Honeythorn (Honeythorn, #1)

by Marina Vivancos

At least a head taller, his hair was plentiful and of a dark brown, his eyes blue like the sky before true nightfall, face and shoulders broad and imposing. The man was beautiful.

The room seemed terribly cold and silent when only Milan and Raphael remained. Milan looked at him for a moment. Why was there so little defiance in his expression when his actions spoke loud and clear?

“Do you know when he’ll return?” “Um…” Milan shook his head. “Never mind.” Milan sat there for a while longer. He should have expected this. Raphael was obviously a busy man, and Milan was clearly not a priority.

He lay in bed that night, face pressed against his pillow as he tried to fend off the curling, suffocating vines of loneliness and fury. He refused to give up. In steel and hardened fist, determination was growing too. He closed his eyes and spent his sleepless night forging a plan.

“Don’t lie to me,” Milan hissed, incensed that Raphael would attempt such a flimsy excuse. “You knew what day I was to arrive. I cannot believe you are so incompetent that you could not reschedule things for the single week leading up to our marriage as to spend some time with the person who has travelled weeks to get here. Who you will be spending the rest of your life with. Or should I expect our bonding night to also be filled with paperwork?” Raphael’s refusal to meet his eyes only angered Milan further.

“Well…you haven’t had breakfast, Sir.” “Oh! No matter, Melissa, but thank you for—” “Absolutely not,” Raphael cut in. Milan glared at him. “I assure you, Lord Raphael, that I will not faint on top of the horse and inconvenience you,” Milan said acidly. “That’s not…have something to eat.”

hot and cold.

Maybe he liked to be kind to things that were due to die.

Perhaps, Milan conceded in his mind, the fury is easier to feel than fear, loneliness, and sadness. Anger blinds, but it does not cure.

“How am I punishing you? I would not think my company much of a reward.” Milan clenched his hand. “It is solitude that is the punishment.”

“I am alone in a strange land, far from everything and everybody I know. My family, my friends…I came but with mere trinkets to remember them by. You are at a complete advantage in this partnership. This is your house, your people, your culture. You are my only link to this place. Without you, I am lost.” Milan’s gaze was steady. Raphael was finally looking at his eyes. “By accepting this marriage, we are accepting to do our duty. Do you oppose to do it with kindness?”

Now, Milan knew that he had missed one vital thing that explained these past few days perfectly. Raphael was in love with someone else.

“All right. I hope, then, that despite the fact that I do not have a place in your heart, we can at least be partners in this.” Raphael’s eyebrows twitched, but he nodded slowly. The silence that fell between them was suffocating.

All he knew was the cold ball of his body as he curled in on himself, shivering in the shadow that had been cast over his future.

The moment was broken as the officiant began to speak. The words washed over him. About care, devotion, loyalty. Love. They were sounds without meaning. With each second of the droning voice, the impulse to run, to save himself, rose.

him. For one incredulous second, Milan believed Raphael was about to come to his defence. Of course, that was not the case.

It felt like a loss, the way their hands parted. Maybe tonight he would have the soft version of Raphael. Maybe now that they were married, things would get better. Not love, perhaps, but respect. Partnership.

Raphael swallowed. “If I do anything you don’t like, please. Tell me.” Touched, Milan arched an eyebrow as he smiled. “Even in our brief time knowing each other, have you known me to do anything else?”

This was the man he would bond his soul to. It was whom he would grow old with—whom his life would depend on.

Milan bit his lip before letting himself ask, “You won’t…I’m safe with you?” Raphael’s expression crumpled, eyes closing as if the question had been a lance through his chest. When he opened his eyes again, they were in turmoil, but his answer was strong. “Yes.”

shaking. He opened his eyes to see Raphael just as affected. His eyes were taking Milan in as if he were the last thing he would see before death, his mouth open in supplication, skin covered in sweat and a bright flush.

“I trust your rooms are adequate.” For a quiet, innocent moment, Milan was thrown by the sudden change of subject. He opened his mouth to assure his husband, but something in his stance and piercing eyes froze Milan. Very suddenly, as if doused by cold water, it dawned on him. Raphael was throwing him out.

Never in his life had Milan felt so humiliated. So small and worthless. He scrambled out of the bed, trying to tug the sheets with him, but they were caught under the mattress. With shame burning his skin from the inside out, he let the sheets drop and found his shift with dizzy eyes, not caring that it was inside out as he put it on.

It was only when he stood up and started scrubbing himself with the water from the jug meant for drinking that he realised he was crying. Sobbing, like he had not done since he was a child, not even when he had been back on his own land and learnt what his fate was to be. Even in his wild imaginings, he hadn’t imagined this…the sheer humiliation of being treated like an object to fuck and then discard.

He dried himself, willing his body under control. He shielded it with breeches, socks, a long tunic, before crawling into bed. He curled into a ball, leaving miles of mattress around him. He closed his eyes and thought of nothing. He was alone. He was utterly, utterly alone.

This land was partly his now. He would treat its people well. He would work hard. He would resist any attempt to change who he was at his core. He would not lose himself in this bond. With that conviction, Milan got out of bed.

Milan had been steadfastly trying to think of these rooms as his rooms, this manor as his manor, these lands as his lands, these people as his people, but perhaps it was fruitless. Perhaps his husband would always make sure he didn’t belong.

