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Colt had seen the youngest prince before. 

He hadn’t ever been close to him, but he’d seen Prince Finnr during parades and he’d seen him in those streets before, sneaking into other brothels. He was handsome, Colt supposed, in that same peculiar, almost-too-pretty way all alpha princes were. His hair was the pale salt-white of the royal family and his beautifully delicate features the perfect white canvas for the smudges of sleepless black and brown under his eyes, blue deep and lost; a nothing sixth son of fragile bird-like bones and crazed nerves. 

That was it, though—from the wolf line that bled through to create the grandest, fairest of men or the most insane emperors, Prince Finnr had the blood of the lost. A brutal beast shifting behind the soft skin of a summer-child boy was still a beast, and Coy had made sure Colt knew about those things.

The lesson, as all lessons adults had tried to teach him, stuck enough to always be at the back of his mind, but was still ignored when it came down to it.

Colt was the one to volunteer to keep him distracted when he came in, paid for their most expensive room and ordered their most popular whore, only for her to make a fuss over not wanting to serve such a mess of a man. Colt had handled worse messes. He doubted distracting him would involve sex when the man famously only asked for women and not omegas, and he could certainly handle a mess that didn’t even call for him to be fucked. He’d always been great at taking a hit.

And so, he went.

Prince Finnr looked thin. Haunted and, somehow, hunted, sprawled on the bed with his head dangling upside down from the side. Colt blinked, tilting his own head to try and align his face, a bit.

“Did ya’ throw up, my prince?”

Finnr blinked slow, puffy eyes. Shadows licked his face in harrowing ways—it made his eye sockets look deeper, his cheeks hollower. He stumbled with his words, drunk and high and lost, “Yes, yes. Clean it up, whore.” Only, when Colt went to obey, he shot up and snapped before he could open the door all the way, “What are you doing? Why are you going?”

Why, not where. Colt blinked back at him.

“I’m only getting a bucket of water to clean it, my prince.”

He pursed his lips, unhappy. There was still some vomit on his chin, Colt noticed, and when he crossed his arms, he seemed like a child, beaten and kicked and throwing a tantrum about it still. Colt’s hand curled around the doorway, waiting until Finnr so tensely nodded before taking leave.

He got a bucket and a rag, but he also asked for a bath to be drawn for the young prince, as warm and luxurious as they could afford. While he got to his knees on the floor to scrub, some timid, flinching girls filled a tub, and Finnr watched them with squinting eyes, swaying in place. They ran away after, leaving Colt to the scowling prince and the disgusting rag on his hand. He plopped it inside the bucket and got up, straightening his clothes.

“I paid to fuck you,” said Finnr, petulant as he glared at the tub. “Not to get clean.”

“Not me, my prince.” Colt lowered his head. “The best whore we got is bein’ prepared for ya’, I can assure.” She was being coached on how to act, really, and painfully reminded she got to serve the prince even if she didn’t want to. “I’m here to help ya’ relax before she’s ready.”

“I can fuck you.”

“‘Course, my prince. But ya’ gonna want her. She’s much prettier and much better trained.” He sent Finnr a tight lipped smile. “I’m only here for the ones who ain’t affording the good whores, my prince. Nothing for ya’ to bother with. But if ya’ want, ya’ can.”

Colt helped the man out of his clothes. They were so fine, so expensive against his coarse hands, and so dirtied. He went pliant against it, suddenly quiet, suddenly a wide-eyed little kid letting himself be guided naked towards the tub, hot water smelling like calming oils. Trying to let go of his arm was a hard task, when his hand shot to Colt’s own hand in a vicious grip, not letting go. 

He smiled, as true as he could make it look, as delicate, and settled the man on the water while still touching him, running his hand through Finnr’s goose-bumped skin before setting it on his bruised neck, together with his other one. His fingers got to the work of painstakingly untangling the white mess of it all, the soft locks tangled together and stuck like that with caked dirt and blood and puke. He didn’t expect the prince to do it when he quietly asked him to dunk to wet his hair, but the prince obeyed, and Colt took the opportunity to reach for a little cup the girls had left there. Had only really asked him to do it so he could take his hands away.

He put a hand over Prince Finnr’s eyes to protect them, while dumping a little more water in that hair. He ran his fingers through freshly clean curls, oiled from the tub and smelling sweet, and massaged the scalp, dry and full of dandruff, of pent up product and old dirt. Curious. Colt’d always thought, his own mind somehow calmed by the chore and the good reception, that alphas should be better cared for, and princes even more. But perhaps it was different, when they were wolf mad. Perhaps there was simply no cleaning that could ever solve that.

Why, he decided he would get the prince as clean as he possibly could, so no matter how Cherry performed, when Prince Finnr got out of that room he’d look better than ever and people’d talk about it as if it was because of the sex. It’d be good for the business. It’d maybe get Colt some extra meat for supper.

He was pleased with the idea. Pleased, and grinning, and caring for the prince as gently as he’d care for Coy after a rough night with the Master. It was so easy, too. The motion was familiar; the touching around bruises, the untangling of the hair, the unraveling of the tense knots on his back, and it shouldn’t be. He should feel so different, just by it being an alpha, only he didn’t, because he’d always looked up to Coy as if he was higher than any alpha or royal.

By the end, the man seemed to be in another world all together. By some point, he moaned a little, and in another he gasped, and in even another let out a small trembling little sign. Colt smiled at him, more honest then than it had been before.

“Ya’ hair’s real pretty, my prince.”

Prince Finnr opened one eye, lazy and more out of it than anything. He slurred, “You are particularly plain for a bitch.”

Colt laughed. “Yes.”

“You have freckles,” he said, in a tone that made it sound like a complaint, like some horrible, unseemly thing that bordered into being unsettling to him. “ Why?”

Colt’s smile widened, because there was nothing else he could do. “I ain’t sure, my prince. But the near penniless don’t care.” With his light black skin and plain black hair, he’d never been turned away for his looks, just as he’d never been chosen only for them. He was a skittish looking thing, and a bit small for his age, and popular between poor men who wished he pretended to be a real woman, or a little boy, or sometimes a little girl. Coy said he was pretty, because Coy was his dam and biased, and that he looked sweet, but none of the men who took him cared for sweetness, unless you had the heavy breasts and big innocent eyes to make it enticing to destroy, which he didn’t. “I said to ya’. Ya’ should wait to see the bitch they got for ya’.”

He brushed Prince Finnr’s hair with the best brush the girls had found in the whole place, marveling at the beautiful silvery white some washing and caring could reveal.

“There,” whispered Colt, proud of himself. He petted his cheek, which truly should’ve earned him a punch. Instead, Prince Finnr pressed his cheek against his palm, rubbing it in such a strange, unexpected way, like a street cat. Colt laughed again, caught off guard. “Yar hair’s so smooth, my prince. Can I help clean the rest of ya’?”

“Uhmm,” he hummed, closing his eyes and bumping his head against Colt’s palm. “You may, bitch.”

“‘Right.” What a needy, lazy, entitled boy. Colt smiled, because it was amusing, no? Such an ass, but any other client would’ve beaten Colt bloody already, by then. Any other alpha would’ve him whipped just for daring to show up at all, when they’d asked for a pretty woman. “That’s gonna be good, huh?”

He went to the side of the tub to clean his face first, dabbing at it with a clean cloth and running his thumbs gently on the puffy, purple skin under his eyes. He felt his deep sockets. Brushed his knuckles over his hollow cheeks. Without bile on his chin, without his skin looking clammy and sweaty, he was sweeter. Like one of the fragile, hurt birds Colt found outside sometimes, such weak ribcages thundering as he held them on his palms with all the care he could give. Mad, but not as violent with it as people said he was.

He cupped some water between his palms, dipping it into Prince Finnr’s sharp collarbone, brushing his fingers through them. Here, right in front of him, Colt could watch every tremble and shiver, every little moan and gasp and sign, and it was—his little cock twitched, interested, and he ignored it sharply as he ran the cloth through the man’s body. Gods, he’d never served someone so responsive. He’d never touched anyone who ran after the affection so desperately.

“I am going to fuck you, bitch.”

“Oh,” he said. The words were crude and rude, but he was used to much worse and didn’t feel bad anyway, watching the pink brushing Prince Finnr’s cheeks. “‘Course, my prince.”

Only, once he was clean and dried, and Colt had warned one of the girls that the prince didn’t want Cherry anymore and took off his own clothes, they both crawled into bed and stared down at Prince Finnr’s limp cock. 

Were it someone else, Colt might have made a joke about fucking him himself, because he sometimes liked to joke even when he knew it would earn him a terrible punishment, but well, he was the prince. As far as clients went, Colt even thought he was a good one. There was no need for him to ruin it. It was a pretty good cock, too. Sweet pink and just a little shy of being a normal size for an alpha, so it wouldn’t hurt all that much even if it was a lot bigger than his little omega one.

“I’m sorry, my prince. I ’m real plain.”

Putting the blame on himself was usually the way to make them not get too violent with Colt because of the shame. As soon as he did it, Colt popped it, soft and clean and a bit small, into his mouth, humming pleased around the cock as Prince Finnr gasped, shocked, and gripped at his hair, pushing him into it. Colt sucked it, up and down and up and down, and managed to take his mouth off despite Prince Finnr’s annoyance so he could suck on his balls too. He was good at it, sucking. He even liked, at least more than he liked being fucked. He felt quite pleased when he felt Finnr hardening. Pleased he was not much of a grower either.

Being face-fucked by the prince was a strange experience: he was so brutal with his thrusting, but his hands were trembling, almost unsure as they pulled his face closer, and when Colt looked up with tears on his eyes, his entire face was wide-open for all to see, a look of pure lost, pure confusion, his eyes watery too. When he finished, Colt swallowed it all, before planting a thousand wet, fervent kisses through his cock, his hipbone, his thighs, all while the prince let his body fall down back into bed.

It took Colt one second watching him, thinking about how he had acted before, before he got the nerve to go up, kissing up his navel, his hollow belly, his chest. When he got up to his neck, Prince Finnr was shaking so badly it seemed he’d never get a hold of himself again, eyes glazed over. Colt dipped his head, laying a soft kiss on a delicate, scarred wrist. Prince Finnr’s eyes found his, so dangerously dark.

“Come here, bitch.”

Colt settled comfortably by his side. He was not usually allowed to lay in bed unless he was being fucked and he found he liked it, pressing himself against the cold body of Prince Finnr, hiding his face against his shoulder. There was a pause. A small gasp, and an even smaller intake of breath, before Prince Finnr's hand reached for the back of his head. He tugged at his hair, but it didn’t hurt very much, and Colt had the strange feeling that that was him trying to give back some gentleness. He smiled against his skin, before lifting his head a bit.

“Will ya’ fuck me later, my prince? I’m very good at takin’.”

“Well,” he said, as if thinking about it just as the words left his lips, “it is my right to do so, bitch.”

Colt nodded. “‘Course, my prince.”

But he was a lazy man, as Colt had known he was. Colt rode him, panting and giving his all while Finnr laid whining and panting and choking. He was loud, a moaner and screamer even when not being the one being fucked, and Colt had known that from long before, even, from other whores. Colt fell on his side after and he was already drooling off, only awake for long enough his hand found Colt’s wrist and took hold of it in a bruising grasp. A bit painful, but not so much so Colt didn’t manage to roll closer to him and fall asleep, one hand around the prince’s chest, resting careful fingers on his shoulder.

He laid a little kiss on Finnr’s forehead, daring and relaxed, and the prince hummed in his sleep.

When Colt woke up, he was gone, and the Master was an angry, confused mess screaming at him, dragging Colt out of the bed by his short hair as he demanded he explained why Prince Finnr hadn’t taken Cherry.

-

Coy helped him with his bath with the kind of care that said he thought Colt had just come out from the worst client of the year, only his bruises were very light and the only one given by Finnr was on his wrist. The rest was from the Master and he told Coy so, while he washed his hair. He told him the prince was a needy, entitled, pathetic alpha and, unfortunately, could not quite hide he’d liked it a bit, amusing as it was. Coy shook his head.

“My little freak,” he said, a bit amused, a bit disappointed.

“Da!” whined Colt, hugging his knees on the water.

“His Highness is a lost cause. Have seen his eyes, kid. Ain’t nothing there but madness.”

Perhaps.

-

He’d had a day of terrible clients, the next time the prince came. A city guard, for starters, a brutal fucker who liked to use the whip on his cunt beforehand and his sword after, and one entire party some hours later, four poor, smelly laborers who had found it very interesting to see how many cocks they could fit in his raw, bloody hole before he passed out, and who had found it even funnier to see what kind of objects they could stick in after he was left gaping. They hadn’t told the Master they’d be doing that, so he woke up to a lot of screaming about the broken merchandise and a fee they’d have to pay, no matter how much they said they couldn’t.

The Master was not kind, but he was not letting him get permanently hurt, so Colt was supposed to have the next two days to rest. Both had came in the late afternoon, so he spent the night laying belly down, being fed soup by Coy, having his hair played with and his cheeks rubbed when he cried, kissed lightly on the forehead when he stopped, and the entire morning after dozing in and out of sleep in a much similar state.

His dam felt guilty for that life of his, but Colt never blamed him. Coy had been there since he was a child, an abandoned omega walking around that city’s worst, and he’d been fucked since his first day. The simple fact Colt only had his first client at fifteen was because Coy had fought for him, and suffered much for that. The fact that, to that day, the actual worst clients, the ones that truly maimed and disfigured and killed, were never getting him, was because Coy was very careful keeping the Master’s cock warm and pleased so he kept Colt alive.

By the time the next afternoon came, he’d slept for hours and been fed more warm stew than he could recall, likely Coy’s own food, and he was feeling better. Wasn’t bleeding anymore and the ache was distant and numb from the milky medicine someone had given to him at some point. He wouldn’t have told the Master that, happy not to work the night, only one of the omegas came to jostle his shoulder, whispering fearfully that Prince Finnr was there asking for him.

He was up immediately, cleaning his face and changing into fresh clothes, running up the stairs into the same room as before.

Prince Finnr was lounging on the bed, just as he had been before, although now he was on his side, his cheek resting on his palm as he watched the door. Colt paused and thought, somehow amused, that it was a very silly, performative stance to take, trying to appear nonchalant and relaxed, but failing terribly. Finnr’s hair was strangely wet. His eyes were even more bruised and tired, but there was no puke on the floor, this time.

Colt got closer.

“Oh,” cooed Colt, mournful. “What happened to ya’ hair, my prince?”

“Teared it out.”

Wolf mad. But most mad alphas walked around having people hanged because they were too suspicious for the safety of the general world, or saying they were wolves in human form, instead of humans that could take a wolf's form, or trying to set the entire capital on fire. Colt crawled into the bed behind him, his fingers seeking those wet, silvery curls. It would not be as obvious if it wasn’t wet, he thought, and it was not even that obvious then, if it wasn’t for how Colt had paid so much attention to his hair the last time. He ran his fingers through his scalp, scarred as it was, and made another little sound.

“So pretty,” he said. “Shouldn’t do that, my prince.”

What a stupid omega he was. What a dumb bitch, acting like telling an alpha prince what he should or shouldn’t do was not enough to deserve the alpha madness turned against himself.

Prince Finnr told him, “I can do whatever I so desire, cunt,” only his words lost their heat with the way he rested his cheek against Colt’s palm, looking up with those hunted, needy eyes.

Colt brushed his lips against his temple, right in the middle of those pale white eyebrows. “‘Course ya’ can, my prince.”

His breath smelled of wine. His eyes were so full of awe. It was an odd thing—Prince Finnr should be well used to being treated like that, if that was what he liked. Being asked to act like a fond, caring lover was not that unusual for whores, even if Colt wasn’t the one who usually got those clients. 

Did he not know, how easily he could ask for it? He hadn’t done so, when asking for Cherry before. And of course, no whore would ever dare take the liberty of acting like a lover to the prince without being asked—they wouldn’t dare even with a normal alpha. From what Colt had heard, he was used to getting either dead eyed, limp bodies in his bed or shaking, terrified ones, and he was lucky, truly, that Colt had always been a bad omega. He kissed him again, the tip of his prominent nose and those high royal cheekbones and the spot right below his left eye, right in the bruised, dark skin.

He laughed when Prince Finnr lunged at him, taking his wrists and pinning them against the bed, pinning him against the mattress with a wild, dark look. Colt would feel terrible, after. He would sob in pain in Coy’s arms, for sure, until Coy had to leave him to pleasure the Master and get him something more to drink. But for now, the medicine was still working and the pain was gone, and he spread his legs easily, because what else could he do? Fight? Colt forced a grin.

“Hello, my prince.”

He blinked slowly and scowled. “You little cunt,” he snarled and he was a lot of fight, a lot of posturing, but Colt still had to suck him to get him hard and ride him because he was too lazy to fuck him while on top. That was good. Colt controlled the pace, that time, and it was a blessing, such a small knot in his cunt after the day he’d had before.

When they fell in bed, very much unlike the last time, Prince Finnr burst into tears. Colt froze, before taking him into his arms and making some soothing sounds, waving his fingers in between now damp locks. He’d taken some who cried during or after sex, before. It was always a strange, tense moment, before he learned if they liked being comforted or if that would make them slap him. Prince Finnr did not. He pressed his entire body against Colt, trembling and chasing the touch.

“Oh, bitch,” he cried. Colt’s fingers brushed his sweaty temple.

“My prince,” he replied, soft.

“They hate me,” he cried pitifully.

“Can’t imagine why anyone would,” said Colt, who could, in fact, imagine a lot of reasons why someone would hate the man in his arms, starting with the fact he doubted Prince Finnr knew his name or had ever thought of asking for it. Might genuinely think he was called bitch, or cunt.

He sniffed.

“The whole lot of them,” he sneered, venomous. “Oh, mother is so scared of me, as if I have ever done anything to that fucking bitch, and father thinks I am annoying, I know he does. Last time I tried talking to him during a meeting, he threw a sword my way and my idea was good, I know it was! And fucking Áki, oh, he thinks he’s so polite, so much fucking better than me and so gracious about it. I hope he breaks his fucking neck before he ever gets to be king, that cunt. Malfrid was supposed to be mine. She was supposed to be the one that fucking loved me and let me own her, and instead she just refuses to ever be around. They all think I am so under them, so dirty. That I am entitled, and self indulgent, and cruel.”

Colt blinked. “‘Course ya’ are,” he said. “That’s an alpha’s right.”

Finnr stared up at him, his eyes red and puffy and brighter than ever before.

