#alpha!captain john price x omega!reader

[cas-backwards-tie]

Chapter One: News Crashing

Poly!TaskForce 141 x Omega!Reader

The Omega Pack Plan Masterlist

Summary: A change in procedure around base causes you to spiral as your world comes crashing down. There's only one way out of this and it starts with telling the truth.

Words: 4.4k

Warnings: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anxiety, Existentialism, Misogyny, Dismissive Attitudes, Angst, Rage

Mentions of: Medication,

A/N: Honestly, I'd been inspired by a few series (Standard Emergency Protocol and Pantry Solutions) I've read those and it caused me to want to write my own ABO COD AU, so I started this as a sort of funny fic awhile ago. I'm haven't entirely plotted out the whole story, but I have some ideas for the first few chapters. I was finally inspired to finish and post it because @cringeycookies liked the snippet I posted in a wip tag game. So thanks to everyone who inspired me, and a special thank you to @penelopepine for helping me with the dialogue and Price's reaction as I try to begin writing for them.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the nurse responds, "we're no longer authorized to refill suppressants of any kinds for any purpose." With a push of the empty orange pill bottle back across the counter in your direction, she offers you an ugly forced smile.

"Is there really nothing we can do?!" You complain incredulously, "Nothing at all? What am I supposed to do with this?!" Taking the emptied bottle into your hands, you stare at the nurse with widened eyes and a wild look.

"There is no 'we'..." she rolls her eyes in response, focus returning to the papers before her. "But if you insist, you can always bring it up with your CO, or the Base Commander." She scribbles something out on the page, but you can hardly focus when your world is virtually crumbling apart around you. "Now if you don't mind, some of us actually have work to do around here."

Still stunned, you can't help the way your breathing picks up as your heart begins to race. About a month ago now there was a base-wide meeting where they'd finally cracked down and implemented a new program the government is trying out: OPP. The Omega Pack Plan. While it's uncommon for Omegas to even be recruited into the military to begin with, such a thing does exist. Regardless, the Base Commander gathered everyone in the Auditorium for a presentation to talk about the new program and how the army would implement it into the troops. Luckily, considering you're on an elite Task Force, it doesn't apply to you. At least... it didn't.

"What the hell is this?!" You yell, tossing the orange bottle in his direction.

He'd heard the stomps all the way down the hall and smelled you coming, so he's neither surprised by your appearance, nor startled by the toss of the bottle. John swiftly catches it in his hand as he looks up at you. "What?" He inquires, finally glancing down to examine what he's caught. "A pill bottle?"

"Captain, it's empty! They won't refill it- I can-"

A groan tumbles past his lips as he drags a hand down his beard. "Look, Panther-" referring to you by your callsign, interesting move. "There's nothing I can do, it's over my head now. I wish I could do something, but I can't." Sitting back in his leather chair, Price places the bottle on the desk; a faint rap of the plastic hitting the wood is the only sound between you momentarily before you hurriedly shut the door.

Panic begins to flood your system as you're not sure how to handle this. It's your turn to freak out. You know how this goes, you know the story now; ever since they'd implemented and dispersed the Omegas into the troops, they'd started implementing them into the Task Forces, and now they have to do so with the One Four One. Fingers curling in and out of shapes as you try to process your next move, you speak before you can even begin to plan what you're going to tell him.

"I- I'm- I..." You're pacing his office now, the heavy gaze of your Captain upon you as you try to prevent yourself from hyperventilating. The thing is, you're usually good with pressure- really good. It's your job to be good. It's just... this is different. This is your life, your livelihood at stake, the livelihood of all your future generations to come.

A sigh resounds throughout the office before you hear the low timbre of his voice. "Dove," he calls out with a gentle tone, "I want you to take a deep breath for me. Alright?" With the calm and even sound of your Captain's voice and the assured look on his face, you comply. Exhaling the last of your breath, you close your eyes and focus in on the deep intake of air through your nose. With the parting of your lips you slowly release it before giving yourself a moment.

When you open your eyes he gestures to the seat before his desk, though you know he won't take offense if you decline. Hesitant, one hand finds its way to the other, wrapping around your arm as you listen to him speak. "Now, can you explain what has you in this state? I assure you that there's nothing that can't be dealt with." You want to trust him, you know him--John Price--your Captain. He's always had your back, always made sure you felt comfortable in the Taskforce, always made an effort to check on you after things got rough.

You nod. Licking your lips, you search his blue eyes as you tentatively take the seat across him.

"Whatever it is, we'll deal with it, alright? I can guarantee you that unless you're trying to tell me you're an Omega, nothing you say is going to shock me that warrants the amount of panic you're putting yourself through," Price chuckles. He's obviously joking, trying to break the tension with humor. Lips drawn upward into a small smile, the Captain stares at you expectantly.

"What if I am?" You whisper, eyes unable to tear from his visage as you try and gauge his reaction. Unexpectedly, silence fills the space between you and feels deafening in the small space. The growing comfort of his office these couple of months now feels like a cage you're forced to stay in, under watch, as you stare down your superior on the brink of a battle to the death. And that's what you do. His blue eyes bore into yours, skeptically shifting between your left and right as he seems to try and get a read on you.

All of the sudden you jump at the smack of his hands hitting the desk in front of him. He laughs at you.

He's laughing at you.

And you're sitting there with your guts spilled out, dread eating away at the pit in your stomach... and he's laughing. It feels like forever is passing you by as you stare at him in shock, this moment between the two of you frozen in time as nothing else persists.

"I understand what this was now," Price explains, still chuckling to himself as he shakes his head. There's a warm smile on his face that feels eerie considering the dire context of the situation at hand. "You got me! I fully believed you for a second there, too."

Eyebrows furrowing in dark realization, you can't help but stare at him wildly. "Wha-" You begin to question him and his line of thinking, but he cuts you off.

"This was all a prank, right? The bottle, the hysterics- you really outdid yourself, Sergeant." Leaning back in his chair, he props his ankle up on his other knee. "Because let me tell you, this was good. Better than anything Soap's cooked up in awhile. Did you come up with it yourself?" There's a cheeky grin on his lips. "Ah, I know you did."

Lips opening and closing like a fish out of water, you sit in the armchair across from him pale with a dazed look across your face. He doesn't actually think that this was...

"Well, with your little triumph in your pocket, I say we get back to work, yeah? I've got some new leads from MI6 that've just popped in." With that, the man stands from his desk and rounds it. "Garrick should be back around Tea. I'll see you in the Command Station then," he informs you. It's then that he passes by, a genial clap on your shoulder while he's at it.

Left stunned in silence, you can't help but grit your teeth, consequentially pronouncing your jaw as anger ebbs through your bloodstream. Breath getting heavier, you can't help but loathe the meeting tonight. Your Captain might be satisfied with the conversation, but all you feel is discouraged. He's abandoned you, left you alone in his office with a humiliating sense of betrayal and shattered trust. Almost like you hadn't just told him your biggest secret at all.

Punching the standard heavy punching bag hanging in front of you, you grunt, ignoring the pain that gnaws at your knuckles underneath the reusable hand wraps. Sweat builds on your brow as you continue to unleash your pent up anger on the gym’s equipment. How could he?! When had you ever pulled anything even similar to this? Never! And the fact that you’ve only been on the team for a handful of months only exacerbates the abandonment you’re feeling right now. He’s your Captain! Regardless of your feelings or the situation at hand, isn’t he supposed to be there for you? He’d promised from the get go to help you with whatever you need, and now the one time you go to him for aid it backfires in your face and leaves you without any sort of solution going forward aside from straight up telling the whole team the flat out truth, and God forbid! You can’t even begin to fathom how that’d go.

A pent up and frustrated yell almost akin to something of a growl emanates from you as you tear into another round of swift jabs and punches. Regardless of the situation at hand, you’ve been trying to build up your upper body’s strength and letting out the anger you’d accumulated over this morning’s events seemed like a perfect opportunity to let loose.

