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***
The picnic had been Carolina's idea, which meant it was elaborate, logistically demanding, and yet perfectly managed.
She had selected a spot an hour from the Capital City Palace, tucked at the edge of the Heka Forest where the trees broke open onto a wide, sun-warmed meadow. The grass was thick and the afternoon light fell at exactly the right angle. She had announced it late the previous night, and no one had questioned her, because Carolina was simply not to be questioned.
"You packed enough food for a battalion," Kyle observed, looking at the spread of blankets and baskets being arranged.
"We have three Alphas in the family," Carolina said.
"And Arthur alone eats enough for three," Rody added, hauling things down from the mechanical cart he had driven himself, wanting no outsiders near the family outing.
"I eat a normal amount," Arthur hollered from somewhere nearby.
Everyone looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"I eat a slightly above-average amount," Arthur revised.
Ragnor, who had recently discovered that running was an option, took off toward the far end of the meadow the moment Robin set him down. Kyle and Nina chased after him, all three of them laughing hysterically. Ragnor, at two years old, had inherited something of his father's unstoppable forward motion and something of Robin's absolute refusal to be caught when he didn't want to be.
"He is going to run straight into the tree line," Robin said serenely, helping Victor spread the blanket.
"Kyle has him," Victor said, unloading foldable lawn chairs from the vehicle and setting them beside the blanket before helping Carolina and Rody arrange the food.
Robin's eyes fell on the slight sheen on Victor's forehead, damp strands of hair sticking to his skin, and he swallowed. Robin had a problem, one entirely of his own making. He had stopped taking his suppressants two weeks ago. He had no idea when his heat would arrive, since he had been on a new brand of suppressants that had kept it at bay for the past two years, and he had long since stopped tracking his cycle dates. When he had stopped taking them, he had known a heat was coming, that had been the point, but the timing, as it turned out, was not in his favour.
"Mama! Mama!" Ragnor broke free of Kyle's arms and came barreling toward the blanket with his arms outstretched, slamming full-body into Robin.
Robin wrapped his arms around him, catching the boy and absorbing the impact with practiced ease. Ragnor climbed him like an overly enthusiastic monkey, grabbed Robin's hair in one fist, and said something comprehensive and entirely unintelligible.
"I agree," Robin told him.
"What do you agree to?" Kyle panted, arriving at the blanket and collapsing onto it with no dignity whatsoever.
"I have no idea. Something important."
Victor reached over and detached Ragnor's fist from Robin's hair with quiet efficiency. Ragnor looked at his father with murder in his eyes. Victor looked back. Ragnor, with the instincts of someone who had been studying this particular Alpha since birth, apparently decided this was a battle not worth fighting and let go.
"Wise," Arthur said, dropping down on the other side of the blanket with a plate already loaded.
"He knows not to mess with my mate," Victor said.
"Stop scaring him," Robin said, pushing Victor sideways and immediately regretting it, because his hand met solid muscle and reminded him rather unhelpfully that his husband was a warrior built like an Adonis.
He redirected his attention to the food before any of that showed on his face.
The afternoon was pleasant, not too warm, not too cold and the mood easy. "Carolina, give me your hand, this is heaven," Rody declared with a mouthful of pot pie, eating with the focused contentment of a man who treated every meal as a personal gift. Carolina produced a bottle of good wine and passed it around to Robin and Kyle. Arthur, meanwhile, put up impressive competition of his own, working through what amounted to approximately three full meals without pause or apology.
When everyone was full and a cool breeze had begun drifting in from the south, Rody suggested a game of cards. It turned out Victor was as formidable out of the battleground as he was in it.
Robin tried hard to focus on his hand, but the slick gathering low in his body made it difficult to sit still. He was grateful, at least, that Ragnor had fallen asleep, sprawled across the blanket with Arthur's knee as his pillow, which Arthur bore with the weary resignation of a man who had become, over the years, the family's preferred napping surface. Nina was sleeping on the other side, one hand on Arthur's leg like a safety pillow.