“Exactly!”

Colt smiled down at him, still playing with his hair. Prince Finnr bumped his nose against his wrist. “How strange of ‘em, my prince. And ain't them seeing how handsome ya’ are? Handsome, strong alpha.” He kissed the top of his head. “Shouldn’t tear ya’ hair, even if ya’ can. That’s not fair, huh? Princes like ya’ don’t deserve no hurt.”

“I do not,” he agreed, nodding pitifully. “Kiss me again, cunt.”

So Colt did, holding Prince Finnr’s cheeks between his hands as he kissed his wet face all over. It was so sweet, having such an easy client. Alphas were always so much more violent than most, always so cruel, like they’d fuck him to death and continue after. He’d known it to have happened before. Prince Finnr sniffed again, some snot coming out of his nose. Colt cleaned it with his wrist and kissed the tip of his nose again, uncaring because he had never had a life where he was allowed to be squeamish. Prince Finnr laid a hand on his waist, pulling him closer. His rings were very cold against Colt’s bare skin.

“You are a clever bitch. I like you.”

He laughed. “Thank ya’, my prince.”

“They all have their vices,” he complained as they laid together, as Colt held him and petted him and hummed soothingly. “They are all fucking terrible, because it is alright when it is them, because it is the wolf’s blood and fire and birthright, and then when it is me it is—it is disgusting. When I do it, I am the mad one, the sick one, the freak. The twins fuck all the time. Why am I the most horrible of all?”

”Listen,” said Colt, because he had no idea how else he could answer all that. “Listen.”

“To what?”

Prince Finnr, high and drunk and puking on the floor, puking on his expensive clothes, puking on his own face and letting it get dry without even seeming to notice. Prince Finnr, somewhere in that big castle of his, tearing his own hair out, screaming and throwing a maddened fit, guard and executioner and life’s own miserable victim, because the gods had made him mad for balance. And, somewhere else in that dirty whorehouse, Colt had been raped by five men in one day and had thought of tearing his hair out and puking and sobbing, only he couldn’t, because he was working and he was surviving and he couldn’t afford it. Coy was probably being fucked right at that exact moment. Little Flip, thirteen and blushing, was working for his fill of dinner, and Cherry was resting, because a guard had broken her arm just the night before. When the medicine faded, Colt would be a sobbing mess in the cot he shared with Coy and Coy would ruin himself a little bit more to help him. Keeping each other alive so long as they could. Suffering for each day alive they cold steal.

“Ya’ heart, my prince,” he whispered. Colt closed his eyes, restful. “Thumping real hard, huh? Lively alpha. Restless alpha. Mad, mad alpha. Lovely, no? If they ain’t seeing it, that’s their fault. Ya’ can still fuck me.”

Prince Finnr puked. Colt should’ve expected it and at least the man rolled over to do it over the bed, into the scarred floor, so hard it was like his stomach would fall out from his mouth. It streamed out of his nose. His eyes spilled. He heaved, desperate, loud, horribly wet gasps like something was trying to get out and he could not breathe until it did. Colt took his hair into his hands and held it up, circling his palm on his back. When he was done, still dry heaving, spit on his mouth, tears streaming down his face, Colt kissed one disgusting cheek.

“Gonna’ ask for another bucket and a bath, my prince. It’s only gonna’ be one second.”

-

Prince Finnr became such a regular client that the Master kept Colt largely free during the night with the expectation the alpha would come, a privilege none of them had ever enjoyed and that made Coy go from apprehensive about the idea of the prince to appreciative enough he prayed for him, every night with his usual prayers. 

The prince was always a bit disgusting, always much pathetic, and he seemed to want to have his hair washed and for Colt to hold him after just as much as he wanted the sex. Once, when he came clean, but still a bit of a mess, Colt only slowly detangled his curls in bed and carefully braided it for him, and by the end of it, he was putty in his hands, needy and whiny as Colt kissed his down his neck and his chest and his cock.

He liked complaining about the royal family. Colt didn’t think he was supposed to do that—he thought some of the things he whined about were supposed to be kept secret. Thankfully, Colt was quite uninterested in political machinations. Sure, you could get some good coin by becoming some lord’s singing bird, but they all ended up dead, simply clipped wings and lost bodies. 

Colt wouldn’t be killed because he saw to tell some scheming rich alpha that the twin children of the King, Kolr and Freja, liked to fuck, or that the mating between the youngest son and his dear cousin Malfrid wouldn’t be happening because the heir wanted her to himself. It wasn’t so much loyalty, because he certainly wasn’t loyal to the prince and much less to the royal family, but the same practical survival instinct that made him smile to Prince Finnr.

There were privileges to be won, by being the whore a royal liked to fuck the most in the Master’s brothel. Only having to fuck others during the day and having a strict policy not to be hurt too much, for one. New, better clothes, so he’d look better for him, even if the chosen cloth was even more transparent and revealing than his usual ones. Meals shared with the prince after they fucked, which meant a rich broth, some good meat, fresh warm bread, actual spices, even if he had to wait until after the prince finished to eat himself.

Despite Prince Finnr being so whiny, even that felt like a precious blessing, a client who would talk to him. No one else ever did. There was Coy, and there were some other omegas, but even most of the free-born whores didn’t bother with them. Not the ones like Cherry, who were betas or even alphas, and supposedly much better than him even if they did the same work. And the Master was the Master. He hated Colt in a way he didn’t hate any other whore, even. It felt good. Being talked to by an alpha. It was silly, and it was mournful, and he craved it in ways that made him almost as pathetic as Prince Finnr.

Sometimes, after the prince left, but before Coy went to get him, Colt traced the bruises he’d left him with, on his wrists or his hips or his thighs. That was silly too. Mournfully pathetic. He knew he was broken, despite all the times he'd opened his mouth when he shouldn’t and had to take the Master dragging him by the hair screaming about how Colt was a shitty slut who just couldn’t be broken in—he could. Clearly, he’d been. Because he felt like it was better. 

Being bruised by uncaring hands instead of malicious ones. Being bruised by grabs instead of slaps, or punches, or one of the belts and whips and crops the brothel offered. He’s almost grateful for it and he knew that was bad. Knew it meant the Master had gotten what he wanted. That something inside him had been shifted, some unseen, irreparable damage, and now, all he could do was be glad for the smallest of not-quite-kindness. 

Prince Finnr liked his mouth more than anything else, and his cunt the second best after it, and if he was to do something during sex, it was likely to be in some way related to Colt’s tits, from grasping to pinching to biting, and sometimes just kissing. He liked a rough fuck, even though Colt had to do most of the work. He liked for Colt to deepthroat him, and for him to facefuck Colt when he felt like it, and for Colt to warm him after he came for as long as he saw fit. 

He tried out using the ropes the brothel had to bind Colt, which Colt didn’t care, because he’d never felt the breathless desperation some other whores felt when in bondage and the prince wasn’t even that creative with it, only he hated Colt not being able to touch him and so never tried again. He let Colt ride him slowly sometimes, but he liked it more when he fucked himself uncaring for his own comfort, gasping at every surprised squeal that left Colt, at Colt’s own neglected cock and small tits bouncing. His nails held onto him viciously, always: a spoiled boy who refused to let go.

People never really thought much about how bitches like Colt got to understand them just from what they liked to do when given someone who couldn’t say no—to that, Prince Finnr was the simplest man Colt had ever served. A rough fuck, some sweet aftercare. It was all he needed. Apparently, all Colt needed was someone who needed the aftercare, even if they didn’t give it back to him.

“It must be quite easy, cunt,” he told Colt one night, languishing in an armchair as if he was on the throne, staring out into the dirty window before turning to Colt and blinking puffy eyes. “Your kind has no need to worry about any kind of wolf business. No politics, no gods, no complications. All you do is spread your legs. Do you even have the mind to understand your own luck?”

Colt, who had his mouth full and his eyes watery as he found complete bliss in the cheesy baked potatoes the kitchen had made just for Prince Finnr, nodded eagerly. “So lucky,” he agreed, though it came out all wrong and he should probably at least have put a hand over his mouth.

“Does your kind not learn how to eat properly?” and Prince Finnr sent him the most disgusted look, which was just funny, because Colt was sure when he repeated your kind that time he meant anyone that wasn’t nobleborn, not just omegas. He shook his head and, once he’d swallowed, licked the grease off his fingers. Prince Finnr looked up to the ceiling. “You make things so very hard sometimes, cunt.”

“Uhm,” he nodded, not quite sure what he meant by it, but neither quite sure if he cared. He felt truly, blessedly full in a way he perhaps never had been before, certainly not without the overwhelming guilt of being given Coy’s own food, and he asked him, eager, “Can I suck ya’ now?”

“Clean your mouth first, gods.” Prince Finnr rolled his eyes, so Colt did it, before he got on his knees.

The simplest man Colt had ever served.

-

“You are well used,” he said, as Colt took off his clothes: from the soft silvery-grey breeches to the wine-colored velvet doublet, with its carved rube buttons and embroideries in the shape of wolves threaded with gold, Prince Finnr clearly didn’t understand that even an alpha prince could be beaten and robbed if he stayed in the parts of town he liked to stay dressed as a royal. Just the plentiful rings that adorned his hands could feed an entire town and was something someone desperate enough would kill an entire town to have.

Not that he would hear any of it.

Colt, who’d just kneeled to take off his boots and just been a little distracted by the ornamental gold work in them, blinked. “Yeah.”

He put the boots aside. Prince Finnr, who’d probably never had to dress himself or take off his clothes without the help of a servant, didn’t stop speaking even as he allowed Colt to undress him.

“You have taken many men.”

“Can’t even count that high.”

“Well.” Prince Finnr paused. “Is my cock small for an alpha?”

Colt paused just as he undid his breeches.

“‘Course not,” he lied and quickly put him inside his mouth so Prince Finnr didn’t ask Colt anything else about that, even though he had been planning on getting him all naked before doing anything. No time for wandering minds then.

It was a real big cock, anyway. Good for a beta, monstrously huge for an omega, and just a tiny bit disappointing for an alpha, which was why it was Colt’s favorite alpha cock in the entire world. He didn’t think they should waste time discussing it.

“You are big for an omega,” Prince Finnr commented later, eyeing Colt, because when he started complaining about something, he didn’t let it go even if he accepted pausing it so Colt could fuck himself on him. Spent in the mattress, with exhaustion settled deep into his bones and cum leaking down his thighs, Colt looked down too.

“I guess,” he admitted. If you really focused on the for an omega, then yes, he was kind of big. Prince Finnr frowned.

“How is that fair?”

“It ain’t.” With all the earnestness and seriousness he could fake, Colt said, “I’m sorry, my prince. It’s just so unfair to ya’.”

“Isn't it?” he exclaimed.

“I love ya’ cock,” he told him as a way of reassurance, and guessed that while he’d tell any client the same, it was probably truer then than it was in most situations. Prince Finnr only huffed.

“Well, of course, bitch. Your kind loves all cocks.”

Colt tilted his head. “Not really.”

Prince Finnr stopped.

“Surely! You have to remember, bitch, I am a prince with a prince’s education. I know about these things. I studied them. You certainly cannot understand.”

I am an omega, Colt almost whined back.

“I don’t like when I wake up to surprise cock,” he said out loud instead, because that seemed like something Prince Finnr wouldn’t do, since he liked sleeping too much, and so neutral enough to complain about.

He sent him a baffled look. “Surprise cock?” he repeated as if Colt was completely insane. Colt shoved himself up in bed.

“Sure. Ya’ wouldn’t know, my prince, but it ain’t all that pleasant, waking up to a fucking. I don’t like it then. Sometimes I ain’t prepared to be knotted. I don’t really like it then either, when it’s just bum!,” he made a gesture with his fist, “without any opening up before. Guess there’s—there’s some clients I don’t like. Could go without ever taking their cock again. Ya’ ain’t like that. I like when ya’ come.”

Prince Finnr was staring at him. Colt swallowed.

“Cannot be,” he repeated. “What a dreadful thing, cunt! To only be made for fucking and not even liking it all the time, now, that is a joke.”

Colt snorted. “Ain’t it, my prince?” He let himself fall back into bed. Colt smiled upon seeing his face. “Does that make ya’ feel better?”

Prince Finnr’s cheeks went an embarrassed pink.

“It is more balanced this way,” he agreed and Colt laughed, because it truly, really wasn’t, but the alpha was just too ridiculous to get angry at. He kissed his lips. Prince Finnr grabbed his waist in that way of his that was painful, but likely not in a completely intentional manner. Casually cruel, perhaps. Childlike, the way only an alphas’ cruelty could be, when it was so simple and unnoticed, taught at the crib. He shoved him against the bed. “You do like my cock, then? Truly?”

Colt nodded. He was the strangest alpha Colt had ever known, retreating reassured as if it even mattered if omegas liked him or not—he’d get anything he wanted either way. Colt kissed him once more and received a playful, painful little squeeze that made him squeal and Prince Finnr grin.

The next time Colt was riding him, he stilled himself already deep inside Colt, making him gasp, and demanded, “How should you prepare for being knotted?”

The way Prince Finnr asked it, it was as if he hadn’t even in his life been aware he should be careful with the holes he fucked, or even be in any way aware enough of what was going on without the people around him he might stop to ask them questions. Colt panted. Managed to get out between his clenched jaw, “Always prepared.”

Prince Finnr scowled, gripping his waist painfully.

“You said—”

“When they put the knot in dry,” he corrected. His thighs trembled. “When they don’t even fuck it like normal before popping it out. It’s—it’s alright like this.”

“How could they possibly knot someone dry?” exclaimed Prince Finnr, who had certainly done so to other whores before, because Colt knew, because he’d heard about it. He set his jaw, too stubborn to admit he needed the prince to thrust or at least let him bounce.

“Don’t notice.”

“Why,” he said, “your other clients must be terribly oblivious, bitch.”

“Yeah,” agreed Colt, closing his eyes and tilting his head to the ceiling so he wouldn’t start laughing and ruin everything. “Real—” He gasped when the prince finally thrusted up into him. “Ah! Real blind.”

-

Coy always spent the first snow of the year with the Master.

Colt didn’t know what they did or what was so special about it, only that the Master loved the snow more than anything else in the world and, the day right after, he allowed Coy to take Colt to the city’s market with a couple of coins, with which Coy would buy Colt hot treats to warm them, and let Colt use the only gloves, boots and coat they had to share, and would only be bothered by interested clients a little, whom he either masterly dodged or politely convinced to come to the brothel that night.

He squeezed Coy’s arm, shivering as they got away from another too touchy beta. Coy smiled at him, a gentle thing, and brushed some of Colt’s hair away from his face.

“He’d get ya’ gold if ya’ let,” he whispered to Coy.

“Sure,” said Coy back, his eyes soft and amused and clearly not believing in it at all, and Colt had to shake his head.

“He would,” he pressed. “They’d buy ya’ anything. It’s the eyes.”

It was everything, really. Coy was the prettiest thing in that side of town: prettier than Cherry and, when he was younger, he’d been the best seller even despite being the most expensive whore. Those days, he was still the best earner. A single night with him could go for more than an entire week with Colt. It went for more than two nights with Cherry, still. People looked when he passed and, for an omega that looked like him, they even softened. They usually hardened all the way back when they learned he had a much cheaper son they could actually afford and then, after building some hope, learned his son was Colt.

Coy pinched one dark cheek. “Ain’t gonna flatter me like ya’ do with ya’ prince.”

Colt laughed. 

“It’s very easy with him,” he agreed. “Can’t flatter someone who’s so used to being everyone’s muse, tho.”

Coy, who was the muse of many, flushed. “Now ya’ just wanna embarrass me, kid. Can’t do that either.”

Colt was not usually allowed to be outside, so far from the whorehouse. While Coy had an old, official contract that made sure he‘d never get away from the Master without being pursued by the King’s Guard as a runaway omega, Colt himself was only a little footnote in Coy’s contract that said any child of his would also be the Master’s until a certain sum was paid, be it by Coy to get his freedom or someone else to get him for themselves.

It was as legally binding as anything, in theory, but it’d be hard to prove that Colt was really Coy’s son when they looked nothing alike—and, as such, it’d be somehow easy for him to run away. The Master didn’t fear it a lot, because he knew Colt wouldn’t ever leave Coy, but he still liked to keep him on a tight leash. When they got to do a little outing, it was always a special thing.

Coy knew the capital. The Master, who had Coy for almost as long as Coy had been alive, didn’t fear anything in relation to the older omega, because he was sure Coy would die if he ever had to leave him, and so he was the usual whore sent out to deal with everything, from buying supplies to delivering letters to going alone to fuck the real special client in their own homes, or to be rented out to the even more secretive ones. For everything Colt didn’t know about the city, for everything Colt didn’t know about life at all, there were a thousand secrets and dances Coy held into.

He braved through the market’s crowd, keeping his hand and his eyes in Colt, and artfully dodged the screaming vendors shoving things on their faces and passing betas trying to shove their hands where they shouldn’t be. When one merchant grabbed his arm and smiled, teeth yellow and crooked, Coy smiled back easily, blushing shyly as he told him he couldn’t accept any free food, but oh, he should come see him dance later, he would love to see him!

Colt looked down, because he wasn’t as charming and he wasn’t any good at hiding his disgust. It was lucky that no one looked at him when Coy was around, positioned just so that he stood in between Colt and any man, the way he always did. He tugged Colt off the street, ducking under stalls and between people, whispering against his ear, “Ya’ prince refuses to take any other whore that wasn’t ya’.”

“No way,” he laughed.

“Stopped going to other brothels.” And at Colt’s skeptical look, Coy laughed too. “One of the other workers told me, kid. He only goes to us, and he only fucks ya’ there. He favors ya’.” Colt shrugged. Coy held his shoulders, his hands cold, fingernails with a blueish color, only that any attempt to get him to take Colt’s coat would for sure just earn him a scolding. Coy said, “Let’s go. Wanna’ pray for that boy.”

Colt grimaced. He’d never liked praying for Aghi the way Coy liked—he was the only god to accept omegas or whores in his temples and supposedly that made him their patron and protector. According to Coy, that made him double their patron, supposedly. For Colt, any worship of him involved just too much kneeling and humiliating himself, something he was fine enough just doing every other second of his day. 

He went with his dam anyway. He prayed for the prince still.

-

Coy’d had a client once. Colt remembered very little, because he’d been very little at the time, but what memories he still had, he held as closely to himself as he knew Coy himself did, even if they never spoke of it. 