The stretches and treadmill routine didn’t take a lot out of you, but the weights, and now the punching bag definitely is starting to take its toll. Sweat beads at your forehead in rivulets that drip down the sides of your neck, down your scalp past your neck and between your shoulder blades. Tank top soaked in sweat, you breathe hard as your heart pumps rapidly in your chest. You would’ve wound up here at some point or another tonight, but the Captain’s discourteous response certainly led to an earlier workout time.

While others sparsely litter the gym’s floor, you pay them no mind and vice versa. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to be found blowing off steam or aiming to beat their highest reps on the weights. Yet, this gym is reserved for higher standing members of the Force, the gym on the far side of the base where there are less people, offices, and considering the regular army men train in the bigger gym closer to their quarters, it’s mostly other higher ranked officers in here.

“Captain’s lookin’ for ya,” Markowski, another Sergeant that you’d come to befriend on base announces from the doorway, having poked his head in after leaving a few minutes earlier. He belongs to a different Task Force.

A groan tumbles out of you as you realize it’s already that time. Just as the door clicks shut, your phone chimes loudly with the alarm you’d set earlier going off. A few quick swipes of your fingers, you turn the alarm off and unlock the device, seeing a number of messages flood your notifications.

Kyle: You hear they’ve bumped up the timeline? 😯

Johnny: “ https://Tiktok/Shattered.Rat567 ” Had me rollin’ 🤣👏🏻 Gotta check it, Bonnie

Simon: You coming to the meeting or not? 🤨

Johnny: Where r u? You’re usually first here 👀 Cap’s getting peeved, watch out

Not looking forward to the inevitable mess of a meeting before you, you don’t bother rushing to join the men. With a wash of your face in the women’s locker room, a speedy bathroom break, and a grab of the items you’d brought with you, you’re heading for the Command Station.

With the time Price set the meeting, you won't get to eat dinner till afterward. You'd be lying if you said you weren't annoyed by this entire situation, your agitation from neglecting your hunger earlier has certainly come to bite you in the backside.

While you don’t have time to respond to their texts, having set the alarm with only enough time to get back to your team’s Command ‘station’ albeit more like your headquarters before heading out. Speed-walking through the orderly halls with a haste perfectly common around here, you navigate with a well practiced knowledge. Though you’ve only been here coming up on six months soon, you’re well acquainted with this part of the base.

Rounding the corner, you’re in the hall, close. Yet, the worry of being late lingers in the back of your mind and adds another layer of annoyance on top of your residual anger buried deep down from this morning’s situation. You’d inevitably come up with your solution. It’s not one you like… but it’s the only logical option. Another turn and you’re striding into the big garage-like room.

“Nice of you to finally join us, Sergeant,” Price calls out to you. Lifting his eyes from the map laid out across your station's table, he glares in your direction.

“What took you so long?” Soap snaps, his brows slightly furrowed as he stares at you from the opposite side of the table, hands lazily wrapped around his vest’s straps.

A look at your watch tells you that you’re not even late, the meeting doesn’t officially start for another minute! But you are usually waiting on them. He’s got you there.

“Yeah, you’re usually the first one here. It’s not like you,” Gaz whispers under his breath as you sidle up alongside Ghost, Gaz standing diagonal to you right beside Price at the head of the table.

“Focus,” Ghost orders the men, his hands tucked in his hoodie’s pocket. You don’t fail to notice the way he subtly takes a step further away from you as soon as they start talking again. Price goes back to talking plans as Gaz is questioning the circumstances of the information the Captain had acquired earlier when he’d had to leave the office.

“Which is exactly why-”

A heavy exhale on your behalf leaves the men frozen as their eyes drift back to you. “Do you have something you’d like to say, Panther?” The Captain questions. Jaw clenched, you tear your eyes from the map they’d settled on.

“We’ve got a big problem,” you announce, cutting off the Captain as you finally raise your gaze to meet Price’s slightly widened blue eyes.

“Well, if you see something that needs changin’ then let’s hear it,” he responds. A ‘hmph’ follows as he crosses his arms over his chest and sits his weight back onto his heels.

“It’s not about the op,” you correct him. Tilting your head side to side you attempt to crack the kinks in your neck while standing a little straighter to appear more engaged and serious.

“And it’s more important than this? What we’re doin’ right now?” Soap questions, his hands dropping to rest on the table as he looms over it, eyeing you with frustration obvious in his irises.

“What is it?” Gaz asks, a quirk of his eyebrow garnering your attention for a split-second. He’s genuinely asking, and there doesn’t seem to be a hostility in his scent as he turns his attention to you. Then there’s Ghost, who you don’t even need to look at to feel his heavy gaze on you, waiting expectantly.

“Actually, it is,” you argue with Soap, anger beginning to boil in your belly, the frustration and angst having been left to simmer all afternoon. “I can’t believe you didn’t take me seriously when I came to you earlier,” you turn your anger on Price. He looks taken aback by the outburst, something you’re not known for.

“Dove,” he calls calmly, hands out in an attempt to pacify.

“Don’t-” you bark, starting to raise your voice without realizing it. “I came to you in confidance! Trusting you when you said you’d be there to help me if I ever needed it! How could you?” Gritting your teeth, you don’t realize how hard you’re breathing as your chest heaves with anger.

“Woah, woah-” Gaz sputters, “What-” holding his hands out to try and diffuse the argument.

“I let myself be vulnerable-” You continue to shout.

“Isn’t this something that shoul-” Soap attempts to dissuade, backing down as he puts his hands out.

“-and tell you the truth, and-” you’re lunging for him across the table. You’re held back by a massive hand on your shoulder. “You laugh in my face?! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You're suddenly pulled back, off your feet, and shoved into a metal chair that'd been nearby. Your Lieutenant is hovering over you, his cold eyes now tinged with a spark of anger as they bore into you scrutinizingly. There's the sound of commotion behind him, multiple voices overlapping, yet you can't see anything with that utter giant in front of you!

“Does anyone wanna explain what the bloody hell is goin’ on here?” Ghost snaps. It's only then when the man steps aside that you can see where everyone is. With both of you in your respective corners, you simply glare at the Captain from over your crossed arms out in front of you.

“Are you bleedin’ kidding me, ya Scally?” Price grunts as he shrugs Gaz’ hand off his shoulder. “You’re still on about it! When w-"

"That doesn't explain what happened, Cap," Gaz interrupts, stopping him from going off and getting them nowhere.

He groans, running a hand over his face once more before composing himself. Everyone waits for an explanation—you too—he’d been the first to speak, and you’re curious to hear what he comes up with. “She came into my office, bloody cryin’, tossing me a pill bottle, muttering about, saying she’s a-”

You don’t dare let him finish, not wanting him to be the one to finally say it, exposing your truth to the team. "Omega. I’m an Omega, ” you finish his sentence. While you’re scared to meet their faces, you take a deep breath and force yourself to do so.

"Christ," Price curses, fingers coming up to pinch the skin between his brows as he hangs his head.

Ghost's stoicism is nothing unordinary, and in fact, is somewhat a comfort considering you'd expected nothing less from him.

Gaz looks stunned for a moment, eyes flitting about the other’s faces before the serious look on his face morphs. Lips slowly drawing upward, you shouldn’t be surprised when he starts laughing. "Yeah right," Garrick teases, "and I'm actually the Prime Minister."

Yet, it's not just him. The uproarious laughter from your right only adds fuel to the already burning flame as the two other Sergeants laugh like idiots. All as if it's some poor joke with no consequences to anyone's life, and yet... it's the truth. At the end of the day, it doesn't change anything. At the end of the day, your life is still in jeopardy and they're treating it like some joke. Unable to form any sort of retort, you simply blink; stuck in a stupor raw, stung, and with a dumb look on your face.

Soap, rounding the table slaps Gaz on the back, his face flushed red from laughing so hard. "Yer makin' my stomach hurt. God," he eggs the other on between his dying chuckles and attempting to catch his breath.

"You're really just gonna stand there and laugh?!" You finally burst. Anger surely must be coming off your scent in waves, but you don't care. Standing from the chair, you don't flinch as Ghost swipes his arm out in front of you in case you were going for the Captain again. There will be no physical altercation on his watch.