"They do this to me every time," Arthur muttered. The children had an uncanny affinity for falling asleep on Arthur specifically. It had to be something to do with him, Arthur was good with children, effortlessly so, for someone who had never wanted any of his own.
"You have a very comfortable knee," Robin said.
"I don't want a comfortable knee. I want to spend time with my mate."
"I am too busy," Kyle said without looking up from his cards. He was winning, and he knew it.
"I feel for you, Arthur." Robin tried really hard to sit still but his body was not having it. "Guys, I am going for a stroll," Robin said, stretching in an attempt to relieve the tension coiling through him.
Victor glanced up from his cards, a small frown forming.
Robin ignored it. He had a far more pressing problem, pressing insistently against his fly, and warmth building beneath his skin that had nothing whatsoever to do with the afternoon sun.
Victor's eyes tracked him as he stood, nostrils flaring slightly.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Robin said, already moving.
"I'll come," Victor said immediately, starting to rise.
"No, you are not going anywhere until this hand is finished," Kyle said, closing a hand around Victor's wrist. A sharp, irrational flare of jealousy shot through Robin at the sight of it. He wanted to cross back over there, remove that hand, and make very clear to everyone present exactly who Victor belonged to.
He took a slow breath instead and kept his expression neutral. "Stay. Finish the game. I just need to stretch my legs."
With that, he slowly walked away from them and toward the woods.
The forest was cool and quiet and smelled of pine and wet earth. Robin stood in it for approximately forty-five seconds before he heard footsteps behind him.
"I told you to stay," Robin said without turning.
"You have been distracted since we got here." Victor came to stand in front of him this time, not beside, blocking his path, hands in his pockets, eyes moving over Robin's face with that unhurried attention that had always made Robin feel simultaneously seen and cornered. "What is going on?"
"Nothing," Robin said, finding something very interesting to look at near his feet.
"It is not nothing. You are hiding something."
Robin's heart lurched. "We should head back," he said, stepping to go around him.
Victor's hand closed around his arm and stopped him.
Not hard. It never needed to be hard. Just certain.
"Your scent changed," Victor said. His voice had dropped to something low and thick that settled at the base of Robin's spine.
Robin's heartbeat turned treacherous.
"Has it?" he managed, still hoping, foolishly that Victor might let it go.
"Yes." Victor stepped closer, slow and deliberate, until his nose was near Robin's neck. He didn't touch him anywhere else. Just stood there, close enough that Robin could feel the warmth radiating off him, and breathed. "It changed on the ride over. I wasn't sure then." A pause. His breath fanned along Robin's throat. "I'm sure now."
Robin turned. Victor was right there, barely an inch of space between them, watching him with that steady, complete attention. Not alarmed. Not demanding. Just present, in that way that made Robin feel like the only thing in the room, or the forest, or anywhere.
"I stopped taking my suppressants," Robin said.
Victor's eyes darkened. "You are in heat."
Not a question. Of course it wasn't. Victor knew Robin's body better than Robin did, had always known it, had memorised it with the same thorough attention he gave everything that mattered to him.
"I didn't expect it to happen today," Robin said, a flush crawling up his throat. "Or I would have said no to coming."
"Bodies don't follow schedules." Victor's jaw tightened slightly. "Why didn't you tell me you were stopping the suppressants?"
Robin noticed he hadn't asked why, just why he'd been kept in the dark. That, somehow, was worse.
"I was going to," Robin said, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.
Victor's eyes dropped to his mouth for a fraction of a second before returning to his eyes.
"When?" A quiet edge to it now. "When you were in full-blown heat with no one around? I was supposed to leave for Dhasur last week, Robin. If Ragnor hadn't caught a cold I would have been a three-day ride away."
"I'm sorry." Robin's voice came out unsteady, the heat making his emotions rawer than usual, closer to the surface. "I'm sorry, I--"
"Hey." Victor's hand came up and cupped the side of his face, thumb moving in a slow stroke along his cheekbone. His touch was gentle in that particular way it got when Victor was reining himself in. "It's alright. I'm sorry for raising my voice." He pressed his lips to Robin's forehead and lingered there. "Tell me why you stopped them. Are you unwell?"