He’d been a beta. Poor as all shit and that was one of the things Colt could recall the most vividly: his dirty hands, his dirty face, his dirty clothes. His general, persistent smell. A “nightman”, which has taken Colt some years to learn meant he worked cleaning the city's privies and cesspits and getting rid of the waste, and not that he was some kind of whore too. The men kind of looked at his work with the same disgust. The Master still loved to mock “Coy’s holeman”, even more than a decade after.

He had no money at all, but he always found a way to pay for Coy’s mornings, every tenth day of each month, and Coy came out of it red faced and pleased, giggling with the older omegas. Everyday when he did his way back from work, he walked by the brothel and, when the Master had his worst mornings, Coy’d shove Colt outside before things got too bad, knowing the man would stop to sit with Colt if he saw him alone in the street. He hadn’t been talkative, or at least hadn’t ever talked about anything deep enough Colt had remembered it, but he’d been a huge, wide man who hugged his skinny little shoulders and glared at anyone who looked down at Colt. 

His skin had been darker than Colt’s and so had his eyes, which he’d never forgotten because not that many people looked like him besides the Master, who of course was the reason Colt looked like that to begin with. His hand had been huge and he’d let Colt measure it against his small palm indulgently. He’d called him pup. 

He’d been terrifyingly furious when he’d seen Colt’s broken wrist, the one time Coy didn’t manage to get in between him and the Master fast enough, and he’d never had money or food to spare, but he used to bring these worthless little wooden coins they’d spend hours playing with. They’d flicker it into the air, and swipe it around, and make it magically disappear behind ears, all while waiting for Coy to appear, bruised and cringing and refusing to look at the beta, to tell Colt he could get back in.

He’d tried to buy Colt. The omega was sure he wanted Coy, actually, and Coy that’d convinced him to get Colt instead.

Colt had no idea where he found the money, only that he had tried and it had been the worst thing to ever happen to them. Coy got beaten like he never had before, thrown back into the bitches’ room after ten days, sobbing and bleeding like he was dying, inconsolable. The beta never came back and the Master never again took his eyes off Colt when he got mad, and things were just miserable.

Coy was supposed to give Colt a brother. Once, when he was supposed to be napping, Colt had heard him telling the other omegas he was sure he was going to give the beta a son. That he could feel it was his.

His thighs were bloody, when the Master finished with him, and his belly flat.

The Master loved Coy the only way men could love omegas. He’d taken him in when he was five, had shaped him into the perfect slut for his taste, and would never let go of what he’d raised. He could never let go of Colt, because it would break Coy’s spirit and that was the Master’s job, not anyone else. Colt knew there was no after for them. No buying themselves out or being bought. That was it. Coy had one lovely client, once, and no room for hope ever again.

He was only allowed the freedom of walking around because the Master knew he was too broken to use it for anything the Master wouldn’t approve of. Colt wasn’t allowed because they knew he would. And so it went. Day after day after day, with only stolen comforts and stolen moments and stolen smiles to account for each year passed.

It was all there was for them.

-

Prince Finnr came in bleeding.

Colt dabbed vinegar on his knuckles, before bandaging it with some clean linen he’d managed to snatch from the kitchen. He hummed, and inspected his work, and didn’t ask what happened because he knew Prince Finnr and he knew soon enough the man would explain it just by complaining.

“Punched a wall,” he told him and Colt hummed again. “Father does not—he does not like it. When I shift too much. But I need it. He does not understand.” Prince Finnr flexed his hurt hand, wincing, blinking swollen red eyes. “He cannot.”

Was it any other subject, the phrase would’ve made Colt snort. He still kind of wanted to, only he knew shifting was different for the prince. In that, he’d be right to say no one alive in the castle and very few outside of it could understand him. Everyone knew about it, because there was no hiding when one was born wolf mad, but there was no one he could talk to who would know what it was like: the bleeding need to shift, and being denied it.

“Fathers ain’t no good,” Colt settled with, finishing and letting go of him.

“You have parents,” said Prince Finnr, as if it was a revelation. “Ah. I always forget omegas are also born.”

Most people forgot. It was not even just him being an omega, because there were plenty of his kind who were treated alright, if they were born rich or from commoner families who cared enough to keep them in the good parts of town—most people didn’t actually see whores having families, or lives, or minds, and being an omega one only made him this more worthless in their eyes. And Colt didn’t have a father, not properly. The man that bred Coy would kill Colt if he ever called him that. He shrugged.

The prince was sitting on the room’s only armchair and Colt was, as it was expected, kneeling in front of him. Finished, he settled on the floor, more sitting on both his knees than holding any of the proper painful positions the Master taught them.

“I did not tear my hair out,” said Prince Finnr, staring at Colt’s face with clear expectation.

Colt sent him an indulgent smile. “That’s real good, my prince.”

“I did not.” He stopped, shifting with his wrist. “Did not do anything worse than punching the wall.”

Colt’s face softened. His smile probably looked smaller, but it was more sincere, as he nodded, brushing his cheek against the man’s leg. He layed it right there in his thigh. “I’m glad, my prince. Ya’ don’t deserve any of that pain.”

There were horror stories about alphas like Prince Finnr—mad wolves who were not so much born as they clawed their way out of the womb, tearing their mothers from the inside as they shifted out. The queen had survived her youngest birth, but she‘d never had another child after, so perhaps there was some exaggeration, but perhaps there was some truth too. There was no hiding how frail she looked and, from what Coy told him, that wasn’t the case before.

They said that was just how it went, of course. Their kind came from wolves and, every once in a while, the alphas birthed a child who was more beast than man, more of the Moon than of that Earth, and there was nothing that could be done for them. Colt’s kind was different, too. Not beasts, never beasts, but animals all the same. Unable to shift and, for that, unable to live like complete people did. Why would he ever look down at true wolfkin?

The prince pulled him into his lap. Colt went easily, arms holding onto his neck. When he went to kiss him, Prince Finnr stopped him and announced, staring intently at his face, “I have decided your freckles are not the ugliest thing in the world, cunt.”

And he said, “Thank ya’, my prince,” without pause, because Colt had dealt with stranger men finding stranger ways to justify wanting to lay with him.

“Fucking you is quite calming. I suppose your kind is good for some things.”

Colt paused. “Is it? I never heard of it.”

“Neither had I!” Prince Finnr settled back, bringing Colt with him. “I should ask the castle’s tutors about it, I think, but I suppose omegas are not real wolves. It would make sense for my wolf to retreat a bit when around such lows.”

Colt had really never heard of such thing, but he supposed he’d never heard of any mad alpha who fucked an omega as often and relentlessly as Prince Finnr fucked him. There weren’t a lot of alphas who bothered fucking omegas unless they looked like Coy, and Coy was just one of a kind. He nuzzled Prince Finnr’s cheek playfully.

“Here to serve, my prince.”

When they were naked in each other’s arms in bed, Prince Finnr’s seed spilling from Colt’s hole, he managed to ask, “How is it? Shifting?”

It hurt, or so Colt had heard. 

There was a set hierarchy in their life: omegas didn’t shift. Betas only did so during the full moon, and alphas could do it every night, under any moon, and the change was always painful to all, unless you were wolf mad like Prince Finnr and you could shift any time of the day any day of the year, without feeling any pain at all.

It sounded good, but too much so, in a way that couldn’t be completely real. It sounded heavenly, until one understood that for all the pain they didn’t feel when they were turning, they felt a persistent, calling itch under their skin every second they stayed as men, until they were tearing their own hair out and drinking until they threw up all over themselves, or burning cities and conquering empires and starting civil wars.

It was worse than being an omega, because at least Colt didn’t know what his wolf even felt like. No one could stay shifted all the time, not unless they wished to go even wilder and madder, but they got wilder and madder as people anyway. Most of them ended up running in the end, many lost wolves hunting for their pound of flesh in their woods, their alleys, their streets when it went dark.

You didn’t get to run if you were a prince, even if you were the youngest, less liked one. You didn’t get to just stay a wolf all day long.

“Calming,” the prince answered and he didn’t even call Colt whore. His finger traced Colt’s shoulder and when he shivered, the prince smiled, small. Even his voice sounded soft. “It all goes quiet. Any thought, any ache, any itching. It all stops. It is just peace. Warm, perfect stillness. And running is—it is everything. You are part of the land, the wind, the entire earth.” He closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath. “It slips.”

“What?”

“My mind.” Prince Finnr laughed bitterly, but quietly. “I do not think it is like this for everyone. I do not how they manage to just shift at night sometimes and come back after as if it was nothing. To not crave it any second they stay as men. To not be in pain in these bodies. This hurts. Not—whatever it is the joke, whatever it is that the gods are laughing at, for some reason it is not so strong when I am inside you, but it is every other second. Shifting is everything I ever think about, it is the only moment where my body does not hurt at all, and every time I do it, I feel my mind slipping. I feel it.”

Colt watched his face. There was a look in him, this intense, dark expression that reminded him of the first time he saw the prince properly: shifting, harrowing shadows. For all he was silly, for all he was pathetic, it was easy for Colt to forget that part of it was because he was not there completely. That whatever he’d once been when complete, a lot of it had slipped already, and it’d left the anger, the violence, the desperation. The teared hair and bloody knuckles.

Colt touched his cheek, tilting closer to nudge it with his nose. Prince Finnr put an arm around him. “How is it? Never shifting?”

“It’s nothing,” Colt told him, a whisper against his skin, a ghost in the dark. “Nothing at all, my prince. It’s just an empty hole inside.”

-

Omegas could shift. In one way, and one way only.

Most didn’t get old enough to experience it. Colt hadn’t known of any omega who’d managed to, but it was the kind of tale that every little brothel slut whispered about in the dark. It was the dream, becoming some free man’s favorite bitch. They didn’t even need to be beloved, only favored enough they’d keep them alive for long enough for them to grow old, as impossible as that sounded like, as torturous as the abuse they’d have to take would probably be. He’d heard them talk about it: any rape. Any beating. Any pain, as long as they were kept alive for long enough.

It was the only way any of them would know the feeling: just before death. It wouldn’t be painful, then. It wouldn’t be scary. Just shifting. Just curling around themselves and getting to have complete, warm peace for their last day. Supposedly, that was Agni’s one blessing to their kind.

Coy was the Master’s favorite since a time the Master was more a boy than a full man, his first ever whore he had no idea would end up being his most beautiful and talented ever. Colt didn’t know for how long he himself would get to survive, when he was the man’s most hated piece of property since his birth, but he was sure the Master would keep Coy until they were both old and gray. He was sure Coy would know how that felt like and it was all he needed, to know his dam would get it. 

It was everything. It filled the hole—for everything Coy had done for him, it did.

Coy, he felt, was so hopeful about the prince, kept praying for his health and his mind and his life, because he thought that was Colt’s chance. He believed Prince Finnr would favor Colt enough Colt would get to survive, and grow old, and know what shifting was like. Maybe Colt would be able to feel some hope himself, under the dark, on Prince Finnr’s heavy arms, brushing his beautiful hair and caressing his flushed cheeks, but he couldn’t. The Master didn’t break him in any of the ways he wished to, but he broke him in that way.

When he kissed Prince Finnr’s chest, all he hoped for was to buy himself some peace for some time, before the prince got bored of him.

-

As old tradition said, an alpha only truly became a man after they took their first whore.

To the more boring, proper alphas, that meant going to the brothel, getting all of them to line up all naked for them to see, and choosing the prettiest to fuck in a private room. To the rowdy, wild boys that most alphas were, it meant getting very drunk with a very good number of friends, finding some whore selling themselves in the street and grabbing them to fuck in the first available surface. If the whore was an omega, it was also traditional, though not publicly discussed, to rough them up a little beforehand, just to show the friends you had around that you had it in you to do it without guilt or hesitation: to show you understood life’s hierarchy.

Colt had been a bargaining chip his entire life. If Coy was good, he got the easier clients, and if the Master found some arbitrary reason to say Coy’d done something wrong, he got punished. Mostly that happened by him being sent to sell himself in the street corner closest to the brothel, where he wasn’t at imminent flight risk, but neither was he under the Master’s protection. 

That was the worst place to be and he didn’t know a single whore who didn’t prefer an entire night working inside to one hour being there. He was freezing his ass off for almost an hour, hands shoved under his armpits to try and warm them up as he shook pathetically, when he got yanked by the hair. He got the air punched right out of his lungs, really, and a fancy, expensive boot pressed right against his ribs, digging playfully before kicking. He didn’t scream, because he was too used to it to even be surprised or react besides a sharp exhale, curling around himself. It was a question of shielding his face or his crotch, and he always chose the latter. His face always suffered greatly for it.

He knew what was happening. He knew it was all because the alpha who’d first hit him was having his sixteenth birthday and needed to prove to his friends he was a real alpha and a real man. They kept laughing and joking and talking between themselves so there was no space for questioning their reasonings.

The worst part, as they got him by the hair again, was having his head banged against the wall before being shoved against it, ringing as he felt the hands grabbing from so many directions—gods, he didn’t even know how many there were, or how many cocks he took, although he’d gather it was something around four or five, before he was thrown off the last one and had a stupid, mocking pouch of coins thrown at him.

He took the cocks, and the men, and the hits, and he thought of Prince Finnr.

Prince Finnr would probably like the idea of grabbing him by the hair and shoving his face against the mattress. He’d probably even like the idea of grabbing him and shoving his face against the wall. Colt wouldn’t care about doing it with him, if after they just laid together for some. 

It was terrible, being shoved aside. It was humiliating, and it felt worse than the headache, having to walk the way back to the brothel with his face black and blue and bleeding, sobbing already and sobbing even more when the Master grabbed him by a twisted arm, furious that the coins inside the pouch weren’t enough.

He was a plain one, most of the time, but the Master held no interest in trying to sell a bruised, ugly whore. Had a reputation to keep and, so, Colt was delegated to kitchen work and room clean up like a kid until he didn’t look like his face had been hit with a rock a dozen times over.

Coy cried helping him get out of his clothes and into the tub, because Colt cried too. Right after, he went crawling to the Master, which was the whole point of it from the Master’s side: to have Coy sobbing and begging and dry heaving in panic at his feet. It wasn’t the first time that game had been played, but it was the first time since Prince Finnr became his client.

He came looking for him, of course. The Master only laughed his way out of explaining why Colt wasn’t available.

Colt was washing the sheets when Flip kneeled by his side and whispered to him, “The prince’s here.” Colt went still. Flip swallowed. “Master’s trying to make Cherry go to him. It’s real ugly. If she don’t accept soon, he’s gonna really whip her, and that ain’t good for us.” Cherry was the current best seller—when she was out for a few days, the Master would be angry and they’d be fucked.

Colt didn’t care for that.

“Cherry?” he repeated, fighting to push himself up. “Finnr’s my client. He can’t give her my client.”

Flip got up and squinted at him with quite a lot of judgment for a boy of thirteen. “Ain’t nothing ours.”

“He is!”

“That alpha? That prince?” Flip tried to touch his forehead. “Are ya’ sick, Colt? Are ya’ dizzy? If ya’ die like my dam, I’m leaving ya’ body and running away, ya’ get? Ain’t taking the punishment for finding it first again.”

He slapped the kid’s hand away. “Shut up.”

“What’re ya’ doing?” he asked as Colt turned.

“Going to serve my client, ‘cause I can do it right, unlike Cherry.”

“She doesn’t even want ‘im,” whined Flip, but Colt didn’t care, so he went, and Flip didn’t care enough to earn himself a beating for Colt, so he didn’t. 

In the time it took Flip to get to him, the Master had apparently given up trying to force Cherry to go to him and instead lined the rest of the whores up in the main room for Prince Finnr to see and choose himself, and shooed away the other patrons. Colt paused at the top of the stairs.

Prince Finnr didn’t want them. The pretty whores, the handsome whores–the pricier ones the Master said he could have for Colt’s price, to keep the man happy and coming. Something dangerous and vicious grew inside him, knowing Prince Finnr didn’t want them. It hooked on the pain deep on his belly and he rested against the stairway, overhearing the conversation. It was possessiveness, he was almost sure. Wicked possessiveness a whore, a possession of the master more than any other, should have no right to feel, and still. It was there.

When he saw Prince Finnr pausing in front of one of the other omegas, it turned cold. It turned into fury, because Prince Finnr was his patron, even if he chose Cherry first. He refused to lose him to someone else.

So he got down. Even though his face hurt and so did his ribs, and Flip had told him earlier that he looked scary. The Master looked both confused and furious, one second away from dragging him to some other room to demand an explanation. Because Colt was the worst of omegas, he found his eyes with every ounce of that stupid boudness Coy cried of fear over every time he showed. Colt touched Prince Finnr’s arm—who’d been looking at Willow, who was certainly more than pretty enough to steal him. He turned, his eyes widening when he saw Colt. 

He smiled nervously. “Can serve ya’, my prince.”

“You—”

Prince Finnr turned to the Master, a scalding glare that made him immediately shut his mouth even if his fury just got stronger. There was no doubt Colt would get punished for it later. He wasn’t supposed to look anyone in the eyes like that, let alone the Master.

The prince grabbed him by the arm, startled enough when Colt flinched because of bruises he already had to relax his grip a bit, and told the Master with a frown, “I am taking him to my room.”

The room was not his, technically, but Colt supposed since he was their wealthiest patron, he always ended up being the one to get it. And so they went.

Prince Finnr shoved him inside. He stared at him, baffled.

“What is wrong with your face?”

Colt sat in the bed. “Can take me from behind, my prince.”

“But—what?”

He swallowed, his throat swollen and aching. “Got beat.”

“Why?”

Colt shrugged.

“I’m an omega whore. Sure ya’ beat one before. It’s an alpha’s passage to adulthood. Ya’ take one, and ya’ throw it around a little, and ya’ fuck ‘em.”

“I know that,” he scoffed. He sent him a pinched look. “I did not think there was an after.”

“Guess there’s.”

As if he was quite generous, Prince Finnr sat by his side and told him, “I have never participated in it myself,” which, unfortunately, was quite a surprising kindness on his part. Colt blinked.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Prince Finnr paused. “Well, my brothers never brought me to participate. But I would not have done it even if they had.” What a lie. Prince Finnr would have probably punched Colt right then and there and finished breaking his jaw if it meant his brothers would be happy with him. He was too attention seeking not to take it. Did not see omegas or whores as humans enough he would have so much as thought twice. But Colt at least believed the other princes hadn’t wanted enough to do with him to allow Prince Finnr to participate in the usual alpha games.

