are already talking.”
Outside the palace’s walls, peasants shared tales of the Omega who tamed the mad king. It had been a week since he was brought in and still, no corpse had been carted out yet. No longer was Rauf the only one looking at Malik with hopeful eyes - the guard whose daughter just presented, the spinster maid whose scent still gave her caste away, the noble widow… They wanted to live, and they just might. As long as Altair survived, royal guards would never knock at their doors.
They said the king had gone soft. That just wouldn’t do.
Malik blinked. There was a knife hidden between the headboard and the mattress. While its purpose was no mystery, what was was whether it been there all this time, or only put there for tonight. His eyes stayed a second too long on the weapon. When he looked back, Altair’s morbid curiosity was palpable. He knew that Malik knew. He’d stopped working on removing the king’s robe; his left hand - scarred, missing one finger - pressed flat on the center of the Alpha’s chest, over his rabbited heart.
The guards were one call away, separated from them by the ornamented door. If he shouted, he could have Altair executed before dawn, but words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. Like the first night, Malik was entirely, completely bewitched.
“Will you do it this time?” It was Altair who spoke first, voice lacking any real emotion. His palm burned like a hearth on Malik’s chest.
“No. Will you?” Altair smirked, full of himself. He’d expected as much.
Malik had 3 rules regarding the consorts. He only slept with them for one night; he never marked them and, above all, Tazim must never learn of their existences. Altair had already broken 2 of said rules, it was only natural he broke the 3rd one as well.
On one morning, Malik’s legs led him through the garden rather than toward where the daily council meeting was held. He knew that it would, again, be about the enigmatic mate he obtained a month ago. And as he passed by a bush of most exotic flowers, he considered how to best dispose of Altair. It would be far from difficult to poison the food. As things stood, it was his best option. Altair’s continued existence was causing more problems than it was worth, raising questions and insubordination that Malik couldn’t afford to have.
He stopped in his track when familiar voices drifted toward his ears. One belonged to the person whom he most cherished and the other was that of the consort. Malik quickly found them by the sparkling pond, Altair sitting down with his back against a weeping tree, an open book in his lap, and Tazim close by, looking at him like he’d hung the moon and the stars. His son wasn’t the only one captivated by the Omega’s voice. Malik had never heard the man talk beyond curt sentences.
"If ill betide thee through thy slave,
Make him forthright thy sacrifice.
A many serviles thou shalt find,
But life comes once and never twice…”
Regrettably, it was short-lived. The gravity of the situation dawned on him then; and Malik’s face flushed in anger.
“That’s enough for today, owlet.” Altair closed the book with a thud and handed it over to Tazim despite the boy’s cry of protest. He stood up, facing the approaching king with a raised eyebrow. Insubordinate. Insufferable.
Altair was wearing one of the servants’ uniforms, consisting of a shirt a little tight around the chest and too short pants revealing his ankles. Bemusedly, Malik realized that the Omega was taller than him, even if only by a margin. He hadn’t had a good look when Altair was first brought in (the burly guards surrounding him had made him seem smaller that he actually was), and the concubine chamber was hardly a place to notice such thing either. It wasn’t easy to gauge height when Altair was mostly on his hands and knees.
“Father!” Obvious to the king’s distress, Tazim beamed, standing up as well to greet him. The child would be 7 this spring and looked every bit a tinnier replica of his father. But other than appearance, he was Kadar’s nephew, his eyes being bright and full of wonder for life, his smile being radiant, and himself being the one Malik loved the most.
“Tazim, you shouldn’t be outside alone.”
“But I’m not alone.” Tazim reasoned. His tiny hand held Altair’s bigger one and the other man, to both adults’ surprise, didn’t pull away.
“You know that’s not what I mean. Where are your guards?”
Malik had many enemies. It was inevitable, being the man he was and doing what he did. And even without his father’s sins, Tazim’s role as the crown prince already painted a target behind his back.
“Please don’t punish Bashir, father. I went out on my own.”
“I will only have a word with him, nothing more.” Malik humored the boy. “Now hurry back inside, I’m sure he’s looking for you.”
Tazim looked like he wanted to protest more, but ultimately nodded and scuttled away. Before he did, however, he sneaked a not at all inconspicuous glance at Altair.
“Where did you learn how to read?” He asked Altair later that day after their nightly lascivious deed was done and his nerves were somewhat soothed. The other male, still straddling Malik’s lap, wetted his lips.
“ My sire taught me. He didn’t wish to raise an idiot for a son, Omega or not, so every day he’d sit down and showed me how to read and write. Sometimes, He’d have me recite poems for his guests.”
“You’re lying.” Malik frowned. “You call yourself Son of None, yet you speak of a father.”
“What reason do I have to lie?” Altair removed himself, sitting down on the other end of the bed. He gave him a coy look, the beginning of a smirk playing on his lips. “And even if I did, does it matter?”
