Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’ll do it.” Your voice is unwavering and sharp as the steel blade pressed against the tender flesh of your abdomen. The wind catches your hair, fanning it through its fingers before soaring off into the canyon stretching behind you.

One of the agents turns their head away from the barrel of their gun. Sunlight reflects off the black visor over their eyes. The dark cloth mask obscuring their lower face and head moves slightly with their words. “She’s bluffing,” they say to their partner, whose weapon is still fixed on you.

You scoot your heels back an inch until they’re met with nothing but air, solid ground falling away into the steep edge of the canyon wall. Small rocks break off and tumble to the ground far below with a pitter patter. You dig the knife harder into your abdomen and feel its bite through the thin fabric of your shirt. “I will.”

“She might,” the other agent concedes, not taking their eyes off you. 

There’s a blur of black motion as the first agent reaches for the taser strapped to their belt. But you’re faster. Pain sears across your stomach as you slice through your shirt and the first layer of your skin, just enough to draw blood that smears bright and shining over the blade, the color of rubies in the afternoon light. “Try me,” you snarl, bearing your weight down until a significant piece of the canyon wall collapses in a flurry of red dust. Both agents twitch forward but reel themselves in. The agent’s hand falls away from their taser and readjusts to their gun.

Your heart skitters like a jackrabbit’s in your chest, pumping more adrenaline than blood. The copper scent of your own blood makes you lightheaded but the prospect of imminent death pulls you back to reality, the chain of mortality heavy around your shoulders.

Unfortunately for the Omega Protection Administration agents, you aren’t bluffing. You’ve spent long nights sleeping under the stars and cover of brush and brambles coming to terms with the reality that death is one of your few trump cards, and when you’re dealt a bad hand at life you may eventually need to play it. Besides, the old you is already dead--the hunter, the girl who fought Wanderers and was a stitch in the fabric that protected Linkon. That version of you died the moment you received your updated secondary gender designation. 

The second agent speaks lowly into their earpiece, too quiet to hear over the intermittent roar of the wind. Its bite is bitter. A harsh shiver racks through you, rattling your bones and playing over your spine. You clench your teeth to keep them from chattering.

They’re calling for backup, you’re sure. It sets you on edge. You already know that somewhere out of sight is a sniper with their sight trained on you, waiting for you to step away from the canyon’s drop and present an opportunity to dart you. If they were to do it now, you’d fall over the edge once the cocktail of sedatives and dissociative anesthetics took effect.

In short, there’s no escape. You either bargain your way out of this situation or you die. Capture is not an option.

Far off in the distance you hear the rumble of a helicopter. It’s nothing more than a black speck in the clear blue sky folding over the expansive forest in front of you, like a beetle hovering lazily in the air. The thundering of its propellers grows closer with every moment, though. You ease another fraction of your weight toward the steep drop. Sweat rolls down your forehead and drips into the loose collar of your shirt.

Suddenly, another agent steps out of the treeline, the white and orange insignia on their uniform standing out against the shadows they emerge from. Fear bursts through you like fireworks gone off in your chest and without thinking, you jab the knife hard against yourself, sinking it another half an inch into your skin. A pitiful whine claws its way out of your throat but the wind swallows it and spits it out across the open canyon where no one but the vultures can hear it. All three agents tighten their grip on their weapons, but the third one doesn’t raise theirs. They just stand there, posture too casual to be anything but intentional, and stare at you through their featureless visor.

“You don’t have to do this,” they speak. A woman’s voice. You hardly hear her through the pounding of blood in your ears. Streams of red run from your open wound, winding around your wrist and dripping to the dirt below. Through the fog of hunger and blood loss, white hot fury sinks its claws into you.

“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so fucking determined to chase me to the ends of the earth,” you seethe. “And if I have to choose between the end of the earth and you, I’d rather make the leap. Fuck you and fuck the Administration. I hope you rot in hell.”

You don’t consciously make the decision. It comes naturally, like sunrise, like the translucent arc of the rainbow after a storm, the inevitable break in the darkness.

You are going to jump. You will take your life on what little terms you are given, and you will enjoy the view on the way down.

You’re about to tip off the last inch of canyon wall when the wind shifts, carrying a new scent, and your body locks up.

Sweet and crisp around the edges, like the aromatic flesh of a freshly sliced apple. And underneath it, hints of warmth and sycamore, comforting as stepping from the bitter cold into a cabin lit with the glow of a fire in the hearth. 

Memories hit you like a round of bullets, one after the other, sharp and short and impossibly fleeting, shattering the moment you reach for them. They flip like a picturebook in your mind, a sprawl of nostalgia and, more than anything else, want. The kind of deep, aching desire that grows in your marrow and lives in your soul.

Distantly, you register the helicopter is close enough to make out the tiny figures moving inside, hovering over top of the trees.

Then Caleb steps out of the shadowed treeline. You can’t see him--not really, not through the starched uniform and hat tilted over his eyes. But you can smell him.

The knife drops from your limp hand, landing in the ochre dirt with a soft thud, the blade coated in your blood. Caleb raises one gloved hand and pulls his uniform cap off. You meet his eyes, violet and storm grey that fades to a dim, slatish orange. The color of creeping dusk after a storm. You know this because you’ve looked into them since before you had the words to describe them.

“Pipsqueak,” he murmurs, and you’re not sure if you heard it or if the word is so ingrained that you can conjure it in your mind effortlessly. His voice is deep and soft, like a bed made with as many blankets and pillows as you could want, totally at odds with the clean cut of his uniform and the numerous pins and chains shining on his lapel that denote his rank. 

The three agents shuffle backward, shrinking into the darkness. You open your mouth to say something but all that comes out is a torn cry weighed down by the kind of sorrow brought on by finding something you thought you’d lost forever.

Caleb extends his hand, fingers stretched toward you. An offering. A temptation. “Come on, Pip. What are you doin’ all the way over there? I missed you ya’ know.”

His scent hits you stronger with the next breeze. He smells like home, like childhood, like early mornings spent bantering from the kitchen table while he stands over the stove wielding a spatula like an extension of himself. In his offered hand you see reflections of the past, images of the same palm reaching for you when you fell off your bike, when you slipped on the new grass in the soccer field, when you collapsed crying at the edge of your bed.

You step forward. Away from the canyon wall. Away from the choice you were forced to take and toward the one you never knew you had.

The hiss of air. A stinging pain shoots down your left arm. You yelp, turning to see a glass dart stuck into your shoulder, the plunger depressed. There is a brief wave of overwhelming panic before it’s broken by a dizzying euphoria. The world splinters like a broken mirror, every jagged line blurring. Your consciousness is peeled from your body like the skin off an orange, pulling until it detaches and your limbs go limp and you start to topple like a house of cards with its base blown out. Caleb’s evol catches your body before it impacts the ground, carrying you carefully away from the canyon’s precipice. The last thing you see before losing all sense of the world around you is your body being deposited into his awaiting arms, and the three agents converging on you, bandages and antiseptic already in hand.

- - - - -

Caleb has stationed himself beside your hospital bed. He stares down at you, your frail form drowning in the white gown like a ghost growing into its skin. Your skin stretches taught over your bones like its made of paper mache. Your lips are thin and white, the fat around your eyes depleted and sunken. A feeding tube runs into your nose and two IV lines are connected to your lower arm. Monitors beep and buzz in the background, steady. Your heart rate sits at forty-two beats per minute. Too low.

Caleb swallows down the anxiety and the urge to cradle you in his arms. Instead, he rests a hand atop yours, so much smaller and weaker. The veins along your wrist are prominent.

“Colonel,” a nurse greets curtly as she steps through the doorway, clipboard in hand. Without sparing him a glance she wheels over a monitor and begins clicking away, checking test results and vitals.

“How is her heart?” he asks after a minute of silence, eyes locked onto the shallow rise and fall of your chest.

“Stressed but stable. Her bpm will rise as the sedative exits her system, though in her condition I don’t expect it to be any higher than fifty.”

His jaw tenses. Even in medicated sleep you don’t appear peaceful. Scrapes and scratches litter your arms and collarbone, small scars that will fade with time unlike the one on your abdomen. Finally, he says, “Give me the full report.”

The nurse turns away from her work to stare at him. He can see the conflict behind her eyes, the hesitance to reveal anything. But her opinion doesn’t matter. His rank grants him access to all patient information.

She releases a tense breath, dropping her gaze. “She is in poor condition. Severely underweight and malnourished, and her platelet count is low. She’s on an infusion and IV nutrition. Right now we’re focused on keeping her stable.”

Caleb narrows his eyes in thought, taking a deep inhale. Antiseptic. Isopropyl alcohol. The neutral metallic odor of scent blockers from the nurse.

“Why can’t I smell her pheromones?” It’s something he noticed the instant you were in his arms. No scent at all. Yours was always faint up until your redesignation from beta to omega, but never absent. It’s like a piece of you is missing. Your body is here, but it’s only the shell--your presence isn’t filling it out.

“She’s not producing any. When the body is malnourished to a point, reproductive and pheromonal functions shut down. Energy is redirected toward vital organs.”

His heart cracks right down the middle, bleeding guilt and grief into the ridges of his ribs. It pools in his stomach, where it churns into a peculiar anger that isn’t directed toward anything but his inability to protect you. To keep this from happening. If only he had seen the signs, noticed you withdrawing, checked for the suitcase under your bed. But he hadn’t.

He’ll never make the same mistake again.

Instead of voicing his anger, he chuckles. It’s hollow and void of any humor. His eyes flash dark and silver, like lightning through a storm. “She’s a smart woman.”

Wisely, the nurse doesn’t respond to that comment. “Looking ahead at treatment, we’re going to increase her body fat and put her on supplemental hormones and pheromones. It’s not clear yet what damage the lack of the last two have done on her body; she likely has osteoporosis and pheromone sensitivity.”

Caleb is familiar enough with pheromone reintroduction from basic training and patient interactions in the past. A muscle in his jaw ticks and his hand tightens around yours. “You’re using donor pheromones?”

It’s a loaded question and they both know it. It sits in the air between them, heavy and significant in the fluorescent lighting like the gun holstered at his upper thigh. The nurse presses closer to the monitor as if the fluctuating lines and numbers will protect her.

“It’s standard procedure,” she answers, eyes on the floor. If she didn’t have blockers on right now, Caleb is sure the stench of her fear would be permeating the room. He stands like a specter dressed in dark regalia over your bed, eyes gleaming sharp as the pendants pinned to his uniform. His gaze is a knife that slices through any resistance. She shudders. “You can speak to the doctor about which donor to use, or if you would like to…add a candidate that wouldn’t have otherwise been considered.”

He grins, all teeth and no warmth.

- - - - -

You feel your body first. In the expansive, endless darkness, you feel the beat of your pulse in your fingertips, the bottom of your feet. You feel the fullness of your chest on an inhale. Your tongue on the back of your teeth. The faint tingling of your lips.

Then you hear. Beeping, buzzing, the hum of electronics and panel lighting. The rustle of scratchy sheets as your fingers trace along them, the sensation ringing and painful in your brain after however long floating in the void.

Memory is the last to arrive, emerging gradually like a ship from the fog. Spotting the glint of an agent’s visor through the trees. Running, branches whipping past you and catching on your clothes like grasping hands. The canyon edge. The knife.

Caleb.

You open your eyes.

The lights are dimmed just enough to shroud the corners of the room in shadow. In front of you is a window with the blinds closed, moonlight seeping through the slats and creeping across the floor until its cut through by the glow of a monitor. A couple of IV bags are hooked up to lines that connect to your arm. You wiggle your toes and watch the sheets move with the motion.

It’s when you turn your head, neck protesting like a stiff hinge, that you notice the tube in your nose. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels all sorts of wrong, like somebody is reaching down your throat and pressing on the inside of your chest. Your heart jumps in pace and you try to pull the tube out but your arms feel like they’re filled with concrete. The tendons in your neck strain as you tense every muscle in your face to push out the invading tube to no avail. Your breath comes faster, rushing in and out of your lungs like its being stolen.

Terror crashes through you like thunder in your bones, seizing your thoughts and tearing through them with vicious ferocity. They fall away like wet paper and you’re scrambling for reason, trying to grasp the magnitude of your situation but it’s all too much and too fast-

Your brain slams into a wall, its contents spilling out like confetti from a pinata. Your eyes roll back and slide to the left, where a nurse is withdrawing a syringe from your arm. She smiles at you but its empty of anything but obligatory courtesy. 

“I see you’re awake,” she says, discarding the needle in a bright red sharps container. She reads the question in your eyes. “That was a light sedative and muscle relaxant. We don’t want you putting too much strain on your heart, and panic isn’t good for your recovery.”

If you could, you would bite her and bleed the venom rising on your tongue into her veins. Right in the tender flesh of her arm.