“What were they like?” Warily, Colt told him about the alphas. Prince Finnr petted his bruised cheek and said, “Ah. They are nobles, then. I know those. I can deal with them.”

By tearing your own hair until the king has to do something about it?

But the thought was mean, at least a little bit. It wasn’t Prince Finnr’s fault he was kind of mad. It wasn’t even his fault that he was so spoiled—the king and queen clearly didn’t raise him right. Coy had done a much better job and Colt was a whore. “Sure ya’ can, my prince.” And, because he was on the job, “Please, will ya’ fuck me still? I can blow the candles out and hide my face.”

“You look so ugly all beaten up,” he almost whined. “I cannot get hard like this. Give me a handjob and then we can go to bed.”

“Oh.” Colt blinked. “Alright, my prince.”

But after they were laying together, the Prince’s head resting against Colt’s small chest and Colt carding his hand through his hair, he asked, curious, “What do ya’ take?”

The prince only paused for a much smaller second than the question deserved. “Opium mostly, although there are some strange little mushrooms and pastes I sometimes get. The delusions are not my favorite kind of fun, but they can do.” He sent Colt a careful look. “Are you in pain? You wish for some?”

“No, thank ya’, my prince,” he said, because Coy taught him to be polite when he could, and also to never accept that kind of offer from clients unless they were physically trying to shove it inside his mouth and just accepting it would make it less painful. Prince Finnr scoffed. Colt blushed. “Just thinkin’ about it got me curious. My dam doesn’t like that kind of stuff all that much.”

It was good. Colt really liked when he got some of the Master’s morphine when he got real hurt, which was probably why Coy was so careful with it most of the time. Alphas could afford such habits, when it barely made a scratch in their bodies (unless they abused it as badly as Prince Finnr, who still just threw it up and out of his system and then continued without lasting problems). Omegas not so much. For all he liked to think of himself as not so low as alphas thought he was, their bodies were still built differently. Theirs were made to thrive. Colt’s people were just made to bear unbearable things, like cockroaches. 

Prince Finnr looked at him. “You have a dam too.”

“Yes, my prince.”

“Uhm.” He tilted his head, eyes lingering in Colt’s bruises. “And he cares for you?” When Colt shrugged and nodded, he made a pensive face, which wasn’t always the best with him. Prince Finnr wasn’t real good at thinking. “I did not know that was something you omegas did.”

“He’s the greatest ever.”

He prays for you every morning, thought Colt.

Prince Finnr frowned. “Well, that is not fair either.”

“Guess it ain’t,” he lied, because he thought having Coy and Coy having him was the greatest, fairest thing in both their lives. He told him, “He was there. The first one in the line the Master offered to ya’, that’s him.”

“Cannot be,” said Finnr. “You look nothing like him.”

Colt shrugged. “We got the same cheeks, he says. Same nose. I don’t see it that well either.”

Finnr took his head in his hands. Colt did a great job of not laughing while he looked him over with some ridiculous intensity, before letting out a small huh. “I see the cheeks.”

“Think it’s just an omega thing,” admitted Colt, because most of his kind always looked a bit young even when they had the luck of getting older, and most of those he met had rounder cheeks even when they were as starved as him.

“I still see it,” Finnr said and nodded very seriously.

-

Colt woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the prince throwing up. He stayed one second curled up around himself, keeping his eyes and breathing in and out quietly, before getting up to hold his hair. Prince Finnr convulsed against his hand, a violent, angry sound leaving his raw throat, and Colt just considered himself lucky for the fact this time he actually used the chamber pot.

Colt waited patiently, peering at him. Prince Finnr, when he finished, scowled at him.

“Still here?” he spat out bitterly.

“Want me to go?” he replied, careful, sitting back on the floor.

He got up, shakily, and threw himself back into the bed. Colt paused before putting the chamber pot aside, as far as he could, and crawling to him, petting his cheek. He watched it, squinting at him, and pressed, eyes burning, “Why are you still here?”

Colt tilted his head.

“Where else I’d go to? Ya’re my favorite client.”

“Oh, you stupid little bitch,” said Finnr, looking like he would cry, and Colt went to touch his arm, only before he could, Finnr took his wrists, pressing him against the mattress. Colt swallowed and slowly nodded along, because he was a stupid little bitch, wasn’t he? Shaking, Finnr snarled, “They are right. I was born mad. Can you not see it?”

“I see it,” he admitted. “Don’t care, my prince.”

He pressed Colt. It hurt, a bit. He knew he’d bruise later, and that his already hurt wrists would get even more tender, but Colt only focused on calming his breathing, which didn’t work, couldn’t be helped, was fucked and hopeless at that point, catching the golden glint in those eyes. Finnr let go of him even more violently and Colt threw himself back into the bed, getting as far away from him as he could. He’d never—

He’d never actually seen anyone shift before.

He felt himself shaking, heart thundering. It—he was so big. Colt had been taken by a wolf only once and it had been enough to make Coy sob at the Master’s feet until the man had to actually get on his knees to hush him and make him stop, only never doing it again because it’d been too much of a hassle to deal with his dam when he was so hysteric. It’d been a beta, anyway. Betas were more like dogs than anything. Alphas were wolves. Alphas were so, so huge, and he could not help it. For the first time in perhaps five years, he cried in front of a client, tears filling his desperate eyes as he stared at Prince Finnr’s enormous form.

He shifted closer. As Colt trembled and let the tears fall, a sob letting his chapped lips, he pounced up the bed and, oddly, impossibly, licked his wet cheek. Only that.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t lift a single finger, not even to present himself like the master had beaten him into knowing, until the wolf bonked his head against Colt’s hand, snarling.

Colt felt like throwing up. Instead, he petted him.

He whined. Colt hadn’t ever heard a wolf whining either, playfully biting at Colt’s fingers.

“Alright,” he said, body and voice trembling uncontrollably as he stroked Prince Finnr’s fair fur. It was the softest thing he’d ever touched and as he did it, he leaned towards the big wolf, more tears escaping. Colt hugged him, going pliant against that impossible softness. “Al—” Colt hiccuped. “It’s alright, my prince. I don’t care.”

He nuzzled him. Colt swallowed.

“There ya’ go.”

He never would’ve dared to imagine it, but in the end, Colt thought Prince Finnr was even lovelier when he couldn’t speak, a huge, needy wolf who just wanted to curl up around Colt and stay snuggled in some peaceful quiet. His fingers trembled, but he continued to brush through the wolf’s fur, whispering in a wet, shaky voice, “There.”

He woke up later, properly that time, to Finnr’s thunderous glare. “You were crying.”

Colt blinked, pushing himself up. His eyes felt heavy and swollen and he must’ve looked terrible, because he’d never been a pretty crier and had always looked like complete shit the morning after, and he’d already looked like shit beforehand anyway. He wiped his cheek, wet from some spit and not tears, and said roughly, “Yeah.”

“ Why?”

Colt hugged his knees. It’d been the first time they’d slept in the same bed without fucking (he could hardly even remember jerking off Finnr) and the first time he’d stayed one entire night clothed around him, wiggling his toes under his socks nervously. He looked at Prince Finnr, his fair eyebrows twisting with some terrible anger.

“Thought ya’ were gonna fuck me like that.”

“Like a wolf? People do that?” To Colt’s shy nod, Finnr’s annoyance morphed into some terrifying interest. Colt flinched. The alpha frowned again, catching the reaction. “Well, I will not do it if it is going to make you sob like that.”

“Really?”

He looked at him, stupidly hopeful. Finnr snorted.

“Of course not. Your crying is so snotty. It is very embarrassing, omega.”

Colt, who’d wiped Finnr’s snot when he burst into sobs after sex and kissed his wet, snotty cheeks, nodded with all the seriousness he could muster. “‘Course, my prince. Gonna remember that.”

“See to it.”

-

Finnr complained about the bruises to the Master, which revealed perhaps another little privilege from being his favorite bitch: Finnr didn’t like him bruised, so the Master couldn’t punish him the way he preferred. The Master didn’t like to hit Coy in the face, so he also couldn’t backhand him for Colt’s offense the way he did to Colt when Coy did something.

Instead, he hit dumb little Flip until he was a crying, begging, bloody mess on the Master’s office floor, before grabbing the sobbing kid by the hair and pointing one finger at a shaking Colt. “Don’t ya’ go thinkin’ I didn’t see ya’ made this little slut here wash the laundry for ya’ while ya’ went bitch yourself against my orders.”

Stupid, stupid boy.

Gods, did he think it’d help? Did he think washing the sheets Colt had abandoned would be enough to stop the Master’s fury?

“Stupid,” he told him later, as Flip cried in Coy’s lap in their cot and Coy dabbed at his bloody face with some vinegar. He looked, as a matter of fact, just as scary and beaten as Colt had looked some days before.

For the comment, Coy sent him a scalding look. Flip hid against Coy.

“Shouldn’t have done it for ya’,” the boy spat, and Coy made a sad little sound, running his fingers through the knots in Flip’s brown hair. Flip pressed himself against him, as Colt scoffed.

-

Colt’s own bruises were some ugly, dark things all over his face when Finnr decided to take him to the market. Colt’d never been one of the whores who got paid to be taken out of the brothel, unlike Cherry who was an alpha and often invited to look pretty at someone’s arms in a party, or Coy who was always hired as entertainment in the same kind of party. He put on his coat and his boots eagerly. Finnr, when he saw him, frowned. 

He said, “So you do have clothes that cover your breasts.”

“They all do,” replied Colt, shameless. “They’re just sheer so ya’ know what ya’ buying.”

Finnr scoffed, but he took him.

Colt didn’t understand what the prince was doing or why, only that being outside with him was very much different than being outside with Coy. No one approached them. No one tried to touch them, to grab, to pull. The crowd parted, because there was no mistaking Prince Finnr, and there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t know what they said of him. And Finnr, young, pampered royal, had much more than some odd coins to spend, stopping at almost every merchant and stall to look at some useless trinket he certainly didn’t need, as the vendors tried not to stare too much at Colt’s face, falling to hide their flinches completely.

Finnr, as Colt expected of him, didn’t notice any of it.

He lingered in one of the stalls. He shouldn’t, but he did anyway, because he didn’t ever get to just look at things when he was with Coy. It was pretty, the earring he stopped to look at. The type of jewelry Prince Finnr was always using and that Coy had once or twice been given, as a show of favor from noble patrons, taken as it’d be by the Master. Colt hadn’t, ever, and he stared at it for as long as he could get away with without the vendor shooing him away. 

Inside, there was shame. 

Inside, there was envy. 

He could be fucked ten times over, with no time to waste and no coin given to the Master, and even then he would not be able to afford it. Everything he was, all his used up, gaping body, wasn’t worth even half a fancy earring, and he felt his hands trembling before he forced them to still.

Finnr looked back over his shoulders once he noticed Colt wasn’t following him anymore. He looked at what Colt was staring, eyebrows furrowed, before looking up to the terrified vendor. “How much for it?”

“Twelve gold, Your Highness.”

Doing everything he could to sound like Coy, Colt let out a light chuckle, holding Finnr’s arm. The prince startled, staring at him with a confused, irritated glint on his blue eyes, but it was better than the absolute horror and judgment on the vendor’s face. Colt sent the beta a tight smile. “Ya’ gotta be confused, mister. He asked for the one on the left, which is seven gold, as I heard ya’ saying before.”

His face went a furious red, more angry than embarrassed, and Colt kept his smile despite the painful squeeze on his belly. He held his ground, and the beta’s eyes, despite the fear.

“Of course,” he said, voice tight, and let out an awkward laugh. “How could I not have noticed?”

Finnr gave him the seven gold coins as if it was nothing, and Colt couldn’t help the churning in his stomach just staring at the transaction, following the money with a hunger just to see it. Finnr took him away by the shoulder. When Colt finally managed to pry his eyes away from the beta, Finnr was staring at him, something undecipherable in his eyes. It made Colt’s cheeks heat up. “What?”

“I should be the one asking.”

“They’re upping their prices ‘cause ya’re a prince,” he pointed out quietly, not so much because he cared about them doing it—gods knew Finnr could afford—as much as he knew most of those men had in some way or another touched Coy or him, and he liked the idea of taking some easy coin away from them.

Finnr scoffed. “They should lower their prices to their prince,” he said, despite the fact Colt was sure no one thought of him as their prince, besides perhaps Coy those days, for what he did for Colt. He lifted the earrings. “Here.”

“Here what?”

Finnr seemed to think Colt was completely brainless.

“Clearly,” he said slowly, “you are in no position to protect yourself, as I can see just looking at how hideous your face still is at the moment. This is a show of my favor,” and he put the earrings on Colt’s palm. “I doubt they will dare to mark something that is marked as mine.”

He stared, full of disbelief. The ruby glinted under the sun and it made him feel like dropping it, because letting it fall to the floor felt more right and less tainted than touching it with his hand.

“Oh,” he said. “I will gotta give it to the Master.”

“Why would you?”

“Every gift goes to him,” explained Colt. “I guess sometimes we get to keep one of ‘em after he sees them, my prince, but only if it’s cheap. He sells the real jewels.”

“He certainly will not sell something mine,” spat Finnr, offended by the thought, and Colt had to admit he might be right. Getting rid of something a lovesick beta or flaunting noble gave one of them was one thing—doing it to the mad prince was another altogether. Finnr let out a huff, before taking the earrings to put them in Colt himself.

Mostly, the only thing his ears saw was some cheap petter jewelry Coy managed to get from the Master, and he never used it a lot. Some of the clients liked the look of it enough he kept them pierced, but some others liked tugging at it, and he was always terrified one’d try to rip it off. They’d done it to poor Pillow once and all the others had been afraid of it ever since. Finnr was as careful as he knew to be, which wasn’t a lot, but was still unexpected. When he took a step back, he hummed, thoughtful.

“You have some big ears, huh.” Colt gasped in affront. Finnr held his arm firmly. “No matter now. You are going to help me buy what I need, you understand?”

Well, what choice did Colt have, but to follow him?

He liked it, even. He’d never spent an hour with any other patron not being fucked and there was something pleasant in doing so. Viciously, wickedly pleasant. Striding by the sunlit streets with a prince by his side, knowing no one would scream at him for being a whore and Finnr—likely—wouldn’t just fuck him on the middle of town, it all felt lovely.

Finnr didn’t seem to need anything he stopped to see, but perhaps needing was different for him than it was for Colt. Colt needed food when the Master refused to give him any meal for three days straight because a client complained that Coy didn’t look eager enough. He needed Coy to give him a haircut when a client ripped a good deal of curls yanking his head back, and not cutting it evenly left it looking absolutely ridiculous. They needed a second coat, which they wouldn’t get so soon, and some new socks without holes in them. 

Prince Finnr didn’t need new gilded bracelets, or a bottle of some ridiculously expensive wine, or some spicy meat skewers when Colt knew he’d eaten not too long ago. But, after the vendor sent Colt a long look, Finnr seemed to feel embarrassed enough by the implication he bought one for him too, so Colt was too pleased being given food to ever care to judge his spending habits.

After, “Hey,” whispered Colt, as he took Finnr’s hand. “Come with me.”

He pulled him to Colt’s favorite place in the entire city, by virtue of being Coy’s favorite place in the city: higher up, there was that empty park not too far from one of Aghi’s poorer temples that allowed them a perfect view of downtown, the bleak houses and snow covered roofs and the glinting ice in the ground, and a glimpse of Finnr’s castle further away. Finnr sat with him on the ground, perfectly warm and comfortable while Colt shivered, hugging himself, and took out his wine.

Colt stared as he drank it straight from the bottle. Finnr scowled once he lowered the bottle. “Do not judge me.”

“Ain’t judging! Ya’ don’t wanna me to drink with ya’, do ya’? ‘Cause ya’ drink too fast for me, honestly.”

Finnr rolled his eyes. “That’s dumb,” but he offered it anyway. Colt thought it was quite obvious he hadn’t thought of doing so before.

“That’s why ya’ always throw up. Ya’ drink too fast,” but Colt accepted.

Colt took a tentative sip. He squirmed violently, which made Finnr let out a laugh. It was, perhaps, the first time Colt heard him laugh, or saw him smiling at him with easy honesty, simple amusement lightening up his eyes, glimmering like the ice under the sunlight.

“Come on, omega. This is good, sweet wine.”

“Don’t ever wanna taste the cheap dry ones the Master drinks, then.”

He tried again and it somehow tasted worse. When Colt made a face, Finnr smiled. He didn’t take the bottle back immediately, which Colt’d been sure he’d do. “You never had wine before.”

“Ya’ ever wasted wine with any other whore before?” Finnr’s expression made the answer clear. Colt smiled, gesturing to his face. “That’s why.”

No one had ever wasted expensive wine with Colt. No one had wasted their free time and money by getting him out of the brothel for an evening without any fucking, or wasted their favor with him. It wasn’t a waste for the prince, of course. He had too much of everything. For him, that was nothing at all, and Colt hugged his legs tighter, looking back at the alpha.

“Will ya’ talk about ya’ siblings, my prince?”

Finnr pinched his eyebrows. “Do not mock me, cunt.”

“I ain’t. I like when ya’ complain.” The face Finnr made was like he still thought he was being mocked. Colt nudged his feet, offering him the bottle back. “It’s funny. I like it.” It felt like a confession coming from his lips. Finnr looked at him as if it could only be a lie, but he accepted the wine, taking a smaller sip than before. 

“They will announce their betrothal,” he said, finally.

“The twins?”

That, too, earned Colt an honest laugh, some of the tension bleeding out of Finnr’s shoulders. “The two wish they could,” he huffed, smiling. “No. Malfrid and Áki. I suppose soon enough you will be hearing all about how my dear Malfrid got saved from marrying me by the kingdom’s noblest heir.” He made a face. “Noble. I will never understand how that is what he is made to be, while I am the cruel, lecherous son. The pitiful.”

“The pathetic.” Finnr sent him a look. Colt shrugged lamely. “That’s just what they say, my prince. I’m helping ya’ argument.”

Finnr snorted.

“Mother wants for me to court Malfrid’s older sister, now. As if she wasn’t supposed to be Áki’s.”

“A switch,” said Colt.

“Sloppy seconds,” corrected Finnr and Colt had to smile at the disgust there. “To all sides, even.” He took a swing, before giving Colt the bottle. “We used to be inseparable, you know. Malfrid and I. When we were young, she used to be terrified of Áki and always follow me everywhere, begging me to play with her. She was the best cousin.”

Colt had no family besides Coy, so he didn’t quite understand how someone being a good cousin meant they’d be a good wife. He nodded anyway, because he wasn’t paid to question Finnr. “Ya’ really wanted to marry her yourself?”