It wasn’t an addiction, the escape that the library offered Milan, but he could admit that he spent perhaps a little too much time there.

“I’m not!” “I had no idea. Did she think me rude?” “Oh, please. You’re completely charming. I bet Lord Ledford is thanking his lucky stars to have landed such a darling of a husband.”

“Well, Jack just seemed to bring out the best in Lord Raphael. They were inseparable, to the point that Lord Raphael learnt to delegate work, for once.” Milan thought of his husband—how he was all work and no play. To think that someone had been able to crack that, to show Raphael how to live…it was no wonder he used his duty as a shield, now.

Milan let the subject drop. He knew how delicate matters of the heart could be.

“I know what you want. What you all want.” Raphael stood up, voice low and more dangerous than a shout. Instinctively, and much to Milan’s embarrassment, the sight of not only an Alpha but the Alpha tied to him, looking at him with such vitriol and hate in his eyes, made him shrink in his seat, heart racing.

“You can invade my household, poison the minds of my staff, insert your unwelcome nose in my business—but you will never, never, infect my heart, or my soul. This…bond,” he said with revulsion, making a vague gesture, “is nothing. I am your husband on paper, but not in spirit. I will not be yours. I will make sure of it until my dying breath. Do you understand?”

To Milan’s horror, he cried out and jumped, covering his face instinctively. “Yes,” he said quickly, for, at last, he really did understand. Despite no exertion of the body, Milan was panting, fear coursing through him. His mind was in pieces. His body was being guided by old instincts, which instructed him to sit still and yet tremble like some pathetic creature, hands raised as if expecting a blow.

Still, Milan could not seem to lower his arms until, without his permission, a sudden sob left his chest. A great, heaving thing, it seemed to take over his body for a moment, like a retch. He clapped a hand over his mouth, refusing to make such a noise again, even as fear still pulsed, shame nipping at his heels.

Is this what he was? A cowering Omega, crying at a few harsh words? Unbidden, the faces of his loving family came to mind. Their kindness, their comfort. He could not believe how much ...

He lay in his solitude amidst the strange silence, the call of strange night birds, the strange cold. Light was starting to filter through the curtains when he finally fell asleep.

This dynamic was not what he had hoped for, but it did not mean the end of the world for Milan. So what if he would not know love in marriage? There were many types of love, and Milan refused to not have a rich life filled with interests, friends, duties, and family.

“There is one more thing I need to make clear.” Milan took a step forwards, and although practically the whole room was still between them, it felt good to take some control over their proximity. “You will never speak to me the way that you did last night,” Milan said, his voice hard. Lord Raphael’s eyes widened. Milan forged on.

“I understand anger and expressing it. But speaking to me like I am beneath you, looming over me, banging the table—I will not tolerate that. I would like to remind you that you agreed to this marriage. I did not trick you into it. You do not want me. Fine. But it was your decision to have me here, so do not suggest I have invaded, or that I have the power to infect.” Milan kept his voice level but could not help narrowing his eyes on the last word.

Despite Milan’s wilfulness, he was dependent on Lord Raphael in a way that was not reciprocated. The bond between them—which Milan barely noticed most days, it was so weak—could be a great joy, but it could also be a great danger. If left to decay without touch, it was Milan who would suffer. Not Raphael. I own you. You will do as I say.

Clinging to anger, Milan tried to touch Lord Raphael’s face, but his wrist was caught in a tight grip. Lord Raphael could, and would, overpower him. Milan wrenched free before practically stumbling into the hallway.

He hid in his room, not even letting Melissa attend to him. This was the first fight in his life that he saw lost before it had begun.

He sat on the floor by his bed. What would Lord Raphael make him do? What would he deny him? Would he control his whole life, keeping him weak and malleable through lack of touch? Mila...

Surely a good man would not kill his own husband. Surely, there had to be a way out. Someone who would believe an Omega over a Lord Alpha who had such a sterling reputation. Milan simply couldn’t see who, or how.

Although their contact was friendly and appropriate, it was nice to be held by an Alpha, to be smiled at and not made to feel repellent.

“For what purpose? To what ends?” “Th-the bond…” “No. See, this is exactly what I meant—why do you get to decide what’s in my head? My soul? Is marriage not enough?” “You know that’s not the only—” “Enough!” Raphael whispered harshly.

“The bond—you agreed to it, you—” “I can’t! You cannot force me.…You cannot—I won’t let you.” Raphael gripped the material over his chest as if trying to keep his heart inside. He looked like he was about to fall apart. How much was this man mourning his past love? How much was Milan an intrusion into his life?

Raphael shook his head, pressing himself against the door of the crawler as if Milan’s mere presence was driving him away. They sat in silence for the rest of the ride. Milan had no more hope to cling to.

He turned his head to see that Lord Raphael was standing stiffly by the bed. “You’re in my room,” Milan rasped out dumbly. Lord Raphael had never been in his room before.

A wave of exhaustion swept over Milan. He was sinking into the pillow, into the bed, into the floor. He was drowning. Milan looked up at his husband still standing there as if he had any right to be by his side. “Why are you doing this to me?” Milan whispered.