“I knew you’d come, Lord Mihail. Even if he stopped me from screaming, I felt like you’d still come. So I kept saying no, telling him to stop, as hard as I could.”
If Chaika hadn’t resisted, the greenhorn knight would likely have done nothing more than vent his lust and be done with it. Chaika wouldn’t have been beaten into such a wreck, wouldn’t have been injured like this. Whether the knight had instinctively held back his strength or not was unclear, but at that moment, Chaika wasn’t just in danger of being hurt—he could have been beaten to death.
“If something like that happens again, just stay still. Don’t get hurt.”
Mihail whispered as he stroked Chaika’s hair. But it was a lie. Even though Chaika was battered into a mess, even though he was clearly in pain, Mihail felt pleased—satisfied, even—that Chaika had resisted so desperately. He was grateful. Proud. And because of that, Mihail could never reveal his true feelings to Chaika. It couldn’t be helped. Mihail was, after all, an alpha—and alphas were creatures who would never, ever tolerate someone touching what belonged to them.
“From now on, never go anywhere alone. The same goes even inside this castle. This is exactly why omegas can’t live on their own and end up relying on families with power and wealth. Without someone to protect them, there’s no way to fend off alphas who decide to pounce. Alphas can control their pheromones, but omegas can’t—so the only option is to be cautious.”
“…It’s unfair.”
Chaika spoke suddenly. Then he lifted his head, met Mihail’s gaze, and said it again.
“It’s so unfair.”
His eyes brimmed with resentment as he spoke. Mihail couldn’t say anything for a moment.
Omegas who wandered from alpha to alpha, lacking even the strength to protect themselves, bearing children and living comfortably off the benefits—how contemptible and pitiful their lives had always seemed to him. Yet Mihail couldn’t despise the Chaika now in his arms. Far from it. He felt only tenderness and pity. A fragile being, born weak, unable to protect even his own body.
“It’s really, really unfair.”
As Chaika repeated the words, a single tear slid down from the corner of his eye. Mihail brushed away the falling tear with his index finger, then gently rubbed Chaika’s back. And as if speaking to himself, he murmured softly.
“…Yeah. It does seem unfair.”
Chaika remained clinging to him for a long while, sniffling, before finally calming down. When his tears stopped, his face turned downcast.
“I’m sorry a knight died because of me. If I hadn’t asked him to help me make the snowman, he would’ve just passed by. It happened because I asked for help.”
As if he’d committed a grave sin against Mihail, Chaika lowered his head deeply. Mihail clicked his tongue and lifted Chaika’s chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.
“You’re not at fault. Not even a little. It’s that bastard’s fault—for not knowing his place and lacking even an ounce of restraint. Do you understand? None of this is your fault. Now, say it.”
Chaika’s eyes wavered at Mihail’s words. After hesitating, his lips trembling, he slowly spoke.
“…It’s not my fault.”
“Good. Say it again.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“One more time.”
“It’s… not my fault. Not at all.”
Only after making him say it three times did Mihail finally stroke Chaika’s hair.
“That’s right. None of this is your fault.”
Clinging tightly to Mihail, Chaika sniffled softly.
***
With bruises covering nearly his entire abdomen and cracked ribs, Chaika cried out in pain at even the slightest movement. His face was no better—eating, drinking, or speaking hurt, and he groaned that even frowning caused pain. There was no miraculous treatment that could fix it all at once; all they could do was wait for time to pass and for his body to heal.
Several days passed of eating while lying in bed, taking painkillers, and sleeping. The torn wounds inside his mouth—the most agonizing of all—nearly healed, and the swelling in his face began to subside. Around then, Chaika started grumbling about being sick of lying in bed all the time.
From that point on, Mihail bundled Chaika up tightly and carried him everywhere. Whether working in his office, eating in the dining hall, or taking a walk for fresh air, Chaika was always either in Mihail’s arms or sitting on his lap. Seeing this day after day, Ilya teased him relentlessly, but Mihail paid no attention. If anything, it was Chaika who felt embarrassed—yet despite his embarrassment, he never actually tried to move away from Mihail.
As his body recovered, Chaika’s expression brightened, but the trauma from the incident clearly lingered. Whenever a knight so much as approached, Chaika would clutch Mihail’s clothes and freeze, barely able to breathe. Considering that knights were the very ones tasked with protecting Chaika when Mihail wasn’t around, it was an extremely awkward situation.
