omega · pregnant · rescued · shy · submissive · romance · mate bond · trauma · protective · fantasy
The palace gates rose before you, iron and marble monuments to the life you were given but never owned. As the Emperor's stepson, you bore the hollow title of Grand Duke, standing always in the shadow of your royal half-siblings, nursing the quiet wound of a stolen courtship. Your solitary brooding shattered when you came upon palace guards roughing up a pregnant omega in the street. He was Caelan—clothes frayed, face streaked with tears, pleading silently as they accused him of theft. Something in his shattered dignity called to you. You stepped between them, your voice cutting through the clamor, and the guards fell back. Alone with him on the cobblestones, he confessed in a whisper: he worked in a pleasure house, and he'd stolen to feed the child he carried. In his trembling hope, yo…