[ACROD]
"My beautiful butterfly is gone, Delbert," Grant mourned and for a moment, Delbert looked at the man like he had gone insane.
What Grant had done was never going to be forgivable; not in this lifetime and certainly not in the next one. So, whatever he was playing at, he needed to put an end to it because Delbert didn't have the patience for this, in all honesty.
"You need to go to bed. It is getting late and you look like shit. I'm not even sure if you're pretending anymore. Get up and let's get out of here before the royals come looking for us," Delbert said to Grant who chuckled sadly and softly.
He sounded like he had never been to the side of life and that it was probably a reality.
"I must really be good at faking, huh?" Grant said.
Delbert looked at him confused as to what that was supposed to even mean right now. He wasn't in the mood for whatever tantrum Grant wanted to throw right now and they needed to be out of this apple as fast as possible either way.
"He never tried to fight back, y'know? He just let it happen. Let me be cruel to him. He didn't try to stop me from hurting him, from making him feel like shit. He was always there like a carpet for me to walk on. Like a floor mat that didn't need to be cleaned.
"He would always just wait for me, and lay there, like he knew what I wanted. He let me ruin him, even when I wanted him to fight back, to tell me that he was not the omega he was parading himself as," Grant said.
Delbert paled.
This was not something that anyone should have known and most certainly not Grant himself.
It was like something that had happened to the man and he was having some sort of epiphany and shit but then what the fuck was he supposed to do now that it was all out there in the open?
Life was not exactly the kindest to him and his mate and yet he had made sure to hurt Nour in every way. He should have been considerate and yet he had left him there, to suffer at his very hands.
It was almost as if there was nothing that could happen to him. But then what the fuck was Grant on?
"You wanted an omega to fight you? A werewolf enforcer?" Delbert asked, confused as he got Grant up and walked him to the chambers that the king had given them.
It felt like this was a test but at the same time, it was a reality that there was never going to be a sense of normalcy in the kingdom again. The King's son had been hurt and he wanted blood.
If he had to make Grant suffer while Delbert also did the same, then he would.
"Naah… he wasn't an omega. I now know that for certain. My butterfly was never an omega. He was just pretending to be one. I don't know if he was even a real wolf, but one thing I was certain of was that he was never an omega.
"And that pissed me off even more. There was a time I came home, drunk off my ass and I caught a whiff of another scent in our chambers; rich lavender. It was the most beautiful scent I had ever smelled;
"... and it was coming from Nour, who was sleeping on the bed, laid out for me to use like always. I sniffed him because it was new, and that's when I saw the scent patches. The omega patches on his neck, and the sweat he had wiped off of him.
"He smelled different. He was never an omega, I'm telling you," Grant said as he kicked his boots off and plopped on the bed.
He looked so broken, and desperate. He looked like he had so many things that had built up in his chest and he wanted to release them, though he had no one who would truly listen to him.
Then again, could they be blamed?
He was the most powerful man after the king in Acrod and people were bound to be weary of him.
Perhaps that was why he was so frustrated that he had tried to come to the palace, because at least at the palace there was movement even when he was asleep.
Here, he would be able to listen to the warriors walk and their boots hitting the ground each time, he wouldn't be alone with his thoughts anymore. He wouldn't have to be in so much pain as he was right now.
The sincerity reeling off of him was off-putting for Delbert, but he had to remind himself that he was here as a junior warrior who was training under Grant. It is only that for him, right?
Well, perhaps the murderer bit was also something to be paid attention to because Delbert's temper was just out of the world at the moment.
He could easily crush Grant into powder and no one would even know it was him because he would erase all traces with just a single cleansing spell. He was a Merdel twin after all.
But at the same time, he had to hear what it was that was eating up Grant.
"Maybe I was just drunk, but when I got scent suppressant pills under his side of the bed, with marked-up days of how long we had been together, I knew he was someone else. So I pushed him harder.
"I tried to press every possible button on him. And he never fought back, ever. He just acted like he was the most understanding omega. Now that I think about it, he could have easily kicked my ass.
"His scent had been muskier than the warriors I fought with, and I have fought with people who are worse than me. If I were to make a comparison, I'd say he smelled like Alanor would have smelled if he was a royal or something," Grant rambled off.
Delbert listened.
He wasn't sure what the fuck Grant was expecting him to say now that shit was already here like this. It was crazy, how this man was opening up about probably the most well-kept secret in all of Acrod.
Then again, a part of Delbert was trying to tell him that Grant wasn't a royal enforcer for nothing. The man was trusted by a king to run the kingdom, of course, he had to be the best of the best.
But even that didn't explain the adamance the warrior had put up with hurting his mate. He could have been a better person but then what he had done was never going to be forgivable.
"That's impossible. Nour was an omega. I saw him with the other omegas. He was the most hated omega and he even had a best friend… Anhora. I met him a few times when I went to watch the omegas," Delbert said as he sat on the couch next to Grant's bed.
He couldn't even think of sharing a bed with this wuss right now, because that would simply end up with Grant dead, dead and dead. And honestly, it was a little too tedious to explain to Nour later. So, he would just have to let this go.
"The omegas hated him… because he was a fake," Grant laughed humorlessly.