"She already pulled this on me earlier, mind you, and now what? You're trying to pull it over on the lads' too, eh?" Price goads you.

"And I was telling the truth! You're the one who said I was joking," you point out. The volume of your voice is lost on you, partially blinded by the fury bleeding out.

"I suppose you never did admit to it being a prank," Price reasons, fingers grazing his beard as he runs them over it repeatedly in thought. "But how do you expect us to believe that when you clearly smell of a Beta?"

"Even on the battlefield, after everything we've been through-" Gaz starts.

"After yer all sweaty from a workout, too. I think we'd notice, Pan," Johnny argues, illuminating a legitimate point of consideration.

"Oh please," you mutter quietly to yourself. Shaking your head, you can't believe they're really all being this daft right now. "Like you have heard of those Scent Spritzers.”

There are various perfumes on the market specifically designed to alter one’s scent. Most use it smell like an Alpha when they’re not, or an Omega when they’re wanting to seduce an Alpha when going out. But Omegas posing as Betas was rarely heard of. You’re more than sure it happens more frequently than people know of, they just haven’t been caught. And in your line of work? It’s scarce. People are thoroughly vetted, but… you’d been on suppressants for a long, long time. And a Beta perfume only perfected your hiding.

“Did you forget we’re Alphas, love? We’d be able to smell you across the room if you were,” Gaz taunts. There’s a puff of his chest that makes his cockiness even more annoying than usual.

"You really want to be an Omega? Dumb yourself down to some weak fragile thing?” Johnny jokes, nudging Gaz’ arm as he shakes his head.

“A doll who can get whoever she wants? Want to be nothing more than good for knockin' up and popping out pups?” Gaz adds on.

“Are you serious right now?” You test, seething under your skin as your hands ball up into fists. “How could you say that?!”

“It’s what people say,” Ghost comments.

“Nobody would want that and you’re out here lying about it,” Johnny pokes.

“We’re only trying to point out the flaws in your little rouse, Pan,” Gaz says, a smile lighting up his features as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"And what if I was lying, hm? Would that change anything you just said to me? How you feel about Omegas?" You scoff.

“This isn’t about your designation,” Price finally speaks. Fingers still weaved into his beard, his blue eyes lift to meet yours. “I see what this is about now, but there's nothin' to worry about, Dove.” Your Captain takes on a softer tone and all of the sudden you feel yourself start to get emotional as a twinge of sadness, of the hurt bleeding through upon understanding makes you feel seen.

“I know it's intimidating, the thought of having your first unmedicated heat, but we have medics here. It's natural. Heats, ruts, we all have them. And, hey... at least you're not an Omega, right?" Whatever relief you’d momentarily experienced sinks back down in your gut with the speed of a rollercoaster drop. It’s as silent as a stakeout, the only sound being people’s breathing. And the lack of yours.

It takes a moment to gather yourself, everyone’s eyes on you with the serious topic change. While sex and the downsides to a designation are something discussed with the boys, you’d often been left out. And to your comfort. "You know what? I can’t do this,” you retort. Backing from the group, you toss your hands up. “I guess you'll just have to wait and see," you bite back. With a whip of your hair over your shoulder, you head for the door.

The room is silent once more as everyone gawks. You’d never reacted in such a manner, had an outburst like that… this is… certainly different, and something they’re not at all used to.

“It’s because they took away her suppressants today,” Price explains. It might not have been something the group should be privileged to know. A private matter, really… but with the way you acted? He felt the men deserve an explanation, at least.

“That makes sense,” Gaz responds quietly, eyes still on the door you’d gone through.

“That’s no excuse,” Johnny counters, arms crossing over his chest with a scowl on his lips.

"Well... that went better than I thought,” Ghost comments with a shrug. “Back to the plan? We can fill her in later.”

[yeyinde]

trying to seduce or rile up Price only for it utterly backfire on you has got to be one of my favourite things ever. especially if it's framed like a reluctant aggressor situation that flips on its head. because while he might not have wanted to do this at first, once he starts, there's absolutely no stopping him until he's satisfied.

which just ends up with you on your knees, barely able to keep yourself up as he folds himself over you, furry chest glued to your spine, forearm shoved under your neck, fingers gripping your shoulder to keep you locked in place as he sets out to make you regret ever trying to tempt him by viciously pounding his pent up aggression into your poor, abused pussy. gives you his full weight as a punishment, too; not stopping until all the air is squeezed out of your sore, burning lungs.

and all the while he rubs his bearded jaw over your sweat-slicked, tear stained cheek, and growls into your ear about how spoiled, needy little things don't get to cry now. not when he's just giving you exactly what you asked for.

so say thank you, sir and stop whining about it already 🙄

[waves-against-a-cliff]

After the end - Post-apocalyptic Omegaverse AU

Summary - You missed the end of the world. Fine by you. You thrived in your new surroundings, content to be on your own. Until something happens during your third winter.

Tags - Omegaverse (duh), alpha/beta/omega dynamics, non traditional dynamics, all of the 141 are alphas, you're an omega. Eventual smut, dub-con, knotting, mating press, polyamory, alphas love alphas. Uh... This came to me in a fever dream. Consider this a prologue. 141 x reader

You think you're pretty lucky all things considered. You had always been self sufficient and your childhood gave you skills you were able to call on after the entire world shat itself. To be honest, you hadn't even noticed the world had completely gone to ruin until you tried to call your pharmacy to refill your heat and scent suppressants.

The line was dead. So you called the grocery store. Dead. The movie theater, the diner, the post office. Dead dead dead. Panic seized you by the throat and you dropped your home phone onto the ground. You splashed cold water onto your face and looked into the mirror with puffy eyes and shaking hands.

What were you going to do? The world couldn't have ended. Right? You should have noticed sooner. "Fuck," you said, pulling on your shoes and grabbed your car keys, you got into your car, "fuck!"

As it turns out, you did in fact miss the ending of the world. You yelled obscenities and banged on your steering wheel. The entire small town you lived near was deserted. Windows were boarded up and cars were parked by the road with tires missing or windows smashed in.

You missed the entire end of the world.

As it turns out, the end of the world wasn't that bad. Nothing really changed. Well besides the rarity of getting your hands on heat suppressants and scent blockers. The first week after you finally got caught up on the whole "the world has ended" thing you raided.

You avoided using your car after you got a mild scare that someone else had been attracted to the noise. Hiding in the very smelly gas station bathroom while you listened to the sound of boots crunching on glass was enough to teach you that lesson.

You tore apart the pharmacy the first week, finding what had to be at least four months worth of scent blockers and nine months of heat suppressants. You took everything you deemed useful and stuffed it into your backpack before hiking back home.

You set up a routine, patrol the forest edge twice a day, care for your garden and check any trap for animals to eat. Self sufficiency had never been such a blessing.

It was the middle of winter three years later when you first saw them.

Men. No, not just men. Alphas. Their scent almost made your knees buckle when you smelt it down wind. For a moment your mind went hazy as their smells flooded your mind until that part of your brain that had been responsible for your survival kicked back in.

Alphas. In your territory. Your territory. It felt like a crime and you felt your inner omegas turmoil. As you watched the four men walk down the road that led into town through your binoculars you debated on what you should do. Run, flee while you are down wind. With shaky hands, whether from the cold or fear you didn't know, you climbed down from the perch you were on and sprinted back home while doing your best to cover your own tracks.

You went in circles, outside in the cold long past when your hands and feet had gone cold. But you were sure they couldn't follow. You were sure they didn't even know you were there.

Three years. You had been off of heat suppressants and scent blockers for years. After a while your heats had stopped coming, whether it was from lack of sleep or stress or some evolutionary thing that happened when no one to mate was around, the bottom line was that you were unprepared.

You boarded up your door and threw water on your fire. You grabbed every blanket in the house and ran into your bedroom. At first you did it for warmth. If you were going to hide you couldn't have fire to give out smoke and you needed to be warm.

