The peaceful haze of sleep faded away from Yuuri's consciences, so did the sweet memories. He rolled over and stretched out his aching muscles. His bed was little more than a few loosened hay bales pushed together to form a pallet for the young man to sleep on. The ripped sheet he'd rescued from the burn pile and the feather pillow had been a gift from Yuuko and Phichit for his last season mark. The horse blankets were easy enough to borrow from the barn stalls downstairs and return in the mornings before anyone would notice. What had woken him? It was still dark outside. He wasn't required to rise until the dawn peaked. So why-

"YUURI!"

The sound of his stepfather, Georgi's voice had Yuuri whipping off the horse blankets and hurling himself into action. He was injured from the last punishment from his step-father that he had earned, so he had to be as careful as he could with his bad leg. At least it was wrapped properly. Phichit has learned how to do it from his father and had taught Yuuri years ago. Yanking the white muslin undershirt over his head, he nearly lost his balance because he was half running, half hobbling to the other side of the room at the same time so he could grab his belt and trousers. Yuuri heard the barn door open downstairs. He shoved both legs into his pants and plopped his socked feet into his boots.

There! Yuuri mentally celebrated as he snatched his staff from the corner on his way back to the pallet bed. I'm dressed!

"YUURI!" Georgi yelled as he started to climb the stairs to the barn loft where Yuuri lived.

Scrambling over to grab the blankets he'd borrowed, Yuuri folded one neatly and then began to beat the other one with the end of his staff, causing dust to rise in the room. Hopefully, Georgi wouldn't stay long if he was engulfed in the same dust cloud as Yuuri was. Yuuri turned the horse blanket back and forth as if inspecting it as Georgi burst into the small space. I turned to look at him.

"Good morning, Georgi," Yuuri greeted quietly, lowering my eyes to the ground so he wouldn't enforce his will through the bond I'd been subjected to.

"What were you doing?" He squinted his eyes suspiciously. I could feel the dark tendrils of the bond vibrate with his annoyance.

"I wasn't dressed, so I was hurrying to make myself presentable to you," The young man intoned, doing his best not to evoke any wrath from the other man.

Georgi snorted. "Doing chores in the nude, were you? Such a common boy. I hope you weren't thinking of trying to hide anything from me," His tone was only a little menacing.

"No sir," Yuuri didn't think his head could bow any lower without his neck breaking.

If I broke my back bowing to Georgi, he'd probably enjoy it. He thought sourly.

The marriage between Yuuri's father and Georgi had been a business arrangement. To the young man, however, Georgi seemed more like a sulking adolescent who enjoyed power games and cruel ways than a respectable step-father. Part of that was because of the lack of age gap between Georgi and Yuuri. Where Yuuri was almost to his eighteenth winter, Georgi was only ahead of him by six winters. Is maturity wasn't enough to create an age gap so Yuuri had always felt strange that the omega that had birthed him, his birth father, had been replaced by a child. He tried to shake the uncharitable thought away from his head. He wouldn't spend the rest of his days whining about what he couldn't change. There wasn't a point to that. With so few days left remaining, Yuuri wanted to live as pain-free and as happily as he possibly could.

The Death Bond is taking its toll on me after so many years… I'll have to tell Yuuko and Phichit about it when I see them next. I don't want Georgi to be the one to dispose of my body. I at least want freedom in death. I deserve that much. Yuuri mentally planned.

"There's a caravan from the southern outlands going through town. I want you to go immediately and fetch me some coffee beans before the commoners have a chance to buy it all." Georgi instructed. "Be quick, now! Coffee is a rare thing to see and I won't be so uncultured that my table won't have it. I'm sure even the King's table has it."

Yuuri refrained from commenting that the table in the manor was not the King's table, but knew that not only would it make Georgi lash out at him, but it also wouldn't save him from this tiresome errand. "I'll go right away. How much would you like me to buy?"

He stopped inspecting the boy's room with disgust to jerk his head back to Yuuri, looking surprised that Yuuri would even ask. "All of it, of course."

Yuuri clenched his hands at his sides. They were already hurting for money as it is. The taxes to the kingdom were not getting paid, Yuuri had to barter and scrounge for food so he would not be beaten for the lack of it, and yet Georgi and his brothers still spent money they did not possess extravagantly and with no hesitation. They would all be enslaved at this point! "Where can I find the money for your errand?" He asked in a neutral tone.

Georgi unclipped a bag of gold coins from his waist and sniffed uninterestedly as he dropped it on the floor in front of Yuuri. Yuuri made to catch it but failed. Yuuri stared down at the bag with dread. Georgi knew that his recent beating had injured his leg even further than the last time. At this rate, he'd have to his the staff forever. Not like it mattered. Time was running out on Yuuri anyways.