In the end, Mihail changed all the knights’ cloaks to a different color. Replacing their armor was out of the question—it was exorbitantly expensive and required immense time and effort—but changing the cloaks at least made them look somewhat different. The measure had a modest effect; Chaika’s instinctive stiffening at the sight of knights dulled, if only slightly.
At night, he still needed sedatives and sleeping pills. Without them, he would drift off only to jolt awake, or be tormented by nightmares. He was especially anxious when Mihail wasn’t beside him, so whenever he was awake, he tried to cling to Mihail at all times.
“Aren’t you coddling him a bit too much?”
Ilya asked, tilting his wineglass. Mihail checked once more to make sure Chaika was deeply asleep from the medicine, then lifted his own glass. Because Chaika became extremely anxious whenever Mihail wasn’t nearby, Mihail hadn’t been able to have any personal time at all—so Ilya had simply grabbed a bottle and barged into Mihail’s bedroom.
“I can’t exactly deny it.”
Mihail drained the strong liquor in one go as he spoke. Being raped—or nearly raped—was something omegas experienced all too often. This time, at least, it hadn’t gone that far, which made it a relatively lucky case.
“He lived as a beta. He hasn’t even been an omega for that long, and then something like that happened to him—no wonder he’s like this.”
After saying that much, Mihail let out a heavy sigh.
For omegas, being seen as a sexual object is something they become familiar with from a young age. They grow up instinctively knowing that they can be targets of sexual predation—that they will be looked at, judged, and treated as sexual beings. But Chaika was different. He had lived without ever feeling that he could become someone’s sexual object, someone to be preyed upon. Experiencing something like that under those circumstances—it was only natural that the shock would be severe.
Filling the empty glass again, Ilya glanced at the bed where Chaika lay sleeping. Then he cracked the window open slightly.
“His pheromones are too strong.”
With a grave expression, Ilya inhaled the cold air from outside.
“This level is already dangerous. If they get even a little stronger… something like this won’t end with just one incident.”
At Ilya’s warning, a deep crease formed between Mihail’s brows.
Ilya was right. Chaika’s pheromones were far too dense—stronger than what most omegas emitted even when entering a heat cycle. No matter how mature or disciplined an alpha was, there were limits to patience. Especially for young alphas, reason could vanish in an instant, regardless of their will.
“The physician suspects he might be a Dominant Omega.”
“Dominant?”
Ilya frowned as if he’d heard something unbelievable. But after a moment of thought, he looked seriously at the sleeping Chaika.
“…True enough. An omega who walks around emitting pheromones at this concentration without even being in heat can’t be ordinary. But if he’s Dominant, then his origin would have to be…”
Ilya trailed off. Mihail supplied the word Ilya swallowed.
“The Ruslan Principality.”
Without a word, Ilya downed another glass of the strong liquor.
The Ruslan Principality was one of the things Mihail loathed most. Omegas. Omega pregnancy. The Ruslan Principality.
At the center of all of it was Shirl—the omega who was the biological parent of both Mihail and Ilya.
The Ruslan Principality, the only land to produce Dominant Omegas, also produced many exceptional omegas with extraordinary beauty and fragrant pheromones, even when they weren’t Dominant. Shirl himself had been an omega from the Ruslan Principality.
In the past, Mihail would have been enraged to see the object of his hatred revealed before his eyes. But now, things were different. His thoughts were focused entirely elsewhere—on protecting Chaika.
“If Chaika really is Dominant, then no matter how tightly we wrap him up or how thoroughly we guard him, it’ll be hard to completely prevent something like this from happening again.”
As Ilya spoke, Mihail nodded in agreement.
“To prepare perfectly so that nothing like that ever happens… there’s only one way.”
“…You’re not seriously thinking about imprinting, are you?”
Ilya asked, his face stricken. Mihail said nothing and lifted his glass.
“You’ve barely known him—how can you even think of something that extreme? It’s not even confirmed that he’s Dominant yet. If we just prepare properly, we can prevent incidents like this. There’s no need to go that far.”
“I’m not planning to do it right away. First… I’ll have him bear a child.”
When an omega becomes pregnant, their pheromones naturally fade to the point of being barely detectable until childbirth. At least during the pregnancy, there would be no need to worry about sexual predation.
At Mihail’s words, Ilya slumped back into the sofa as if letting out a long-held breath. Then, with a troubled expression, he slowly swirled his wineglass and spoke.
“Imprinting… isn’t something to be done lightly. Especially not when the other party is as physically weak as Chaika. The poison in his body may be mostly gone, but there will be aftereffects. His lifespan could be shorter than that of an ordinary omega. If you imprint on someone like that, you’ll be shortening your own life too.”