Then you continued to mess with the blankets and pillows. You huffed, growing increasingly frustrated at your inability to get it right. You grabbed your laundry and threw it in too, arranged and rearranged until it felt right. It wasn't until you took a step back that you realized what you had done. Something you haven't in years. Before you was a nest. Large enough to fit many in it. Maybe even five. You swallowed hard as your fingers dug into your stomach. It was going to be a long winter.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 42: Comfort and Joy

Summary: Tis the season to be jolly...

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 8, 417 words

Warnings: Alpha/beta/omega dynamics, omegaverse, alternate universe, slight angst at the beginning, blood and disturbing imagery, nightmares, PTSD, lots of comfort, holidays

A/N: Yes, CRCB is getting its holiday episode. Something holly and jolly before Christmas, some sweet comfort for the last chapter of this year. It's kind of rough but I don't hate it. I hope everyone feels the same. Happy Holidays to everyone

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

It’s quiet in the house. 

There’s a stillness in the air that seeps into your very soul. The only light is from the street light outside. Your father never allowed you a nightlight despite your fear of the dark. You weren’t allowed to show such weakness in front of him. God forbid his family have any flaws. 

You’re the flawed one. 

It’s too quiet in the house, not even your brothers’ snoring audible in the tense quiet that has settled over your safe space. It has your breathing shallow so as to not disturb the heaviness in the air. Your sister is asleep in the bed across the room, tucked under the blankets safely. Sleep evades you however, something tickling in the back of your mind. 

Something is off. Something is wrong. 

“Hannah.” You whisper, disturbing the darkness in favor of not feeling so alone in the oppressive silence. “Hannah.” 

Yet your sister does not stir, showing no sign of even acknowledging a disturbance as she sleeps deeply. You bite your lip, sinking back further under your covers. You could wake one of your brothers, but the likelihood of one of them helping ease your fear is small. They’ll just usher you back to bed and tell you to grow up. You could attempt to rouse your mother, but that runs the risk of also waking your father. If nothing is wrong, it will be your doom. 

Maybe it’s all just in your head. Some terror brought on by a lingering nightmare. 

You need to get up. You can’t lay in the darkness anymore. 

So you rise from the safety of your blankets, padding silently across the wood and out into the hallway. There’s a nightlight allowed out here to prevent stumbling in the dead of night. There’s nothing in the hallway, no silent spectre waiting to grab whoever leaves their room first. You creep silently down the hallway towards the black gaping maw of the living room waiting just beyond the edges of the light. 

You stand there at the end of the hallway, gazing into the darkness for a moment. It’s not truly dark, light filtering in through the curtains from the streetlights outside. Yet the darkness feels thicker than it ever has before as you stand there, waiting for a shadow to move. 

Nothing moves, and after a breath you turn to the left, cutting through the dining room straight towards the kitchen. It’s darker in here, cut off from the street, yet you navigate it with ease. You’ve spent many nights navigating through the darkness, creeping around the house when you can’t sleep. 

You enter the kitchen, heading for the cupboard that holds the cups. Your mother used to give you warm milk when you couldn’t sleep. Sometimes you’d rise to find her awake, sitting in the living room. Sometimes she’d be crying. Sometimes she’d just be sitting with the lamp on, staring into the distance. 

It always made you wonder what she was thinking about. 

You stand on your toes, reaching up for a glass. It nearly falls and hits the counter but you manage to catch it, preventing what would no doubt be a crisis. You let out a breath before moving to the sink, filling the glass up. You stare out the small window that shows nothing but the fence between your house and the neighbors. All the houses are the same, built after the same model with the same green grass out front. It’s like a movie set, some suburban setting for a drama or a horror movie. 

The oppressive darkness feels like a horror movie. 

You turn to head back to your room, but you’re stopped by a figure standing in the entrance to the kitchen. You can just make it out, large and looming in the darkness. For a moment you think it’s your father, awakened by something, some instinct telling him there’s something moving around in the house. It’s not the right size to be your father, though, too tall and long. 

You stumble back towards the light switch, your fingers shaking as you flip it on. 

“Phil?” You ask quietly, staring at your father’s best friend in shock. You haven’t seen him in almost two years. 

His mouth opens in a haunting grin, blood pouring down his chin. You stare in horror as blood soaks into his white shirt, dripping onto the floor below. The cup slips from your hand, shattering on the floor as his hand wraps around the knife stuck in the side of his neck, pulling it free. Blood sprays across the white cupboards, painting them like some gruesome work of art. 

“Look...what you did...to me...” Phil says, his voice nothing more than a gurgling wheeze. 

He reaches out a blood soaked hand towards you, sending you stumbling back. Glass cuts into the bottoms of your feet, sending shards of white hot pain up your legs. You don’t care, too busy trying to evade the bloody hand trying to grab at you. You slip in the water on the floor, falling backwards, the back of your head seconds from hitting the side of the counter...

“Easy, easy.” 

Arms are around you, holding you tightly as you sob. Your feet are burning as you sit there on the kitchen floor. It’s not the kitchen in your old home, though, it’s the kitchen in the cottage. Your feet are burning with sharp stabs of pain. There’s water soaking into your pajama pants. 

“You’re alright.” 

The light is on, raining down bright yellow light from overhead. You hate it, the oppressive light burning your eyes. You squeeze them closed, trying to ease the pounding in your head that pulses in time with your heart. 

“...sleepwalking I think...” 

Voices float in and out as you sit there, leaning back against something solid and warm. There’s arms around you, holding you tightly, your own arms trapped up against your chest. You tilt your head back, resting it back against the solid warmth. 

“Almost hit her head...” 

“Move her to the couch...”

“It’s not that uncommon during times of extreme stress.” 

You wince as another tiny piece of glass is pulled from your foot. 

“Even if someone has never experienced sleepwalking before, it can start at any age.” 

“Is this something we need to worry about now?” 

“It’s hard to say.” Dr. Keller dabs at your foot with a damp towel streaked with pink from your blood. “It’s one of those things we’ll just have to wait and see if it was a one-time thing or if it will become a regular occurance.” She dabs at your feet with the towel before shining the flashlight on them again. “You want to talk about the nightmare?” 

She’s talking to you now. 

“No.” You say, the word strained and weak from your lips. Your face feels tight from the tears you had shed in your confusion and delirium. The nightmare is still fresh on your mind, replaying like some sick television show, over and over in your head. 

She gives you a look, but doesn’t press anymore. She won’t ask again, not in front of your pack at least. 

She lets your feet rest on the coffee table before moving closer to you. Her hands cup the back of your head, pressing down on certain spots. “Does your head hurt?” 

“No.” You say, ignoring the throbbing behind your eyes. 

“Well, thanks to Kyle’s quick reflexes, I think we’ve avoided a concussion.” She says, turning to Kyle. “How’s your hand?” 

“Fine.” He says from where he’s sitting next to you, flexing his fingers. “I’ll take aches and pains if it prevents a hospital visit.” 

“That’s the last thing we need right now.” John says. 

You can’t help but wince at his words. 

If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. 

“Thankfully there wasn’t any serious damage.” Dr. Keller says, wrapping your feet in gauze. “Just try to take it easy for a couple of days. Walking isn’t going to feel very good for a while.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really.” 

“I think it might be good to talk about it.” 

“You’re as bad as Dr. Keller.” 

“Well, she and I agree that holding everything in isn’t going to help anything.” Kyle says, taking the seat next to you. “We just want to help you.” 

“Unless you can crawl into my mind and fix my memories, I don’t think you can help with this.” You say bitterly. 

“Well, I can’t do that, but I can listen.” He gives you a look. 

You choose to ignore it. 

He continues to stare at you as you turn your gaze out the window. It’s raining again, light droplets hitting the window. You can feel yourself beginning to crack as he continues to stare at you, his gaze not sharp and prying, but instead soft and inviting. He really wants to know, not out of curiosity or need, but because he cares. He wants to help, even if it’s just listening. 

Can you be brave enough to share? 

