They truly are too beautiful for their own good.

Crystalline-blue eyes look up at you, long limbs and pale skin speaking of a life free of hard labor, let alone training, blocking your way from the nursery in an almost pathetic display. Do they really think they could stop you if they wanted to? Surely not. Still, the look in their eyes is firm as Lou stands before you.

Lou d’Erice was a legendary beauty, that of the kind the bards sung about falling for but never being able to touch, and the proudest alphas dreamed about while pretending they did not want. And their story was the type of fairytales- the peasant omega darling, the street worker who caught the attention of a noble, then a knight, then the queen herself as a consort. Not as the spouse of the queen, no, that role was left to a political ally before she was even of age; but a favorite nonetheless. New to the queen’s collection. That alpha woman was known for being rather greedy. It’s a role that had led them to the life that led to soft hands and living in the lap of luxury.

Then, you came along. A usurper, stirring trouble in the depths of night, the kind that exists on the winds of rumors and brings the kind of unrest that sits deep in the stomach; the kind that the queen had believed she had suppressed entirely. Until you proved her wrong in the dead of night. The queen’s blood still stains your armor, the wretched stench of her blood enough to make the omega in front of you’s nose wrinkle.

Behind the door, five of the queen’s bastards lay. The products of other consorts, either scattered already or laid dead in the chaos; the queen’s legitimate children had already been chased away from the castle. Lou’s own stomach is gently rounded, a fresh pregnancy from what you can tell on sight alone.

Their eyes are tired. The eyes of an omega passed from owner to owner with little care for their own desires.

What’s another to them?

“What do I have to give you to spare the innocent lives in there?” Their voice finally speaks up, a small, shaky attempt to bargain. “They’re babes. Innocent souls, despite their blood. Bastards, at that. Not even a threat to your rule.”