Instead, you open your mouth. At first all that comes out is a dry croak, like a burst of static from an old radio. You swallow what little saliva you have and it slides wet and wrong down your throat. “Where am I?” Your words are rough and hoarse. They sound like ashes blowing out of your mouth, like your body is flaking away as you speak.

“In custody of the Omega Protection Administration,” she answers simply while changing out one of the IV bags.

Your heart plummets into your stomach.

You should say something defensive with a hateful edge, something that you can look back on later and think ‘See, I didn’t give up’, but instead you ask: “Where’s Caleb?” The question is drawn out of you as if by invisible threads, an incorporeal lure that you can’t resist.

The nurse pauses whatever she’s doing at the monitor. “The Colonel is out on business.”

You want to ask more questions, to demand to see him because even if he’s your enemy by proxy of his job, he is the only familiar face in the Administration. But the muscle relaxant is taking full effect and your tongue feels like its moving through molasses, your jaw sluggish and unwieldy. The nurse doesn’t pay any attention to you, unconcerned with keeping up her pleasant demeanor once you’re too impaired to cause problems.

Eventually, even keeping your eyes open is too much effort. You let yourself sink into the weightlessness tugging at your mind, consciousness giving out beneath you like that crumbling canyon ledge.

- - - - -

Waking up feels like lifting yourself out of an old basement, covered in ephemeral threads of dream that cling like spiderwebs to your skin. It’s a slow, laborious process, so much so that you almost give up. But the weight of a hand atop yours keeps you going, like a magnet drawing you up and out of the void.

You groan and open your bleary eyes, coming into your own limbs like a newborn foal.

There is light, too bright, like the sun has been hooked in and deposited right in front of your nose. And then there is shadow eclipsing it. Dark hair, pale skin, the soft outline of lips, eyes the color of a galaxy. It’s all too blurry to make out sharp features, but you know who it is regardless. You’ve watched him your entire life; it’s easier to recognize him than it is yourself these days.

“Caleb?”

He releases a sigh of relief almost too quiet to hear over the steady beep of your heart monitor. White peeks through the pink of his lips, out of focus as they are. He’s smiling.

“Pipsqueak.” He says it like it’s a prayer, like he’s thanking you for descending from the heavens to be in front of him right now--and not like you’re immobilized in an Administration hospital.

And it’s his voice that breaks you. Shatters the facade of practiced composure you’ve kept up for the last two years, snips all the threads you’ve stitched to keep yourself whole, unwinds you like a spool of thread tossed down a long hall. Your face scrunches into something ugly and you let out a wet cry, tears shining in the corners of your eyes.

He shushes you tenderly and presses the hand not holding yours to your cheek, large and warm and capable of holding all the things you can’t. “Hey now, Pipsqueak, there’s no reason to cry, huh? I’m right here. You’re safe.”

“I want to go home,” you whimper, wishing you could nuzzle into his palm if only your muscles would listen to your brain.

He’s quick to assure you, to assuage your concerns, folding as easily as he has since you were children. “We can--we will. Just as soon as you get your strength back. Then we can go home to Skyhaven and I can cook you all your favorites and we can make you a proper nest. How does that sound, huh Pipsqueak?”

Skyhaven. Nest. The words hit you hard and cold in the chest, like a gunshot.

Right. You’re not children anymore. You’re not in this hospital because you fell off your bike and broke your arm. You’re here because you’ve become a commodity that’s too valuable to lose.

But you can’t wipe your tears away so they just keep falling, and like he can read your mind, Caleb does it for you. He’s always done everything for you--everything but let you leave. You are his sun and he is caught forever in your orbit, pulling closer with every turn.

You can’t accept defeat so easily though, not yet. If nothing else, perhaps you can at least squeeze some information out of him. Holding onto it will be the hard part; already your brain is slipping and sliding like wet spaghetti inside your skull.

“What’s gonna happen to me?” you ask, and it’s not at all hard to garner pity in your state.

“The nurse didn’t tell you?”

You go to shake your head but can’t. “No.”

There is only a second of silence between his question and his answer, but in that span of time you know he’s furious by the subtle shift of his breath. He keeps it hidden, though. He never liked showing his anger in front of you--told you he didn’t want you mistaking yourself as the source.

“We’re going to help you recover. Nutrition tailored to your needs, supplemental hormones and pheromones, regular pampering. Nothing bad is gonna happen, Pips. I’ll keep you safe as a saint.”

Liar. That is very, very bad news.

Since the day you ran away, every move you’ve made has been calculated. The strategy you once poured into fighting Wanderers was siphoned into disguising your omega designation. You left Linkon and anyone who might have recognized you. For the first few weeks, you wore clothes of Zayne and Xavier’s that had been forgotten in your apartment over time to hide your burgeoning pheromones. People you sat next to on trains and in diners assumed you were a well-loved beta smothered in your alpha partner’s scent. You reduced your food intake to what was only necessary for survival, shedding weight as quickly as possible and shutting your body down in the process. First your period stopped, and soon after your scent glands shrunk from inflamed red splotches on your inner wrists, thighs, and neck to smooth skin as they stopped producing pheromones. From then on it was easier to exist in public; there were missing person reports for you, but your appearance changed so drastically in the span of several months that the residents of the removed towns you passed through didn’t make the connection.

But the Omega Protection Administration would not rest. They gained access to your bank account and social profiles, interviewed your friends, sent teams and dogs and planes and pursued you everywhere you went. You hoped they would forget about you, assume you were dead and move on.

And they might have, if not for Caleb.

Caleb, who knew better. Who knew you were a hunter in the most exclusive team in Linkon, and who, beyond knowing that you had all the skills to survive isolated from society, trusted that you wouldn’t leave it behind. Not entirely. You had your suspicions that the OPA’s tactics of fanning like a ripple from Linkon through towns to flush you out was his idea, and the day of your capture confirmed them.

You had reduced your body and psyche to their barest minimums for two years of precarious freedom. And now the OPA had rendered it all for nothing, smashed it against the ground to watch it shatter. And Caleb has the audacity to think this isn’t bad. That the lifelong imprisonment looming before you is no more notable than a nine to five.

“No.”

It’s the only thing you can think to say, and you say it with all the weight of your burning hatred for what you have become and what you are expected to be.

The silent moment of Caleb’s fury spikes again, there and gone in a flash. His hand tightens around yours, callouses rough against your skin.

“This isn’t a choice, Pips.”

“Oh, so omegas aren’t even allowed to make choices now?” you spit.

“No,” his voice drops like a predator crouching before the pounce, “You’re not allowed to make choices, not after what you’ve done to yourself. You almost killed yourself.”

“And I would have gone through with it.”

The hand on your face grabs your chin and forces your limp head in his direction and he leans close enough that your eyes can focus on his expression. His gaze is dark and crackling with livid determination.

“Never.” His breath is warm on your face. It smells faintly minty. “Not on my watch.”

“And you’re always watching?” You say it with a wry smile. You’re an expert in defusing the bomb that is Caleb. You’ve danced to this tune for years, push and pull, tease and soothe, over and over until the rhythm was written in your bones.

He lets go of you. Settles back like a sated animal. “Of course. I’ll never let you out of my sight, Pips. What if you try to poke me from behind? I can’t leave myself open for sneak attacks.” The joviality in his voice is back like it never left.

You mumble a noise of assent, exhaustion creeping over you like a cool tide. This isn’t a nightmare you can wake up from, but it is a reality you can escape in sleep. Caleb rubs circles into the back of your hand with his thumb, the pattern a lullaby in your skin.

One more question, though. Then you’ll let yourself flee to the gaping chasm of sleep.

“The supplemental pheromones,” your voice is no more than a whisper.

Caleb makes a questioning noise. Your eyes are closed but you hear his clothes rustle as he leans forward to hear you.

“Whose are they?”

His thumb stills.

“Pips,” you hear the smile behind his voice. “That’s classified information. All donors are vetted and anonymous. They’ll pick the best one for you, I promise.”

You don’t respond. As much as you want to, you can’t trust him. Caleb has gone through hell and high water to find you, there’s no chance he wouldn’t dig into who your donor is. His hands, strong and capable, are in every pot. They pull all the strings. He can find out confidential information with a single tug.

Sleep drags you under.

- - - - -

You drift in and out of wakefulness for a period of time. Maybe hours, maybe days. You find yourself unexpectedly awake, as if only passing through reality in a maze of dream, eyes closed and breathing the cadence of slumber. You hear things: the monitors, the nurse, muffled voices outside the room. Sometimes you feel things, too: your feeding tube, the cold clinical air, Caleb’s presence beside you. And then you continue down the path and the waking world surrenders to the darkness.

It is at some point in this sedated spell that you are administered your first dose of supplemental estrogen, in the form of a tiny pink pill, and pheromones. Four patches: two for the glands on your wrists and two for the base of your neck. They burn and itch and kick your body into a fever. They’re removed and replaced with ones that hurt less.

After that is when the scents start.

It’s like clicking the last piece of a puzzle into place, sealing a hole in your body. You wake up to the smell of summer tickling your nose: orange blossom, plum, vanilla, sandalwood. It’s constant and light. You can’t place where you recognize this from. It takes too long to realize that you’re smelling yourself. Your omega pheromones which had laid dormant for over a year. After presenting, most people’s bodies learn to ignore their own pheromones. An extended absence makes them noticeable again.

The progress you’ve made at repressing your omega nature is reversing before your eyes.

You don’t smell anything other than yourself and the neutral sterility of the hospital, until you wake up with Caleb slumped against your bed, head cradled in his elbows as he sleeps. You suspect he spends every free moment he has here with you.

This time he’s in civilian clothes, a gray hoodie and black sweatpants. His hair sticks up in funny directions like he’s been running his hands through it, but despite his disheveled appearance, he breathes peacefully. 

And the whole room smells like him.

Sweet and warm, refreshing and pleasant. Everybody always liked Caleb’s pheromones; unlike a lot of alphas, his isn’t deep and overpowering. It doesn’t dominate the room or make you feel like you’re thirty feet underwater. It’s attractive, like honey to a beehive. Of course, an individual’s pheromones don’t reflect their physical or mental attributes--that’s a common misconception. Since becoming colonel, you have seen acts of cruelty performed at Caleb’s hands that defy assumptions made on his scent.

But he smells like your childhood. Like home, like your old clothes, like sitting together on a bench sharing two different flavors of ice cream. He presented as an alpha a few years before leaving for the OPA academy, which was plenty of time for his scent to become foundational in your life. As a beta you were unaffected by his pheromones but they still represented safety and companionship.

As an omega, with heightened pheromone receptors, he is everywhere. The space around you, inside you, beyond you. It feels like he’s reached into your chest and laid his hand over your heart to feel it beat. Every breath is suffused in him, dripping syrupy sweet in your lungs.

“Caleb,” you groan, shoving him in the shoulder--oh, you can move now. That’s new.

He grumbles something incoherent and lifts his face enough to peek at you over his arms. His expression is clouded with sleep and he shoots you a lazy smile. “Oh, is sleeping beauty finally awake?”

You scoff. “Speak for yourself.”

“I wasn’t sleeping, I was just resting my eyes,” he claims with a teasing lilt.

You’re able to angle your head to look at him properly, though your neck protests with a deep seated ache. “You smell.”

“Huh?” He sniffs under one of his arms and frowns. “You’re teasing me. I smell just fine.”

“No,” you huff, a little exasperated when every word requires another draw of his scent, “You smell.”

It takes a second before the meaning comes across and his eyes light up. “Oh. Oh.” He clears his throat. “Sorry. My blockers must have worn off while I was asleep. But more importantly, you can smell my pheromones? This is huge, Pips!”

His scent spikes. You wince.

“Sure. Now could you please reapply? You’re giving me a headache.”

Grinning, he crosses the room and fishes out a white tube of ointment from a drawer. He squeezes some onto his fingers and applies it to either side at the base of his neck and both his wrists. Then, without so much as a glance in your direction, he slides a hand down into his sweatpants.

“Ew, Caleb!”

He laughs. “What? I’m just doing what you asked. Better get used to it cause you’re gonna have to start doing it too.” He caps the tube and closes the drawer, ambling over to stand beside the bed.

You stare at him and he stares back. He reminds you of the old Caleb when he’s like this, dressed down with bird’s nest hair and that goofy smile where one side of his mouth lifts more than the other. The Caleb before he was promoted to Colonel and began participating in the subjugation of an entire demographic of people.

A demographic which you now belong to.

“What are you smiling about?”

His eyes shimmer like dusk light on a still lake. “Nothin’. I’m just thinking that you’ll remember this time.”

“What?”