“I woke up in bed, but not in the cottage. I was in bed at the house we lived in before I was sent to the institution.” You swallow the lump in your throat threatening to choke you and cut off your words. “It was the house we moved to shortly after Phil left. I remember feeling something was off after I woke up, something was wrong but I couldn’t figure it out.” Your mouth suddenly feels dry. “I went to the kitchen to get some water and Phil appeared there in the darkness. He...” 

You trail off for a moment, the memory of what he had looked like in your dream sending a spike of fear through you. You had thought the one positive of Phil being dead was that he couldn’t haunt your dreams anymore. He’s not out there hunting you, seeking you out. He’s dead, burned to a crisp in that barn. You made sure of that. 

“He had a knife in his neck. He was bleeding.” Your voice shakes as tears prick behind your eyes. You hate it that you’re still crying over Phil and his hold on you even in death. “He said....he said ‘look what you did to me,’ and pulled the knife out. I dropped the glass of water and slipped in it. I was falling but then I woke up.” 

Kyle is silent after you finish, the quiet settling heavy between you, as heavy as it had felt in your dream. You know you sleep walked through part of your dream. You went to the kitchen for water and dropped the glass. You slipped in the puddle and nearly hit your head on the counter if Kyle hadn’t found you seconds before and cushioned your fall with his hand. Your feet still sting from stepping in the glass, even though the puncture wounds and cuts have mostly healed. 

A warm hand touches yours, fingers curling around yours. Kyle’s rough skin, calloused by handling weapons and fighting for so many years, drags against yours as he slowly lifts your hand away from the arm of the chair and up towards his face. His breath is warm as it hits your palm, his soft lips pressing against your skin. You turn to face him, tears still blurring your vision as you sit there, staring at him. 

“It was just a dream.” He murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to your palm. “No one is going to hurt you. Phil is gone and we’ll be damn sure nothing else can even try.” He presses your hand against his cheek, your fingers trembling against the smooth skin. “You have nothing to fear.” 

“Only what’s in my head.” You whisper. 

“What can we do? How can we help you defeat those demons plaguing you?” He asks, threading his fingers through yours. 

You stare at him for a while, taking in his face again. It feels like so long since you’ve really looked at them, since you’ve truly taken in their features. You’ve almost forgotten what they actually look like, your mind always conjuring up muddy images of their faces in your memories. 

You’ve forgotten just how pretty and perfect he really is. 

How...disarming his face is. 

“I don’t know.” You whisper, your thumb stroking his cheek. “I don’t know.” 

The breeze is cold, whipping around you and biting at your cheeks. The blanket tucked tightly around you stops the wind from chilling you to your bones. You don’t care about the cold, your gaze out on the waves crashing against the shore. 

“Cold?” Johnny asks, tightening his hold around you. 

“No.” You say, fighting back a shiver as you lean further back against his chest. The last thing you want right now is to leave the beach. 

“Somethin’ tells me I shouldnae believe you.” He says, squeezing his body around yours. 

“Well, whatever it is, it’s wrong.” You say stubbornly, shoving your hands in your armpits to keep them warm. 

“Stubborn little thing.” He says, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. “Should be headin’ back soon anyway.” 

You let out a whine in protest, leaning your head back against his shoulder. “I want to stay here forever.” 

“I know.” He says, letting you go just enough to pull his phone out of his pocket. “Wish I could let ye.” 

You can’t stop the shiver that shakes through you at the loss of his warmth. It is cold and getting colder as the sky gets more grey overhead. The sun is going down, the darkness of the evening rolling in earlier and earlier every day. 

“Time to head back.” Johnny says, pocketing his phone. 

“Five more minutes.” You whine, trying to lay all of your weight against him. 

“I have direct orders to get you back stat.” He says, pushing himself up to stand. 

You let yourself flop back on the blanket you’ve been sitting on, looking up at him as you lay there in the sand. The wind is picking up, blowing some of it onto your face. You sputter, pulling yourself back up to sit. 

“Come on, kitten.” Johnny says, tucking his hands under your arms before lifting you to stand. “Let’s head back before it gets dark.” 

He brushes the sand off of your blanket before picking up the other one and shaking it. He drapes it over his arm before guiding you back up the path towards the car. You take one last look over your shoulder at the water before following him to the parking lot. 

It’s dusk when you get back to the cottage, the lights from inside glowing warmly through the windows. Johnny takes your hand, leading you up the steps and into the cottage. 

It’s warm inside, the rest of your pack moving around in the kitchen and dining area. You kick your boots off, passing your blanket off to Johnny before heading into the living area. The table is all made up, many dishes sitting out ready to be served, all of them looking very familiar.

“What is this?” You ask, stepping closer to the table. 

“It’s Thanksgiving.” Dr. Keller says, stepping out of the kitchen with a tray of meat in her hands. “I thought you might like to celebrate.” 

“Oh.” You stand there for a moment. You didn’t even realize what day it was. Time has been so strange with no phone or television to give you an idea of what day it is. It’s been moving quickly, almost four weeks since the day you were taken. “Is that why you let Johnny take me to the beach?” 

“We wanted to surprise you.” John says. “I know you don’t like surprises, but this felt like a more appropriate one.” 

“I don’t like surprises, but this is really sweet.” You move towards your normal seat at the table, looking at all of the dishes laid out. 

“We made all the classics, or at least as close as we could get with what we have available.” Dr. Keller says. 

“It’s pretty close, but then again I’ve only had Thanksgiving once.” Ashley says, coming out of the kitchen. You hadn’t even noticed her car parked outside. 

“Thank you for this.” You say, still a bit taken aback by the gesture. “I didn’t even know it was close to Thanksgiving. Time...time seems so weird now.” 

“A lot has happened in a short amount of time.” Dr. Keller says, rubbing your back. “That can skew how we perceive time passing.” 

“I also don’t have any way to tell time.” You shrug. 

Dr. Keller gives you a soft smile. “Well, we’ll see if we can rectify that.” 

Everyone takes their seats at the table in their usual spots, except for the extra chair next to Dr. Keller for Ashley. You recognize the strategic move, even if the rest of your pack pretends not to notice. Dr. Keller also pays it no mind, but you can’t help but notice the bashful look that flashes across her face when her hand brushes Ashleys as food gets passed around the table. 

You load up your plate, digging in almost immediately. You hadn’t realized how hungry you got down at the beach, not until you came back to a cacophony of delicious smells. It all tastes good, all of it throwing you back into reminders of your childhood and Thanksgivings with your family. While your father still had expectations of proper behavior from you and your siblings, it was tradition that he’d spend most of the day in his chair. Your mother did all of the cooking, you and your siblings helping when she’d allow. 

You never truly understood how much work she put into every holiday until you were older. 

Thanksgivings at the institute were never the same as Thanksgivings at home. You got the day off of course, and there always was a better meal that day with the classics, but it always felt so manufactured, not unlike the food on base. You never realized how much you missed home cooking until now. 

You never realized how much you missed your mothers food until now. 

Tears blur your eyes as you continue to eat, trying to distract yourself with heaping spoonfuls of food. 

“You doing alright?” 

Of course the one time John would notice your melancholic state would be right now. The entire table pauses, turning to look at you. You start to curl in on yourself, not wanting all the attention all at once on you. 

“Yeah.” You clear your throat, wiping the tear that betrays you and falls down your cheek. “Just tastes really good. Reminds me of my mom’s cooking.” 

The words slip out before you can stop them, tumbling out onto the table and landing among the mashed potatoes. Things suddenly feel very vulnerable, very raw. You wish you could grab the words, shove them back in and make them all forget your admission. You don’t want the soft stares, the sympathetic looks in their eyes, the understanding. You want to crawl under the table and hide until the moment passes. 

“I-I think I just missed home-cooked food.” You try to save the moment from growing more embarrassing for you. 

“I second that.” Johnny says, the tension in the room lightening just a bit. “Easy tae forget what good food tastes like sometimes.” 

“I’ll give it to the Americans.” Kyle says, recognizing your desire for the attention to be off of you at this moment. “They do know how to do a good feast.” 

“We can do more than good food.” Dr. Keller says, sounding almost offended. 

“Like Halloween.” Johnny says. “What I wouldnae give to have an American Halloween.” 

