Reluctant, soft and gentle, that single word speared Evinori through the heart much harder than he'd expected. Mircea's hand covered Evinori's lips, barring them from claiming his own. Reality came in and shattered the magic swirling around them like a wrecking ball, showing Evinori precisely what he could never have and what he did have that he'd come within inches of destroying. He shot upright as if he'd been electrocuted, hand flying to his mouth to stifle his cry of frustration and horror. For the umpteenth time since the precious night, tears flooded his eyes.

"Aw, no, don't be upset," Mircea urged Evinori, grabbing him by the hips as he made to climb off him. "It's not because I don't want to." Smiling ruefully, he sat up and cupped the distraught omega's face. "But I won't let our first kiss be at a time when we have something to blame it on. I won't let it be when you're so hurt it takes everything inside you just to get through the next minute without breaking down."

Mircea's smile widened as the distressed grey of Evinori's skin began to turn to touched scarlet. "It's too soon for us right now," he pointed out regretfully. "But one day when we have less unknowns between us, we will go out, just you and me, and spend the day together - a day too wonderful to be captured in a word or picture or a note of music. And when that day ends and you feel like the world is in the palm of your hand...that's when I will kiss you."

Such was the warmth and conviction in that promise that hope flared in Evinori's heart despite himself, wiping the frown from his face and replacing it with a look of pure delight. He'd never known hope could be so powerful and feel so good. For the first time, he knew what it was like to feel liberated. It was like the chains binding him from top to toe, squeezing, crushing, had been loosened and he was expanding into an existence big enough to finally matter. Chuckling in sheer amazement, he linked his arms around Mircea's neck to pull him down for a kiss on the cheek.

The grand old church bells nearby began to toll, signalling the hour as they had been doing for the past six hundred years. For the second time in five minutes, Evinori shot upright in alarm.

"I have to go," he said, throwing open the driver's door and scrambling out of the car.

"Wait!" Mircea grabbed his wrist.

"I can't!" cried the omega, desperately tugging at his arm as Mircea climbed out after him. If he didn't leave now, he wouldn't make it back to his house before someone inevitably walked through his front door and his gig would be up.

Why did he have to live this way?

His heart plummeted. His bottom lip trembled, tears brimming in his eyes spilled over. "Let go," he whimpered. "Please."

"Ah, ah, again," Mircea stuttered in a panic. "Evinori, I'm seriously worried now. What are they doing to you?"

"I'll tell you later." Evinori slipped out of the larger man's hold. "Right now I can't stay."

"No! I won't let you! Whatever the hell they're doing to you, it's clearly-"

"-something you cannot stick your nose into." Evinori's heart sank as Mircea flinched, hurt. "It's not because I don't want it," he explained, glancing anxiously at his wristwatch the whole time. He was going to have to sprint at least part of the way. "It's because having you openly by my side is a privilege I can't have."

"You don't know that." Mircea grabbed Evinori's wrists again, desperation and worry written all over his face. "Every mountain is unscalable until you try to climb it. I'm here with you, aren't I?"

Evinori frowned. Mircea seemed to be think that any deepening of their relationship was barred by the fact that they lived in separate worlds and that society would frown upon his association with an omega. He was right, but the context was dead wrong: they did live in separate worlds, but not because Evinori belonged to a different socioeconomic tier. Nor did the problem lie with society in general: though omegas were far from being considered equal to betas or alphas, a grudging acceptance of them had taken root in the general population.

No, the issue was that they both were born into the same high society still filled with bien pensant patricians who still considered a male omega's birth into their ranks to be the ultimate disgrace. Mircea and he represented the outcomes of two of the most egregious actions resulting from that attitude: Mircea had been raised, shielded from the truth by a bubble of privilege, to believe that the rest of the world treated omegas the same way their elite elders did; the latter had been treated like the vilest skeleton imaginable in the Carter closet.

And then there was the feud. Even Evinori's twin brothers, who were most like their father in their beliefs, didn't understand why they had to hate the Quartzes. But at least while the the older generation was alive, Mircea and he could not be together even as friends simply because of who they were.

But.

"You are here indeed," Evinori whispered. "Despite everything, you are here."

"I am. I'm your friend if nothing else, and I can't bear to see you so miserable. Don't go."

Evinori smiled sadly, but his eyes remained firm. Mircea's pleading turned to disappointment as he realized the omega's decision was made. Jaw clenching with mild irritation at Evinori's insistence on running back to obvious toxicity and brow furrowing with worry, he let go. "Fine," he grumbled, stepping back. "Go face what you have to - but don't hesitate to ask me for help if you need it." He picked up the origami bouquet from the passenger seat and handed it to Evinori after scrawling something on the back of the attached note. Enfolding Evinori in one last hug, he placed a short, sweet kiss - a protective charm - on his forehead. "There you go. Best of luck."

*

The lonely little cottage Evinori had grown up in was tucked into the thickest patch of woods on the Carter estate, the path leading to it not even visible from the family mansion. In one of the many eavesdropping sessions from his childhood, Evinori had learned that his parents had actually purchased a patch of land on the most obscure edge of their estate and restored the old cottage that came with it for the sole purpose of hiding their youngest child. It was quite the beauty, looking like it had come straight out of a fairy tale right down to the massive old trees surrounding it and the sharply sloping roof with mossy tiles. There was even a little stream running next to it spanned by a stone bridge.

Evinori hated it and loved it at the same time. It was a lasting tribute to his family's rejection of him, but it was also the place he could escape to when things got too overwhelming for him. While his parents and brothers did have keys to the cottage so they could keep him on a leash, they usually didn't care enough to cross a lake and hike down a narrow trail to get there. Most importantly, it was the only place in the world that bore any sign an Evinori Carter even existed.