“We’ve talked a lot since you got here, but you can’t remember. The doctors said it’s normal for the moderate sedation you’re under. Sometimes all you could do was mumble or look at me. You’re lucid now though, I can tell. You’ve got that spark in your eyes you always have when you’re gearing up to tease me.” He looks like a man who just walked out of a nuclear bunker to find a living world. It twists your heart. In some ways, Caleb is still a boy, scrambling to hold the pieces of his life together as they shift and drift apart. He lost Gran, your childhood home, and his arm in the explosion. And then you. 

You should probably be frightened at the fact you’ve been forgetting entire conversations, and maybe you are, but the sedative keeps your heart rate low and your breathing regular. The capacity to experience your own emotions has been stripped from you.

Caleb continues. “You’re healing. I never doubted you would, but I was prepared to fight for you. To hire scientists and experts to develop new treatments, to divert the OPA’s funds into research--anything.” He chuckles. “But I should have known that you would pull through on your own. You’re the strongest omega there is.”

Strongest omega. Not the strongest woman, or hunter, or any of your other multitude of identities. He defines you by the one you hate most. The one that was thrust upon you without your consent.

All of the sudden you want very badly to be alone. Caleb’s presence is a constant reminder of your bleak future. You can’t face that yet, not in your current state.

“Hey,” you say as he sits back down next to your bed. “You look tired. You should get some rest.”

He grins. “That’s what I was doing before somebody interrupted me, duh.”

“No, I mean proper rest. At home. In a bed. With the lights off.”

His smile drops, his eyes going cold. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“It’s a hospital, Caleb. I’ll be fine,” you try to reason with him, but it’s no use. He leans back and crosses his arms, his face setting into stony resolve.

“Doesn’t matter. I already told you--I’ll never let you out of my sight. And when I’m able to watch you in person, I will.”

You sigh. “Fine then. I’m going to sleep.”

- - - - -

They remove the nasogastric feeding tube. It feels like a snake slithering backward up your throat as it comes out. The nurse gives you a pat on the shoulder and says something consolatory and for the hundredth time you’re tempted to sink your teeth into her hand.

You’ve been on the pheromone patches for one month when they finally take you off the mixture of relaxants and sedatives. As with every procedure, Caleb is by your side as they remove the cannula from your arm. Afterward, they provide your usual meal of soft, plain foods--rice, applesauce, pureed carrots, and a thick blended soup that smells like vegetables. Alongside it are a selection of medications and vitamins. You recognize your estrogen pill. All neatly arranged in little sensible blue bowls on a tray.

The doctor talks to Caleb while you eat.

“The sedative’s effects will wear off within the next few hours. I’ll have a nurse monitoring her, but you should expect to see her heart rate rise. She’s likely going to be frightened, which is why we ask you to--” he cuts himself off and glances at you sitting up in bed, a spoon sticking out of the corner of your mouth. You’re glaring at him. Hard. “May we take this conversation outside?” he asks Caleb, adjusting his glasses. 

Caleb hesitates. He scans the expression on your face, your brows drawn in and nose crinkled in distaste at both the doctor and your meal. His nostrils flare as he subtly sniffs the air, dissecting your scent for any discomfort.

Satisfied, he nods and waves the doctor outside. The door shuts behind them and you’re left alone with the biteable nurse once more.

You’re squabbling with her over finishing your food when they return not long after.

“Finishing the soup is not optional. Nor is your estrogen,” she states, looking down at you through snake-like eyes.

 You sneer and point the spoon in her direction like a weapon. “I don’t give a shit. Take that pill and shove it up your ass.”

“It’s this or the feeding tube. You choose.”

Caleb looks back and forth between the two of you spitting insults like hissing cats. The doctor checks his watch and hums. “Looks like the sedative is already wearing off. I have to attend to another patient. Good day, Colonel.”

You fling a piece of pureed carrot from the spoon right onto the nurse’s face. It lands on her browbone and slides down her eyelid. She’s gone red and is vibrating with fury.

You, of course, grin.

“Stop,” Caleb commands, and the nurse freezes--leaving herself open for you to toss the entire soup bowl at her face. It tumbles through the air, liquid leaving its dish and soaring at her widening eyes.

Then it stops, suspended in midair. You both ogle it for a second before Caleb directs it back into the bowl and sets it on the tray using his evol.

“Get out,” he orders, low and deadly. The nurse tucks tail and scurries from the room like a frightened mouse.

Darkness seems to seep out of Caleb’s skin and simmer in the air. In the face of his imposing aura, you smirk. “She deserved it,” you quip.

He stalks over to you, quiet and rigid, and picks up the little pink pill that had fallen into the valley of your blanket. His eyes are like black ice when they fix on you. He’s more Colonel than brother right now.

“Open your mouth.” His tone leaves no room for argument.

So you stick out your tongue and grin like an imp. Technically your mouth is open.

Quick as lightning his hand is around your chin, holding your jaw open. He places the estrogen pill on your tongue and shuts your mouth. “Swallow.”

The look he’s giving you makes you feel like clay about to go into the kiln, staring up at the wide basin of flames that both burns and transforms.

You swallow.

He inspects your mouth. Reaches his fingers in to dig under your tongue. You shudder at the sensation, goosebumps rising along your nape. Finally, he is satisfied.

“She did deserve it,” he says wryly as the hand that was restraining curves to fit your cheek and cradles you.

“Huh?” Your eyes are a little glossy. Is the sedative still in your system? You’re dizzy.

“The nurse. I didn’t like her attitude,” he grins and you instinctively mirror the action like an animal copying its mother. “But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t right about eating and taking your medication, Pipsqueak.”

Your smile dissolves into frustration. “I didn’t ask to be here, Caleb. You can’t expect me to go along with everything that’s being done to me like I’m some puppet. I’m a person.”

“Of course. You’re the most special person to me. That’s why I’m doing this, and why I need you to cooperate. I don’t want to force you into anything but I will if I have to. It’s for your own good.”

“For my own good? What’s good for me is to have my own agency. To be a free person and not an omega imprisoned in a hospital like a fucking animal.” But you know he won’t understand. This is the same boy that locked you in the attic, that promised to build a maze around you, that kept you trapped in his Skyhaven apartment.

The ice in his eyes has melted to pools of glimmering amethyst. His palm is so warm and careful on your cheek, his thumb brushing the edge of your lips.

“You’ll understand. Not now, but in the future. You’ll look back and know why I had to do what I did.”

Gritting your teeth, you turn away from his hand, feeling the fresh bruises along your jaw under the tensing muscles.

- - - - -

You dream of red. Red dirt, red blood, red apples. Red, red, everything drowning in it, soaking until your skin is dyed crimson. A figure dripping in rivers of ruby rises from the red pool at your feet and you drink from its extended finger, its blood the color of its flesh and so sweet.

You are catapulted from this dream into reality. Your soul shoots back into your body so hard it slams against your ribcage and launches you upright, your sheets falling to your waist. The monitor behind you beeps frantically and every bone in your body rattles with tension. You feel it even in your teeth. The figure is gone but Caleb is in its place, sitting wide eyed on the edge of your bed, fingers hovering like they had just been tracing over your lips.

For the second time since being abducted, you cry. The tears are warm and fast and full of the poison that has been accumulating in your gut. Caleb coos and cups your face. “Baby, it’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.” His words only drive the hurt deeper, twisting the knife of fear in your chest. Your sobs grow heavier and longer, your breaths hiccuping between them. Caleb says more things, sweet things and soft things, but they get caught in the net of panic before reaching you. You’re clawing at his shirt like you’re trying to dig up the parts of you long buried, or maybe you’re digging the new parts a grave.

Seeing that his tactics are hopeless, Caleb rushes to the sink against the far wall. You hear the rush of water and through your blurry vision see him rubbing his hand against the base of his neck, patting it dry with the collar of his shirt. Your fingers are tingling.

“Pipsqueak, I need you to breathe for me,” he says as he raises your arm and tears off the pheromone patch at your wrist with an awful cracking ‘rip!’ He does the same to the second and then he presses the inside of his wrists to yours and tips your foreheads together.

His skin is warm. The area of contact hums. You feel his fingers wrapped around your forearms, anchoring them in place. You smell him. You’re breathing him in, he’s sinking into you and hooking your soul. The freefall stops. It feels like stepping out of your clothes after a long day. Lowering yourself into a warm bath, your tension suffusing into the water to be swept away. The tears stop flowing. Caleb’s face is only inches from yours, his eyes closed in focus. You can see the subtle movement of his lips as he breathes.

In a daze, you scoot closer to him. One of his hands leaves your arm to curl around your waist and he tugs you into him. Pressed against his chest, you give in, slotting your nose into the scent gland at his shoulder and circling your arms around him. You melt into the shape of him. He holds you like that, petting your head, until the heart monitor returns to a measured rate. Then he hooks a finger under your chin and turns you to face him.

“Hey, Pipsqueak,” he smiles. You grin back. “Aw, your eyes are all cloudy,” he laughs, brushing his thumbs under them. You catch his wrist and bury your nose into it. He smells perfect; like home and all the comforts it brings. Like trekking through the tall grass with him in spring or the two of you glued together on the couch watching cartoons.

He hums, patting your hair again. “Smells good, doesn’t it?” Lazily, you nod, still absent minded. He groans and covers his mouth. “Pip, you’re too cute like this. I knew there was a sweet girl under all that sass.”

You nuzzle your head back into his shoulder and sigh. He cups the back of your neck with a broad hand. When he presses his lips to the crown of your head you can feel his smile. He says something else but you’re too lost in his scent to register the words. You shut your eyes.

You awake later from a dreamless sleep, still cradled in Caleb’s arms. The room smells heavily of the two of you. The scent is sticky sweet like caramel in the back of your throat and heavy in your lungs. Taking a deep inhale, you settle further into Caleb’s chest, idly tracking its steady rise and fall as he sleeps. His hair is messy, his features soft and boyish in his slumber. You run your thumb along the bridge of his nose, over his lips, down his chin and the column of his neck, halting at one of his scent glands. Your finger comes away clean of the greasy oil indicative of topical scent blocker.

The betrayal is muted under the lullaby pull of your combined scents. It laps at your consciousness like a tide. With your malnourished state the piece of your olfactory system dedicated to parsing out the intricate language of pheromones atrophied. Your recovery appears to have spurred it back to life; it’s been a long time since you’ve been affected this strongly by pheromones. You feel now the sinking weight of dread in the pit of your stomach, muddied by the instinctual draw of Caleb’s scent but not forgotten. These are your fears manifested. All the struggle and desperation to escape the chains of your biology have led you right back to the beginning, to the evolutionary grip of your body and brain.

You wonder if you’ll ever know the taste of freedom again, beneath the cloying flavor of Caleb.

Speaking of, he shifts and groans, mumbling your name. His eyes crack open and they’re like sunrise, vivid orange chasing deep purple to the edges of his iris. Yawning, he hugs you closer and nuzzles at your neck, inhaling and releasing the breath in a satisfied sigh. His voice is low and sleep rough when he murmurs, “G’morning, Pipsqueak.” 

The slits in the blinds tell you it’s still dark out. You really wish you could open that window. Caleb doesn’t let you escape his attention. He slides his hands to your waist and squeezes, the action sending a long forgotten warmth ebbing through you. “Did you sleep well?”

“I want to see my doctor.” You don’t really, you hate that man as much as you do the nurse, but you need Caleb out of your immediate vicinity before your brain melts out of your ears and your pheromones start saying things you don’t mean.

Caleb’s face twists in immediate worry. “What’s wrong, Pips? Are you hurt?”

“Uh--” you come up with a lie on the spot, “--it’s my heart. It feels weird.”

Before you can blink you’ve been gently deposited on the bed and Caleb is out the door, his strides long and quick. You wait until you no longer hear his footfalls in the hallway and then slump against the generous number of pillows on your bed (courtesy of Caleb, as always). In his haste he left the door open, fresh air already spilling in and beginning to cleave through your stifling scents. Your mind comes back to you in increments, each pull of sterile air clearing the cotton from your head.

Within minutes the doctor is rushing into the room, flanked by Caleb and a new nurse. He pushes his thin glasses up and orders the nurse to check your vitals as he logs into the console at your bedside. A pang of guilt lances through you at Caleb’s wide eyes and tight jaw, his scent radiating fear, the primal kind that threatens to gut you whole. The nurse hands him a tube of scent blocker while checking your blood pressure.

“Vitals are normal,” the nurse declares, scooting back in her chair to give you space.

The doctor shoots you a skeptical look. “What exactly did you feel?”

His suspicion doesn’t deter you. You’ve stared down Wanderers with a single round in your pistol; his wrinkled dog-like face is pitiful. “My heartbeat was slower than usual,” you respond nonchalantly. The nurse busies herself with replacing your pheromone patches with fresh ones.

