The moonlight spilled over the garden like liquid silver, turning the white roses into soft blooms of ivory. Zarius stood amidst the silence, his broad shoulders stretching a long shadow over the frost-covered bushes. He leaned down, his hand gently tilting a heavy bloom toward him, and drew in a deep breath. The scent was faint, delicate, cold, and achingly sweet.
He brushed a thumb against a petal. Tucked into the dark soil at the base of the bush was a magic stone. Its soft, steady blue pulse felt like a heartbeat beneath the frozen ground, feeding just enough magic into the roots to keep the roses from turning to ice. It was a small, hidden effort, a way to keep sothing beautiful alive in a place that only knew cold.
For a fleeting second, the harsh, frozen lines of his face softened into a faint smile.
It was the sll of a ti before the curse ever took root in his marrow, before the wars had turned his hands into weapons, and before the weight of the North had crushed the light out of his youth. Closing his eyes, Zarius felt the years peel away.
He could almost see her again. He rembered being seven or eight years old, his small heart thumping against his ribs as he hid behind a massive stone pillar in this very garden. From afar, he had watched his mother moving among these sa roses. She would tilt her head, her laughter sounding like falling glass in the cool air, as she inhaled the fragrance of a fresh bloom.
To the young Zarius, she had seed like a creature made of pure light, untouchable, serene, and infinitely kind. She was the heart of the Valtrane household, the only warmth in a fortress built of obsidian and ice. He rembered how he would stay hidden in the shadows because if she saw him there, she would surely scold him.
Now, she was gone, and here he stood in the dark, gathering flowers for a grave because he was the only one left who rembered the exact shade of white she loved.
"Guess who?"
The playful, whispered challenge and the sudden, startling warmth of palms over his eyes snapped the mory like a dry twig. Zarius didn’t flinch. His body caught the faint, intoxicating trace of sweetness before his mind could make sense of it..
"If it weren’t a certain little Oga, I might have broken these hands by now," Zarius growled, though the threat was hollow, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that betrayed his lack of true irritation. He felt a strange, traitorous urge to lean back into the touch, to let the warmth of those palms seep into his cold skin.
When Cherion finally let go and stepped around him, pouting about Zarius’s "brutality," the temperature of the night seed to drop instantly. Cherion looked entirely out of place among the solemn roses, his eyes shimring with a vibrant life that Zarius often felt he had lost centuries ago.
"Didn’t know gardening was your preferred late-night activity."
"They are for my mother," Zarius admitted, his voice sounding like grinding gravel as he clutched the bundle of flowers. "And for my father. My mother loved white roses above all else."
Cherion’s expression softened, his usual wit replaced by a quiet, sincere empathy. "Can I help?"
Zarius hesitated. This was a private ritual, a conversation with the dead that he had held alone for years. But looking at Cherion, he found himself nodding. "Sure."
Cherion moved with a surprising grace, his hands moving through the bushes with a gentleness that Zarius lacked. He didn’t just pull at the stems, he seed to respect the plant itself. As they worked in a companionable silence, the only sound was the clipping of stems and the soft rustle of leaves.
"You’re a very filial child, Your Grace," Cherion comnted softly, his eyes focused on a particularly pristine bud. "Taking the ti to do this yourself, even with everything... I think it’s sweet."
Zarius didn’t reply. The word "sweet" felt like a foreign language to him. He didn’t know how to explain that this wasn’t just about duty. He kept his head down, his jaw tight, focusing entirely on the task at hand.
He reached for a final stem, but his mind was still half-lost in the image of his mother’s smile. Distracted, he didn’t see the hidden thorn. A sharp thorn caught the side of his index finger, slicing deep into the flesh. He watched the blood well up, a dark, obsidian red that looked black under the moonlight.
Before he could even think to pull back, Cherion seized his hand.
The sensation of Cherion’s warm mouth closing over his wound hit Zarius like a physical shock. He felt the Oga’s tongue flick over the cut, and suddenly, Zarius’s blood felt like it had been replaced with molten lead. A surge of heat flooded his neck, racing up to his face and making his skin feel too tight for his body. It wasn’t just the physical contact, it was. Cherion’s scent, usually a sweet honey, was now a roaring bonfire in the middle of a blizzard.
His heart hamred against his ribs, not with the steady, rhythmic beat of a soldier, but with the frantic, wild pulse of an Alpha whose deepest instincts were being pushed to the breaking point.
"Cherion," he called, the na sounding like a desperate warning.
The Oga pulled away, his face flushed a deep, panicked scarlet as he began stamring apologies about instincts and spoiled flowers. But Zarius barely heard the words. He was staring at Cherion’s lips, then down at his own finger, where the cut was already knitting back together under the intense influence of his healing power.
He felt "weird", a terrifying, bubbling hunger in his chest that he hadn’t felt since before the curse took hold. And as Zarius looked at the man who had claid his hand with such effortless intimacy, he knew that no matter how many white roses he picked for the dead, the present was suddenly, dangerously alive.
"I... I’m sorry! It was just instinct! I..."
"Doing things like that... is dangerous," Zarius said, his voice barely a whisper. "For an Alpha... for ."
A terrifying wave of heat rolled through his veins, a feverish pressure that made the frozen garden feel like a furnace. His vision blurred at the edges, narrowing until all he could see was the flush on Cherion’s neck and the slight tremble of those lips.
PLAK
Zarius flinched, his head jerking back as Cherion suddenly smacked his own cheek with enough force to leave a visible handprint.
"Got it!" Cherion squeaked, his voice two octaves higher than normal as he rubbed his cheek. "Damn creature."
Zarius stood frozen, his lips still parted, staring at Cherion as if the Oga had just sprouted a second head. The terrifying wave of heat in his veins retreated so fast it left him feeling lightheaded, replaced by a stinging sense of bewildernt.
He cleared his throat, the deep crimson flush on his face slowly receding into a stiff, awkward mask.
"I think..." Zarius muttered, his voice a low, vibrating rumble as he fought to reclaim his dignity. "We have enough flowers. Let’s go inside."
He turned abruptly, his black cape flaring behind him as he walked away, leaving Cherion scrambling to catch up through the quiet courtyard.
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