Evinori placed Mircea's flowers in a vase in the center of his little dining table and slumped into a chair. A second chair sat before him, empty as usual. The last nanny was long since gone and the last tutor had stopped coming long ago. Yet his stubborn heart would not let him throw that chair away. Maybe, maybe, someday someone from his family would come visit him and they would sit in that chair for a meal.

There was a quiet knock on the door followed by the rattle of a key opening the front door before a tall, thin man in his fifties stepped in. Whitley, an honest-to-God, one hundred percent genuine butler complete with a black tailcoat, a bowtie and pristine white gloves on his hands. "Why do you even knock if you have the keys?" Evinori groaned without raising his head off his hands.

"Are those windmills?" asked Whitley, placing a giant bag on the table.

"They're flowers."

Whitley resisted a sigh as he began to unpack the week's supply of food. He pitied the poor child. Even as a child running errands for his father, he had watched the lively, cheerful toddler with the most endearing laugh in the world grow sadder and wearier with age and known it was wrong. He believed that if the Carters had to be so embarrassed about having a male omega child, it would have been less cruel to abandon him on the doorstep of an orphanage. But things like that had a way of coming back around and biting one in the ass, and the Carters probably refused to risk the world suddenly finding out their secret one day.

"Who are they from?" asked he, trying to make conversation.

"A kid," replied Evinori shortly. "Why are you here, Whitley?"

Another sigh. Gone were the times when when he was "Uncle Whitley." "You are to come up to the main house with me," Whitley said. "Madam Carter wants to talk to you."

Evinori finally looked up with a foul expletive, anger dancing in his eyes. "Then she can come here herself!" he snapped. "Or at least give me a call! What makes her think she can summon me like a peasant? Who does she think she is, the Queen?!"

No, but she's the direct descendant of one. "It's not like that. The Madam isn't well, and-"

"Don't even try, Whitley. God, I'm so tired of it all." Slamming his hands on the table so hard it shook, Evinori got to his feet. "Let's get this over with. I want to sleep."

The omega usually tread quite lightly, dodging vines and avoiding stepping on delicate young plants rooting on the trail when he could. But he was understandably in a supremely foul mood today and stomped through the brush like a rampaging elephant. He got angrier the closer they got to the mansion, jumping out of the boat the moment it touched the dock and powering uphill towards the house. Sundae, the family's new Great Dane-mastiff mix puppy who loved him to pieces, ran over to shower him with kisses - but the omega just pushed him away with a sharp "no".

Evinori kicked the door open, making his mother jump and nearly spill her tea. Gia Carter was a tall, regal woman with coal grey eyes, thin lips and thick, waist-length locks of streaked salt-and-pepper hair that had once been honey blonde. Everything about her was long: her invariably dark-hued dresses, her limbs, her fingers, her neck, her face and even the nose she liked to look down the length of all the time. All in all, she looked and sounded like a sociopathic school principal - quite far from the kind, loving mother that she actually was.

"Quite the attitude you have there," she said, scowling. "I can't believe I'm having to scold a thirty-year-old for his behavior."

"I can't believe you remember my age," Evinori snarled. "How about you back off your thirty-year-old and let him deal with his asshole brother on his own?"

"Mind your language! Ezra did what he needed to do to protect the family. Do you have any idea the kind of damage you could have caused if he hadn't stopped you?"

"I would have caused? Me? The damage would be because of everyone but me!"

"You've got some nerve!" Gia's hands balled into fists and angry red rose to her cheeks. "If someone had got suspicious and discover the truth about you, Ezra's marriage could've been annuled. And that's the least of it - the family would've lost investors and business partners. You could've driven the family into ruin. We've already come close to absolute humiliation once because of you, Evinori. I won't let it happen again."

For a few seconds, Evinori could only choke and sputter with absolute rage. "If the family were to be ruined, it would be because of the small-minded pricks you work with," he finally growled. "It would be because you are small-minded pricks. Utter ruin befits you."

Gia shot to her feet, trembling with outrage. "You ungrateful child!" she cried. "We feed you, educate you, give you money and a good home, and even let you run free and risk blabbing the truth to the whole wide world! And this is what you do in return?! Beat your own brother bloody and leave us to explain to guests why someone from our own household assaulted the groom? Try to sneak your way into Ezra's wedding and ruin his life in front of everyone we know? How dare you come in and act all self-righteous after all that! Who do you think you are?!"

"I AM EZRA'S BROTHER!" Evinori roared, punching a hole into the wooden panel next to him in his fury. "I HAD A RIGHT TO BE AT MY OWN BROTHER'S WEDDING! AND I AM YOUR SON! FEEDING AND EDUCATING ME IS YOUR DUTY, NOT A FAVOR!"

In a flash, Gia stepped up to Evinori and slapped him across the face. "Shut the hell up!" she hissed. "You know we have a deal - ouch!"

Sundae, who had been circling the adults' ankles in distress so far, had whirled with a growl much too savage for a baby and bitten Gia in the ankle. Fur bristling, he stood between her and Evinori with lips curled and teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, ears pricked forward and shoulders lowered in readiness to fly at the Alpha if she got too close.

"Don't forget how easy you have it here, Evinori," Gia continued from a distance after being snapped at for the third time. "You know what the world is like for omega men. You know we're trying to protect you. You might not like how we go about it, but we didn't make the rules. We're acting according to what people think of people like you."