Robin shook his head.
"Then what?"
Victor pulled back just enough to look at him. The late afternoon light came through the trees in long columns and fell across his face, and Robin hated, briefly and sincerely, how unfair it was to want someone this much.
"Robin." Low. Exact. The register that meant Victor was paying full attention and expected the same in return. "Look at me."
Robin looked at him.
"Is there something else?"
The trees were very still around them. Distantly, through the forest, Robin could catch the thread of Carolina's laughter, the rumble of Rody saying something that had probably earned him an elbow. The ordinary, oblivious sounds of the afternoon carrying on without them.
"I want another baby," Robin said.
He said it plainly, the way he said things he had been carrying for a long time because stating a fact had always felt easier than asking for a thing, and because he had never fully outgrown the fear that wanting too much would one day be held against him.
Victor went very still.
Robin waited, his heart somewhere in his throat. The silence stretched and he felt every second of it, the anxiety and the want and the heat coiling through him making it all sharper, more exposed than he would have liked.
"Since when?" Victor asked at last.
"A few months now."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"We were busy. The kingdoms, the trade negotiations, everything." Robin looked at the space between them rather than Victor's face. "And Ragnor is still young. I wasn't sure if you would want to.... Arthur said it takes a few months for the cycle to regulate before fertility returns, so I thought I would stop the suppressants first and tell you when the time was closer."
The silence that followed was a different kind.
"You told Arthur," Victor said.
Not loudly. But full of accusations.
"It was a medical question," Robin said quickly. "Purely medical. He is a physician, Victor and I only wanted to know the timeline--"
Victor muttered something under his breath that Robin chose not to fully register and pulled him in, one arm around his waist, closing the last of the distance between them in a way that made Robin's heat flare immediately and unhelpfully.
"I am the one who is going to give you that baby, Robin," Victor said against his hair, low and unambiguous. "I should have been the first to know."
Robin pressed his forehead to Victor's chest. "You're right. I'm sorry."
Victor's hold tightened fractionally. His other hand came up slowly, sliding into Robin's hair, tilting his head back until Robin was looking up at him.
The look on Victor's face was not anger.
It was considerably more dangerous than anger.
"We should not waste any more time, then," he said, quiet and deliberate.
Robin blinked. "What?"
"I know a spot further in. Private." His thumb traced a slow line along Robin's jaw. "Quiet."
"Victor." Robin stared at him. "Everyone is right there."
"Every Alpha in that meadow already knows exactly what is happening to you right now." His nose grazed Robin's temple, the line of his cheek, purely scent-tracing, unhurried. Robin's knees made a case for treason. "Arthur has certainly put it together. Rody is not far behind. You think walking back and sitting on that blanket for another hour is going to be less obvious than this?"
Robin opened his mouth. Closed it.
"Can I touch you?" Victor murmured, his lips barely brushing the hinge of Robin's jaw.
"Victor--" Robin's voice came out embarrassingly unsteady.
"Yes or no, sweet?"
Robin got approximately halfway through the word yes before Victor's mouth found his.
Four years. It had been four years, and it still hit him the same way every time, that complete, focused intensity, as if Victor kissed him the way he did everything else that mattered: with his whole attention and no intention of stopping until he was satisfied. Robin's hand fisted in the front of his shirt and he stopped thinking about the meadow, or the others, or anything at all.
Victor pulled back just enough to look at him, his eyes dark with that primal gleam Robin knew too well, the one loaded with heated possesion.
"Come," he commanded, voice a low growl that vibrated straight to Robin's core, his hand firm on Robin's wrist as he tugged him deeper into the forest.
The trees closed around them, whispering secrets as Victor led him unerringly to a massive boulder, its surface moss-covered and shadowed, shielding them from the world beyond.
