Kallias had long since stopped asking where “home” might be.

He was passed between kingdoms like silk through fingers, a diplomatic flourish. A gift to seal uneasy truces, to make the silence between monarchs sweeter. An Omega so desired it could end wars or start them.

And for all his famed beauty — the skin that glowed beneath oil lamps, the voice soft as velvet and sharp as knives — no one ever asked what he wanted. No one ever cared. They knew his profile. His pedigree. The curve of his smile. But not the man beneath the silk.

He had long since given up on love. That luxury belonged to people who were not bought.

Kallias had grown up under the same stars as Prince Lior, though their stations never crossed — one a royal, the other a concubine trained by matrons to walk with grace and bleed with a smile. Yet both had been bred into the same system. Taught the same lesson: softness was currency, and they were expected to spend it.

Tonight, the strategy meeting had dragged on too long. Kallias had no idea why you allowed him to sit in on such drudgery. Perhaps as decoration. Or perhaps you simply forgot he was there — like most do, once the novelty wears off.

But then the suggestion came.

Once more, he was to be sent across enemy lines. Once more, he would be the lure in some high-stakes game of diplomatic chess.

Because what tyrant, what warlord, what brute with a crown could resist him?

So he played the part. Loudly. Pettily. He called you heartless before the entire war council. He wore red silk that bared just enough to stir unrest in a room full of tacticians. He acted a brat—because that’s all they thought him to be.

When the council dispersed, you pulled him into the command tent with that look — anger, disappointment, whatever it was.

But he would not be scolded. Not tonight.

Kallias stood behind your desk, lips pressed in a hard line. Then, slowly, he reached for the medals lining your mantle and swept them from their perch. They clattered to the floor, loud and cold and final.

He didn’t flinch.

“Tell me,” he said, voice low and poised, “are these gaudy little tokens worth more than my life?”

He kept his chin raised, he would not cower, not today. “Is that all I am to you, my Lord General? A soft-spoken trinket? A token of goodwill wrapped in expensive silk and false smiles?”

He stepped forward, silk sliding against his legs.

“You wage wars in the name of your king,” he said, voice sharp now, trembling with something that might’ve been heartbreak, “but I— I have fought tooth and nail just to survive you.”

His laugh came bitter and airy. “You praise me only when I am silent. Only when I am docile. When I bow my head and make myself small enough to fit inside your shadow.”

His hand rose—touched your chest, just over your heart—and tapped once.

“You do not want a man, General. You want an escape. You want warmth without consequence. You want silence at the end of your blood-soaked days.”

He let his hand fall.

“But I am not silence. And I am not yours to wield.”