The doctor opens his mouth to say something retaliatory but glances at Caleb, standing over your bed with an expression of severe concern, and shuts it promptly. He clears his throat and tries again. “Well, everything appears to be fine. The slowed heart rate may be a natural reaction to the Colonel’s pheromones.” Caleb’s scent from earlier is still heavy in the air. “In fact, I would venture to say you are doing quite well. Once we transition you to solid foods you’ll be able to return home.”

Your heart plummets. You cast a nervous glance toward Caleb, whose shoulders have relaxed at the news, his eyes bright with relief. “That’s great news.” He ruffles your hair. “We’ll have you home in no time.”

Still coming down from the high of your combined pheromones, you don’t have it in you to point out that he means his home and not yours. Despite yourself, you miss your apartment with its soft lighting and the fuzzy rug under your bed. It draws the same sustained ache from your chest as the image of Caleb prior to the explosion, something lost to time and circumstance.

“Right. If that’s all, I’ll leave you to it. Good day, Colonel,” the doctor bids him goodbye with a polite nod of his head. The nurse follows after him like a shadow, leaving you and Caleb alone again.

“What’s wrong?”

He startles you from your thoughts. “What? Nothing.”

Caleb frowns and sits down at the edge of your bed, taking your hand in his and loosely intertwining your fingers. “Nuh uh, don’t give me that. I know that look.” He pinches your nose and you scrunch it and cringe away. “That’s the ‘I’m upset but I don’t want to worry Caleb’ look.”

“Mean,” you scoff, no bite behind the word. You stare at your much smaller hand in his. His palm is rough, callused from hard work. Yours used to be, too. Back when you were still a hunter. The pheromone patches on your wrists and neck itch--fresh ones always do. You toy with the adhesive edge of one. It’s quiet, save for Caleb’s breathing and the slow beep of the heart monitor.

He presses your knuckles to his lips and kisses them. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m always here for you.”

‘Never in the way I need you to be’, you want to say. But you purse your lips and continue picking at the adhesive.

“Pipsqueeeak,” he drawls, gently wrapping his hand over the pheromone patch on your wrist to stop you fiddling with it. “Talk to me. Don’t make me shake the answers out of you.”

You can’t help but snort a laugh. “You haven’t done that since we were kids.”

He lets go of your hand to place both of his on your shoulders, either thumb brushing the concealed edge of the scent glands at the base of your neck. It sends a pleasurable shiver down your spine that doesn’t escape his attention. “Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

“You’ll rattle my bones out of my body if you shake me like you used to now. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be delicate with ome--”

The small smile falls from your face, horror overtaking you at your own words. It was just meant to be a verbal jab, but why…? Why did you almost refer to yourself by your secondary gender?

Caleb’s eyes flash with something dangerous, there and gone in an instant. A smile creeps across his face, genuine but not entirely kind. “What was that, Pip?”

Your face pales. Thinking fast, you pretend to see something interesting outside the window and turn your eyes away from him. You already used the heart excuse earlier. Twice in one day would be pushing it.

He laughs lightly and slides a hand up your jaw, turning your face to him. “Nuh uh. You don’t get to ignore me.”

“I’m not--I wasn’t--”

He presses his forehead to yours, his hair tickling you. You can count his individual eyelashes from this distance, make out the subtle phase of orange into purple in his irises. His pupils dilate a little wider and his breath comes a touch faster, warm on your own lips. “Care to repeat yourself for me?”

The heart monitor betrays his effect on you as it picks up speed. The glands under your patches tingle as if in anticipation of something, a conserved instinct from centuries past. Using the hand on your jaw, Caleb runs his thumb over your bottom lip. His lashes flutter over transfixed eyes. He’s looking at you now like you’re the only thing that exists.

The door clicks open and you jump, trying to will away the blush painting your cheeks and squirm out of the intimate position Caleb and you currently occupy. The nurse from earlier swings the door open further, her face dressed in a pleasant smile.

With an abrupt thump, the door swings in the opposite direction, bodily pushing the nurse back out. She shouts in surprise before the door slams shut with a bang and the lock turns, the deadbolt notching into place. You gawk at Caleb, whose mouth is set in a firm disapproving line cast in the direction of the intrusion.

“I can’t believe you just used your evol to--”

He cuts you off by kissing you. Abruptly and without hesitation. His lips are on yours, warm and dry, and you stare wide-eyed at his face in closer proximity than its ever been. His eyes are closed. His nose bumps yours as he readjusts, pressing his lips more firmly against you.

The shock clears out of your system like it’s been vacuumed into a black hole. What replaces it is a conflicted joy and the sudden uncontrollable urge to kiss him back. So you do. He groans and pulls you in by your shoulders. Your mouths move together in a language you’ve always known but never spoken. When your lungs cry out for oxygen you break away, panting, holding Caleb’s fervent gaze. Like two magnets you meet again, crashing together. Your hand finds its way to the back of his neck, digging into the short hair at his nape. He opens his mouth and you follow, the wet sound of your passion echoing in the sterile room. He swallows the moans you can’t hold, greedily searching for more. The lock on the door clicks but you ignore it.

One of Caleb’s hands is on your waist, hot even through the blanket pooled at your hips. Frantically, he pulls it down and skims his hand under your shirt and across your navel. The muscles in your stomach contract involuntarily and you whimper a jumbled plea. Your scent glands are burning up. You reach blindly for your shoulder and tear one of the patches off, the adhesive giving way easily thanks to the sheen of sweat on your skin.

The instant it’s gone, Caleb’s whole body locks up. He inhales deeply through his nose like a dog scenting prey. His hand trembles where it rests on the waistband of your shorts.

Then he pulls back. You’re both flushed and panting. Clearing his throat, Caleb has the decency to look embarrassed. He picks up the discarded pheromone patch and presses it back to your scent gland. “Hold this here,” he commands. You obey.

He stands up and snatches the tube of scent blocker from earlier, reapplying it to his neck and wrists. Somebody is knocking on the door. There are multiple concerned voices outside. Caleb stares momentarily at the floor, then, resigned, squeezes out more ointment and tugs the waistband of his pants away. He reaches down them with a hiss of pain. You can see why. The outline of his cock in his boxers is prominent. He neglects it, wiping the remaining blocker off on the hem.

His eyes find you as he straightens his clothes. Your cheeks burn and your lips tingle. You look all the part of a ravished woman. He asks, “You okay?”

You blink. “I’m still figuring that out myself.”

He nods and sighs deeply. “Alright.” They’re banging on the door now. You wince. “I’ll handle it.” His back facing you, he pauses with his hand on the doorknob. His voice is more composed now, steady and even. “I’m sorry. I wanted to continue, but every alpha in this wing can smell how wet you are right now and I don’t want to send the ER more casualties than they can handle.”

He opens the door and steps out, the voices muffling once again as he shuts it behind him.

- - - - -

After two agonizing months in the hospital, you are discharged. You sit quietly on the bed while the doctor provides Caleb with a detailed breakdown of your diet, medication, and physical therapy schedule. When they’re finished, Caleb flicks your nose and asks, “Ready to head home?”

He leads you through the bleak hallways toward the exit, a hand at the small of your back like he’s your date at a formal dinner party--or like he’s afraid you’ll run. Maybe both. He talks casually about what he’ll make for dinner tonight, occasionally asking for your opinion, to which you give a noncommittal sound. You pass so many doors. It feels more like a prison than a hospital, countless omegas marked only by numbers. Where are they going, you wonder. How many of them are runaways like you? How many are less fortunate than even yourself, who at the very least has an alpha family member to take custody of you.

Brother. Caleb is your brother. It doesn’t feel like that anymore, though. He hasn’t mentioned the kiss since it happened and you haven’t brought it up, afraid to sever the fraying remains of this familial pretence you’ve upheld but has not been genuine since your redesignation. And if you really think about it, since before that. Since the day you believed Caleb died and realized that he meant more to you than you dared to admit.

“How about it, Pipsqueak?”

You look up at him, his smile bright as the sunlight you’ve stepped into. His eyes crease at the corners with wrinkles that weren’t there two years ago. You’ve missed so much in the time you were gone. You were so angry when you found out he wasn’t dead, that he had left you all alone with the weight of a grief you didn’t need to carry. Is what you’ve done any different? How often must the thought that you were dead have crossed his mind; that he would finally find you as a corpse and not a woman.

“Huh?” you say dumbly, distracted by your racing thoughts.

“Silly. Are you stuck up in your head again? I asked if you wanted to stop by the grocery store on the way home. I could order them to be delivered to our place, but I thought you might enjoy the change of scenery. And you can pick out some snacks.”

Your heart swells up into your throat and you choke back a sob. Caleb gives you a confused look and pauses in the middle of the walkway, placing a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, you alright? Do you need to go back in?”

He’s like a dog with his head tilted in deliberation. The sunlight hits him just right, painting the edges of his skin in spun gold.

You missed him. You missed him so much it aches. He is built into your bones, the very marrow of your being, and with every pound you sacrificed while away he only grew more prominent, taking up a larger percentage of your whole. And now you know, inexplicably, that you possess more of him. A piece that was not there before and that you cannot identify, but is nonetheless consuming parts of you that used to be yours alone. Changing you.

His hand rests next to the pheromone patch at your neck, where your skin is warmest.

Whatever of his is now yours decimates the walls you’ve built around yourself. It punches through you like a flash grenade, without warning or reason. Tears spill over your eyes and you wail, flinging yourself into Caleb’s arms. They wrap around you automatically even as he stands too stunned to speak. You sob wetly into his chest, willing him closer. Maybe if you wish hard enough you will melt together and become inseparable.

His body closes over yours like a cocoon, facilitating your metamorphosis from the reserved, empty shell you arrived in to the woman you walked out as. You shed your defenses in tears, allow him to peel back your layers and see the broken, shivering thing underneath. In the embrace of his strong arms, the heat of his chest pressed to yours, his breath in your hair as he kisses the crown of your head over and over, you find salvation. He pulled you from the ledge. He nurtured you back to health. He is your warm haven in a bitter world.

Hands cup your chin and coax you into meeting Caleb’s gaze. His eyes are as tender as the first buds of spring. His lips move and you hear him as if from a distance, the words out of sync with the image.

“Can I kiss you?”

Yes. Yes. Why is he even asking? Can’t he see that you want him? 

He kisses you with everything he has. All his frustration and desperation and love, every ounce of obsession. Caleb always gives you what you want. He gives and you take, reeling him in with every request, shortening the leash until his teeth are around your neck. He gives even when you do not want, forcing himself into your frame, painting over the canvas of your life until its his color people see when they look at you. That’s Caleb’s sister, they think. Caleb’s.

He licks into your mouth and you welcome him, letting him explore the backside of your teeth, your soft palette, underneath your tongue. Drool runs down your chin--yours or his, you don’t know. Don’t care. You let it drip onto his shirt. He won’t wash it later, maybe not ever again. He’d wear you if he could, climb into your skin and eat you from the inside out. But for now, this is enough. His teeth skimming down your neck, the prick of his canines, sharper and slightly longer by effect of his alpha nature. They stop at your pheromone patch and you detach a hand from around his broad body to tear it off, but he catches you, holding you firmly by the wrist.

“Don’t,” he snarls, and it shocks you to hear him not as your brother nor the Colonel, but a different, third thing. The low timbre of his voice, the echoing growl beneath his words. The wildness fades from his eyes when you relinquish your attempts and drop your arm, and moments later they widen. “Oh my god, I-- sorry, I was supposed to be comforting you. Are you okay?”

The salty tang of your tears lingers on your lips but they’ve stopped flowing. Your brain is swimming in a liquid warmth that cascades down your body until it feels floaty, the same way it does when Caleb has you cradled in his evol.

His mouth is slightly parted, red from the kiss, and his canines peek out from beneath his top lip. Entranced, you press your index finger to one, watching your skin indent. Caleb slides his hand over yours and presses it to his chest, where his heart is fluttering like a bird. “Don’t do that, Pips. You’ll hurt yourself. Answer my question.”

“I’m fine.”

He searches your eyes and finds no deception. You are okay. This whole time it was just Caleb that you needed.

The roar of distant traffic mingles with the whisper of the wind. You look beyond Caleb to the road, then the sparkling buildings in the distance, Skyhaven basking in its afternoon glory. You tug on his sleeve.

“I want to go to the grocery store.”

Caleb’s tongue swipes along his bottom lip, savoring the last of your saliva. The tips of his ears are red as he takes your hand in his, intertwining your fingers. “Alright, Pipsqueak.” There is nothing dark or stern about him when he angles his head down to grin at you, his eyes curved into crescents, the faintest smattering of freckles across his cheeks. “Whatever my princess wants.”

