Page 49 of Honeythorn
Milan shook his head. “It’s not about it being simple or not. I want to go forwards.” He looked at Raphael imploringly. “Let’s just go forwards.”
Raphael looked at him for a long time. “Are you unhappy?” he asked finally. Milan laughed at the unexpected query.
“No, Raphael. I’m not. Of course I miss my family and my land but…I can see a future for myself here, now. In fact, there may be more opportunities for Omegas here, as backward as that sounds. Everything is more open there, but that seems to hide the true prejudice against us.”
Raphael nodded slowly. “If you are—if I do something to make you unhappy…”
Milan smiled. “I think I will become comfortable with sharing my pains and worries with you, Raphael. I only ask you the same.”
Raphael looked down. “All right.”
After a moment, Milan tugged at Raphael’s hand slightly and got them walking again. “What about you? Your family?”
“Quite the opposite of yours. I was never close to my extended family. My father was the one that was given the title of ‘Lord’ after the war, which he served in, but he did not live far beyond the end of the declaration of peace. He came back…altered. I was just a boy when he left, but even I could tell the difference.”
“How did he die?”
“He just seemed to…the war, I think, took something from him. Something deep, internal. He just…wasted away.”
Milan felt his chest clench. His mother had also gone to the war, but she had survived it despite losing a leg and seemed to appreciate life even more afterwards. “I’m…I can’t imagine, Raphael. I’m so sorry.”
Raphael shook his head. “I can’t change the past. I did not know him well at that point, but my mother…I think she had been waiting so long for a reunion, for life to return to how it had been before, that his death and the severing of the bond crippled her. She succumbed to pneumonia the winter after my father’s death. And I was left with the estate.”
Raphael’s face was lost in memory and sorrow. Not knowing what to say, Milan pulled them to a stop again and then released Raphael’s hand, throwing his arms around his middle and hugging him close.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Milan’s family meant so much to him—he didn’t know what losing them like that would feel like.
After a stiff moment, Raphael wrapped his arms loosely around Milan. “It’s all right. It’s in the past.”
Milan shook his head against Raphael’s chest. “The past can still hurt. It’s all right to still hurt,” Milan whispered.
Raphael’s arms tightened around him. It was warm, Raphael’s familiar Alpha smell heightened by closeness. Milan closed his eyes. He could almost fall asleep there.
Milan blinked blearily when Raphael pulled away, the sudden cold slapping him into alertness. Raphael was smiling softly at him.
“Thank you,” he said. “And you must know—your family is welcome here, whenever they want to come. And you, of course, when the bond is stable, are free to visit them.”
Milan smiled widely back. “They are your family now too, you know.”
Raphael looked stunned for a moment before he looked away, a flush on his face. “Come on, let’s keep walking before we freeze.”
They said nothing for the rest of the walk, but their hands held each other tightly between them.
**********
“Milan,” Raphael said in surprise. Milan looked up, smiling.
“Hello. I thought I’d wait for you in your study, now that you’re not in the library as much.”
It had been a month since Milan’s heat, and Raphael and he could be separated for hours. The doctor, who had been visiting regularly as promised, assured them that the bond was recuperating well. Milan and Raphael still had to sleep in the same bed, and would always walk together once a day, but worked separately when Raphael had to go out to talk to the workers. Milan would accompany him sometimes, but there were cold and rainy days he preferred to stay inside, where it waswarm.
“Yes. Right,” Raphael replied, still staring at him. Milan got up from the desk chair slowly.
“Is everything all right?” Milan asked.
“Yes, of course,” Raphael said stiffly. Milan swallowed. There was a blankness in Raphael’s expression that made his stomach clench.
Raphael strode into the room, making Milan step out of the way. He took the papers that were spread across the table and piled them neatly before putting them in a drawer. Milan clenched his teeth at the obvious show of distrust.