Victor pressed him back against the cool stone, his big body caging Robin in, one thigh sliding between Robin's legs to pin him there, right where the ache pulsed hottest.
"Gods, Robin," Victor rasped, his mouth crashing back down, devouring him in a kiss that was all teeth and tongue, claiming every gasp, every whimper.
This wasn't like their usual lovemaking. With Ragnor and their busy schedule, they barely had time to spend together. Sex meant planning. And even through RObin enjoyed every second he spent with Victor, he missed the rush he felt at the start of their relationship. The need to rip each other's clothes, the need to be devoured. And Victor...he was always so careful with Robin. The urgency he had seen in Victor back when he was scared of losing him was gone now. Today, though, Robin felt it again as Victor's hands roamed, rough on his body, yanking at Robin's shirt, shoving it up to bare heated skin to the forest air.
"You smell so good, Sweet. Ripe and ready," Victor said, lowering his head and taking one taut nipple in his mouth, licking and sucking at him. "You've been driving me mad all day, haven't you?Do you have any idea how difficult it was to keep my hands to myself."
Robin arched into him, fingers clawing at Victor's shoulders, the world narrowing to the throb building low in his belly. "Victor—please—"
"Please what?" Victor's teeth scraped down his throat, nipping hard enough to mark, his hips grinding forward in a slow, deliberate roll that dragged a broken moan from Robin's lips. His voice dropped to a guttural purr against Robin's ear, breath hot and ragged. "Another baby. That's what you want, isn't it?"
"Yes...Victor, please."
"Gonna give you everything you want and more."
The words hit like lightning. Robin squirmed as heat pooled low in his belly. Victor's growl turned feral as he scented it, free hand ripping open Robin's fly with savage efficiency. Cool air kissed flushed skin for a heartbeat before Victor's mouth descended.
"That's it," Victor rumbled.
Robin gripped Victor's hair with both his fists, one leg on his shoulder, one on the ground, trying his best to stay still but failing.
What followed was not gentle. It was not slow. But it was Victor , thorough, focused, devastating in the specific way he reserved only for Robin, and Robin had long since stopped pretending he didn't come apart completely under it.
The heat made everything sharper, rawer, the want so acute it bordered on pain, and Victor read every signal of it with the fluency of someone who had made a study of Robin's body and considered it his finest area of expertise. Robin had no defenses left. He hadn't had them, with this man, for a very long time.
He gave Victor everything. Victor took it, and gave back more.
By the time Victor finally turned him, hands sure and unhurried on his hips, Robin was already unraveling, flushed and trembling and past the point of coherent speech, one hand braced against the cool face of the boulder while the forest held its breath around them.
Victor's forehead dropped to the back of his neck.
Victor's explicit words only took Robin closer to the edge.
When he finally moved Robin's vision went white at the edges. Victor's arm came around his waist, anchoring him, keeping him from losing himself entirely to the heat and the want and the overwhelming rightness of it.
"Take me like a good Omega," Victor said against his shoulder.
The forest was very quiet and very far away. There was only this, Victor's voice in his ear, wrecked and certain, saying his name like a prayer and a claim in the same breath. Robin's own voice, broken open, saying things he would be embarrassed about later and meant entirely in the moment. The heat cresting and cresting and finally, when Victor's knot locked them together and they both went still.
Robin sagged against the boulder, legs gone, caught entirely by Victor's arms banding around him.
Victor pressed his lips to the curve of Robin's shoulder. Stayed there.
"Mine," he said softly, and it contained nothing possessive and everything tender. Then, quieter still: "I love you. I can't wait to watch our family grow."
Robin closed his eyes.
The ache in his chest was fuller than the one in his body. He turned his head just enough to find Victor's jaw with his lips.
"I love you too," he said. "Even though you are going to be insufferable about this for the next nine months."
Victor's arms tightened. "Longer than that."
"I know," Robin said. "I know."
The knot held them together in the quiet of the forest, and Robin let himself be completely, unhurriedly held.