His car smells like him. You subtly inhale against the leather of your seat. Beneath the typical pleasant, light scent, are hints of musk. This scent tells a story. Deep desire, pleasure, lust. Unconsciously, you follow the pages they turn, an image flashing into your mind unbidden: Caleb, reclining in the same seat you currently occupy, sleeveless shirt pulled up and clenched between his teeth, pants pushed down his hips to allow for him to fist his cock. Sweat drips down the ridges of his abs, runs all the way to the trail of dark hair leading down his navel. Knuckles white, face flushed, he ruts into his hand, teases the head of his cock with his thumb, brushing along it the same way he brushes his hand across your face. On a particularly harsh thrust he moans, shirt dropping from his mouth, revealing the warm silver of the necklace he wears as loyally as a collar. Light shifts over his chest as he heaves, sliding along his pecs, over the dusky skin of his nipples. He jerks himself harder, faster, face pinched in ecstasy, his brows heavy over his closed eyes. He pauses before the final thrust, suspending himself on the edge of orgasm, every muscle in his body taught like a gun just before firing.

When he gives himself over to the cresting pleasure, it’s your name he moans. Low and drawn out, a prayer proffered in his most vulnerable moment. Streaks of his cum paint his stomach and the dark patch of hair at his groin in filmy white.

“What’cha thinkin’ about so hard over there?”

Caleb’s voice snatches you back to reality and you’re mortified to find your nose buried in the headrest and, worse, see the wet smear glistening on the dark surface from where you licked it. The scent sits in your mouth, spiced and rich. Nothing in the grocery store could ever live up to the taste of Caleb’s pleasure.

“Just trying to get some rest before going out,” you deflect, but doubt it’s effective with the intensity of the blush burning at the back of your neck.

He hums, the purr of the engine rising as he presses harder on the gas. Outside, Skyhaven speeds by in flashes of steel and glass, intermittent stretches of green fields and carefully cultivated nature parks. So much time has passed since your last visit. Back when everything was settled, your designation and your relationship with Caleb seemingly set in stone.

“Is that fried chicken place we always used to go to at midnight still open?” The sky here is brilliant, an uninterrupted stretch of blue that hugs the island. You’ve only ever been closer to it while flying with Caleb.

“Sure is. Maybe we can go as a treat once you’re cleared to eat it.”

Your face scrunches in displeasure. “I don’t see why I can’t just eat what I want. I’m tired of hospital food.”

He laughs and you scowl at his profile. The sun hits him just right through the car window, highlighting his face. “When you first got here you didn’t want to eat anything. Now you’re changing your mind?”

You huff. “If you’re going to make me eat, I’d rather it be something I like.” His words sting, though. You had been so strong willed when you arrived, like a kitten plucked hissing and scratching from its hiding spot. You hardly recognize that girl now. Why had you been so afraid of your brother?

“Tell ya’ what,” his voice is exaggeratedly grand, like he’s about to do you a huge favor, “When you get a little better, I’ll cook you all the things you want. Just like old times, yeah? As many braised chicken wings as you can possibly eat.” The car pulls into the parking lot of a modest grocery store.

You roll your eyes. “You were going to do that either way.”

“Sure was. But sometimes you need to be told things out loud, or else you start overthinkin’ and doubting the obvious.”

You turn away from the window to look at him, brows drawn in contemplation. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The shit eating grin he gives you is enough to make you want to punch him. “Don’t overthink it.”

He insists he be the one to open the car door and unbuckle you. You smell him as he leans over to release the seatbelt: neutral metallic, but the lingering scent from his car has stuck to his clothing. As retaliation for his needless insistence with the seatbelt, you demand to be the one pushing the grocery cart. He relents, “You couldn’t reach the top shelf anyway, it’s better I be the one shopping.” How does he always manage to turn things around on you?

 It’s been a long time since you were last in a proper grocery store. Too many cameras and too few exits when you were on the run. By force of habit you glance around for the corner mounted cameras and the nearest escape route. Caleb interferes by reaching around either side of you to grab the cart handle, pressing against your back. Beside his, your hands are so much smaller.

“Hey,” you protest, trying to turn your head to see him, but he’s stuck so close you’re blocked by his chest, “You said I could man the cart.”

You feel him chuckle. “Technically, you still are.”

Your scowl deepens. “No I’m not.” You’re being petulant, you know. It comes so naturally with Caleb though. And he doesn’t mind, so what’s the harm?

“Should I have you sit in the cart instead? You look a little too young to be driving.”

You try to step on his foot but he dodges, cackling. “My girl has got some bite to all that bark, huh? You gonna nip at my heels too?”

Rather than heightening your annoyance, his words catch you off guard, a shudder running down your spine as if the cool hands of a ghost were playing along it. My girl.

Two years you’d spent adrift on the outskirts of Linkon, camping in the wet undergrowth and swiping cash off strangers who definitely didn’t deserve to be robbed. Rarely did you spend two nights in the same place, hyper aware of the OPA’s dogs always a few miles behind. When was the last time you felt as if you belonged anywhere?

And could it be in Caleb’s arms?

You study him as he turns a cabbage over to check its quality, haloed by the light of the produce aisle, the scattering reflection of its rays over the mist dispensed to keep the vegetables fresh. It’s mundane. And you missed it. The quiet companionship, the banter, the way Caleb looks at you like you hold the whole universe in your eyes.

You can never forget that you are an omega. But for a moment, the designation doesn’t stand out. It becomes just another word, like “sister”, a status you are not always born into but become through circumstances not of your own making. An opportunity for connection.

At the front of the store the sliding doors open with a chime. A group of men walk in, young, probably OPA recruits. Their voices are a touch too loud, their laughter too raucous for the echoing store. A cashier gives them a dirty look but doesn’t say anything otherwise. Caleb has noticed them, too. Caught the way you shrink back at their volume. He puts a hand on the cart to get your attention. “Let’s check out the snacks.” He says it casually, but you can tell by the micromovements of his eyes that he’s estimating the trajectory the men will take and which position will put the most distance between you and them. Ever the strategist. You agree quickly, eager to be removed from the noise and their easy line of sight.

The snack aisle is a rainbow of colored bags and boxes. You probably look stupid, staring at it in awe, but it’s been a while since you’ve seen this much variety in one place. Despite the numerous options, you find yourself gravitating to old favorites: fish flavored chips, strawberry hard candies, vanilla covered biscuits. A red package draws your eye and you pull it off the rack. A bag of dried apple chips.

“Surprised it took you so long to find your favorite. Those were the first thing you’d grab when I took you to the convenience store as kids.”

Caleb takes the package from your hands.

“They’re not my favorite.”

“What?” There’s a hint of betrayal in his voice.

You laugh at his dismayed expression. “I got them because I knew you liked them and you’d never pick out anything for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad, but I have a bigger sweet tooth than you so they’re a little dull.”

His throat works over a swallow under a tense jaw. He looks like he wants to say something meaningful by the draw of his brows, but your own body interrupts him.

Abruptly, you double over in pain. A sharp, acrid scent overtakes you, sizzling like acid through your mucus membranes. Your hands shoot to cover your mouth and nose and you fight off the overwhelming urge to vomit as the smell overtakes your taste. Your tongue feels like its boiling. The stench goes to your head where it condenses into a splitting headache that extends to the rear of your eyes.

“Pipsqu--”

Caleb cuts himself off at the sight of the three young men rounding the corner into the aisle. With your eyes clenched shut against the pain you can’t see them, but you can hear the fall of laughter to silence when they assumably come face to face with Caleb and your crumpled body.

The linoleum floor is pleasantly cool against your bare arms as the rest of your body fills with the kind of heat that has your flesh screaming in pain. A hand rests against your neck, then your forehead. Caleb is speaking but his words dissolve in the hellfire.

For a moment, you stew in the agony. Until a memory, distant now but ever present still, comes to you: yourself, in your hunter uniform, incapacitated from a Wanderer’s blow. It looms over you, hideous jaws open, and despite the odds you raise one pistol with a wounded arm and drive it back, shot after shot.

Gritting your teeth, you open your eyes. Through your tear blurred vision, Caleb is the first thing you see. Behind him are two figures, restless with panic.

“--t’s wrong Pipsqueak?”

“Th’a scent.” You don’t hear the words come out of your mouth, only assured that they do when Caleb leaps up and glares furiously at the man standing back from the scene. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders slouched with callous disregard.

“Leave,” Caleb sneers.

The man scoffs. “Not my fault you’ve got such a fucking sensitive omega. Put the bitch on a leash and keep her at home.”

His friends try in vain to step in, stuttering something about sweating and worn off scent blocker and how they were there to buy him more, it’s fine, he doesn’t mean anything by it, please don’t--

You feel the shudder of the floor cracking at the same time you hear the man scream, muted as if underwater. Caleb stands over you, but through his legs you make out a body pinned under the shimmering tendrils of his evol, the floor splintered around the figure. His friends shout but one is sent flying back into a shelf, narrowly avoiding being impaled by a metal rack. Your gaze slides from the carnage to Caleb’s fist, white-knuckled with a steady rage. He could split that other alpha’s skull open with one hit, you think. You want him to, you think. But he doesn’t leave your side, won’t create an opening in the shield of his body.

Everything is blurry. Sound, light, your own thoughts. Everything except for the scent still choking you. Blindly, you swing an arm out, latching it around the rough material of Caleb’s boot. Your eyes roll back into your head like they’re trying to catalogue the chaos ripping through it. The clamor of confrontation grows more and more distant, echoing off your tunneling vision, until it fades to ringing.

When you become aware of hands cradling your body, absent one moment and there the next, you know you passed out. Fingers card through your hair, press against the back of your head to draw you nearer to the warmth of skin. Groggily, you mumble something; a slur of vowels washed into meaningless consonants. 

“It’s okay,” a voice warm with spring sunlight responds. It smells like sliced apples. “We’re going home.”

Home. Do you still have one of those?

“Of course. You’ll always have a home with me, princess.”

Yes. You dig your nose further into Caleb’s neck, licking off a spot of scent blocker he missed. Yes, your alpha is home. 

The hand on the back of your head tightens in your hair.

- - - - -

You wake up surrounded by the heat of another body and the pleasant perfume of pheromones.

“Caleb,” you sigh happily, rubbing your cheek against him, “Your chest still makes a good pillow after all these years.”

“I maintain it with the utmost dedication. Where else would you sleep?” His hand pets your head, slides down to trace over the contour of you jaw.

Instead of answering, you fight off the dregs of sleep, eyelids fluttering.

“Hey now, don’t fall asleep on me again. You’ll worry your big brother.” 

Yawning, you loll your head to look up at him. He’s reclined on the couch with you in his lap. Wearing the same shirt as the grocery store, so it must be the same day, you reason.

“How long was I out?”

He frowns. “Pipsqueak, don’t talk like passing out is normal. Tell me how you’re feeling. Do you hurt?”

You don’t have the heart to tell him that passing out is normal for you. It would happen semi-frequently at work, and concerningly often while you were on the run and severely malnourished.

You play with one of his dog tags between your fingers. “I’m fine. I actually--” you pause to take stock of yourself, “--feel really good. The best I have since going to the hospital.” You’re silent for a moment before asking, “What happened?”

“Pheromone sensitivity. Your doctor warned me about it but I was careless. Alphas are supposed to wear blockers in public but I should have known how fleet cadets are. I’m sorry, Pips.” His arm tightens around you. “This will never happen again.”

You fix him with a scathingly unimpressed look. “Are you seriously throwing yourself a pity party right now? If I recall correctly, I was the one who passed out.”

“Ahhh, you’re right.” He squeezes you into a hug. “I should be treating my poor patient to a home-cooked dinner, shouldn’t I?”

Muffled in his chest, you say, “You should.” He pecks the top of your head and ruffles your hair as he shuffles you off his lap and stands. “Okay. Sit tight, your highness. I’ll make you the most delicious chicken and vegetables you’ve ever tasted.”

You groan dramatically, flopping against the newly vacant couch, burrowing into the warmth and familiar scent left behind. “Chicken again?”

“You haven’t been cleared for other animal proteins yet,” Caleb explains over the clatter of pans in the kitchen. “I promise I’ll season it better than the hospital chefs though.”

“‘Chef’ is a generous word,” you grumble. 

The stove clicks as the burner turns on. There’s the quick cadence of the knife under Caleb’s expert hand. The sizzle of oil and meat over heat.

The couch dips beside you. Caleb lays a hand on your leg. “Ya’ gonna hide all night or are you gonna tell Caleb what’s wrong?”

Damn it, you can’t hide anything from this man.

You pout into the cushion. “I’m just frustrated.”

“Why’s that?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Fabric rustles as he makes himself more comfortable. His palm rubs soothingly up and down your calf.

“Can’t be sure until you tell me. I’m still not opposed to shaking the answers out of you.”