His eyes lingered in Colt’s face.

“No,” he admitted after a pause, the word heavy and strange coming out of those lips. “No, not anymore. Malfrid growed up to be a bitch. But it is all about the principle. Her sister will not want me either. I have been told I have insulted her, somehow, sometime.” He waved his hand. “Stupidity, if you ask me. Of course, I do not want her. I am not insulted or anything of the sort. That is about principles too, if your kind can have them.”

“Uhm,” said Colt, stifling a laugh. “‘Course, my prince.”

They drank. Colt hugged his cold knees and heard Finnr complain, lured into relaxation by the familiar sound of his voice and the way the wine was making him feel, and the view of the sunset. When it came time to go back, Finnr helped him up, probably because he could tell Colt was feeling wobbly, and let out a laugh when Colt stumbled a bit.

“You are a lightweight,” said Finnr, like that was some precious new knowledge. “I should have known.”

Colt huffed. Finnr laughed at his face one last time, before stepping away.

“Oh!” he said, surprised and a bit nervous, but not as completely horrified as the last time he watched Finnr shifting, his wolf just as huge as before walking some steps in front of Colt.

His legs felt strange and unsteady, and he touched Finnr’s fur as they walked back. That felt good: no way anyway would try to approach them—much less rob them—when Colt was following a wolf. The Master certainly appeared startled enough when they came in. He always insulted the prince when the prince was gone, but he always seemed so small, so much like a dirty poor, worthless peasant, everytime he actually had to interact with the alpha in front of Colt. He couldn’t even say how much he loved that.

In the best room Finnr always rented for himself, Colt let his body fall into the bed, as the prince shifted back to watch him. He let out a shaky sigh, settling into the mattress and trying to stop feeling so cold, and Finnr kneeled above him in the bed. He watched the rise and fall of Colt’s chest, the heat in his cheeks, the trembling of his eyelashes. He breathed out of his mouth, heavy and with need, and it made Colt shake. His eyes lingered in that too.

“You do not want to fuck tonight.” Like a clumsy attempt, as if testing out the words, “Because sometimes even omegas do not wish to be fucked.”

“I’m—I’m a bit dizzy, my prince.” He closed his eyes. It made his head swim. “Ya’ can always fuck me.”

Finnr brushed his fingers through Colt’s pulse, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. “You will let me,” he said, “even while you tremble.” When a laughter left his lips, it wasn’t the same easy one from before. It was bitter, and sharp, and his voice was very small. “You are just like everyone, are you not? You are afraid of me.”

Colt blinked sluggishly. “Am not,” he said, stubborn.

“You think I am dumb.”

“Don’t!”

“You think I do not notice every time you wish to move on from a conversation you offer to suck me.”

Colt paused. “Ah,” he said, “it ain’t that I think ya’ don’t notice. It’s just easier, no? No time for awkward silences, if we just get to it. Ya’ don’t like it?”

“Your mouth is one of the best things about you.” Finnr frowned. “Do you mean anything of what you say?”

“Are ya’ always such a miserable drunk?”

“Only when I do not drink enough for everything to go black.” He held Colt’s wrists. On old, trained instinct, he went to put his arms over his head so Finnr could hold them down there, only the prince pressed them firmer right where they were, his expression thunderous. “Is your kind even capable of meaning anything?”

Colt swallowed.

“If I was real afraid of ya’,” he replied, doing all he could to control his breath, “would I really dare to call ya’ miserable? I’m a bad whore, my prince. Always say what I mean.” 

He usually did, which was why the Master used to tell most of the clients he took to just backhand Colt if he ever tried to open his mouth for more than sucking, before they had to hear him. He still told them to hit him if he tried to run his mouth, only not in the face anymore. 

Finnr let go of his wrists. He stood up, pushing a hand through his long hair, as Colt watched the tense line of those slender shoulders. Colt swallowed, his throat feeling dry and stuffy. “My prince?”

“Omega,” he said back, his voice strained, and paused after turning back to him. For one second, Colt simply watched as he struggled. Finnr pursed his lips. “You make it all harder.”

“Can ya’ just lay with me?” asked Colt simply, because he didn’t know what else to do.

Impossibly, Finnr did.

-

The client was a large, wealthy beta who wanted to have Coy for the afternoon, but who had to be content with Colt, since his dam was already paid for the whole day—had to be, but wasn’t, and didn’t quite manage to get hard once he had Colt naked in bed, sucking his limp cock. He fisted Colt’s hair with a sneer, pulling him away, and Colt blinked before telling him, “Can just fuck ya’ myself, sir, if this gonna be a problem for ya’.”

For that, he got slapped so hard he couldn’t even think straight.

Perhaps the prince’s first mistake was to think Colt’s clients saw him as enough of a person they even felt the need to consider he might be someone’s favorite, let alone an important alpha. Sure, the earring stayed right there where they could see. Sure, Coy had stared at it with a small, lovely smile. And sure, some of them stopped when they saw it and no noble tried to beat Colt again, but it didn’t mean they’d stop hitting him at all. Not even the Master explicitly telling them his face wasn’t to be bruised stopped it. He was an omega whore: taking it was the whole point of Colt.

The Master made him pay for the damage. Finnr took his chin in a grip so strong Colt had to stop himself from flinching, allowing him to move his face in whatever way he wanted, his eyes lingering in Colt’s fresh split lip, despite the last one hadn’t even finished healing completely. He didn’t say anything then, but after they fucked, he held Colt more strongly than normal, pulling him against himself.

“This is not fair,” said Finnr, because he was a prince, and an alpha, and could afford to be obsessed about things like his own odd definition of fairness. Colt closed his eyes, resting against his chest. “You are my whore.”

A hum of agreement, half asleep. Colt mumbled, “‘Course, my prince.”

“You are mine,” he repeated. “They do not get to hurt someone that is mine.” Finnr held his shoulders tightly. Colt thought that they’d progressed a lot, that he was someone and not something. “This place is pitiful and pathetic. How much is it to buy your contract?”

Colt shot up. “No,” stumbled out of his mouth before he could think better of it. “What? No!”

Finnr sat in bed too, staring at him with a furious expression.

“No?” he echoed

“No!” repeated Colt, his voice sounding higher and completely desperate. He stumbled back on the mattress, away from Finnr. “Ya’ can’t—” The tears made his eyes burn, a shaky hand trying futilely to wipe them before the alpha saw. “Ya’ can’t buy me. What about my dam?”

“Do not cry,” the prince spat, annoyed and perhaps a bit desperate himself. “Here comes the rivers! Now, what about your dam?”

“I can’t be away from him!” Colt was shaking. He felt hysterical, throwing himself into Finnr’s direction and grasping at his hands. Finnr stared down at it. “Please. Please, alpha, I like this. I like havin’ ya’ as a client. I promise—I’m all yours, alright? I promise I won’t let anyone else mark me. I’m—” He sobbed, and hiccuped, and completely gave up not letting Finnr see him cry. “I’m yours. I’m gonna kick and scream and run if anyone else tries to hit me, I promise. Won’t let anyone else ever bruise me. But ya’ can’t—I gotta be here with him.”

“Alright. Will you simply—will you stop? I will not touch your contract.”

Colt couldn’t stop. He threw himself into Finnr, sobbing as he buried himself against the man. Finnr went still, very clearly completely incapable of actually holding Colt or giving him any kind of reassuring touch, but he let Colt cry, a small gasp of surprise escaping his lips.

“Gods,” he said. “Are you even real, bitch? There is snot in me now,” and Colt just cried more, throwing his arms around Finnr’s shoulders, because that was probably the closest he’d get to being hugged, when Finnr didn’t even manage to pull his arms around him back. What a sad, sad alpha he was. Did he ever even get hugged when he was a kid? Colt thought that he hadn’t. That no one had dared. 

Coy hugged him, the night after that, not because he could tell Colt had cried, but just from being able to tell that Colt needed it, his arms warm around him, holding him close to himself in their cot. Colt trembled, as he laid his head on his dam’s chest. He closed his eyes.

“Da?” he called, his voice very small. “What—what do I do, if the prince wants to buy me?”

Coy carded his fingers through Colt’s short curls.

“Ya’ take it.”

“Ya’d tell me to leave ya’?” said Colt, opening his eyes. He looked at the older omega’s face, feeling heartbroken at the confirmation despite having known Coy would tell him so.

Coy’s thumb rubbed his cheek. His smile was very sad, and tired, and his eyes very fond, as he rested his forehead against Colt’s and whispered, “I’d tell ya’ to forget me completely, pup.”

-

Finnr wasn’t pleased with him. Not with Colt’s split lip, not with the finger-shaped bruises in Colt’s body, not with the way it was so obvious every night that Finnr wasn’t the first to fuck him that day. Colt felt the displeasure coming with a detached kind of grief: he’d always known Finnr would grow bored of him, and that eventually the boredom would make him bothered. He’d known.

Nothing to do, but to take all he still could.

For the next days, he ate with Finnr, savoring each bite of meat he could get. He peppered kisses all over his face, enjoying the lazy, easy work of making Finnr pleased. And when they fucked, he relished in the roughness of it, the tightening of fingers around his waist, over all the shades of blue and yellow left by other men, Finnr putting his own mark in Colt’s flesh like he’d never put in his neck.

He touched Finnr’s cold cheek. They weren’t fucking anymore, not really, but he had his knot deep, deep inside him, a bruising force as Colt warmed him and waited it out. Finnr pressed his face against Colt’s palm, rubbing it, and he let that feeling wash over him, his smile involuntary, just as much as the quiet, soft, “Oh, my prince,” that left his lips.

Finnr paused. His fingers found Colt’s wrist.

“Why is your face doing that? What are you doing?”

“Just lookin’.” Colt smiled at him. “I just—thank ya’ for coming in tonight, ya’ know?” 

Perhaps he was sadder than Prince Finnr. Perhaps the Master had broken him in ways he hadn’t known before. The words felt silly, like things an alpha didn’t need to know, like a kind of deep gratitude for some simple not-even-decencies one didn’t deserve to receive, but it was true and Colt was thankful.

He told him, and it was sincere, “Ya’re pathetic, just like they say, and lecherous, and petty, and I’ve grown fonder of ya’ than I ever been of any alpha.” And when Finnr stared at him, his blue eyes wide, Colt laughed. “It’s alright. Gods. Ya’ don’t need to be afraid or anythin’, I know you won’t ever be fond of one of my kind. But ya’ gotta know it now, huh?”

He was slipping from Colt, slowly, but surely. The last time they were laying together in bed, he’d spent a good half an hour just staring at the old scarring in Colt’s thighs. He didn’t even demand an explanation—Colt would’ve told him about the alpha who was always around when he was nineteen, who’d liked the sight of sharp blades pressed against his dark skin and to use the blood to make sliding in easier after, and who did it to Colt just as much as any other whore the Master was mad enough with that he sent to the man. But Finnr didn’t ask. 

He just looked. He traced the scars, shadows licking his hollow face and hiding his expression in complete mystery. Even then, while in the middle of fucking him, his eyes lingered in Colt’s waist, just as his fingers squeezed him. He was saying mine, for now, but soon enough he wouldn’t.

He’d already said he didn’t like sloppy seconds. Colt thought it was quite clear he was starting to understand that was all Colt was.

Colt was helping with the laundry, when Flip came trembling to tell him the Master needed to see him. He expected, as it so happened, to learn that Coy had “done” something and the Master wanted to scream at Colt for it, only when he came inside the Master’s office, the prince was in there. 

There were papers spread through the Master’s table. Colt didn’t know how to read a single word, but he could recognize the royal family’s seal in one of the letters. The pouches next to it could only be gold and—

And.

“No,” he let out, horrified, and threw himself into Finnr’s feet without second thought, uncaring for the pain, uncaring for the future bruises his knees would have. There were tears escaping from his eyes. “No, no, please tell me ya’ didn’t.”

“Now, listen here, ya’—”

The Master’s hand barely grabbed Colt’s hair before Finnr snapped, “Rúni,” his voice ringing hard in a way Colt had never heard before, “This whore is property of the Crown, now, if you need to be remembered of it.”

The Master retreated as if slapped. Colt felt as if he’d been kicked in the face and the pained sound that left his lips made it seem like that was what’d happened, loud desperate sobs shaking his entire body as he stayed right where he was on the floor, crying his eyes out and flinching away when Finnr reached to hold his shoulder.

“No!” he screamed panickedly in between his bawling. He’d never said no so many times in all his life, forbidden as the word was. “Ya’ can’t—Finnr! Please, please—”

The door opened. Colt could hardly see Coy’s face when his eyes already felt swollen, eyelashes sticking because of all the tears, and it only made his sobs come out even harder. Finnr took Coy instead, pushing the confused omega towards Colt and snapping, “Solve that.”

There were arms around him, that Colt could tell. Coy hugging him on the floor, Coy making him scoot over just enough they were farther away from the Master’s feet, angling himself so any kick would fall on him and not Colt. Colt could hardly breath, thinking about it. He couldn’t stop crying, or make his cries sound quieter, no matter what Coy’s desperate whispers begged of him. 

He dry heaved, an ugly, loud sound, and sobbed like a dying animal, only able to say, “I can’t, no, no, please, Da, please.”

Finnr was arguing with the Master.

Their faces were close to each other, eyes alight with fury on both sides, despite the Master trying to hide it. Coy brushed his hair away from his wet face with trembling hands, shushing him fearfully, doing his all to scent Colt, and that was some of the reason his crying subsided, but the biggest part of it was the confusion seeing Finnr argue with the Master.

“I simply think, Your Highness, that it should be discussed more—”

“It ought not to,” Finnr spat. He made a grand gesture towards the pathetic vision Colt was at the moment. “The whore will come with his dam. I have given you a great deal, for an older omega and a plain one. You will be accepting it, or shall I remember you, beta, that I am your prince and can just order you to agree?”

Colt’s sobs grew loud in his confusion.

Coy just grew still.

-

A good alpha would say what Finnr did to the Master was an unfair cruelty. A good alpha cared for betas and wouldn’t think to take away one of their rightful property by pulling rank and making threats. A good alpha would say what Finnr did was to abuse a poor peasant just doing his best to make ends meet and keep a good, needed business running. Coy had served plenty of good alphas and Colt had served a few: they petted them, and offered them a meal, and fucked them slowly and kindly and deeply, before going to drink with and talk to the Master, complimenting his merchandise and joking around, and being so warm, so good to all the dirt under their foot.

They’d call it a steal, perhaps. A signature forced under duress, or whatever it was the real good, real noble alphas talked about, just as they pulled small Flip closer, and made small sounds of sadness as they called him pup and caressed his hair, and paid for him to suck them anyway.

Colt had never felt a stranger sort of numbness than he did watching Prince Finnr getting the Master to sign Coy away under clear duress. 

He stopped sobbing, but he continued snuffing, wiping his cheeks, properly kneeling quietly in the corner like an omega whore should, just the way he never remembered to do most of the time. Finnr kept sending him those odd little looks, which only made him not notice the Master’s violent, disgusted, completely furious glares that he sent Finnr every time he wasn’t looking, or the absolutely putrid ones he sent a shivering Coy.

“Finnr?”

Colt’s voice sounded so very small, as Finnr snapped for them to get up and follow him. It made even the man pause, before reaching a hand Colt took confusedly, letting him pull him to his feet. Colt trembled and Finnr’s version of calming him was giving his wrist an almost painful squeeze that, unfortunately for what it said about him and them, Colt did find grounding and good. A quiet breath escaped his lips.

Finnr let go of him. “You too,” he snapped, waving at Coy. 

Colt helped him, because it didn’t seem like Coy could do it alone. He seemed so still, watching the Master with some childlike heartbreak Colt shivered just seeing. Coy came, blinking numbly, walking numbly, leaving the room numbly. Colt put his arm over Coy’s shoulders, pulling him closer to himself as his dam just trembled, suddenly the one needing it.

“My prince,” he whispered as they walked out of the brothel. “What—”

“I wanted your contract for myself,” said the man, his voice very much hard as if that would erase the unbelievable kindness of the act he’d just done. “I am an alpha, cunt. I am a prince. You cannot just tell me not to get something I want and then just—just cry like that to manipulate me into not getting it. I solved the issue you had, so do not try me with those sobs again. You were a clause in your dam’s contract, and now your dam is a clause in the contract I have put you in. There you go.”

Colt blinked, his eyes wet and wide and so, so hopeful.

“And then?”

“Well,” Finnr paused. Colt could tell he probably hadn’t thought much far into his plan and it almost made him laugh. Would’ve done it, if Coy wasn’t so small in his arms. Pathetic, impossible, impulsive, wonderful Finnr frowned. “My father pays to keep a good many deal of whores exclusively waiting for him in the city, although they are mostly some pretty alpha girls. I suppose I too shall pay for a small home for you both, then, and give you a little allowance. That is what he does.” Finnr straightened. “Yes, yes. That is what a proper alpha does. I am quite good at this.” He sent Colt a look. “I do not care if this dam of yours wants to continue to whore himself out, but you are mine, you understand, cunt? I do not want to ever see you marked by another again.”

Colt swallowed.

“My prince,” he replied, “I promise ya’, I don’t want that either.”

Prince Finnr didn’t seem to have much knowledge on what people needed to survive, in the sense that what for him was the kind of simple living that was needed for basic survival was, to anyone else, the biggest of luxuries. 

A “small home”, to him, was better than any other living arrangement that Colt had ever seen and certainly better than anything he’d ever been allowed inside, when any kind of establishment, from the most cheap of inns to the poorest of shops, would’ve kicked him out had he ever tried to get in them before, so obviously that he was unable to pay in any way that wasn’t by spreading his legs. It was the kind of two-stored, stone-bricked dream Coy used to describe as they played pretend in the worst nights, when Colt was little more than eight and propped in his knee, hearing little tales of warm homes Coy told him in the hopes he’d dream about it instead of having more nightmares that’d cut Coy’s already short sleep shorter when he most needed it.

It was warm, just like Coy used to talk about. Colt spent the entirety of his first night there kneeling in front of the hearth until his knees were aching, eyes dipping close every now and then, at the same time too tired and too wired to sleep. He’d never felt such warmth sipping so deeply into his flesh and his bones.