"What are you waiting for?" Georgi smiled. "Pick… it… up!" He annunciated every word.

If he went down to pick it up, he'd hurt himself and take longer to get to the caravan, which would mean that most of the rare goods Georgi wanted would already have been sold to others, which meant that Yuuri would receive yet another punishment when he returned home. He hoped it was nothing more than extra work or restriction food or water. If it was another beating, he'd only receive more punishments for work he wasn't able to do later that week. It was a vicious cycle.

"Did you hear me?" Georgi snapped. "Pick it up!"

Yuuri didn't have the chance to think about a better way to get the bag. Georgi was using his influence through the bond. He forced the young man to his knees. Yuuri bit down on the side of his tongue to keep from screaming at the sharp, hot pain that stabbed through his legs when they made contact with the uneven wooden planks. He tasted blood. He grabbed the coin purse. He was released from Georgi's power at once. Yuuri wished he could hide how erratic his breath was, or the sweat that beaded on his face from the pain and the effort of rising up, but he was incapable of doing so. Rising up was difficult, and took more time than Georgi should have had to watch him. Funny how he suddenly had patience when it came to watching Yuuri struggle or watching him experience pain what was inflicted on him by Georgi himself.

"You've wasted enough time already, get going." He ordered, sweeping out of the room, his deep violet shoulder cape stirring the air as he moved.

Yuuri clutched at his staff for support before he had to start moving. He threw one of the horse blankets down from the loft and then began the painful trip down the stairs. It was slow and agonizing, but he managed to make it by scooting down on his rear one stair at a time. Saddling the horse and strapping his staff to it also took more time than he would have liked, but once he was on, he was picking up the pace quite a bit.

"Good morning, Emil," Yuuri forced a smile as he passed. Out of everyone, Emil was the easiest person to take care of and certainly the most mild-mannered of the three of them. He was a beta, which meant that Yuuri's omega side wouldn't influence him in the least which made him safer than either of his brother's Georgi and Jean Jaque who were both alphas.

"Good morning, Yuuri! Where are you off to?" The light haired man asked pleasantly.

Yuuri paused in his trek towards the driveway. "In search of a lot of foreign coffee," He stifled a sigh.

Emil shook his head and laughed. "He's rather demanding, isn't he? Georgi lives in his moon cycle." Emil turned back to the small mirror next to the washing well where he was shaving and winked at his reflection, smiling.

This was something about Emil that Yuuri could handle. His egotistical overconfidence didn't bother him as much as Jean's taunts or Georgi's cruelty did. So the fact that Emil liked to make eyes to himself in the mirror didn't bother Yuuri one little bit. Georgi's moon cycle, however, did. Unmated alphas often went through periods of time a few times a year where they experienced periods of depression. It came from their desire to care for someone special. Without a mate to satisfy their nature as alphas, they would have to deal with the sadness. Yuuri felt a little guilty about it, but Georgi was much more likable while he was going through his moon cycles because he didn't have enough energy to punish Yuuri and he had enough apathy to everything around him that he would hardly care about being cruel to his late husband's son.

"Would you look at that?" Jean's husky voice drew me from my reveries. "The useless beta and the weak omega are getting chummy," He smirked, blue eyes twinkling with mirth.

Unfazed, Emil grinned. "Glad to see your inferiority complex is alive and well today,"

"As ignorant as ever, beta." Jean retorted.

Yuuri was not in the mood to handle Jean right now. Seeing as they were both distracted by verbal sparring with each other, he clicked softly and nudged the horse with his heels. He urged the small farm horse faster than he would have normally because he wanted to make up for lost time. He made it into the city and located the caravan in a little less than an hour. Yuuri was sore. The constant jostling had caused pain to shoot up his leg with every step. Pain was exhausting. He wanted to rest even though he'd just begun the day. The sky was bright by the time he had reached where the caravan was settled. It wasn't open yet, so he'd have to be patient. He sat down on a nearby crate and took the time to rest his legs.

Georgi had not always been the cruel alpha he was now. The gods had made a mistake and made him an alpha, and not an omega. He used to be quite a pleasant person to be around with the charming, quiet air of an omega, but the charisma of an alpha. Now he was bitter and hostile, but more than that, Yuuri knew a wounded animal when he saw one, and Georgi was definitely wounded. Back when Yuuri had been just twelve winters and Georgi eighteen, he'd been a hopeless romantic. Almost as soon as Georgi had come into the house, he and Yuuri had become each other's favorites out of everyone. They had talked about the prince that Yuuri was sure he would meet one day, and Georgi talked about his desire for Yuuri's father to be his prince. They'd told each other stories to keep the loneliness away, and kept each other's company often. Yuuri's father as often out of the country on business, leaving his family behind.