You scowl. “Don’t.”

“I won’t have to if you’re honest.”

He won’t understand, because you’re not frustrated about dinner or the temperature or even the incident at the grocery store; you find yourself again stewing in resentment toward your second gender. The last time you were in Caleb’s apartment, you were a beta. Things were normal, or at least as close as they’d ever get to the pre-explosion state of things. But now his apartment smells like him, sweet and masculine, and you want to raid his laundry basket for a well-worn hoodie.

“I just--” you begin haltingly, curling in on yourself. “There have been a lot of changes.”

He hums contemplatively. “I know, baby. But it’s almost over. Everything will settle down now that you’re home.”

You clamp down on the inside of your cheek. “This isn’t my home.”

His hand freezes. “Pipsqueak,” he says in a warning tone.

You whirl on him like a cornered animal, pushing right up to his face. “Don’t give me that. You knew I didn’t want to come here. You really haven’t changed, huh? Still the Colonel who locks me in his apartment”

Before he can formulate a retort you spring up from your seat. The world tilts around you--apparently you’re not totally okay after the whole fiasco earlier--but you ignore it. “I am continuously astounded by your capacity for cruelty, Caleb.” The words are venomous. “I can’t believe I ever made the mistake of thinking you cared about what I want.”

“You don’t know what you--”

“Shut up!” you sneer. The sharp scent of something burning wafts from the kitchen. You turn to leave.

“Pipsqueak, please don’t leave. Just listen to me, please.”

You keep your strides long and confident, hoping he can’t see how your legs are shaking as you turn the corner and pick the first room on the left. You slam the door behind you with vindictive force.

The bed is made, edges tucked neatly. There’s some clutter on the desk in the corner, a few model planes in various stages of construction, a framed picture of you and Caleb. The sliding door to the closet is open a few inches to reveal a clothes basket and precisely hung jackets.

The whole room smells like him. And you hate how much it soothes you.

You collapse onto the bed. Spitefully toss his pillows to the ground, kick up the sheets, rub yourself all over them and hope that he suffers smelling you all night knowing you’re just out of reach. The forbidden fruit, ripe and splitting down the center.

You shout into a pillow, scream until your throat is raw and it comes away with two damp spots; one from your mouth and the other your tears.

Then you curl up in the middle of the mattress, the eye of your own storm, tears rolling down your cheeks while you stare listlessly at the ceiling. Some time later, Caleb knocks once on the door.

“Food’s outside.” Is all he says. He doesn’t ask to come in even though it’s his room you happened to pick for your fit. His footsteps fade down the hall.

You’re not hungry. You don’t want him or his food or this apartment or to be in Skyhaven at all. You want your old life back. You wish he were still dea--

No. You steal the thought back and crush it. You hate him but at least he’s here to hate. All the times you’ve spent without immediate access to Caleb have been agony. Missions, his death, your fugitive status.

A fitful sleep finds you. Tosses you to and fro in stormy dreams, the white flash of lightning, of teeth, of eyes rolling backward. The shock of blue sky as you tip over the edge of the canyon. Is this what Caleb feels when he’s flying?

When you wake up your eyes are crusted with dried tears and your stomach is rumbling. The sun has long since set outside the window, the sky blanketed in brushstrokes of nebulas and bright constellations.

You crack the door. A plate of food sits innocently in front of it. It’s still warm when you pick it up despite the hours you’ve been asleep.

You tear the cling wrap off after carefully clearing Caleb’s desk, sure not to lose a single tiny model piece.

It’s not chicken and vegetables. It’s soy braised chicken wings. Next to them, a package of caramels you picked out from the store.

You muffle a sob into your palm.

- - - - -

You don’t speak to Caleb for three days. You barricade yourself in his room. He leaves meals and snacks outside the door.

On the morning of day number four, you open the door when he knocks to signal his delivery. He’s surprised to see you glaring up at him, with wild bedhead and bags under your eyes.

“Oh, hey…” He waves awkwardly at you.

How can someone so periodically evil be so unfathomably lame?

You push past him and lock yourself in the bathroom. There’s a change of clothes waiting for you along with fresh towels on the counter. 

Heaving a sigh, you lean your back against the door. You’re still upset, and truth be told the only thing that drove you from Caleb’s room is the fact his scent is rapidly fading from it. Stupid omega brain. Stupid pheromones. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And maybe, just maybe, you missed him. “Wait for me,” you call, “Let’s eat breakfast together.”

And just like that, your relationship is patched back together.

- - - - -

Time passes uneventfully. Mostly, you confine yourself to the apartment. Caleb offers to take you anywhere in Skyhaven you’d like to go, but you refuse. Omegas can’t be in public spaces without the accompaniment of an alpha--for their safety, the law says. And you don’t feel like braving another outing with him.

You never used to concern yourself with omega rights. Hunting Wanderers kept you busy; besides, there would be no rights to speak of if Wanderer populations weren’t kept under control. You hadn’t known any omegas personally. They aren’t welcome in the workforce and most alphas opt to keep them home or in omega-only spaces.

You wish now that you had done more. Even if your efforts didn’t amount to anything, it would have at least eased the guilt you’re bearing heavy on your shoulders.

Like a wild animal forced into domesticity, you pace the walls of your cage. Your moods are turbulent and unpredictable. Some mornings you eat breakfast with Caleb and read on the couch. Others find you pinned to the cold bathroom floor, Caleb prying your teeth apart to jam the pills you refuse to take past your lips. 

“You’ve always been stubborn,” he says one day after you ask him if he’s angry at you for your behavior. “Ever since you were a kid this big,” he squeezes his thumb and pointer finger close together for emphasis, “you’d test my boundaries.When you push them, I push back. I’d never get angry at you for being yourself.”

After a month of living together, the doctor sends word that you can stop wearing the pheromone patches. This comes as a great relief, but it sours your mood even further. Without the patches you feel exposed, hyperaware of your surroundings the same way you are in protofields. You jump when Caleb’s phone rings or when he shuts a door somewhere down the hall.

The only remedy to your condition is Caleb’s scent. He leaves his door unlocked while he’s at work. With no small amount of shame, you’ve begun sneaking inside and stealing his clothes. It starts innocently enough: a hoodie from the closet, an oversized T-shirt. Now, however, you’re swiping worn clothes. Jackets still warm from his body, a dirty compression shirt damp with his sweat, even pieces of his uniform (those smell the best, saturated with headier notes that he doesn’t produce at the apartment).

He makes no comment on the behavior. Not even when he passes by your room to see your pilfered trove arranged meticulously on the bed.

- - - - -

You step out of the shower, curling fingers of steam pouring out of the glass door and fogging the mirror. It’s quiet, just the drip of the showerhead and the hum of the bathroom fan filling the space. You wrap a towel around your wet hair and use another of Caleb’s to dry yourself off, enjoying the stillness, the humid air in your lungs.

A quick swipe of your hand across the mirror clears a small section. Reflected in it is yourself, a face you’re still getting used to. Bright eyes, round cheeks, alive in all the ways you weren’t when you were on the run. Your arms are thicker with muscle and fat, your waist wider, your stomach having gained a gentle curve over months of being nourished.

You run a finger along the scar there, a jagged slash of lighter skin that stretches from your waist to the center of your navel. It’s thin but fresh.

A tube of scar scream sits beside the sink. Never opened.

You wrap yourself in a towel and step out. Right into a firm chest.

“Ooph!” Caleb exhales, steadying you by your shoulders. “Sorry Pip. Didn’t account for your teleportation skills while walking down my hallway.”

You roll your eyes. “It would be fine if you were a little smaller. How am I supposed to get past you?” you tease.

A dark shroud flashes through his eyes, there and gone like the shutter of a camera. He smiles, the slightest bit stilted. “Right. I’ll get to work on that shrink ray.”

“Sure.” Eager to be clothed and dry, you duck past him and hurry to your room.

He watches you go. Tracks the droplet of water slipping down your neck with a hungry intensity. You left the bathroom light on and he’s about to switch it off when he sees it: a vibrant splash of red in the monochrome room. Curious, he bends down and plucks up the fabric with two fingers. Lace.

A bolt of arousal shoots down to his cock. He rubs a conciliatory palm over the tent in his pants as he turns your panties inside out and finds the white stain in their gusset. Through the mist of lavender and eucalyptus scented air, he can smell you on the underwear. The same scent that lingers on your sheets when he loads them into the washing machine.

He tucks them into the waistband of his sweats. You really shouldn’t be so careless. Omegas can’t afford to leave such a blatant trail; if he were any other alpha, he might track you down and pounce on you.

But he’s not any other alpha. He’s Caleb, your brother. The man who raised you. Which is why instead of sniffing around the base of your door like some mongrel, he turns into his own room, locks it, and sits on the edge of his bed. Pushes his pants past his hips. Digs his hard cock out of his boxers.

He laughs quietly to himself as he removes the panties and presses them to his nose, inhaling like he’s surfacing for air. They’re rich with your pheromones and send his head swimming, potent as a drug, and he huffs harder and wraps a fist around the base of his cock. Muffles his moan into the fabric.

He imagines this is your pussy against his face, the warm plush of your thighs at his shoulders. He licks a stripe up the underwear, tasting your slick, your sweat, your arousal--you had been aroused, hadn’t you? Watching him arrive from his morning run shirtless, the necklace you gave him proudly displayed between his pecs. You taste divine. Better than anything he’s ever cooked. He squeezes his base harder, feels a bead of precum well up at his tip. He’s throbbing along to the pulse of his excited heartbeat. How would you moan if he licked you like this? Running his tongue up your center, wetting you with saliva. He catches the fabric between his teeth and pulls, lets it snap back into place.

With a slow, tortuous touch, he glides his hand up his shaft, skin chaffing. He brings the panties away from his face and spits on his cock. Then, lost in his fantasy, opens his mouth and allows a strand of drool to roll off his tongue. If you were here you’d coat him in your slick, easing the slide into your tight heat. He spreads the wetness over his cock, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress his groan. He doesn’t want you to hear, not yet.

He digs his nose into your unintentional gift once more. You’re such a naive girl. You don’t know that he can smell you all over when you’re aroused, don’t realize that he spends nights fucking his own hand until it hurts because he can smell your scent rising and spiking at your own peak. He’s so happy your libido is back. Can’t wait for your heat--

He has to stop the thought and his hand to keep from cumming. Your panties are damp with his spit, your taste heavy and sugar sweet on his tongue. He removes his hand from his cock with a squelch; his palm is glistening with precum and saliva.

Taking the underwear, he slips them around his cock and twists them, loops them over it again, twisting and tightening until the lace is squeezing him. He uses the other end as a handle and drags it up, up over his shaft, savoring the sensation of the delicate fabric against his stiff member. It’s a shame he can’t smell them anymore, and the fabric is resistant to movement and unwieldy, but it’s just as delicious. He doesn’t need much to get off when it comes to you; the image of your smiling face is enough. The memory of you calling him alpha, of you pleading with wide eyes and parted lips.

Is that the expression you’d have when you beg for his knot?

Fuck.

His entire body twitches, jerks forward. The doctor estimated three months until your breakthrough heat. Hasn’t it been that long? How long must he wait?

He drags the lace up and down his cock rhythmically. His tip aches without stimulation, a satisfying agony he delights in. He's been so patient, letting you wear yourself down on the run and looking after you as you healed. Taken every measure to ensure you make a full recovery. His darling omega, his summer flower, plucked and preserved behind glass.

Footsteps pad softly past his door and into the living room. The TV clicks on.

A mind of its own, his hand returns to his cock, encircling the lace and dragging it along with each tug. His jaw drops open, exposing the soft cavern of his mouth, his sharp canines aching to bite. You’re so close he can taste you in the air. A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead and catches in the groove of his lips; he licks it away and imagines it’s yours. Like a machine punched into autopilot, his hips start to thrust up into his fist. Incremental movements at first, indulging in the rasp of the delicate fabric, then faster, deeper, discarding the scandalous reality of fucking his omega sister’s panties in favor of his imagination. You, flushed and panting, bouncing yourself clumsily on his cock. Haloed and glowing like a goddess in the light. Running your hands over his chest, through the trail of hair at his navel, cleaning the sweat from between his abdominal muscles with your tongue. 

“Caleb,” you’d beg, teary eyed, desperate. He thrusts faster, the slap of his pelvis meeting his hand loud enough to echo and he almost hopes you can hear it over the television. He wants to say: Look at what your brother is doing for you, are you surprised? And then laugh at the cornered face you make because you shouldn’t be--he’s an alpha, after all. Evident by the knot, hyper-sensitive to pressure, inflating at his base and resisting the circle of his hand. In all ways he was built for you, every edge a perfect fit to your own. Your brother, your captor, your savior, your alpha. Everything for you.