It was in the real fancy side of town, where he’d never so much as dreamed to walk through, because Colt knew he’d be stopped by the guards for even thinking of it. It was why he knew the Master wouldn’t go after them, despite the fact he was certainly furious and in a war path to at least fuck Coy once again: that was the kind of neighborhood rich alphas who didn’t have noble titles stayed, and it was patrolled as such, to keep the alphas’ peace and safety against undesirable omegas and dangerous poor betas. Patrolled by royal guards that had seen their youngest prince around, that certainly would know to keep an eye on the one house he was always getting in and out from.

Finnr’s small allowance, too, wasn’t all that small. It could pay so that, for the first unbelievable time in both their lives, they had food at their table every day, without one of them having to skip meals to give it to the other. It could pay for a mousy old beta to teach Colt how to cook, something he’d never been allowed to learn before, and for him to get them proper clothes: finally, socks without holes. A coat for each, a pair of gloves for each, a hat and scarf they didn’t pretend to share when in fact Coy never accepted to wear it even when his lips were going blue. Shirts and pants of sturdy wool that weren’t see-through so anyone might stare at their chests and cunts and decide if they wanted to take them. Real people's clothes. Real people’s lives.

Colt was a kept whore. That was perhaps the oddest kind of freedom he’d never thought he’d get to have: a house to be warm inside, and meals to prepare and eat, and only one prince to be fucked by. 

He woke up to it and didn’t know how or why it‘d been given to him. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. He’d prepared for Finnr to become bored by him. He hadn’t prepared for him to buy their way out.

He didn’t know what to do, having it.

Colt asked Finnr, “What do ya’ do with ya’ days?” 

And he answered, “I am a trained fighter,” although, according to every rumor, the king had attempted to have him trained, only he was too weak and uninterested and would just whine when he got hit until every sword master of the kingdom gave up on him, “and a scholar,” but every gossip Colt had ever heard talked about many dropped tutors who’d complained about how the youngest prince just couldn’t listen or learn if his life depended on it, “and you certainly know I am an acolyte of Álof,” only that every alpha prince was born as one of Álof’s blessed acolytes, and Prince Finnr was the only one Colt had ever known to have been made to leave for drinking too much during the cerimonies, who were already supposed to involve a lot of drinking and smoking and communal fucking to evoke Álof’s visions.

Now he knew him, he’d guess it wasn’t so much as drinking too much as it likely was drinking to the point of throwing up during the communal fucking. Colt didn’t think that would’ve been appreciated by Álof’s own.

“So,” said Finnr with finality, “as you can see. I do a lot. My days are quite full. Why?”

Colt shrugged. “I like being ya’ whore,” he said. “It’s just—it’s a lot of waiting, ya’ get? Don’t know what to do in between.”

Finnr sent him a strange look.

“Do nothing,” he said, seriously. “That is the best thing to do in the world.”

Colt laughed, settling against his naked chest. “Right.”

And so, he tried to settle into that new place, with a small house and a little allowance. Colt slept until later than he was ever able to before, letting himself be lazy and childish during the mornings. He cooked for himself and Coy, and walked around the city’s best streets, where the prince’s favors in his ears actually meant something, and bought all sorts of little treats to give to Coy. He told himself he wasn’t afraid, despite the fact he was. Tried to convince himself he was doing better than Coy, despite the fact he saw the Master in every street, every corner, ever older beta: flinching and walking faster, heart racing.

He bought himself a dagger, just in case. Because of the Master. Because he was still just a little whore. Because he didn’t know—couldn’t be sure— that if someone tried to do something to Coy, he’d try to protect himself in any kind of way.

Finnr didn’t seem impressed by it, as he watched Colt get undressed in front of him, setting the blade aside.

“Do you even know how to use it?”

Colt sent him a bemused look over his shoulder.

“Ya’ stick the sharp side in them,” he said. “What’s more to it?”

His trained fighter Highness didn’t answer. Colt doubted he’d have a lot of good tips to give anyway. He kept the dagger in his pocket at all times. Even if it was silly and he couldn’t use it right, it helped him step back, his thoughts quieter, his fears softer around the edges at the thought of hitting back for the first time.

Coy was quieter, but it was clear he was also filled with more fear and anxiety than ever before. Colt watched him as he cut some potatoes, the act so slow when Coy kept staring at the snow hitting the kitchen window, his eyes lost. Colt brushed their shoulders.

“Do ya’ miss him?” he whispered. “The Master?”

Coy laughed, before turning to him with a perfectly controlled smile. “‘Course not, pup,” with a kind of sadness in his eyes that meant he did. 

Of course he did. Colt hated the Master, purely and simply, but Coy loved him just as much as he feared him. He’d been made to love him when he was only a child: they weren’t father and son by blood, but they were in practice. Neither were they husband and wife by law, but they were in every other sense.

“Do ya’ think some carrots gonna be good in the soup?”

Coy let out a small breath. “Think we can try.”

But it hadn’t even been two entire weeks since Finnr bought them before Colt came down one morning and caught Coy just by the door, his shoulders held tight and his head held high.

“Da?”

It was the first time in a long time he saw him freshly dressed, his light hair freshly washed and pulled out of his face into an elegant braid, his hands only a little bit shaky as he put on the new coat Colt had gotten him. He blinked.

“Gonna pray,” he explained.

“Can I go with ya’?”

And so they went.

And then they were back, and Coy was sitting in a chair because Colt had practically forced him to as he brewed them tea, only he settled the cups aside, his hands trembling too much to keep holding it, and turned sharply to his dam. His own expression felt desolate. His everything felt alight in flames.

“Ya’ were gonna go see him?”

His dam couldn’t answer. Instead, he flinched, which was just the same.

It broke.

“Da,” he said, kneeling in front of Coy, grabbing his hands, staring at his face with wide, desperate wet eyes. Everything was shaking: his own hands, his voice, his thundering heart, the violent grasp he had in Coy the only thing that kept his sanity. “Da, please. Please, ya’ can’t go to him.”

Coy blinked, his eyes watery as they finally focused on him. “I know,” he said and he broke down into sobs. “I know, pup. I just—gods, I need him.”

-

Coy was the strongest omega Colt had ever known, which was why he had no idea of how to deal with how his dam seemed to crumble now he was away from the Master. There were thirty three years he’d spent with the man, ten of them before Colt was even born, and it seemed like none of it had hit him before, because now he was—well, Colt didn’t know what he was, only that he didn’t like it at all.

Now, Colt spent a lot of his time staring at nothing, and cleaning a house that wasn’t dirty, and smiling a perfect courtesan's smile anytime Colt asked him about any of it.

“When ya’ can’t shift, what ya’ do to ground ya’?”

“I fuck you.”

Colt scowled. “I need help with my dam,” he complained. “He’s—all the change’s been hard on him.”

Finnr made a face. “Well, sex with you will not work.” The alpha paused. “I have no idea, then. I do not think he will like punching things either, and you already said he does not like opium. That is what I do.”

“Great.”

Finnr turned to him.

“Is there something wrong with him?”

“He’s getting, ya’ know.” Colt bit the inside of his cheek. “A little mad, I guess. I’m worried.” Was that indelicate to say to Prince Finnr? Was that indelicate to say in general? Colt wasn’t delicate or proper enough to know. He braved on, “He just—he seems so lost all the time. He’s got a lot to think about, but I don’t know. It’s real—it’s real bad, my prince.”

Finnr narrowed his eyes on him.

“Gods,” he said, “you do care for him.”

“He’s my family!” Only he could tell that didn’t change anything to Finnr, who was left to tear his hair and punch walls alone when not shifting became too much. Colt sighed, taking both his hands in his own, and laid his lips over Finnr’s scarred knuckles, a brief kiss, before saying, “My prince. Ya’ wanna fist me tonight?”

“You do think I am dumb and that you can manipulate your conversations to whatever direction you want,” he whined, which wasn’t completely untrue, the same way Colt wasn’t completely wrong, because it worked.

He came to see him almost every night, sometimes stinking of wine, but not as frequently as expected. Most of all, after they fucked, he shifted and slept as a wolf curled around Colt, which he loved, gently carding his fingers through his white fur as they both fell asleep.

For all Finnr’s body was normally so cold Colt always had to force himself not to react when he brushed him with those icy hands or feet, his wolf was so hot it emenated out of him, and it felt so calming, so quiet, so safe. Colt didn’t have a wolf, or at least not one he felt the way alphas did, but he felt something curling inside himself in those moments. Something alive and puring. Colt could be happy just having this, without ever shifting himself. 

He only ever stayed in that room when Finnr was there. When he wasn’t, he ended up in Coy’s bed one way or another, either sneaking under the blankets in the middle of the night or through them falling asleep after talking.

Some newfound independence and privacy was all well and good, but sleeping was often hard and they’d suffered through it together every night they could. When he woke up breathless and crying, he needed Coy to hold his hand, ever since he was no more than a baby. When Coy did the same, always so much more silent in his panic, he needed to be able to see Colt and to hear him breathing. 

Days went by in much the same awful stillness. Colt didn’t go out half as much, when suddenly he could only think of Coy putting on a coat ready to step out. He brought Coy with himself when he did go out, pulling his dam through clean, calmer streets to see if it would bring out any of his charming light. It didn’t work. It was all quietly mournful days from Coy, and silently waiting nights, and sometimes he didn’t even want to go to bed, so when Finnr wasn’t there (he usually was), Colt stayed with Coy in front of the hearth, just thinking I’m sorry, da, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, knowing he would never let Coy go see the Master, even if going back to all he knew might make him feel whatever wicked comfort he craved.

I’m sorry.

-

Of course, he wasn’t doing better than Coy. Not truly. Not completely. Because he kept seeing the Master everywhere. Kept thinking he did. Kept being deceived by his own paranoid eyes.

The fear wasn’t all irrational, but it still appeared in the silliest of moments—when washing dishes, swearing he caught the shadow of a face outside the window, letting a plate fall and break right on his feet, only to look again and realize it was just his own reflection. During the night, waking up to a terrible panic that didn’t let him breath from which Coy had to talk him through carefully, because he was so sure the Master was inside the house when really, he’d just dreamed about it. When walking through one of the upper-class markets, he’d been so sure the man was following him he’d glued himself to some young beta guard that’d sent Colt the most startled, disgusted of looks before he saw his earrings. Coy had always made sure he knew not to even think of looking a guard in the eyes.

“Oh,” came out as he straightened himself. “You’re the prince’s slut, no?”

And so, the guard walked him through the market, though as soon as he did it, Colt could tell the man he was so afraid of was very obviously not the Master and just some beta going the same way as him, and it’d all been his paranoia again.

“I’m Fenrir,” the guard told him and side-eyed him until he was forced to answer.

“Colt.”

“You omegas have strange names, huh?”

“Ya’ got a point?”

“Well,” he paused, “you think you’re a good enough fuck you might be able to put in some good word for me with the prince?”

Colt sent him a look. “Sure, if ya’ wanna be a part of Prince Finnr’s guard.”

He made a face, which was just brilliant enough to make Colt smile, despite the fact he was still hugging himself and still shaking a bit, even knowing it hadn’t actually been the Master. The beta walked him home anyway and when Colt made sure to lock the door three times over, he went back to convincing himself he was alright and Coy was the only one struggling, truly.

It was nothing. The constant fear, the constant worry, the bloody fingernails from biting them until he got to the skin and the jumping at every shadow and the glass in his feet Coy had to quietly pluck out. He’d never even been bothered by all the sex he’d had—the new, constant tight feeling every time he thought of a former client or saw them around, it was all nothing and for nothing. Colt was jumpy, and seeing faces where there were none, but he felt perfectly fine most of the time. When he was with Finnr, he even felt at peace.

The rest was nothing.

The rest was constant.

He saw the beta again, sitting outside one of the stalls. He was drinking with other (supposedly) off-duty guards, their laughs too loud, with a card game in front of them and beans being passed around to count wins. Colt lowered his head, but it didn’t stop him from being called, a sharp, “There goes the youngest prince’s bitch.” Fenrir smiled, and waved for him to get closer, eyes big and brown and amused. They were not kind eyes, but Colt got closer anyway, shifting to hug his coat tighter around himself. “You ever played cards?”

Colt frowned. “No.”

“Come on. I will teach you.”

“Will ya’?”

“Need a pair,” he said, taking a sip of some watery beer before using it to gesticulate to the other betas, sloshing it around, “and the guys wanna know how the prince fucks.”

“Whores can’t tell,” but Colt sat anyway.

One of the others sent him a grin, crook-lipped. “And bitches?”

“If they wanna lose their contracts.”

They were a rowdy bunch, but guards usually were, and the game they were playing was strange, but Colt got it fast enough, especially when one of the betas drew the rules out for him in a napkin. There seemed to involve a lot of slapping tables, and talking shit to each other, and looking others in the eyes in ways that would’ve made Coy pull him away, panicked and pissed at him. Fenrir kept raising his eyebrows at him as if Colt was supposed to know what it meant, but he learned they could get by well enough if he only acted like he did.

Colt had never had so much fun around betas.

Fenrir didn’t walk him home again, because Fenrir seemed to have drunk enough he would stumble getting to his own house, but some other, older man went with him. Colt was opening the door when he took his wrist in a tight grip that made him go completely still despite not being painful, his heart beating so fast it was hard to hear anything as he looked up.

“You should ask the prince to get some guards to patrol this house,” was all he told Colt. He let go of him. “Some of the guys already do it, ‘cause no one wants the mad prince getting angry at them if your lot gets hurt, but that’s no real solution. You were a brothel whore, no? Don’t think your last master is very happy with his loss. Saw two sellswords around already.”

-

He hit the wrong hole.

Well, no. In fact, Finnr didn’t hit any of Colt’s holes at all, and instead thrusted quite hard against that spot right between Colt’s ass and his cunt, which made him let out a startled scream and, as a completely involuntary reaction, kick Finnr as hard as he could, which in response made him let out a startled scream too, throwing Colt off himself.

“Fucker,” spat out Colt and then, “Fuck!”

“What is wrong with you?” exclaimed Finnr, sounding just as pained.

They didn’t, perhaps expectedly, try to fuck again that night. Instead, Finnr awkwardly patted Colt’s shoulder as he sniffled. “That hurt,” he complained, despite knowing it’d definitely been an accident and that it must’ve hurt his cock too. Finnr stared as if he hadn’t ever expected to see Colt sniffling and complaining.

“Well,” he said, “hold on there, omega.”

“What?”

He blushed. 

“You understand me.”

“I don’t,” he whined.

Finnr got him a cup of water, probably because Colt was still trembling and Finnr didn’t know what else to do. Probably, he didn’t even know how to get himself a cup of water alone and instead just caught up with Coy somewhere to order him to get one for him. Colt drunk, his hands shaking so much he almost got himself all wet. He wiped his nose, morose.

“Let me continue doing most of the riding, alright?” Colt told him seriously, to Finnr’s immediate sneer.

“I am good at fucking.”

He sounded very insulted. Colt sighed.

“Ya’ got a great cock,” he said, because that was true. Finnr shook his head.

“You were less annoying in the brothel.” Was he? Colt blinked, suddenly fearful, suddenly wondering and what if Prince Finnr doesn’t like me when I’m more free? He went to put the water down abruptly and almost didn’t manage, his hands deciding to act unsteady and useless. Finnr held the cup, his fingers cold around Colt’s. “Do not drop it! Gods, are you—” He moved to put it aside and, awkwardly, moved to take Colt’s trembling hands into his again. “It did not truly hurt you, did it?” Colt shook his head, wordless. He pinched his eyebrows. “So, you are just being dramatic so we do not fuck?”

“‘Course not!” Colt sat straighter. “I mean—it ain’t a real bad pain or anythin’.” He didn’t know to explain that it wasn’t hurting anymore, but he still couldn’t make his body stop trembling. “Just how fucking works.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say. Finnr was staring at him in a some odd way Colt was sure only he was able to, pulling his eyebrows in both intense confusion and even heavier annoyance. “Omega whores,” he said slowly, and stopped. Finnr continued, almost careful, almost tentative, “You start young, I have heard.”

It took Colt one second to understand what he meant.

“Was kind of old for it,” he admitted, shrugging. The alpha was still holding his hands inside his, but he wasn’t going to complain, when it did work in making him stop shaking. “Fifteen, with my first client.” He sent Finnr a look. “We’re ya’ even that much older first time ya’ fucked someone? I doubt.”

“I was sixteen.”

“Was it a priestess?” guessed Colt.

“One of Alóf’s,” he agreed, “as it is proper for a prince.”

“Was it good?”

Finnr sneered.

“She was an old, grim cunt.”

Colt snorted. “As it’s proper,” he mocked and earned himself a glare that, in a strangely unlike himself way, Finnr controlled quickly.

“It does not hurt,” he said slowly, and it sounded a bit like an affirmation, a bit like a question, a bit like a suggestion, somehow. “Fucking, I mean. I know your kind’s body is—different. But certainly not in this way, even if sometimes you do not want it.”

“Not always.”

“And with me?”

“Ain’t a bad hurt,” said Colt, snorting at his worry. No one had ever worried about that before—not even the prince. “Sometimes it ain’t—sometimes I can like it. When it ain’t too much. I like all the fucking we do, I promise.” And, when he didn’t like, he just didn’t care much for it. It might hurt Finnr’s feelings to hear it, though.

“You have not been liking it.”

“I ain’t?” said Colt, surprised himself with the revelation.

Finnr frowned. “You have been absent.”

“I have?” he repeated again, blinking. “Oh. Guess I’m worried.”

“About what?” he spat, apparently quite unhappy with the idea. “I have given you a house. I pay you a generous salary any other kept omega would kill to receive. You are supposed to be happy with me. What else do you need to be?”

Colt felt himself shivering. He hadn’t ever—no one had ever asked him that either.

What else do you need?

“Need ya’ to pay someone to guard the house.”

Finnr stopped. “For what?”

He didn’t want them back. Colt was sure of it more than he’d ever been sure of anything else: it’d just be too much trouble with the prince. He was also certain the Master preferred for Coy to be dead than to be away from him. Suddenly, he was so grateful Coy hadn’t left the house alone yet that he felt lightheaded. His fingers gripped Finnr’s wrists.

“He’s gonna kill my dam.”

“He?” Finnr was staring at him as if Colt was losing it. “Rúni? Please. The little beta would never be so dumb as to hurt the Crown's property.”