Malik had a sudden urge to throttle him. “Never mind. What were you reading to Tazim?”
“The Tale of the Murdered Woman. A fisherman discovered a heavy locked chest on Tigris river. He sold it to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who found the dismembered body of a beautiful Omega inside. It turned out her killer was her husband, a man who loved her dearly. When she was sick, he brought her three rare apples, but later found a slave with one of them. The slave claimed to have received it from his mistress, who got it from her gullible husband. Believing in his lie, the man killed his wife, cut her into pieces and disposed of her in the river. When he came home, he learned that the slave had never once lain with his wife - he’d stolen the apple from his son.” Altair paused, a thoughtful look crossing his face, then continued. “His wife died for a fool’s lie.”
"You would tell a child such a gruesome tale?”
“It has good moral.” Altair shrugged. “The man took an unknown slave’s words to heart. He didn’t ask his wife for confirmation, he didn’t trust her - the woman he lived with for years and had a son with - to be faithful. In the end, his misguided jealousy and anger killed her, not the slave.”
The insinuation didn’t go unnoticed. The man and his wife and the three apples, the king and his brother and the unknown Omega. If the story had gone a different part, if the husband had never learned of the truth, would he had grown to resent his wife’s kind?
Altair, as cruel as Malik, mused. “Do you think the boy will hate the man for what he did to his mother?”
Not for the first time, Malik imagined Tazim’s terror when he looked at his father, no different than how the consorts before Altair had looked at him when daylight streamed into the concubine room. And it was inevitable - Tazim would know. No amount of fear and money could keep people silent forever. He had killed too many.
Malik sat up, his face blotchy and red, the set of his jaw tensed. “You do not talk to him.” He barked. “You do not look at him. In fact, you are not to be in the same room as him ever again.”
When he finally dressed himself and fled, he casted one last look at the naked Omega on the bed. Altair’s shoulders were slumped; his eyes were downcast. For a split second, Malik thought he actually looked saddened.
Malik didn’t come back the next day, or the day after that, and the day after that… days became a week and then a month, moving as slow a molasses, but he still didn’t visit the Omega. The residents of the palace assumed he had grown bored of him and anxiously waited for the day he killed his mate.
“You should tell him of your condition. He may spare your life.” The maid told him, her tone full of pity, concern and just a sprinkle of maternal nagging.
Altair retched miserably into the basin one last time. “He won’t”
“You’re carrying his child.”
“He already has an heir.”
The Beta shook her head at his stubbornness. She helped him get back on his shaky feet with her equally shaky arms. Altair let himself be manhandled, even though it was nothing short of a blow to his pride. Returning to his bed, he laid back down and tried to banish the vertigo that was again threatening to overtake his senses. He had become sicklier and sicklier by days, much to his own dismay.
“Besides…” He told the old woman after his head was clear and the urge to throw up in his mouth receded. “… his lapdog must’ve told him already.” Which would explain why he was still alive all this time. Rauf would sometimes drop by his chamber to check up on him when Malik was absent. The last time he did, he had seen Altair puking his gut out.
“You mustn’t talk of Rauf that way.” The maid chastised. She said the advisor’s name with familiarity and endearment. “He was raised along side with the king and cares for him deeply. Oh how I miss when they were little babes.” Lost in her own nostalgia, the maid hummed a nursery rhyme, unaware of Altair’s growing scowl.
One month became two.
“There are men at the palace who will aid you, Altair, and men who will kill you on sight, should they discover your identity. Then there are men like that fool Rauf. I have no doubt that he would extend what little sympathy and help he could to you, given the chance, but remember that ultimately, his loyalty lies with the king. Take his kindness with caution.”
His master had told him this, just before he left for the poor districts with nothing but ragged clothes on his body and a drug-induced heat slowly maturing in his gut. He had left his blades in the care of his brothers - there was no need for them where he was going.
“Put an end to this kingdom’s madness and don’t come back before you do. Run along now, least you miss the guards. I’ll wait for you at the palace.”
“That bad? I’ll have a healer see to you tomorrow.”
Rauf cringed openly at the unpleasant retching sound Altair made. The maid glared at him, although her stare lacked actual heat. The Omega ignored them both, too busy emptying his stomach. When he was done, the maid came to his side with a clean towel then swiftly removed herself so the two males could talk in peace. The door closed behind her with a click.
“I’ve had a word with Malik.” Rauf began. “He should make you the next queen. It’d be good for the child and you. I know he isn’t the easiest person, so bare with me, he’d turn -”
“Rauf. You know what I do.” Altair interrupted him.
The Alpha dry swallowed. The fearfulness slithered back into his heart, reminding him of what this man was capable of. He had been too caught up in gossips and his own wishful thinking that he forgot. “Y-yes. Your reputation precedes you.”