His pace stutters, his jaw tensing, a sustained pleasure slicing him up, rearranging his organs and shuffling his brain like loose puzzle pieces. He cums abruptly with a choking gasp. Bites his knuckles to keep himself quiet as his cock twitches and spurts. He catches his spend with the other hand, leaving his knot aching and alone.

He takes a moment to collect himself and catch his breath. Semen leaks in semi-translucent droplets through his fingers. He stares at it even while he winces as he removes your soiled underwear from around himself.

It’s silent outside.

The idea that comes to him now is not new. Has been lurking for some time in the dark recesses of his mind. Caleb is a very, very patient man. Especially when it comes to you. But sometimes it’s better to get on with things, he reasons. Time to let his sister finally spread her wings so he can clip them.

He moves with the certainty of an executioner. Cups his hand closed over his semen. Fixes his pants. Opens the door and proceeds quietly into the living room. You’re lying asleep on the couch, head pillowed on an armrest, hair splayed out around you. Moonlight paints you in a silvery curtain of ethereal light. You’re wearing one of his old shirts and he finds out as he smooths it up your thighs, no shorts. Just a pair of cotton panties with a little bow in their center.

Your thighs are soft and warm and you hardly stir as he parts them. He locates the reddish patch on the inside of either leg, holding his breath because if he smells you at this proximity he’ll discard his plan and wake you up with his tongue inside you. But that would scare you, and he needs you to think you want this. Realize that this desire has been simmering in your veins for a long time, cooking slowly.

With a reverent tenderness, he takes the hand dripping with cum and slides it across your scent gland. It gleams wetly in the moonlight, trapping the fine hairs on your thigh and smoothing them down as he rubs it in. You shift and mumble something in your slumber, and he wonders if you’re dreaming about him. Pride wells up in his chest, filling the hollow cavity of his lungs and the gaps between his ribs. He is the only one who can handle you like this; anybody else and you would wake with a start, automatically reaching for a holster that isn’t there. But your body trusts him instinctually, thanks in no small part to the constant exposure to his pheromones from the patches.

Once finished massaging his semen onto you, he holds you for a moment, basking in your warmth like the wolf digs its fangs into the rabbit and relishes in the seep of its blood. Your scent mixed with his is heavenly, a spice with summer overtones.

He presses a kiss to one gland, tasting the sharp salt of himself and the sweet essence of you underneath. He’s painfully hard already, anticipation coursing through him, the warning snarl of an animal building in his body. He sits back and wills himself to relax. You will wake on your own in short. And he will be here to give you what you don’t know you’re asking for.

- - - - -

A membrane of desperation clings to your dreams. Heart beating frantically, you tear through it and emerge into light like new birth, shivering and gasping. Tears prick the corners of your eyes and you’re trembling like a leaf in the wind. 

The light isn’t as bright as it seems upon first opening your eyes. It fades to a low glow, the gentle tone of the moon. You’re so hot. Gooseflesh raises along your arms and the nape of your neck. You seek the nearest source of comfort and find yourself crawling right into Caleb’s lap, clawing at his shirt like a small mammal scrabbles for purchase at a ledge.

“Whoa, hey,” he says in a deep rumble. It draws you in, a siren song. You whine in a pitch you’ve never reached before and his hands come around your hips, settling you gently onto your back on the couch. You can’t bear to let him pull away from you and hold obstinately to his shoulders.

Something is waking up inside you. Stirring in the way great beasts do when they emerge from hibernation, huffing plumes of hot air, twitching away flecks of dirt and dust. It breaks from a thawing ground, stealing its first boiling breath from your lungs.

“Caleb,” you say, alarmed. He slides a palm over your scent gland, his fingers sending sparks through the sensitive surface. He cups the back of your neck and pulls you into him. His pupils are blown wide and he’s breathing eagerly through his nose as he gazes at you.

“It’s okay, Pipsqueak.” His voice is rough and tinged with excited desperation. Your heart rate picks up until you can feel your arteries thrumming in your neck and wrists. “This is normal. This is good.”

It doesn’t feel good, it feels like dying, like the ancient fear you only ever uncover during close calls with Wanderers. Adrenaline digs its fingers into your ribs and squeezes, your chest constricting against every inhale. “I don’t understand--” you croak, your voice fizzling into a choked groan. What’s happening to you?

You fight to find words and force them through your tightening throat. “What did you do to me?”

Caleb just keeps staring, awestruck at whatever expression is blossoming on your face. Your lips are parted, breaths hot and heavy, your eyes half lidded under their own weight. Your whole face is warm and growing warmer, a flush crawling down your neck from the tips of your ears.

“Caleb,” you implore, fisting his shirt. It takes more strength than normal. Your fingers feel large and clumsy.

He snaps out of it and cups a blessedly cool hand to your cheek, which you press into. When he swallows your eyes find themselves drawn to the bob of his throat, and then to the faintly discolored patch of skin where his scent glands are. You release his shirt and, as if hypnotized, brush your hand over one. Caleb groans and shuts his eyes, shuddering a heavy breath. “Pipsqueak, god.” His eyes are molten, burning into you, tearing through the delicate film of your psyche and setting aflame your basest desires. “You smell so good.” He lays a palm on your bare thigh and leans over, bringing his neck closer, and your mouth is watering and you need to taste his skin but something nags at the back of your mind. His palm slides to your inner thigh, over the cold tackiness coating your scent glands. Pleasure shoots through you as he rubs his thumb a few inches from the seam of your thigh. “Did you forget,” he murmurs in between starved breaths, “That you have scent glands here, too?”

As he says it, he runs a finger through the sticky moisture and you moan, gripping his shoulders and burying your face against his neck. Your head fills with the heady scent of him, the new spice of his arousal dancing on your tongue. He nudges your legs apart, carving out space for his body. A hand pushes your head firmly into his neck, encouraging the animal part of you that’s clawing just beneath the surface. “Go ahead. Taste me.”

And you do. You run your tongue across his swollen gland and neural pathways you didn’t know you have light up, making you clench around nothing where his hand rests so close to the source of your need. He tastes like sweat and musk and something uniquely him, and you lap greedily at his skin and dig your fingers into the thick muscle of his back and moan. His own groan reverberates through his chest and into yours, tying you together in a mutual frequency only the two of you can access. He dips his head into the gland at your own neck. You feel his hot breath teasing over it before the touch of his tongue. Your eyes roll back, a shudder wracking your body. He leaves a trail of saliva that burns like fire in his wake.

You whine when he detaches from your neck. His hand tips your chin up and you stare blearily up at him, your eyes welling with frustrated tears. His jaw is highlighted by the soft silver glow of the moon, drawing half his face in panels of gossamer light and the other in sharp angles of shadow.

“Come on now, Pipsqueak,” he coos, lips wet with your sweat, “Don’t cry.”

Then he kisses you. His lips are soft and his breath is close. He tugs your chin down to open your mouth to him so his tongue can slide in. You taste yourself on him as he stakes his claim on your mouth, licking into you like he’s starved. He needs you and nothing else. You can hear the little moans slipping through his every other breath and can feel the need flaring low in your stomach. You burn from the inside, your every nerve alive with fiery sensation only sated by the exploring hand that dips beneath your shirt and smooths up the plane of your stomach like an artist draws their brush across a canvas. It’s everything you need and not enough all at once. Your hands scratch at the muscles of his shoulder, pulling him nearer, demanding more. He obliges, ever your generous brother, wrapping his hands around your thighs and lifting you onto his lap, settling you over the hard line of his cock. He breaks the kiss and licks away the string of saliva connecting your lips, then closes the only remaining distance between the two of you to nip at your jaw and mouth along your neck. Your breasts push against the hard plane of his abdomen as you pant. Even through layers of clothing you feel the heat from his cock against the swell of your ass.

He lavishes your scent glands with attention, licking and biting at one while his hand plays over the skin of the other. The other arm is wrapped around your lower back to keep you steady. You lose yourself in the rhythm and the spill of moonlight painting your bodies in geometric patterns.

“Fuck,” he moans after a particularly sharp bite at the edge of your gland. “You can’t move against me like that if you don’t want me to fuck you.”

It’s only once he mentions it that you realize you’ve been rocking into him, rubbing the soaked material of your underwear over his clothed cock in a desperate bid for friction. Caleb’s hand skims around your back, finding the band of your bra and nimbly unhooking it. “You smell like sex,” he says into your ear, dancing his hand along the underside of your breasts. “I wonder if you taste like it too.”

Finally, he palms your breast, stifling his ensuing moan into your neck. He pushes you onto your back on the couch and you thread a hand into his hair, forcing him to follow you down. He does so without protest, like he’s the one at your mercy and not the other way around, settling between your legs. He kisses you again and hikes up your shirt. Then he leans back. His body blocks the light, casting a long shadow over you that makes the fire in your veins burn brighter. The front of his shirt is soaked with your sweat. You’re so hot. You’re burning up. Caleb’s face is consumed with desire, his lips red and swollen, his eyes sparking with heat as he gazes at your bare chest. The glands at his neck are pink and splotchy and contrast sharply with his pale complexion. 

“You’re perfect,” he says breathlessly. “So beautiful. You’ve recovered so nicely.” He squeezes one of your full breasts for emphasis. “I knew you had it in you. Everything--” he presses a kiss to your neck, “--your neck. Your tits.” His breath ghosts down your chest to your right breast. He kisses the peaked nipple, laving his tongue over it like it’s something to savor. “Your stomach.” His mouth moves to your navel where he kisses you again, reverent and slow. “Your thighs.” The hand still around one of your thighs pushes it out so he can nip playfully at the scent gland. It’s much more sensitive than the one at your neck and so tortuously close to your throbbing pussy. You watch as Caleb gathers the sticky substance from your skin with his mouth, eyes shut in bliss, and then moves to hover over your face. He kisses you, pulls back when you try to push forward, leaves you whining for more.

Your lips tingle. You lick them experimentally, tasting the salt of your skin and--

You cry out, legs spasming. Your hand digs into Caleb’s scalp and tugs. The flavor on your lips is his, has the same distinct spice as his scent gland but concentrated into a chemical firecracker. And you are the fuse. Wetness drips down your thighs in rivulets.

“I can smell how wet you are.” Caleb hooks his thumbs under your panties and inches them down your legs, transfixed by the glistening string connecting them to your pussy. His scent spikes, citrus and sycamore perfuming the air, and when he turns his shoulders to toss your underwear to the side you see a dark wet spot on the front of his sweatpants.

He hooks an arm atop your thighs, using the width of his body to keep your legs open and your wet center bared to him. His eyes shine with animal hunger and his canines gleam, the role of predator coming as naturally to him as breathing. He ghosts his lips over your mound to kiss just above your clit, giving your soft inner thigh a warning squeeze when your legs jerk at his touch. To your utter embarrassment, your folds make a slick noise as he uses two fingers to open them. Over the quick rise and fall of your chest, you see him lick his lips, absorbed entirely in the sweet pink color of your pussy--of your last secret, served to him now like was intended by your biology, by the nature of your relationship. Doomed from the start. Predator and prey, the chase nothing but foreplay to your grand reunion.

“You know,” he begins, his voice gravelly with restraint. “You’ve always been mine.” His eyes flick up to meet yours, stormy and brilliantly beautiful. “Regardless of your designation. Whether you were a beta or even an alpha, I would have laid you out like this and taken you over and over again until you forgot you were anything but mine.” Your heart clenches, in fear or arousal you can’t tell. Caleb runs a finger up the center of your pussy, smearing your own wetness over your clit. You try to choke off the moan it elicits but it escapes anyway, breathy and desperate and you know you must be begging with your eyes, glassy with unshed tears that clump your lashes. Caleb is panting, his jaw is tight and the muscles in his neck strain as if he’s struggling not to bare his teeth and sink them into you. You’re so slick. It runs down your legs, cooling against your skin and coaxing goosebumps to the surface. Caleb swipes some onto his fingers and rests his hand on your lower stomach, scissoring them so you can see the thick, translucent strands stretching between them in glistening webs. That uneasy feeling rolls in your gut again. The next words he speaks directly into your pussy, close enough to know but not feel. “But this must be fate, don’t you think, Pipsqueak? You presenting as an omega.” He applies gentle pressure to your pelvic area with his slick hand, a reminder to ground you in the moment as your mind threatens to slip away into a thick fog. A hairline space separates his mouth from your center, and you cry out and writhe against his hand, hungry for more, eager to end this torturous dance.

“My omega.”

The words are final. And right before he seals them with your taste on his tongue, the fog clears. A sharp clarity spears through you like the brief tail of a shooting star.

The fire in your veins, the slick coating your inner thighs, the haze blanketing your mind: you’re in heat. 