“Ya’ don’t understand. Coy and the Master—” Colt stopped, because there were no words to explain. The prince could be thoughtless and, in his thoughtlessness, he could be cruel, but the way he looked at Colt, the way he touched him, the way he bought him just to have someone who was soft to him, he could never understand what Coy and the Master shared. It felt dirty to try to explain. ”Coy has been his,” he said instead, “for longer than ya’ could imagine. He won’t let him go. He’s gonna kill him. The guards told me: he has sellswords around—”

“Sellswords?” repeated Finnr, startled. “He cannot use sellswords to hurt you. My family uses sellswords to kill people. It is alpha’s business.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Colt desperately, grabbing at his hands. “So ya’ should find a way to make him stop, no? Keep the Crown’s property safe. Ya’ got—”

“I will do something,” he cut in sharply. “I will deal with him. Will you stop crushing my hands, cunt?”

Colt let go of them immediately.

-

There were two guards around the outside of the house, then, that the prince had paid to keep an eye on them. They were from his personal guard, Colt learned, and not interested in talking or being talked to, unless it was Coy coming out to invite them to eat, because no man could ever deny warm, pretty Coy offering them a hot meal, even when Coy’s smile still looked so much dimmer.

“Do ya’ know how to play cards?” he asked one of them, only to receive a disinterested, slightly annoyed look, because of course, Colt wasn’t Coy. He resigned himself to only playing when he caught Fenrir drinking again.

He did so, sometimes.

“Real shame you weren’t born a beta,” one of his friends, Baldr, told Colt, pulling smoke from a pipe. He pointed at Colt’s suddenly heated face. “Would do good in the king’s guard if you were. Got all this fight in your eyes. No need for skinny little bitches, though.”

There was some laughter around. Colt put down a card.

“Wild,” he said simply, to Fenrir’s delight.

“There you go!” he added, taking one bean to count their victory. “I knew you’d give me many wins.”

“‘Cause no one here knows how to read an omega,” grumbled Loke from his side, taking the cards back to shuffle them.

Colt grinned, proud. “Still a win.”

He didn’t think he’d ever felt any kind of uncomplicate pride before.

-

“My father fucked one of his whores during a counsil meeting.”

Colt, bent over the table, holding onto it as Finnr pounded into him, let out a confused, “Huh?”, because talking about his father during sex was perhaps a bit strange even for his alpha.

“He fucked someone during a meeting,” repeated Finnr, gasping, “and I will fuck you in the castle.”

Later, after he finished, Colt saw to ask, politely, “What’s with the mad talk, my prince?”

Finnr frowned.

“It is not mad!” Colt thought he really didn’t like that word. He pushed a hand through his hair, full of tangles Colt let out a sad sound seeing, sure to care to get rid of them before he was gone. “I forgot bringing their whores to the castle is something alphas can do. Between you and me, I never kept one for long enough I trusted them not to steal something. I got so used to sneaking out.” Colt didn’t think his constant vistis to the more dangerous parts of town actually involved a lot of sneaking—who’d stop a wolf? “I want to fuck you in my own quarters. Over the balcony, too.”

“On the expensive rug,” offered Colt and received an appreciative hum. He smiled. “And the gilded fireplace, and the huge tub, and the hallway.”

“Not the hallway,” he argued. “I do not actually want some nobody servant to see my cock or your pussy.”

Colt looked down at it, sticky with Finnr’s cum as it was.

“It’s been seen a lot already.”

“It is still about the principle.”

So, Finnr sneaked him into the castle. It did actually ask for some sneaking then, because fucking many hundreds of whores was just what was expected from alpha princes, and bringing those whores in was one’s prorogative, but the whores themselves being seen by the court was an indiscretion, unless you were the king and nothing you did was ever anything bad. 

Somehow, Finnr fucking Colt on his balcony overlooking the gardens wasn’t indiscreet. Colt was certainly not paid to care for or understand alpha etiquette, so he didn’t, just held onto the railing and took.

He was lounging in Finnr’s grand bed, feeling how the mattress was the softest thing he’d ever felt and thinking he could die happy there, when the door was forced open. He sat up. Finnr took his hand off Colt’s hair. The newcomer, a tall, blonde alpha, had her arms crossed as she stared at them with wide, horrified eyes.

“What is this?” she snapped. She looked so much like Finnr there was no doubt who she was. “I cannot believe Siv was not lying about you having some little bitch in your room! Look at him! He is so young, Finnr,” and she sounded furious.

Colt tried not to be pleased, because Prince Finnr would know if he was pleased by seeing him be chastised, but it was hard. He could count on one hand the number of people who’d been protective of him over his age and his career: Coy, of course, and Coy’s favorite client once upon a time. One specific patron, an older soldier, who’d punched the master after he offered ten-year-old Colt to him behind Coy’s back. A client’s wife, once, horrified and murderous when she found her husband with him, at the cusp of sixteen. Only those, and all a long time ago. He wondered if even them would still care now. He was not so young anymore. He was not much younger than Prince Finnr, not at all, only that he looked smaller because he was an omega.

Princess Freja turned her eyes to him. Colt waved his fingers dumbly. “Hello.”

She looked back to Prince Finnr.

“ Finnr,” she spat.

“What,” he snapped back, getting up from the bed. “The cunt is perfectly fine, Freja. Perfectly old, too. Come on. Tell her your age, bitch.”

Because he had never asked Colt that, the same way he’d never asked his name. Colt was still not completely sure if he’d learned it through the Master—it was very, very likely he did, but not a certainty. Colt told the princess, “I’m twenty three, ma’am.”

Finnr pointed at him.

“See.”

“He is an omega,” she argued back. “They are not the same as me and you, Finnr. They are like kids,” which just made all the warmth he felt at her protectiveness turn cold and bitter. Colt scowled, just a bit, and Finnr frowned, but she snapped, “Gods, you have always been disgusting, but this is a new low. Are you truly fucking kid whores now, too?”

“Sure,” he said, vicious. “Right in the room next to where you and Korl fuck.”

Her face went red. “What an ugly thing to say,” and then she was gone, slamming the door as she went.

Colt waited for one second before offering, “What about the rug?”

The princess wasn’t the last one to come take a look at him. Finnr was taking care of getting a meal for them when there was a knock on the door. Colt opened it slowly, peering at the other side, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Lady Malfrid was the kind of sweet faced beauty people made songs about: her golden hair, her big brown eyes, her full lips. Just what Coy could‘ve been like, if he’d been born into a wealthy family, if he hadn’t been born an omega. Colt stared down at his own hands, until she softly cleaned her throat.

“May I come in?” He let her in immediately. “You are Finnr’s bitch?” He nodded. Lady Malfrid smiled. She had the gentlest voice he had ever heard, even while calling him a bitch. “Then I suppose I should take advantage of the fact I am already here to thank you. There has been some gossip going around that he was paying to keep someone under contract. He has also finally stopped attempting to duel Áki for my hand. I imagine that is because of you.”

Because Lady Malfrid was supposed to marry Finnr, before his brother decided he wanted her, and Finnr never let go of it. Colt sent her face a shy glance and understood it much better than before—he was inclined to say, if he was not some filthy omega whore who’d get his hands chopped off for even thinking of touching a woman, imagine then one like Lady Malfrid, that he might have been inclined to duel someone for those eyes too. He blushed.

“I guess.”

“He is kinder to you, I hope?”

“‘Course not,” Colt snorted. “But I like him.”

She frowned, though the expression was mild. When she asked, it was with the careful intonation of someone who didn’t truly understand how it could be true, “Truly? You like our Finnr?” Malfrid paused. “He is not—well, you must know. You ought to have noticed. He is not pleasant to be around.”

He liked it anyway. That Prince Finnr was big, and rottenly high born, and mean. That he was dumb, and sometimes almost too oblivious for an alpha, and so eager it made Colt’s chest hurt. Just powerful enough to protect him, but dumb enough to want to do it for him. Colt shrugged.

“I like him,” he repeated. “Pleases me, bein’ with him.”

“That is sweet.” She sent him a searching glance. Lady Malfrid didn’t seem to quite know if she should feel worried or just curious about what was Colt’s problem. She looked around, her nose twitching, and she was clearly smelling the room. She looked back at him. “I know there are sayings about how omegas can survive with just some bread and cum, but I think we both know tht is just ludicrous. Has Finnr fed you?”

“Doing that now.”

“Only now? That is not enough, I am sorry. Please, come with me.”

“Prince Finnr—”

“I will tell one of my servants to let him know I have taken you for a bit,” and then she was touching Colt’s arm as she guided him outside, so he really had no choice but to go with her obediently. Malfrid smiled at him. “I can call for a late afternoon lunch. Come, please. You need to meet my dear mate.”

Thus, Colt was put in the quarters she apparently already shared with the crown prince, being fed all kinds of sweet pastries until said crown prince appeared. He was not alone. Colt froze. So did both the new alphas stop in their tracks, as Malfrid got up, straightening her skirts. Colt stuck a last pastry in his mouth and got up quickly, a little behind her just in case he’d need to duck real fast. 

“He is Finnr’s,” Malfrid told them.

Prince Korl—and it was Princess Freja’s twin with the heir, had to be—let out a loud, startled laugh. The crown prince, however, stopped. He sighed, a deep, exhausted sound, and went to the closest desk. There was no controlling the clear irritation that took over his delicate, beautiful features. “I see,” he managed to say finally. “Oh, well. How much?”

Colt swallowed.

“Sorry, Ya’ Highness?”

“Please, take a seat again.” The heir let out a weary sigh, running a hand through his hair, and for one second, it was just like watching Finnr. Colt obeyed, of course, and only received an even deeper sight at his prompt obedience. “My brother hurt you, he terrified you, he threw a tantrum when he saw your fear. I am very sorry, for I know just how this goes. How much to make it so you can go your way?” Pop

Colt pressed his lips tightly, staring at his hands.

“I’m sure there’s nothing I’d say that’d worsen his reputation.”

“What is known is known,” laughed Prince Korl, “but there is no need for you to put more anecdotes in the mouth of the people, when your brother already does enough of it himself.” It seemed to be directed to the heir, when he added, “Two gold, I think.”

“Certainly more.”

Prince Korl looked at Colt properly for the first time. Even then, it was a detached, dismissive look, waving at his general direction. “Look at him.”

“He has a lovely face,” offered Malfrid, sounding offended on Colt's behalf, which only made Prince Korl snort. She touched Colt’s shoulders. “Do not be rude, Korl. He is sweet.”

“Perhaps. Who needs a sweet whore? For his job, he is just a bit too plain, a bit too dark, certainly too flat. Big ears.” Colt did his best not to let out any sound of insult. “Freckled.” Prince Korl said that word much the same way Finnr said it, although more amused than annoyed. The crown prince snorted. He turned to him. “I am telling you, brother. It cannot be more than two gold, for that one.”

“We ought to be better than poor Finnr, my brother.” He opened the desk’s drawer and took a little pouch, feeling the weight. Colt’s stomach dropped at the sound of shuffling gold. “This is enough, I think, for having to deal with him for a day.”

“More than a day,” said Malfrid, her voice still as soft as before, and Prince Korl frowned.

“What a punishment.”

“Alright.” And he opened it again, slipping more coins inside the pouch as if it was nothing, counting them dismissively while Colt counted with such awe he felt himself shaking. “This, then.”

“He says he likes your brother.”

“Ha!” laughed Prince Korl. “The cunt likes his gold, perhaps.” he turned to Colt. “I assure you, your future king is kind, and there is enough there you will not need to deal with clients such as Finnr anymore. Now, if you may.” And made a little gesture that clearly meant to say Colt should go.

Colt couldn’t help but look towards the heir. He was the one they called noble and good, but even as Colt dared to look him in the eyes, there was this detached kind of dismissiveness in his expression, passing through Colt’s face without seeing him, shifting to Malfrid’s pinched expression immediately. It rang, a small little ah.

If he was a better person, he would’ve stood his ground and said he did like Finnr. If he had more morals, or more integrity, he wouldn’t have accepted being bought. And if he had even an ounce of self respect, he wouldn’t have taken being called a whore and looked through as if nothing by two pompous men who seemed to think of themselves as so much better than Finnr. But Colt wasn’t better or morally righteous, and he had never had the kind of life where respecting himself meant anything.

Greedily, he took the gold and slipped away from Malfrid’s confused, judgmental eyes.

-

He showed it to Finnr, because Finnr was already angry Malfrid had taken some of Colt’s time the second he turned his back to the omega, and Colt was sure it would come back to him in the end that he’d also met his older brother and been paid. Then Colt definitely would suffer if he wasn’t the one to explain the situation, and also, he was just happy holding the gold pouch on his arms and really not eager to let go of it so soon. Finnr stared.

“You stole from my brother.”

Colt made a face. “‘Course I didn’t.”

“You took gold from him under pretense.”

Which was funny when, by calling it “pretense”, Finnr assumed that Colt liked him. He supposed he did, but it was amusing that of course Finnr wouldn’t doubt even for a second that he did.

“I didn’t lie! He did it all to himself.”

“Uhm.” Finnr paused in front of his fireplace. “I quite like that, bitch.”

“Ah.” Colt petted his pouch. “Yeah, I do too.”

“That is why I like you,” he pressed. “You are a clever one, sometimes.”

Colt supposed it was kind of implied that Finnr liked him too, since he’d paid for his freedom and his dam‘s, but he’d also seen Finnr buy overpriced gilded bracelets he never even used without taking a second to think about it. He was clearly rash and had too much money to value any of it. It felt reassuring to have some real confirmation.

“That is enough to buy some very good wine the likes of you have never tasted,” continued Finnr, a completely genuine piece of advice on his part as he gestured to the gold. He sent Colt a lookover. “A new cloak, perhaps, or some sturdier boats—”

“Flip,” interrupted Colt. “Gonna buy Flip.”

“What even is that?”

“One of the omegas, my prince. From my old master. He’s very small. I just—I’m gonna buy him out.” Where he’d put him after, he’d just have to figure out. With Coy, maybe. Colt wanted Flip out of that place more than he actually wanted to have a lot to deal with a kid’s life, but Coy had always wanted to have more children and never been able to do so without the Master beating it out of him, and had always stood to the younger whores with ferocity, even the non-omega ones who didn’t care for him. He’d take care of Flip happily. Colt paused. “Don’t know if he’s gonna accept gold from me.”

He had no idea what would happen if he showed his face around there. Nothing good, for sure.

“How unfortunate,” said Finnr, who clearly didn’t care.

Colt sent him a look. “He’d accept from ya’.”

“Oh, please.”

“It’d be ya’ brothers gold,” he offered and, when Finnr seemed interested, Colt pressed, “Ya’ could fuck me on the way to town, my prince. Ever fucked someone on horseback?”

And then he’d won him over completely, of course.

-

The Master was spiralling just as badly as Coy, or so Flip told him, shivering and so, so cold he went gladly into Colt’s arms, shrinking as well as he could as Colt pulled his coat around the both of them. He’d gotten a real bad beating not too long before and when he hid his face in Colt’s shoulder, Colt let him, despite it all. He shushed him.

“Coy’s gonna take care of ya’, pup. Here we go.”

After more than two months eating three full meals a day every day, Flip looked much smaller and thinner than Colt remembered the boy being. After more than two months not being hit at all, the bruises on his face were much more startling than they’d ever been before. Colt couldn’t even look at the ones on his thighs, despite never having a problem with it before.

Coy threw himself into the snow as soon as he saw Colt coming with Flip, touching the boy’s swollen face with careful hands and wide eyes. “Flip—”

“The prince bought his contract,” explained Colt. “I asked. He’s gonna stay.”

“Oh, baby,” said Coy, getting up, but not letting go of Flip for a second. “Oh, come inside, come. Ya’re freezing. Look at ya’ lips, already purple and all. Gods.”

“He’s going mad,” Flip told Colt and just Colt, when Coy was preparing him a cup of tea with some fresh leaves one of the betas told him would be good for the kid. The look Flip sent him was a terrified little thing. “Without Coy, it’s real ugly. He hit Cherry in the face with the whip. Cherry. More than once, too. He just kept hitting her non-stop.” Flip shivered. He rubbed his eyes, a pitiful little thing under way too many coats and banklets. “He never hits the alphas like that. Never her. Had to cut her price in more than half until her face got better and who knows if it’s not gonna scar and keep her cheaper forever. There ain’t no other big earner now. And he just—Coy was always keepin’ ‘im happy. Cherry and some of the others tried, but it ain’t the same. He's going mad, Colt. Mad.”

He stopped when Coy got back, but there was no reason to continue. Colt could imagine it perfectly already. It made his entire body cold and he knew Finnr buying Flip wouldn’t help the man’s anger, even if the Master had cared for Flip even less than he did Colt.

It was the principle.

It wouldn’t help the Master: it helped Coy.

Colt thought something about having Flip around woke his dam up from that miserable darkness he’d fallen into, or at least gave him enough purpose he forced himself to set it aside. He sat in front of Flip, his eyes firm, his hands steady, more present than Colt had seen him looking in a long time. He offered Flip the cup and helped him drink it. Carefully, he waited until the last sip before he asked in a gentle voice, “He did this to ya’?”

“Didn’t get enough clients,” was all Flip answered, dead eyed. 

It was enough. Coy brushed a hand through his cheek, before kissing his forehead. Flip threw himself against him almost immediately, tears falling down his cheeks, and Colt hugged him with only enough of a pause to set the cup aside, cradling his head softly as the boy unraveled in his arms.

And so, annoying little Flip was around, flinching at every shadow even more so than Colt. He was crying through the night, and learning how to cook, and going out with them to get some proper clothes, and having a panicked fit every time he saw one of the prince’s betas inside the house. Coy took the mantle he’d always held since he was little older than Flip: the protector. The steady, gentle dam, drying Flip’s tears, teaching him to cook, making sure he felt comfortable in all his clothes, knowing just how to kick out the betas without even making them angry.

Colt wasn’t as good at it. Mostly, he just found small little ways to pick on Flip, because at least when he was indignant and fighting with Colt, he acted like a kid.

Mostly, Flip was terrified of Finnr. That was all well enough, because Finnr seemed to have a general, deep distaste towards anyone Flip’s age and certainly didn’t want to be around him when he just went there to fuck Colt.

“I have given you a house,” the man repeated one night, holding Colt’s naked body closer to himself under fresh, silken sheets. “I pay you a generous salary any other kept omega would kill to receive. I have put guards to patrol your house and helped you buy that stupid omega. You are supposed to be mine. You are supposed to be happy being mine. What else do I have to do, Colt?”

There was an edge of desperation in his voice. All Colt could do was turn in bed to stare at him, honestly a bit flabbergasted. “Ya’ know my name?”

Finnr stared too.

“Of course I do!”

“Ya’ never called me by it.”

“There has not been a single time I have called you anything but your name.”

Colt blinked slowly. “Sure, my prince.”