“You would entrust Malik with someone like me?”
“When I saw you for the first time, I knew. I didn’t say anything cause I was expecting that you’d have…” Rauf looked anywhere but Altair, scratching his head, guilt weighing down heavily on his conscience. “He’s my best friend, but he’d done terrible things, Altair. I wanted him to stop. There was no sign he would, not until you. When neither of you turned up dead the next day, I realized there was hope for him yet.”
Finally, Rauf concluded. “He loves you.”
Altair snorted humorlessly.
Two months became three.
Altair lost it.
He had been slashed, stabbed, blundered and burnt, but this pain was more than anything he had experienced. It started with a dull ache that quickly grew in intensity - until tears blurred his vision and… was that blood curdling scream his? When was he on the ground?
There were people around him, but their voices were little more than murmurs and their faces melted into the background like they just weren’t there. All but one face. His master’s working eye peered down at him. This is what you deserve, it seemed to say.
Altair understood. Suddenly, the pain wasn’t as unbearable as the newly blossomed shame in his belly.
And then, there was no pain.
Tazim asked for Altair again.
He had been doing it ever since his run-in with the Omega in the garden. His demands came almost everyday at first. But like any other child, his attention was quickly diverted by other things. Tutors and guards kept him busy, and so the strange consort was pushed to the back of his mind. Until today.
“Why do you care so much about him? He’s just a servant.”
“He’s not!” Tazim yelled, then remembered just whom he was speaking to, and spoke in a smaller voice. “the maids said he’s gonna be my new mommy.”
Of course they did. Malik sighed wearily.
“I want him to be my new mommy.”
When he came to, the familiar concubine chamber greeted him, lit by moonlight and scented oil lamps. There was a man at his bedside, but not whom he had expected. It was neither Rauf nor his master.
“M-malik.”
He tried to sit up, then quickly found it impossible. His head hit the pillow with a soft thud. The pain was still there, where the child should be. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t.
The king watched him closely, silently, waiting for any kind of reaction. Altair clenched his fists - an active effort to keep them from touching his belly rather than a display of anger. He couldn’t muster up enough energy for anger. He felt empty. There was nothing in him where there should be something.
A warm hand encircled his wrist, grounding him. It was the closest to a condolence he would ever get from Malik.
He didn’t deserve this man’s kindness. It torched him; he craved it even though he shouldn’t. Like moths to flame, his heart was spiraling down a dangerous route, one that went against everything he had been taught. Altair wanted to wrenched his hand free, but he was too weak. So he was going to make Malik let him go instead.
“I saw you at the market, you and your brother. His name was Kadar, wasn’t it? He saw me…” picking uneven fights, leaping from rooftops to rooftops, fading away like a ghost just by stepping into a crowd… “and he was enamored. He wanted me to teach him how to do the things I did. I refused him, but he kept coming back. One day, someone who wanted me dead noticed.”
The hand holding him was shaking. Altair looked at its owner in the eyes.
“Will you kill me tomorrow?” He asked.
He never learned the king’s answer, for consciousness quickly escaped him again.
In the morning, a corpse was carted out of the palace. It wasn’t Altair’s.
"Have you heard? The royal consort was poisoned."
"Who did it?"
"Not someone who's alive anymore."
The consort recovered slowly but surely. Rauf reported his recovery process with nothing short of excitement.
Altair could get out of bed today.
He could walk on his own now.
The healers said he was still fertile. There wasn’t any lasting damage.
He wanted to see you, you know.
“Ok, I lied on the last part.” Rauf backtracked. “But he really needs you. He just lost his child.”
“He killed Kadar.”
Malik’s mouth set into a thin line. It hurt to say it out loud. Because if he didn’t, he could almost pretend that it’d never happened. Saying it wasn’t just a confirmation, it was losing him all over again.
“I’m going to kill him. Tonight.” Not in the morning, not tomorrow. Delaying it would only make him uncertain. He had to do it tonight.
The concubine chamber was empty when he arrived. Malik had his guards searched the entire palace, then outside. There was nothing. He didn’t suspect foul play - only Sauf knew of his decision and the man would never betray him or Kadar like that. It must’ve been the Omega’s own doing. Whether Altair had caught wind of what he would do, or it’d been a coincidence, was unclear. Like a ghost, he disappeared into the night.
The palace grew anxious. They expected him to start taking consorts again.
He never did.
Like Altair, Malik recovered. There was no physical wound, but the mental ones Kadar's death left behind faded with time. He didn't resent Altair anymore - at least not on most days. On some days, he still wanted the man killed. Those days came rarer, and rarer. A part of him felt relieved that the Omega had left that night. Another more primal part cried out, yearning for its mate.
Eventually, Altair came back.