I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

A Northern midnight usually felt heavy in a grand, almost comforting way, but tonight, it felt sharp enough to prickle at the skin. Zarius came awake slowly, awareness snagging on discomfort. He couldn’t quite move the way he wanted to. He was cramped. Not the bone-deep, grinding ache of the curse, thank the gods, but a physical restriction nonetheless.

He cracked an eye open. The room was still dark, that early-morning gray that makes every shadow look like a lurking beast. And then he noticed why he felt trapped. Cherion was clinging to his side like glue. Somehow, in the middle of the night, the boy had crossed into Zarius’s space and refused to let go. Fingers curled tight around his arm, cheek pressed against his shoulder, he looked like a little bear cub hanging on for dear life.

It was ridiculous. Totally undignified for a Great Wolf. Yet, Zarius didn’t pull away immediately.

He let his mind wander, as it often did during these quiet hours. They’d chosen Cherion’s room for the transfers of magic, the nightly healing, for a reason. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with his own room.

Then he felt it, the shiver.

Cherion was trembling against him, little shakes running through his body. The air had gone from cold to merciless while they slept. Zarius glanced toward the hearth. Dead. Not a single ember remained to fight back the frost creeping across the windowpanes.

He shifted, about to do something about it, but the kid’s hand clamped onto his arm like it was anchored to him for life.

”Mmm... no,” Cherion mumbled, the words muffled by Zarius’s shoulder. His brow pinched in sleep, a look of profound betrayal crossing his features at the prospect of losing his heat source. ”Don’t go... stay. Nice. Warm...”

Zarius froze. His heart, that stubborn little traitor he’d spent years turning into a weapon, thumped hard anyway. Maybe it was the honesty in Cherion’s voice. In the dark, stripped of his usual wit and sass, the boy was just... cold.

”I am merely reviving the fire,” Zarius whispered, his own voice sounding like gravel being ground under a boot.

It took a careful mix of nudging, coaxing, and muttered curses to get his arm free. He was used to the cold, but Cherion, was another story. He walked toward the hearth, hand reaching for the heavy logs he knew should be waiting.

His fingers met something wet.

Not just a little damp, it was soaking wet. He pulled back, brow furrowing, and picked up a piece of birch. He pulled back, frowning, and grabbed a chunk of birch. It was heavy, waterlogged all the way through. He tried another, and the bark practically slipped off in his fingers, slick and saturated. This wasn’t just a storage mistake.

He stared at the bin. Every single log was useless.

”Your Grace?”

The voice was sleep-shot and scratchy. Cherion was sitting up, the blanket sliding down to his waist, looking like a bewildered bird. His breath puffed in the air, a tiny white cloud of evidence.

”The fire is out,” Zarius said, his voice dropping into that dangerous register he usually reserved for sentencing criminals. ”The wood is drenched. Impossible to light.”

”Oh.” Cherion rubbed a hand over his face, squinting through the dark. ”That again. Right. Hold on.”

Zarius watched, stunned, as the boy swung his legs over the side of the bed, shivering violently as he padded across the room toward a drawer. He moved as if this were a routine he’d perfected over many miserable nights. He pulled out a thick stack of parchment.

Again?

So this wasn’t the first time the fire had died on them?

”Here,” Cherion said, shoving the papers into the cold grate.

”What are you doing?” Zarius barked, reaching out to stop him.

”Relax,” Cherion huffed, though his teeth were literally chattering now. ”It’s fine. Really. They’re just... used. Scribbles. Not the tidy, important ones. I didn’t want to waste the good stuff, you know?”

He struck a flint with a precision born of desperation. A spark caught. Then another. The parchment, dry and brittle, hungrily swallowed the flame. The room flickered into a sudden, dancing orange light.

Zarius watched the paper curl and blacken in the fire. Fragments of handwriting leapt out at him, messy, frantic, packed tight like the writer had been racing against time.

”Cherion...”

Zarius watched, half-amused, as Cherion darted across the room again. Blanket in hand, shivering but determined, he padded back toward the bed like a tiny, frantic general commanding his own troops.

He tossed the bundle onto the mattress, fumbling just enough to make it land in a slightly crooked heap. Without missing a beat, Cherion climbed up, knees sinking into the soft pile, and began spreading the blanket over the bed.

”Go back to bed, Your Grace,” Cherion interrupted, already retreating toward the warmth of the blankets. He looked exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes standing out like bruises in the firelight. ”I’m serious. I’m too tired to argue about logistics. Just come back before I literally turn into ice. Please.”

Zarius stayed frozen for a long moment, the fire warming his shins. His eyes drifted from the bin of ruined, waterlogged logs to the door, weighing the decision he hadn’t yet made.

He thought of Soren.

”Your Grace? Don’t tell me you want to sleep there?” Cherion called out, his voice already fading as he burrowed back under the blanket.

Zarius moved. He climbed back into the bed, and almost instantly, Cherion was there again, gravitating toward him with the instinct of a moth to a flame. His hand found Zarius’s, fingers intertwining without hesitation. The boy’s skin was like ice, sending a jolt through Zarius’s system, but he didn’t recoil. Instead, he reached out, pulling the smaller man closer, tucking the furs tight around them both.

Cherion let out a long, shaky sigh, his breathing evening out within minutes. He was out cold.

Zarius, however, was wide awake.