“Please,” he scoffed, derisive. “Do not change subjects now, bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” said Colt. “I’m happy. It doesn’t mean that I ain’t still afraid too.” And at his look, he could only repeat, softer, “Sorry,” and hug him back.

-

Colt, at least, got to go out to town with Coy sometimes. Flip was a brothel-born baby and had never seen or known anything outside, with a not-favored dam who’d died young anyway. He walked through the stalls as tense as a famished street cat, pressed against Coy ready to pounce and hiss, and Colt resigned himself to having to keep an eye on him.

Colt was certain of one thing: in public, they were safe with him around. If nothing else, the Master knew him, and knew he would throw himself in front of anyone who tried to hurt Coy. Going crazy or not, Colt knew the Master back, and knew he wouldn’t be eager to die through being eaten alive by a mad wolf he managed to anger. It was hard to know what Finnr would care to do for Coy, but he certainly would get very angry for Colt, even if no one quite understood why.

So, they walked.

With new eyes to gaze—with the wonder and the fear so stark in Flip’s face—it seemed like a new world. The snow was only a thin layer crushed under their boots, because around those parts of town there were people sweeping it away any time they could to make it comfortable for the alphas, and the people who crossed their way are all well dressed, well prepared for the cold unlike every dirty peasant Colt had mostly known before. The streets smelled of sweet treats and fresh buttery bread, not pure shit, and no one bumped into them or grabbed Coy besides Flip.

Colt did see Fenrir, and did go to say hello, although he was working. Fenrir grinned, until he looked over Colt’s shoulder and the grin died.

“Gods,” he said, taking off his hat to tilt his head towards Coy. The older omega waved, to which the young beta blushed. Colt looked too: the gold of Coy’s hair, the heavy coat, the dimples in his rosy cheeks, holding Flip’s hand. Fenrir swallowed. “You came out of that?”

“Got somethin’ to say?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re plain as shit and your dam’s a vision from the gods.”

“Oh, fuck ya’,” and he hit his shoulder, which was something Colt really shouldn’t ever do, unless he wanted to be hit back harder, probably in the head. He saw Coy going still, but Fenrir just laughed.

“Alright, alright. Now I understand why the prince bought your contract.”

“Gonna let ya’ work, since ya’ clearly need it.”

When he was back with them, Flip was staring. There was something wide eyed and wonder-filled. Colt frowned. “What?”

“Ya’ shouldn’t be so free,” Coy reprimanded, tugging him away. “Not around the real free men.”

“Didn’t know ya’ could,” said Flip, awed.

“Ya’ shouldn’t,” repeated Coy. “Ya’ smile, ya’ blush, ya’ make them go soft. Ain’t no good reason to stir their harshness.”

“He’s a friend.”

“While ya’re fun, he’s. No reason to make him mad.”

Colt looked over his shoulders. Fenrir hadn’t looked mad, only amused by him and head over heels just from seeing Coy from afar. He didn’t even look mad when Colt made them lose a hand, despite the fact Colt was almost sure they did wager money in their games, only not when he was around.

Coy’s eyes were worried, still, so Colt dropped it without fighting. Coy’s shoulders sagged in relief.

-

Flip was very small and very starved and very annoying, and suddenly very interested in following Colt around when Coy was occupied, instead of just following him through his business. In an attempt to make the older omega happy, Colt took Flip to the market alone, to buy some medicine for Colt’s friends. 

Flip was doing a real good job of keeping himself quiet, until, out of nowhere, he stated, “Ya’ know my dam shifted before he died, no?”

Colt froze. “‘Course I didn’t,” he snapped, lowering his voice despite the fact they weren’t close to anyone at the moment.

“It’s why the Master punished me for some five days for finding ‘im first. Found his wolf.” Flip shrugged as if it was nothing. “He wasn’t old.”

“He was younger than Coy,” exclaimed Colt. “How? Why?”

“Dunno. Guess the Master wasn’t surprised, so that means somethin’, and he didn’t wanna anyone to know, so that means somethin’ else. Guess it wouldn’t be good to have a bunch of whores walkin’ around looking for a slow death so they get to shift.”

Colt didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything, instead taking Flip’s hand as he guided him the rest of the way, silent and dumbfied.

-

“Why is there a strange omega there?”

Colt shrugged, pulling Finnr up the stairs. “Coy’s friend. They’re around.”

And so they were, ever since Flip got there and Coy got back to life. Colt knew Coy had decided he’d take care of every omega in the Master’s brothel all on his own, besides every other alpha and beta there that let him care for them, and that in virtue of his relative freedom, he was also always finding out gossip from other whores and other owners, from other brothels and other streets, which meant he did have friends, or as close to it as he managed to without catching the Master’s disapproval. Since, he’d befriended the old beta that Finnr paid to teach them to cook and had insisted on continuing to pay to clean the place every other week, only they kept it so tidy she usually just went there to have tea with Coy.

Now, there was always someone around, from the street whores that scared Colt to death when he found them sleeping in a cot next to the kitchen’s furnace in the morning, to the beaten, bruised brothel whores that scared Colt to death when he found them in the dining table, being patched up by Coy. There were a lot of surprised, screamed cursing on his part, and surprised flinching from theirs. He learned how to ignore the sound of the door opening during the middle of the night and how to block off the whispers downstairs: Coy’s voice softly reassuring, some strange voice answering with a treble.

Colt didn’t think of himself as as selflessly kind as his dam. Yet, he was happy. A bit worried still, but happy to see Coy looking firmer, looking more like himself again. If he needed to deal with some strange noises and startling visitors appearing out of nowhere, he’d deal with it.

There was a pregnant omega on the door. Colt stared at him, blinking, and dealt with it: took in his panicked breathing, his wide watery eyes, the way he held the door for dear life, and called Coy immediately, before quickly getting out of the house, because he for sure didn’t need to see that. Later, he helped Coy wash the sheets and scrub the floor without a word.

There was Pillow in the kitchen’s table. Master’s pretty, willowy Pillow, with a hood half covering her bloody face and her blue eyes finding Colt’s over Coy’s shoulder. She grimaced, before attempting to hide it with a smile. “Hi, Colt.”

“Hello,” he replied, and then he was gone.

There was one beta who always stood in the street closer to the brothel, now using their washroom to take a bath, walking out to a startled Colt as she dried her hair. She blinked, unbothered by her own nakedness, and told him, “Ya’ dam is very kind with the warm water.”

“He is,” agreed Colt, before politely going inside the room to wash his own flushed face.

A quiet, mousy little omega helping Flip cut onions for supper. A pale, shaking older omega gossiping with Coy in the backyard. A bruised omega Colt’s age sleeping in the living room, grinning when Colt almost stepped on him, slipped on his ass and cursed loudly. They came, and they went, and a lot of the times they came back, for Coy’s food and his roof and his help, and probably just for his company too. That was what made Colt the happiest: that they acted as if the place was all Coy’s. Colt liked to think of it like that too, even if it was actually Colt’s and Colt’s contract was actually Finnr’s.

One afternoon, he went to answer a knock on the back door. It took him one second to place the down-face, veiled woman cringing on the other side. Mostly, he just recognized those wine-tinted curls, letting out a surprised, “Cherry?”

She frowned as she pulled the veil to the side. It pulled the scars on her face, and while Colt thought she looked just as pretty as she ever had, to those that were into fucking stuck up bitches, he knew the Master certainly didn’t think so, not marked like that. She certainly had the sour expression of a newly scorned favorite.

“Where’s ya’ stupid fucking dam, boy?”

“Nowhere,“ he snapped back, “if ya’ wanna be acting like a fucking cunt.”

“Ya’—”

“Oh,” said Coy, pulling Colt away by his shoulders. He sent Cherry a smile. “I was waiting for ya’ since my talk with Pillow. Please.” As he entered with Cherry, he looked over his shoulders and mouthed, “Be civil,” to Colt, who knew he couldn’t be civil to her, not in the brothel and not there and not ever, and so just took his coat and went to see if he could find Fenrir or one of his friends for a game. Just—just fucking deal with it, it was all he had to do.

Things felt slow. The weeks went by slowly, all of them. Coy was learning how to be a person, when he’d never been anything but the Master’s. How to not keep his head down, or stand as if ready to drop to his knees, or keep angling his chest just right, keep smiling just in that way, keep blushing when he wasn’t embarrassed to appease men's desire. 

But his dam was so loving, and so warm, and Colt didn’t need to learn anything, because Coy always made him feel like a person. He only didn’t understand how to be a free one.

He only needed to stop seeing the Master in every beta that crossed his way, even the ones that were certainly too light-skinned to ever be him. He only needed to stop feeling so insane, and so hunted, and so terribly bored in that house he started to watch every shadow until even they started to look like the man.

He wished he could just bury himself into the feeling of having Finnr’s wolf curled in his lap, napping. He wished he could just be what everyone said omegas were: to bury himself into Finnr’s cock and never have to worry about anything else ever again. But he had to. And he was so afraid for so much of his time. Even if the happiness was there sometimes, so was the fear.

He had a nightmare. He had a terrible, screaming nightmare that ended up with him throwing up on the floor as Finnr stared at him, choking and twitching and sobbing. Even after he stopped throwing up, he continued sobbing and dry heaving, and Finnr was a cold, distant figure until he seemed sure Colt had really stopped, and then he pulled Colt away from the puke, an awkward attempt at care. Colt shook his head, violently gagging in a way that made Finnr retreat.

There was silence, besides his panicked breathing. Another retching from which nothing came, and a small sound of disgust, and suddenly cold fingers touching the back of Colt’s neck, despite how sweaty his hair had gotten. He looked up, tears falling through his cheeks.

“My prince,” he said. “Why ya’ gotta see me cry so much?”

“So I wonder,” replied Finnr, small. Colt didn’t quite expect him to crouch down by his side, but he did, although taking the time to send his puke a disgusted sneer. He continued touching his neck. “Normally you do not make such a scene.”

“Just a nightmare.”

A pause. Finnr watched him. “About Rúni?”

“The Master,” he agreed, wiping his chin. He made a face. “Gotta clean it, now.”

“I—”

Finnr seemed to almost offer it, but he stopped, clearly unable to do so. Colt sent him a shaky smile, completely incapable of stopping the way his entire body was trembling or how cold he felt. “It ain’t no issue, my prince.” A stuttering breath. “Just—just gotta remember how to make my legs work and then I can clean it.”

“That I can help you with,” said Finnr finally, holding his arm as he did. Colt slumped against him, closing his eyes. He breathed through his nose, slowly, although he shouldn’t, considering the smell. Finnr paused, but allowed him to do it. “At least you do not punch things.” Like me. Colt hummed, resting his cheek against Finnr’s shoulder.

“At least I don’t touch no opium.”

Finnr pinched Colt’s chin and tilted his head up. “Do not sleep on me yet.”

“Uhm.”

He stayed awake for long enough to clean the floor, still, and to clean his mouth from the taste. Finnr watched him, his eyebrows pitched together in an ugly little show of broodiness, and welcomed him into his arms stiffly when Colt just about threw himself into him, trembling as he shrank against the alpha. 

When he woke up in the morning, he  was sat on the side of the bed, gazing at him. Watching him. Colt pushed himself just half up, blinking sleepily, feeling sick and miserable still, and didn’t flinch when Finnr reached a hand. His thumb cupped Colt’s cheek and Colt turned his head, laying a kiss on his fingers, his palm, his pulse. Finnr didn’t smile. His eyes were like steel, as he dropped his hands.

“You said fathers are no good. Is Rúni yours?”

Colt swallowed, before shaking his head. “Wouldn’t call him that,” was all he could say.

“Did he fuck you?”

Colt’s throat contracted painfully. He looked at his hands as they nervously twisted the blanket. Couldn’t watch that alpha’s face anymore. That prince, whose hands just seemed so much more clean and delicate in comparison to his own. Never stained.

“He watched the first client do it. It wasn’t—there’s a fun kind of broken, and a boring one, my prince. He always knew—had to walk a fine line with what he did to me, not to make Coy boring.”

“I understand I am mad, Colt. You understand that too, do you not? They all know the wolf is going to win, one day. They all know I will die young.”

Colt sat up

“I don’t care,” he said. “I like—I like ya’ when ya’ haven’t shifted. I like ya’ wolf too. And I know it’s—I know it’s what usually happens. That ya’ type of alpha just doesn’t shift back one day. It doesn’t have a time to happen.”

“Can be anytime,” he agreed.

“Sooner or later,” said Colt, mouth twisted. “Can be later.”

“Can be sooner.”

Colt shrugged. He repeated. “I like ya’ wolf.”

Finnr laughed, a bitter thing. 

“Of course.”

“He’s gentler than the man. And sweeter.” Colt touched his face and meant it half as a joke. “I don’t care.”

Finnr dragged his knuckles through Colt’s lips. “I am shallow. I know that too. Infamously bad enough in bed my brother paid you a soldier’s wage just to apologize for you having to be fucked by me.”

“I like when ya’ fuck me. Gotta’ do it a lot, if ya’ planning to go running with the wolves sooner rather than later.”

“So I planned,” agreed Finnr, “but you just have to make things harder than they ought to be, do you not, bitch?”

Colt snorted. “I guess.”

“Colt,” he repeated, and it just sounded so funny coming with his royal accent. “I am mad and shallow, but I will deal with Rúni for you.”

“You don’t—”

He wasn’t sure Finnr knew what he was going to say, but he interrupted him with a very firm, very sure, “I quite think I do.”

-

Finnr came back three days later, standing in front of Coy in that awkwardly tense way of his. Coy stared, blinking, with the kind of strained smile that just barely held together his fear, and waited with his hands behind his back. Finnr took his wrist, a startling grip.

“Here.” Finnr slipped a ring into Coy’s shaking palms. “Your son has my favor. You can consider this my protection.”

It was the Master’s. Colt would recognize it anywhere. Coy could probably recognize it blind.

“Oh,” was all that left his lips. He stared at it, before closing his hands around the cheap jewelry and closing his eyes tightly. “Oh.”

Colt took his shoulders, turning him away from Finnr because his dam was crumbling and there was no need for the alpha to see it, when Coy was too proper (as proper as any omega whore got to be, at least) to want to be seen, and Finnr too emotionally averse. Finnr didn’t need to explain himself: there was only one way he could’ve dealt with the Master, and one way he would’ve gotten that out of him anyway.

And if Colt later saw Coy kissing the ring—if he saw his dam testing it out in his finger, right where he’d keep it if the Master had been his dead husband—, he felt no need to call it out. That afternoon, he asked for Finnr to wait for him and just stayed hours in bed with Coy, his tear stained cheek resting against Colt’s chest as he caressed Flip’s hair, who very clearly felt the exact same glee as Colt and did his best not to show it when Coy was so anguishedly conflicted already. 

He waited until the both of them had fallen asleep, before slipping away to find Finnr downstairs.

“What’d ya’ do?” he asked.

“Alpha’s business,” he answered simply, sounding way too proud of himself, which Colt took to mean there was a very well paid sellsword celebrating a good kill somewhere. Colt laughed, a small, pained sound, and sat by his side in front of the hearth.

“My prince,” he said, pulling at his cape. “Can ya’ get us some wine?” 

It served to immediately lighten up his face. “What do you even think of me?”

They shared it on the roof, although Colt was careful to make sure they together only drank half of it, to Finnr’s huffing disappointment.

“Thought you were finally being fun.”

“Still just a bitch,” he replied brightly, grinning at him. Finnr’s eyes lingered on his purple-stained lips, which Colt licked. “The taste’s still terrible, too.”

“You are still drinking.”

“How do I stop?” Colt let out a laugh, slightly insane with it. “I’m drinking. I gotta drink. Ya’ killed someone for me.”

“I have given you a house,” he answered easily. “I pay you a generous salary. I helped you buy that stupid little omega and let every lord and lady in my father’s court gossip about how I bought a thirteen year old whore to fuck. I killed someone for you.”

“I’m happy,” said Colt. “I’m yours, my prince, and I’m real happy.”

“Good.” Finnr swallowed. “That is good.”

Colt gave the wine one last sip, long, and squirmed violently at the taste. When Finnr laughed, he put the bottle aside, sending him an embarrassed smile before touching his cheek, letting his smile stretch brighter and bigger when Finnr tilted his face towards it, longing for it, living and seeking the touch like a sunflower seeking for sunlight. Colt shook his head. “Ya’ know what I wanna ask, no?”

He did.

Finnr took his hand and helped Colt up as he grinned, and helped him down the stairs, and fucked him like they usually did: Colt on top of him, only that time, they kept kissing and Colt kept smiling against his lips, and Finnr kept pulling his hips closer, which only made him snort. He felt—there was no Master, no reason for Coy to be afraid, and he felt lighter than he ever had before.

Finnr killed the Master to keep Coy safe.

When he finished, he let himself fall next to Finnr, sleepily rubbing his bare chest. The alpha allowed it for one second, before moving away and disentangling their limbs despite the mourning sound that left Colt’s mouth, trying to grab him. He pushed himself up, suddenly shivering, suddenly freezing, until Finnr returned, a bucket in hand. It felt like the most ridiculous, startling scene in the world, and Colt stared wide eyed as Finnr sat by his side.

“What— oh.”

He brought the rag to Colt’s cunt, so blessedly cold as he carefully—carefully! Finnr!—used it to clean him. Colt shivered in pleased surprise, his eyes flickering close. His cunt always felt such a lovely stretch after they fucked, only a little bit sore, and even with it, the care made him go pliant, never before feeling such an eagerness inside himself.

“Do not cry,” said Finnr.

Colt opened one eye, sleepy, and said truthfully, “Won’t,”

He wouldn’t fall asleep either. He refused to, despite the way that day had been so long and taxing and wine only seemed to make him tired, instead of fun or violent like so many clients he’d met. He needed to be awake for that. He needed to feel every second of it: every kind touch, every sweet feeling. There was something so slow, so careful about Finnr’s movements, that it all went from gentleness to unsureness. There was something wonderful in that too: being the reason that ridiculous prince had touched a rag for the first time in his life.

Instinctively, Colt spread his legs. Finnr touched his thigh.

“I am good at this,” the alpha said out loud, sudden, and Colt wasn’t sure how much of it was even for Colt to hear or react to. He nodded anyway, one cheek resting against the bed as he looked at Finnr. “This is good for you.”

Colt nodded.

“Please.” He sounded breathless. He sounded needy. He sounded a bit like how Finnr usually sounded. Colt grabbed his wrist. “My prince.”

Impossibly, Finnr took care of him.