“You just want an excuse to eat candy until you’re sick.” Simon rumbles. 

“I wan’ tae do more than that.” Johnny gives him a look. “Costumes, the parties, trick or treatin’. All of it.” 

“Maybe we’ll have to take you to America next Halloween.” Dr. Keller says. “Let you get a proper taste of the holiday.” 

Next Halloween. 

You’re not even thinking a week ahead, much less a year. You’re not even sure the others have thought much about what the next few months will look like. Where will you all be in a year? You can’t stay at the cottage forever, as much as you would enjoy it. At some point a decision has to be made. Where do the five of you go from here? 

The conversation begins to lighten, the attention thankfully being drawn off of you again. That doesn’t save you from John’s gaze, though, his eyes flicking up to you every so often. You try not to meet that gaze, keeping your eyes down on your plate as you eat until you’re stuffed full. Yet you can’t help but look up when his gaze lingers too long, when your omega shifts under the scrutinizing gaze of an alpha. He’s trying to read you like he used to be able to. You wish you could hide better from him, but you’ll never be able to truly keep your thoughts and feelings under wraps. 

Not from him. 

You’re banned from the kitchen as food is cleaned up and placed in the fridge and dishes are washed. Instead you find yourself on the couch, staring into the flickering flames of the fire. Kyle takes a seat next to you, sitting down with a quiet groan. 

“How are you?” He asks, draping his arm on the back of the couch behind you. 

“Fine.” You say, still turned to face the fire. “Full.” 

He lets out a quiet chuckle. “Same. Don’t think I’ve been this full in a long time.” 

“That’s the point of the holiday.” You say. “Eat until you pass out.” That’s what your father used to do, slipping into a food coma after dinner in his chair. As much as you hate him, you do miss those quiet evenings where you could loosen up and not care about his calculating gaze. 

“Feeling tired?” He asks, and you can feel his questioning gaze hitting the side of your head. 

“No,” You respond, and it’s the truth. There’s far too much going on in your head to even nap right now. 

It falls silent for a few moments, only the sounds from the kitchen and the crackling of the fire breaking the silence. You’re far away in your thoughts, replaying the last few weeks over and over in your head. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” John asks, breaking you from your reverie. He takes a seat on the other couch, facing you. 

“Just thinking about how much time has passed.” You answer, tucking your knees up close to your chest. “It’s been almost a year and yet it feels like it’s only been a few weeks.” 

John hums. “You would have been with the CIA already by this time.” 

You nod. “Yeah. I was picked up just after Halloween. Didn’t really have Christmas last year. The CIA wasn’t exactly the most festive place. They had bigger things to worry about.” 

“Did you miss it, Christmas?” He asks. 

“Well, yeah. Of course, even if we didn’t really celebrate much in the institute either. We didn’t have any gifts to give each other outside of things we were supplied with by the institute. They didn’t really bother decorating either. We got the day off, of course, and we had a nicer meal than usual, but it wasn’t really some big festive celebration.” You shrug. “It was always a big deal in my house. It was my mom’s favorite holiday.” 

You cut yourself off before the emotions can get to be too heavy. You’ve already almost lost it once in front of them today. The last thing you want is to risk that again. You’ve spilled too many words already. The last thing you want is to spill more. 

John’s gaze leaves you to look at Kyle next to you, the two of them sharing a silent conversation. You’ve always envied their abilities to speak to each other without words. You wish you could know them that well, you wish you could understand them on that level. You wish you shared the bonds they have with each other. You’ll always be the odd man out, the outsider. You’ll never have that closeness, that ease with which they exist around each other. 

You’re beginning to see it again, the fluidity between them, moving around each other without needing to look, always aware of the others. Here you are again, on the outside of that once more. Things really have gone back to the way they were before, back when things were new and foreign and unknown. You’re an unknown factor in this dynamic again, all of them tiptoeing around you like you might explode if they get too close, if they push those boundaries again. 

Part of you hates it. Part of you likes it. 

You’re not sure what to feel anymore. 

You tilt your head back, thumping it against Kyle’s hand. “Sorry.” You quickly sit yourself back up. “Done that twice now I guess.” 

“No need to apologize.” He says, his hand dropping to your shoulder to lean you back again. His hand gently cups the back of your head, rubbing soothing circles into your scalp with his fingers. 

You let out a content hum, your eyes fluttering closed. It falls silent between the three of you as Kyle slowly works you into a comfortable, content state. Your omega begins to almost purr contently, and for the first time in a while, she doesn’t feel quite so out of control. 

The days start to make more sense as you now have an idea where you are on the calendar. It’s the end of November, meaning in just a few weeks it’ll be Christmas. The guys haven’t said anything about celebrating, so you haven’t gotten your hopes up. Still, you can’t hide that itch in the back of your mind, that desire to have a proper celebration for your first year out of the institute. 

“You know you can tell them what you want.” Dr. Keller says, sitting in the chair next to you. “We’ve gone over this. I’m sure those guys would turn the world upside down if you asked them to.” 

“I just...I don’t know how.” You say. “What if they have no plans for Christmas? What if they weren’t planning anything? What if this is too last minute?” 

“There’s a little under a month till Christmas. It’s hardly last minute.” Dr. Keller says. “Even if they say no, then we’ll have a celebration. Just the two of us.” 

“You’d do that for me?” You ask, turning to look at her. 

“Of course. If you want to celebrate Christmas, then we will, no matter what the others decide.” She says firmly. “If they don’t wish to participate, then they don’t have to.” 

“That’s...really kind of you.” You say. She’s done so much for you already, and here she is offering to do more. 

“It’s what I’m here for.” She says. “Whatever you want to do. Decorate, bake cookies, go shopping. All of the above.” She reaches over, squeezing your hand. “You’re in charge.”

You’re in charge. 

Your omega nearly preens at the words, starting to get excited. Yet, you’re not quite sure how you feel about that kind of pressure being placed on you. It’s not in your nature to be in charge...or at least that’s what the institute taught you. Omegas are submissive and follow their alpha’s orders. 

The institute was wrong about a lot of things, though. Maybe you do want to be in charge. Maybe if you’re in charge, things will start to get better. Maybe if you’re in charge, you can finally get your pack in line and get them doing what you want them to do. 

It’s far too early for you to be awake. It’s still dark out, no light filtering through the gaps in the curtains. There’s light coming through the gaps in the door, though, and you can hear quiet rustling. 

“It’s still crooked.” You hear Kyle’s voice through the wall. 

“I’m doin’ the best I can.” Johnny retorts. 

More rustling and quiet tinkling sounds through the wall. There’s no more hope for sleep for you now, your interest far too piqued as to what they’re doing. You slide out of bed, rubbing your eyes as you pad across the cold floor to the door. 

You’re not ready for what you find on the other side. 

All four of them pause as your door opens and you take half a step out the doorway. You freeze, hand still over one of your eyes. Johnny is standing on a stepstool, leaning over a tree. Kyle is standing next to him, peeking around him to look at you. Simon is frozen in front of the fireplace, garland hanging from his hands. John is standing between the couches, a round ornament in each hand. 

You slowly lower your hand from your eye, sweeping your gaze over the four of them once more. “What are you doing?” You ask, even though you already know the answer to that question. 

“Decorating.” The four of them say all at once. 

“We were going to surprise you when you got up.” Kyle says. 

“We were trying to be quiet.” John says. “But those two muppets can’t get the star properly on the tree.” 

“You’ve got it on the branch wrong.” Kyle says. 

“It won’t go any other way.” Johnny argues. 

They go back to what they were doing, almost as if you’re not there. You’re glad for it as tears begin to fill your eyes. They’re decorating. They were decorating to surprise you. You can’t help but wonder if Dr. Keller expressed your desire for a proper Christmas to them on your behalf, but part of you knows she wouldn’t do that. She’s pushing you too hard to take control to do that. 

Maybe they’re doing it because they want to. Maybe this was their plan all along. 

“Let me do it.” Kyle says, tugging on Johnny’s shirt. 

“I can do it just fine.” Johnny persists, still fiddling with the star on the tree. 

