Chapter Thirteen

Over the next days, I drift in and out of consciousness while my body recovers from the ordeal of the birthing. I dream, nightmares of the Infirmarian condemning me to the cold hells, of Eugen cradling our children and accusing me of abandoning him, dreams where Arun and Oran ravage me and tear the infants from my weakened body.

Finally, though, I wake, my body aching and sore, but the pain of the birthing has faded. Eugen is beside me, the infant in his arms nursing greedily.

"Jaro," he breathes, smiling when he sees that I'm awake. "I was beginning to fear you'd never wake."

"Is ...is the other...?"

"Safe and healthy." Eugen frees a hand from cradling the infant, his fingers curling around mine. "We have three fine sons between us. The priests tell me that the gods are pleased."

"Three," I echo. Eugen nods, and lifts the baby in his arm. Fair haired and gray eyed, the infant is wholly human, and I can't resist reaching out. My arm feels heavy but I persist, my fingertips brushing the babe's soft cheek.

"I've been feeding all three, while you recovered," Eugen explains, and when I look more closely I can see the soft fullness of him, his nipples dark and plump. "Though the priests have put them on you each day, to ensure you would be able to suckle once you woke."

I flush at his words. Despite the months I spent carrying the twins, despite the birth which now seems like a distant nightmare, the thought of suckling children I bore still strikes me as strange.

"How long have I slept?" I ask, and Eugen hesitates.

"Four days," he admits. "The Infirmarian feared at first that you would not recover, but the gods' children were healthy, and so he allowed you to be brought to me, and cared for along with your children."

I hear the implication beneath his words, that if the twins had not been healthy my own recovery would have been neglected. I remember the healer's threat to damn my soul to the hells, and wonder if I would have been cast out entirely had I not birthed healthy babes.

The thought is sobering, but strangely not as troubling as the idea of Eugen paired with another.

Though I have awakened, I am not strong, and our positions are reversed, Eugen's and mine. He fusses over me, helps me when my limbs tremble with weakness, takes on the greater portion of caring for our children. I help as I can, marveling at how changed he seems by the birth. The nursery, like the Infirmarium, is open and airy, with broad windows and fresh breezes that carry none of the taint of the Wastes. I wonder if that is what has brought on the change, or if it is the power of the gods flowing through him.

I'm confined to the bed in those first days, my greatest exercise helping Eugen feed the infants. I'm awkward at first, the action seeming unnatural, but the babe latches eagerly. All three of the boys are growing swiftly, and though Eugen's confinement was shorter, now his son keeps pace with my own twins.

I wonder if this, too, is some magic of the gods, ensuring their paired omegas birth and nurse apace.

The boys' appetites are voracious. As they grow - and they grow swiftly, from infant to toddler in a handful of months - it seems that whatever strength I recover is drawn back out with my milk. I've long since lost the hard, lean muscle of growing up in the Wastes, my body softer, but thin from my ordeal and the demands of nourishing the gods' children.

Eugen seems untroubled by the demands on him, though. In spite of the drain on his resources, he thrives in a way that I envy. Where before I'd feared for his frail lungs, his fragile constitution, now circumstance has made us equals.

We spend the days together, growing closer, and when my body has healed Eugen begins to seek me in my bed, our bodies curled soft and warm together, his lips seeking and hands exploring.

He touches me, relearning my body, fingers curled around my soft prick, awakening a need within me. His mouth trails down my neck, suckling lightly, and I moan, his hand bringing me to stiffness.

His hips rock against my thigh, cock hard and hot as he ruts against me, his mouth finding mine. His rocking becomes thrusts, his cock sliding along my length, until he reaches down and wraps his fingers around both our shafts.

I moan as my body reawakens to pleasure, to need, and he silences me with his mouth, his tongue thrusting against my own. I feel the beat of his pulse in counterpoint to my own, and his strokes speed, his grip tightening around us, until we spend almost as one, our mingled seed spilling hot between us.

Eugen's fingers trail through our seed, paint across my nipples, and he grins and leans down, his tongue teasing and licking the tightened peaks. I gasp, arching, the pleasure of his touch sparking through me, and his lips close, tongue rasping against my skin. I cry out as he sucks, and Eugen chuckles, indulging himself while I gasp and tremble, completely at his mercy.

He moves lower, teasing, his tongue dipping into my navel. His cum-sticky fingers tease my softened prick, and his mouth trails lower, tongue flicking against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, the crease where my leg joins my hip, my balls.

I keen, my cock twitching, Eugen's clever lips and tongue seeking out every place that makes me gasp until at last he takes me in his mouth.

I cry out, hands tangling in his pale hair, and Eugen draws me in fully, tongue swirling around the sensitive crown. I harden once more as he works his mouth down my shaft, taking me deep, swallowing around me. Heat engulfs me and I arch, hips jerking, slick dripping down my cleft as Eugen's hands settle firmly on my hips.

He pins me easily, his strength equal now to my own. I writhe in his grasp as he pleasures me, his tongue caressing my shaft, lips stretched tight around my girth. His mouth slows, drawing the torment out, until I'm gasping and pleading, desperate for release.

Then he releases me, and I cry out a wordless protest as his lips leave my aching cock, slick and gleaming with his saliva. Eugen rises, grinning, and straddles my hips, his own cock rising as he sinks down onto me.

I cry out as his weight settles against me, his heat and pressure engulfing my shaft, his slick easing my way. Never before have I taken him or any other man, my only experience being the recipient of the gods' rough fucking. The sensation of Eugen's slick channel engulfing my shaft is unlike anything else.

Eugen's grin widens, and his hands brace on my chest. He begins to move, rolling his hips, riding my cock. Pleasure spikes through me and I rut up into him with a desperate, driving need, wanting more. He laughs, the sound hungry, and clenches around me, his hard, flushed cock bobbing with every movement.

His thumbs rub my nipples, and I keen, hips jerking. Eugen chuckles and begins to ride me in earnest, his pace increasing, hips slamming down to meet my thrusts.

Pleasure builds, sparks along my nerves, and Eugen's pace quickens. No longer does he seem fragile to me. He is a man, my match, my partner, as much my mate as the gods themselves.

I reach between us, my fingers curling around his shaft. Eugen moans, hips jerking, and I begin to stroke, my hand sliding along his length. His rhythm breaks and he grinds down against me, fucking himself on my cock with abandon.

Heat twists tight, and Eugen's cry echoes my own as I spend, my cock pulsing deep within him, filling him. Eugen follows me, his spend splattering hot and wet across my chest and chin, his channel milking my shaft.

Eugen collapses against my chest, and we lie together, panting, clinging to one another. His lips brush against my collarbone, my throat, and I hold him, unwilling to surrender the moment.

"Jaro," Eugen sighs against my skin. "Love you."

I tighten my arms around him, shocked, not by the emotion, but to hear the words spoken aloud. Eugen nuzzles against me, lips brushing against my throat, and I catch his face in my hands, pull his mouth to mine. He melts against me, his kisses eager and welcoming.

"I love you, too," I confess.

Eugen's smile is a beautiful thing.