He descends on you, his mouth hot and wet against your sensitive inner folds. Light explodes behind your eyes, your hands flying to burrow into his hair and pull. He moans against you, his tongue licking a flat, broad stroke right up your center, lapping up your slick like a dog and letting it run off his tongue and pool back on your skin. He holds you down as he eats you out like he’s been starving, firm pressure exactly where you need it, the sound of his ministrations filthy in the quiet apartment. 

He shifts his focus from your sensitive clit to the outer rim of your entrance, dipping his tongue inside with teasing briefness. The entire time, his eyes remain locked onto your expression, reflecting the intense sensation through your open mouth and unfocused gaze.

“Caleb,” you gasp, digging your heels into the couch. You can’t tell if it’s to drive yourself away from his mouth or further onto it. He locks both arms now around your thighs, forcing your hips still as he doubles down fucking you with tongue. His nose rubs against your clit, the tips of his hair tickling your inner legs, and--oh god--you can feel the sharp pressure of his canines against the sensitive skin of your pussy, the contrast only heightening the sensation of his tongue inside you. You fist your hands harder into his hair, every muscle in your abdomen contracting and releasing as pleasure builds steadily in your lower stomach. Caleb moans drunkenly into your pussy, sealing his lips around as much of it as he can and sucking. You jolt, cry out, pleasure threatening to overflow into an orgasm at any second. Your body and mind beg for it, a singular focus, pulling like the tide as Caleb mimics the draw of the moon.

“Come on,” he slurs into your skin, speaking through a mouthful of slick and saliva, “Give it to me, Pipsqueak. I want to see you come on my tongue.”

His words crash over you, a wave of white-hot pleasure ripping through you. Your moan is long and drawn like the howl of some wild creature, answered by Caleb’s own groan as you contract around his mouth. The moon greets you when you throw your head back, pale and peeking out from the dark, heavy clouds. Its light spills over you in liquid silver.

Caleb continues to lick you into overstimulation while you whine pitifully, exhausted. Finally, he retreats from the cradle of your legs. His mouth and jaw are glistening with slick. A drop rolls off his chin in a long strand, snapping under its own weight and splashing onto the scar on your abdomen.

He surges up to kiss you as fervently as he ate you out. His mouth is salty and tangy with your taste. He nips at your ear and laughs lowly, like the roll of thunderclouds.

“What’s wrong, baby,” he coos mockingly, watching the useless loll of your eyes. The fire is filling you again, licking up your limbs. You heave, the layer of sweat coating your chest doing nothing to cool the heat that originates from deep inside you.

Each pull of air is laced with your and Caleb’s pheromones, a perfect blend of sex and affection. It stokes the embers. Unearths a section of your brain that was previously unknown to you. The part that pants and slobbers like an animal, that bone deep urge to present yourself to the man in front of you and beg for his knot until you’re stupid with it.

A hand--your hand, you realize belatedly--cups the side of his face. Did his eyes always gleam like that?

“Alph--”

The word almost slips out but you tug the last letter back, caging it in your throat. 

“What was that?”

He makes up his own answer when you don’t. “You want me to fuck you.”

No, no. This isn’t you. You’re a hunter. “I’m-- I don’t want--”

He tuts. Pulls your bottom lip down with his thumb, scrutinizing your teeth like he can decipher the truths that hide behind them. “Come on now, Pip. I didn’t raise you to be a liar.”

You’re not lying. You don’t think you’re lying. It’s hard to remember your own thoughts through the fog in your mind, though. The moment they’re conceived they slip away before the next can slot in.

“You’ve wanted it this whole time. I know you have. I see the looks you give me when you see me leaving the bathroom after a shower, how you stare at the towel around my waist. I can hear you stifling your moans into your pillow at night.”

You do that, don’t you? Those are things you’ve done, right?

He leans closer, his scent growing stronger. “You can trust me. You’ve always trusted me. I can take care of you better than any other alpha.”

You don’t need an alpha to take care of you. You need an alpha. You need to be taken care of. You need everything you don’t. Your needs are--

“I need you.”

That was your voice, you think. Maybe. God, you feel so empty inside. Your body is a cavernous pit of desire that throttles everything else.

Whatever you said, if you said anything at all, was what Caleb was looking for. A profound sense of satisfaction overcomes you at giving your alpha what he needs. He pushes his sweats down, freeing his swollen cock. Your mouth waters at the sight of it, knowing innately that this will quell the heat.

Knowing too, somehow, that Caleb is the only alpha who can do this to you. That despite being separated since your presentation as an omega, his scent is ingrained into your body to the point he commands it as much as you do.

The desire coursing through your veins is an earthquake that shakes the very foundation of your being. This was meant to be. Yes, that’s right, you think as he jerks his fist over his cock once, twice, three times, spreading your slick over the shaft. He removed his shirt too--when did he do that?--and the tags on his necklace shine in the lowlight. His chest expands with every heavy inhale, the muscles in his neck tensing like breathing takes him conscious effort. When he smiles down at you, his canines are prominent.

“Alpha,” you whine. He’s taking too long. He’s letting the heat eat you up. 

“I know,” he groans, releasing his cock in favor of propping himself up with his elbows beside your head. His face is close enough to see his faint freckles even in the dim light. You imagine kissing each one. “I’ve waited so long for this moment. You have no idea.”

You don’t care. The second his hips are in range, you lock your legs around them. His cock is trapped between your bodies, hot and heavy against your stomach. Need him. You need him so, so bad.

He guides it to your entrance, applying just enough pressure to spur awareness of his size in comparison to yours. He's so big, but you know he’ll fit, because you were made for each other. You scrape your nails down his back, trying to encourage him to get on with it already. Why is he denying you this? He keeps prodding and pulling back.

Frustrated, you bear your teeth at him, a throaty growl rumbling through your chest. He huffs a laugh and interrupts your intimidation by sliding into you--except not with his cock, but rather two fingers. Your growl devolves into a snarl.

“Have to make sure you’re ready,” he says it like it pains him to wait, but the expression on his face tells a different story; he’s enjoying this, denying you both. He’s delighted to watch you embrace the animal undercurrent of your second gender and curl your lips back and threaten him.

He fucks you with his fingers, which slip out easily each time with a ‘schlick’ because you’re so unbearably wet. Meanwhile, he noses at your neck, huffing your skin like its a drug. His cock hangs between his legs, drooling precum, twitching with your every moan and whine. It’s all you see, all you can think about. Being filled with it, knotted, bred. 

“Caleb, Caleb, Caleb,” you chant his name as a plea, squirming on his fingers. He brushes against a spot inside of you that punches a moan from your chest and, locked onto his new target, hits it repeatedly with perfect precision. And it’s so much worse now that the burn of another orgasm is building beneath the fever of your heat. It won’t be enough and he knows that. Your pathetic desperation etches a grin onto Caleb’s face, the same expression he gets while watching his fleet subordinates grovel and scream after a punishable offense. He’s breathing so hard and fast above you it’s like he’s about to cum without being touched at all, just from watching you distort yourself into the thing you vowed never to be.

It’s too much. Your whimpers cut off as another orgasm crashes through you. The muscles of your thighs clench, keeping Caleb close, and you can feel your heartbeat in your throat as it beats to the pulsing pleasure radiating from your pussy.

You’ve barely crested your peak when Caleb snarls, forces your legs apart, and slams himself into you. His pelvis meets yours with a wet squelch. A third orgasm is stolen from your body, with all the suddenness and intensity of a thunderclap. Your fingernails break the skin on his back and he moans.

“Even better than I imagined. God, you’re everything I need.”

He fills you so perfectly. You’re stretched wide around him. He takes up all your empty space, every crevice of your being. All the parts of you that you hid, the vulnerable underbelly you’ve protected are now exposed. He slides out slowly, letting you feel the silky drag, the catch of his head as you try to keep him inside. Then he thrusts back in, quick and precise like he’s fighting something out of you. You moan and arch your back for him, pressing your tits into his skin, which is so wonderfully cool in comparison to the heat radiating from you.

A heat which only grows more intense as he continues to fuck you. Fleeting thoughts of bursting into flames flit through your mind in between each of his thrusts. He kisses you again, eager and genuine, slotting your lips messily together. You’re not doing this the right way, your body says. This won’t work. You break the kiss and he chuckles.

Resistance against your teeth breaks you from your looping concerns. The meat of Caleb’s shoulder is between your teeth. You’re biting him, hard, trapping his skin as you pull like a dog trying to tear flesh from bone. A shudder runs through him and inside you his cock twitches. A hand roots into your hair and yanks, encouraging you to clamp down harder.

“You know what you need,” he grunts, never pausing his assault on your insides. “Show me, baby.”

Your hands unhook from his back to push at his chest, urging him away. He relents, allowing you a few inches of space. You twist your upper body around to face the couch cushions and your lower half follows, keeping Caleb inside the entire time. Your knees sink into the cushions as you push your weight back and bow into a steep arch, splaying your arms out in front of you.

Caleb’s hands wrap around your waist and pull you back to meet his next thrust. He hits a new spot, reaching a depth the previous position didn’t allow, and the fire inside you flickers in a strong gust of pleasure. Brief relief punctuated by a depthless euphoria. The noise you make is animal.

“Fuck, yes!” Caleb groans, gripping you hard enough to leave bruises. His wet breath is at your shoulder, his voice in your ear as he speaks. “I love you, Pipsqueak. My perfect omega, so good, you’re so good--”

He’s fucking you faster. The fire dances. Every time he pulls out, pleas well up in your mouth. Every time he thrusts in, you praise his name. Alpha, alpha, alpha. The flames crawl up your body as they’re quenched, converging at the base of your neck. A concentrated point of agony.

One of his hands traces across your hip, the rough scar slashing your navel, to your stomach. He moans into your neck. “I can feel myself inside you,” his lips leave smears of saliva on your skin, “After--fuck, yes, that’s it, push against me like that--after I fill you up I’ll make you dinner. Hand feed you.” You don’t understand what he’s saying. You don’t care. “All your favorites. You can have anything you want, Pipsqueak.” His thrusting grows increasingly erratic. Something is catching on your rim. “Anything but leave. You can never leave me. Can’t live without me. I need you, need you so bad--” He’s rambling. Each withdrawal of his cock takes more force as it resists at your entrance and you clench harder around him. The skin of your neck is boiling.

“Need you, alpha,” you slur, drunk on your heat. Drool trails down your chin and puddles into the couch. Your cheek rubs through it as each of Caleb’s thrusts jostles you forward. You scrabble for purchase on the cushions but there is none, nothing to keep you grounded except for Caleb’s hands on your hips and the bulk of his body splayed across your back. Your pussy is stretched painfully wide around his inflating knot and you just want it already, want him in all his capacity as an alpha. You want to lock yourselves together.

His hand clamps over the back of your head and forces it into the couch. “Take it,” he snarls, pulling out one last time, the rising action, the final act, the space between thunder and lightning. The hair on your body stands on end, anticipation buzzing beneath the surface. “Take my knot.”

You do.

He slams into you, bullying his way back into your pussy and sealing himself inside as he cums. The first spill of liquid warmth is hardly over before his climactic moan is cut off with a shaky breath and you hear the click of his jaw opening wide. And then the burn in your neck cuts into a sharp pain, quickly washed over by a pleasure so unbelievably profound you lose yourself in it completely. It’s more than an orgasm. It’s a vow, it’s centuries of longing crashing together, it’s two people becoming one in the most fundamental way possible. Like the ocean closing in around you, it drowns you, pulls you so far under there is no way out.

You see stars even though there are none, the night sky obscured by thick clouds. Caleb’s panting fades to ringing in your ears. Your pussy throbs and continues to be filled, flooded with the only thing hotter than the flame of your biology. You feel it settling into you, a pressure in your lower stomach.

The clouds part like tearing cotton, wispy threads disappearing in the wind. The moon, bright and full, reappears. The pressure on your neck eases. A trickle of blood rolls over the divot of your collarbone.

Delirious, you turn your head to peer behind you. Caleb is there, hips pressed to yours, hands massaging the imprints left in your waist. And he’s smiling. A wide smile with all his teeth. Stained red with your blood, glistening ruby in the moonlight. He wipes the back of a hand across his lips and licks it clean, his eyes shining with a wild gleam.

His mouth moves. 

“You’re mine.” 

And you’re not sure if you heard it or if the words are an ingrained truth such that you can conjure them in your mind effortlessly. Whatever the case, you shut your eyes. Let him wrap you in his arms and lean you against him, still basking in the pleasure brought by your connection at his knot. Let him lick over the bite on your shoulder, his claim to all that you are and will ever be.

In a few hours, you will wake and do it all again. For the next several days he will fuck and fill and satiate you in all the ways you do not want but wholly need. And at the end of it, you will call him your alpha. Your alpha, who you love deeply and hate fiercely.