You roll your eyes, moving over to them. “Move. I’ll do it.” 

Neither of them argue as Johnny steps down off the stool, letting you climb up. You can feel their hands hovering as you stand up on your toes, reaching for the top of the tree. You bend the top branch, situating the star on properly for them. 

“See! I told you.” Kyle says, his hands still hovering as you climb down off the stool. 

“My way would have worked just fine.” Johnny pouts. 

“I’m sure it would have.” You shrug, patting his arm before walking away. 

You join John in sorting through ornaments as Kyle and Johnny finish adjusting the lights on the tree. They’re all brand new, sealed in the boxes still. So they went shopping for all of this. You don’t suppose a summer house would have Christmas decorations laying around. It’s touching that they did this for you, even if they didn’t know you’d want it. 

“Thank you.” You say, fiddling with the hook on one of the ornaments. “For doing this.” 

“It wouldn’t be fair to not give you a proper Christmas.” John says. “Not when it means so much to you.” 

A small smile tugs at your lips, tears starting to fill your eyes again. “I appreciate it. More than you know.” 

You don’t flinch as he reaches out, gently running a hand over your head as you wipe the tear that falls. It’s nice, feeling his touch again. You hadn’t realized how much you missed it. You wrap your fingers around his wrist, holding his hand against the side of your head. You barely realize you’re doing it as you press your nose into his wrist, breathing in his fresh, woodsy scent. Petrichor, damp earth. It fills your nose like it did the first time you scented him, making your head spin. 

For the first time in a while, your omega lays comfortably in the back of your mind, settled contently back into her cage. 

You stand there nervously, staring at your alpha. He hasn’t acknowledged you yet, giving you a moment to gather yourself. You’re nervous, your palms sweaty, even if you have nothing to be nervous about. The worst he can say is no, and then you’ll have an excuse. Or he’ll say he’ll do it himself, then one surprise will be ruined at least. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” 

Sweetheart. It’s been a long time since you’ve heard that nickname spoken in such a way. Your omega rolls over and shows her belly, ready to submit to his quiet purr of your nickname. 

“I...I wanted to ask you something.” You say, shifting nervously on your feet. Now is the time. Now is when you have to be brave and voice your wants. 

“Go ahead.” He says, putting his phone down and turning to face you.

You almost wish he wouldn’t. You wish he’d stay turned away, attention on his phone so he can half pay attention to what you’re saying. No, instead he has to give you his full attention and put even more pressure on you. 

The words catch on your tongue, choking you as you attempt to be brave, as you attempt to take this leap into unknown territory. 

The worst he can say is no. 

“I want to go Christmas shopping.” The words come out fast, almost slurring together in your haste to voice them before you lose all the courage that led you to this point. 

He leans back in his seat and you prepare for the worst, you prepare for the no waiting to come out and put an end to your silly little request. You’ll sulk and cry about it in the safety of your room. Now you have to be strong. 

“Okay.” He says. 

You nearly turn and run in shame before the meaning of the word settles into your brain. You stand there in surprise, staring at him with wide eyes. 

“Okay?” You parrot, your brain still trying to comprehend what it is he’s saying. 

“Okay.” He repeats. “You’ll have to take one of us with you, though. You can’t leave unprotected, even with Christine.” 

“I’ll go.” 

The voice makes you jump, spinning on your heel to face Simon. You hadn’t even heard him approach. You stare in surprise at the other alpha. He hasn’t made much of an effort to insert himself back into your life. You were half sure he hated you again with how he’s been acting. 

“Alright.” John says, his voice almost as surprised as you feel. 

It will be nice having the hulking alpha following you around. You think back to when you went lingerie shopping with Johnny. How long ago that seems now. People had gone out of their way not to walk too close to you and your protector. No one will want to mess with you with him around.

“Go with Christine.” John says, making you turn back around to look at him in surprise. 

“Really?” You ask in disbelief. 

He nods. “I think it will be good for you, getting out of the house. Just don’t stay out too long.” He turns back to his phone and you turn back to look at Simon, but he’s gone. 

“This might be a tad bit overwhelming at first.” Dr. Keller says as she drives through town. “It’s been a while since you’ve been in a populated place.” 

“I’ll be fine.” You say, even if you don’t really believe it. You had prepared for this possibility in the days you’ve thought about this trip. 

John wanted you to go early on a weekday, when it was less likely to be too crowded. While crowded might hide you better, it also left too many possibilities for someone to sneak up on you. 

“You say the word and we’ll go.” Dr. Keller says. “I can always come back later and finish shopping for you.” 

“Okay.” You say, still staring out the window at the buildings. It’s been a while since you’ve seen so many buildings all in one spot. 

Simon is quiet in the passenger seat, also watching out the window. You wonder what’s going through his head, if he regrets volunteering to come along. You wonder why he did volunteer in the first place. You know safety is of the highest concern now while Shepherd is still out there. Does he not trust anyone else to protect you? That’s a possibility. 

There’s another rift in the bonds. 

Dr. Keller pulls into the Tesco parking lot, many cars there even for so early in the morning. Everyone else had the same idea as John. 

“Try to make this as quick as possible.” Simon says as you undo your seatbelt. “The sooner we can get in and out, the better.” 

Dr. Keller gives him a look, something passing between the two of them before she opens her car door. You get out as well, pulling your jacket tighter around you as the cold air hits your skin. It had been warm in the car, the heat cranked for your sake. 

You’re half tempted to hold Simon’s hand as you cross the parking lot. You doubt he’d let you. He might pull away and that would be worse. That would ruin the whole trip. Old habits, you think. He’s barely spoken to you, so much as made an effort to rekindle the relationship between you. That would be pushing things too far. 

Instead you stick close to Dr. Keller, trying not to panic as you walk into the building with the bright lights and the people. It’s gross, making you squint for a moment as Simon grabs a cart, your eyes taking a moment to adjust. 

“What are you planning on getting?” Dr. Keller asks, trying to distract you. 

“I-I don’t know.” You stay, blinking at aisle after aisle of products. “I didn’t think this far ahead. I thought John would say no.” 

“Well, what do you think they’d like?” She asks. 

What would they like? What do they like? You’re drawing a blank as you think about them. How little you know about them too. 

Kyle. Kyle likes skincare. He’s always prioritized that on base. Maybe you’ll get him something related to that. 

You start for the cosmetics section, Simon following like a shadow behind you and Dr. Keller. What kind of skincare does Kyle like? You know he uses coconut oil after he showers. He always smells good. Maybe something exfoliating? Something moisturizing? Both? 

You stand in front of the skincare, drawing a blank as you look at the many options. Dr. Keller and Simon stand there quietly as you deliberate, suddenly overwhelmed by the choice you have to make. 

“Who are you shopping for right now?” Dr. Keller asks, obviously picking up on your discomfort. 

“Kyle.” You say. “I know he likes skincare.” 

“Hmm.” Dr. Keller hums, looking at the options as well. “How about something like this?” She picks up a gift set with cleanser and moisturizer. “Something to cover all the basics?” 

You nod. “Okay. That sounds good.” 

Simon says nothing, offering no words of advice as she puts it in the cart. Maybe he doesn’t even know his own pack that well. Or maybe this is his way of showing his displeasure for you. Let you flounder and get the wrong thing. You want to believe he wouldn’t be that cruel. 

You wander the aisles, looking for gifts for the other three. You pass by a spa kit, pausing for a moment. You should get one for Dr. Keller. She deserves some pampering and relaxation after weeks of taking care of you. 

You put two in the cart, grabbing one for Ashley as well. 

Johnny. What does Johnny like? Art. He likes art. Maybe something with art supplies. 

You head for that section, Simon still following behind silently, aside from the clinking of the cart as he pushes it. 

You pause as you pass by a display of teddy bears. Johnny sleeps with a stuffed bear. You know that. You’ve cuddled with it yourself. It’s probably back on base with the rest of your belongings. He must miss it. 

You grab one, putting it in the cart. 

“For Johnny.” You say as Dr. Keller gives you a look. 