Georgi desperately wanted Yuuri's father to return his affection. But he was still in love with the one that gave his son life, and he loved Yuuri more than anyone else. Yuuri knew immediately when Georgi realized that his father couldn't love him. He'd gone through a moon cycle. Mated couples didn't go through moon cycles. Of course, no one but Yuuri was paying enough attention to Georgi to know what was going on. He went through stages. Depressed turned into sad acceptance, and sad acceptance turned to anger and hatred, and that morphed into self-pity and bitterness. The Georgi that Yuuri knew no longer existed. They didn't talk or tell stories or stay up late reading books together in the library. That age was over, and a new one, a dark one had begun.

Yuuri was snapped out of his thoughts when the caravan began to bustle. The window opened on the wagons, and people came out of them to set up their shops for the day. He queried a lady selling fabrics on where he might locate the coffee vendor, and followed her simple directions to find it. Each bag was two gold pieces. The price was high, and Yuuri was hesitant to spend all the money in the coin purse on coffee. In the end, the bad only ended up having enough for five bags of it, which was extravagant enough. But he still had to barter to see if he could get more for what he had or else Georgi would go off the walls.

Six bags is better than five, I suppose, Yuuri decided after having haggled with the vendor for a good twenty minutes. Now how should I get this volume of coffee back?

He hadn't expected so much. A yell had his head jerking up from where Yuuri was studying the bags. A carriage was out of control! It came flying through the market, crashing through stalls and causing costumers and shopkeepers alike to scatter and do their best to avoid being run over. Yuuri watched in horror as an elderly man ten feet to his left attempted to get out of the way. Dropping his staff, he used all the power he had in his legs to laugh himself from where he stood. He shoved the man out of the way just in time. They began to fall, but Yuuri was clipped by the wagon and was sent flying. He hit the dirt. All the air rushed out of him with the impact that caused him to roll over twice before he stilled, laying half on his side, have on his back.

Yuuri couldn't tell what hurt more, to be honest. His legs, his ribs, or his head. But then again, the rest of him felt horrible too so who really knew? The man who he had just shoved appeared in his line of vision. Interestingly enough, so did Phichit and Yuuko. Was he hallucinating?

"Yuuri! Are you okay?" Phichit sounded frantic even through Yuuri's ringing ears.

He tried to sit up but couldn't seem to move. "I'm well," Yuuri assured them, lying outright. He was definitely dying. "Sir, are you okay?" He wanted to be sure.

"Why are you asking me that?" He grumbled. "You're not well at all!"

"He's right Yuuri," Phichit agreed.

"You need to have Phichit's dad take a look at you!" Yuuko held her fisted hands in front of her, looking worried.

Yuuri shook his head. He didn't have the money for that sort of thing and wasn't about to impose on their kindness any more than he already had over the years.

Thankfully the old man spoke up so Yuuri didn't have to. "There's no need for that, I think." He rumbled.

Yuuri nodded, shooting the man a grateful look and trying to sit up. "You see, I'm well-"

"He'll just have to take this healing potion instead." He cut Yuuri off and suddenly brought the lip of the slim bottle to the young man's lips.

Yuuri was so surprised he didn't even have time to object before the liquid was pouring down his throat. He gasped after he swallowed the mouthful, wide-eyed. "Sir, you're too hasty, how can I possibly repay for such a gift?" He breathed out, trying not to hyperventilate.

Potions were rare. Potions that worked, even rarer. Magic was not accessible to just anyone. Not even royals inherently had the ability to harness the powers of the earth. The individuals were far an few between. Yuuri's father, who had traveled all over the world in search of one had never even met one. Which meant that the potion that he had just consumed was priceless.

"Don't be silly, boy!" He growled. "You saved my life, a life is as priceless as a potion is." Yuuri could feel his body beginning to mend. He felt the pull of sleep wash over him. The man was still talking. "Don't worry, boy, sleep is normal. When you wake up in a few hours, you'll be healed."

A few hours? The healing potion will have been wasted if I'm not back to deliver Georgi his coffee!

But it was no use. Yuuri was lost to the world.

I hope you enjoyed the update! Full disclosure, this is going to end up being more than fourteen chapters. I had to end this one half way through the original version so it was a more consumable chunk of content for you guys. Live and learn, I guess!

Don't forget to bookmark it if you want to see more and write a review to give me more motivation to pop these out faster! Kudos are also appreciated. Have a lovely day!