"Do you really have no heart, Felix?" Callisto's shoulders slumped, head tipping forward, lips trembling as he inhaled sharply. The omega's words stabbed right through his heart, worsening the wound that was already festering in it.
Sitting beside him, Felix continued staring at nothing, sapphire eyes glazing over. "I do. At least, I fancy the thought of it."
"I would beg to differ. But you shall leave me begging."
The omega stilled, fingers dragging on the soil beneath them. "Are you here to simply question me? The nature of our relationship?"
"So you admit we had a relationship."
"I said no such thing."
Callisto choked back a sob, feeling the breath in his lungs suffocate him. "You're cruel." Tears welled in his eyes as he blinked to keep them away. "Unnecessarily cruel. I gave you my heart."
"I never asked for you to, Duke Viron."
"You allowed me to deceive myself as such!" The aegean blue-haired man exclaimed, tears rolling down his cheeks as he turned to glare at Felix. "For as long as you kept returning to me, I dreamt of a future… Together. Of marriage. Of children… You destroyed them all."
Felix's breath hitched in his throat. Any rebuttal he might have had dying on the tip of his tongue.
Children.
His shoulders tightened, jaw setting as the muscle of it twitched.
Children. His head dipped, eyes narrowing as he looked at his lap. Children.
Oh, how he had once yearned for them. Maybe one. Maybe more. He had once wanted a family.
This was not the life the ten-year-old Felix, or even the Felix who'd just arrived at the Guiniel Empire's harbour had envisioned.
Through the years, no matter how many of his weaknesses Felix shed, desires and wants he abandoned in pursuit of the ultimate need; he could not quite stop his heart from yearning for a family.
For children he would never have now.
He shuddered, caught off-guard by the abrupt confrontation with reality, the ache of it a living thing in his guts.
Felix had let himself slip exactly once in presence of the noble alpha— while sharing an unavoidable estrous with him — and now, he struck the one flaw he could not conceal.
"I would have been a terrible father." Swallowing the bile rising to his throat, Felix replied, keeping his voice carefully bland.
"I could hope otherwise."
"I am 7 years your senior."
"I am an age majority alpha. I am 26."
"Enough." Felix stood up, forcefully dusting off the dirt clinging to his cloak. Head lowered, he smoothed down the wrinkles in his skirt, a few loose locks curtaining his face. "If you are here to drag me back to the capital, do that."
"I am not here to do anything like that," the alpha did not face him this time, keeping his gaze trained on the grand canyon, "did I not make myself abundantly clear?"
"Forgive me if I find it unbelievable."
Silence.
Felix shifted on his feet, kicking the pebbles on the ground around in a discreet show of restlessness as his scent soured.
"Felix Altan." Finally, Callisto rose to his feet, face placid, unwavering as he turned around to look down at the older omega. "Answer one question of mine. But I demand your complete honesty. Think of it as a repayment of all the pain you put me through."
Felix did not look up, magic curling around his fingers behind his back like invisible wisps of smoke. "Why does everyone seem to have a question for me?"
"Perhaps because you lived a questionable life."
What a joke.
Felix bit back a snort and crossed his arms. "Ask."
Callisto stared down, gaze fixed directly into the omega's eyes. His expression was stoic, body even more so. With a step towards the blond man, he spoke, voice quivering imperceptibly.
"If you could re-live this life, exactly as it was before you made your bed—even if you chose a different path to go down, would you still approach me?" Before the omega could react, the alpha's hands were already on his shoulders, immobilising him. "Would you— would you still choose me? Would you be able to love me?"
Love.
Felix exhaled, shaken. Eyes shooting downward, he bit his lower lip. Love.
Was he even capable of loving?
"If… If I were to re-live my life before it all," he began slowly, contemplatively, "if I remembered everything as it is now… I would come find you." The large hands on his shoulders tightened, the touch, even through the layers of clothes, scorched him. "But— but I would not love you."
The grip on his shoulders tightened painfully.
"Why?" The alpha gritted out in a rough voice.
"If I am with all my memories intact and still choose a different path, I would not subject you to my love."
"Why not?!"
Felix yanked away the hands on his shoulders and took a few steps back. "Because that would be wrong! I would have lived a whole lifetime by then, and you would be a child! There it is, the answers to all your questions. Now leave."
Callisto took half a step forward, the sourness in the omega's scent making his heart clench as it burned. "Felix—"
"Leave!"
He halted, unable to press anymore. Drawing his hands back, the alpha nodded, lips pressed in a thin line.
Without a word, he strode past Felix, turning sideways to avoid colliding into him. Gently stroking his steed's hair, as Callisto mounted it, he looked at the omega over his shoulder.
"Will you run?"
The older omega looked up at him, something shining dim in his beautiful sapphire eyes. "I have had enough of being chased around."
Callisto gripped the reins tighter, legs tightening on the steed's sides. "Then… I suppose we shall meet in the capital."
"Maybe."
And with that, the Duke of Lechrone was gone, his strong back receding between the looming trees.
Felix watched the man's path until he could no longer see the little dot of his figure. Once Callisto was truly gone, he sat on the ground, face blank.
He was really alone now.