Simon still doesn’t say anything, but his scent reaches your nose as you walk past him. 

The alphas. John and Simon. The two you seem to know the least. What do they like? What would they want as gifts? Simon likes knives and masks, but you’re not sure you could just buy a knife in the UK like you could in America. You could just ask him, considering he’s here with you, but that feels almost intrusive. He’ll know what you get him regardless, but asking him seems like a daunting task. 

You continue wandering the aisles, looking for something that John might want. 

You pass by a gift set of tea, pausing as you stare at it. He likes tea. He might like some other options than what’s at the house. 

You put it in the cart. 

Now Simon. The hardest of the four. 

You continue wandering the aisles before you pause in the books section. Simon likes to read. You do know that. You’ve scoured the shelf at the cottage enough to know what’s there and what’s not. Maybe you’ll get Simon some new books. Something that’s not available to you currently. 

You pick out a couple before putting them in the cart. 

“Okay.” You say, staring at the selection you’ve grabbed. “I think I’m done.” 

“You’re sure?” Dr. Keller asks. 

You nod. “Yeah. I don’t want to do anything too over the top.” 

You really don’t. The last thing you want is to do too much too soon. 

You pause as you walk past the candy aisle, grabbing a handful of candy canes and putting them in the cart before heading for the checkout. 

Dr. Keller pays with cash as you load the bags into the cart. You’re ready to be out of the store with its bright lights and loud music and people. It’s starting to get busier, more and more people coming in the doors there to do their Christmas shopping as well. 

Simon loads the bags into the trunk as you climb into the car with Dr. Keller. 

“How do you feel?” She asks as you let out a breath. 

“A bit overwhelmed.” You say honestly. 

“It’s a lot going from isolation to a supermarket. I think you did good, though.” She praises you. 

The door opens as Simon climbs into the passenger seat. He’s barely said a word the entire trip, looming in silence like he used to. Part of it makes your chest hurt, that he would regress so much after what happened, but part of you understands. He had to make a big decision on your behalf, push himself past his comfort zone to save your life. Of course he’d want some distance after everything. You wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want anything to do with you again. 

It’s far too early when light seeps into your room before disappearing. You keep your eyes closed, willing whoever had just entered your room to vanish before they reach the bed. 

You’re not so lucky, a hand settling on your shoulder and gently shaking you. 

“Time to rise and shine.” A soft voice says. 

You let out an irritated grumble, trying to pull the blanket up over your head. 

“It’s Christmas morning, don’t you want to go open your presents?” That hand shakes you again. 

“Sleep.” You murmur, curling up in a ball under the comforter. 

“It’s already 10 am.” The voice says again, tugging the blankets down. “They let you sleep longer than they wanted.” 

Last night was a rough one. You had laid awake far too late, staring at the ceiling and then you woke from a nightmare in the middle of the night, and it had taken time to calm yourself and fall back asleep. You’re still exhausted, your eyes burning from tiredness. 

You let out a grunt of displeasure, but you know there’s no getting out of this one. You’re going to be getting up no matter what. 

You slowly stretch out your limbs, rubbing your eyes. “Fine.” You yawn, turning over to press your face into the pillow. “Be up soon.” 

“No going back to sleep.” The hand rubs your back gently. “Then I’ll have to send one of them in and they won’t be quite so nice about it.” 

You hum into the pillow, already feeling sleep tugging at your brain. Despite the warning, your mind sinks back into the comforting realm of rest as your body relaxes back into the bed. 

You’re not sure how long you get to rest before the comforter is torn off of you, landing somewhere on the floor. Hands roll you over and sit you up before your brain can even process. You blink the rapidly fading sleep from your eyes as you’re hauled up, flying through the air for a moment before you’re tossed over a broad shoulder. 

“Time tae get up.” Johnny says, packing you towards the light filtering in through the open door. 

You let out a whine as he packs you out into the warmth and the light before lowering you back down on your feet. Hands stop you from falling backwards, Johnny’s t-shirt clad chest coming into view as you blink the blurriness from your vision. 

“Happy Christmas kitten.” He says, grinning brightly at you. 

You mutter something that sounds like ‘Merry Christmas’ back to him. His hands slowly spin you around, turning you to face the tree. 

You blink in surprise as you stare at the many presents on the floor under the tree. You weren’t expecting that much, though you suppose with six people in the house there would be quite a bit. It’s one gift though that draws your attention. It’s seated on the far side of the tree, nothing but a bow on top of its head. 

“You...you got me a giant bear?” You ask in surprise. 

“Was Si’s idea-oof.” Johnny coughs as Simon hits him on the back. 

You walk over to it, pulling the bow off of its head. You’ve missed your giant bear and the comfort it brought you. That’s the one thing you wish you still had from the barracks, that you’ve been wanting for for weeks. It’s bigger than the one at the barracks, the top of its head reaching your chest when you’re standing in front of it. 

You let your hands run over the soft fur, squeezing its plush face. There’s no cameras in this one. You know they’ve checked, ensured its safety. There’s no one looking back at you as you stare into its dark eyes. 

“What do you think?” Kyle asks. 

“I love it.” You say, trying to stop the waver in your voice. The last thing you want is to cry on Christmas. “Thank you.” 

“Come on.” Hands guide you to the chair, letting you sit down. “You’ve got a lot to open.” 

The next hour is a flurry of wrapping paper and bows as presents get passed around. You open up new shoes and clothes, a set of lacy panties courtesy of Johnny, new books, strawberry scented soap and shampoo, and some other comfort items. 

You’ll never forget Johnny’s face when he opens your gift to him, his eyes lighting up as he stares at the soft bear you picked out. It gets you a big hug and a kiss to the cheek from him, and you know he’s going to be sleeping with it tonight. 

You’re exhausted by the time the last present is opened, rubbing your eyes again. You hadn’t even changed out of your pajamas, feeling underdressed compared to the others. Yet at the same time it makes you feel like a kid again, tearing into presents on Christmas morning, excited to see what you got. 

You look around the room, John and Kyle starting to bag up wrapping paper and clean, Johnny on the couch next to Simon holding his bear, Simon sitting near the fire already cracking open one of the books, and Dr. Keller and Ashley on the other couch talking, sitting very close. It brings a small smile to your face. You’re happy for them. It’s nice to see Dr. Keller getting something positive out of this stay at the cottage. 

You can’t help but think that whatever happens next, maybe it might not be so bad after all. 

“Think we should wake her up?” Kyle asks. 

“No.” John says, standing next to him. “It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen her in weeks.” 

They both stare at you where you lay near the tree, draped over your large bear. You’re sound asleep, mouth slightly parted as you snooze away. 

“I think she likes it.” 

“It was a good choice.” John agrees. “It will certainly help make her more comfortable.” 

“I can’t wait to see how she’s going to fit that on the bed.” Kyle says with a soft smile. 

“Well, you certainly won’t be joining her when she does.” John smirks. 

“I think I can live with that.” Kyle says. “Like you said, whatever makes her more comfortable.” 

“I’m glad she’s loosening up a bit.” John says, turning away from you to head back towards the dining table. 

“So am I. She deserves to feel safe and comfortable.” 

“She does. We need to make sure she feels that way all the time, no matter what.” 

“I want to help her.” Kyle says longingly. 

“I know. And we can, but we have to let her lead.” John says. “The best we can do is listen to her and give her what she needs, even if it's not what we think is best. We don’t really know what’s best for her in the end. Only she does.” He reaches up, cupping Kyle’s cheek. “We need to focus on each other too.” 

“I know.” Kyle says, leaning into his touch. “I want to.” 

John’s lips twitch in a small smile. “Good. Because so do I.” 

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[bunny-jpeg]

*whispers very quietly* alpha!price with an adorable little omega who he maaaaaay have forced mated with. you were the little barista he saw every morning before he headed to work. while he doesn't see you, but follows a lovely scent to the car park behind the shop. he finds you pitifully trying to control your heat enough to drive home. his scent pulls you in and with big, glassy eyes, you near beg him to do something about all this heat in your body.

and well, price wasn't going to let you suffer.

now as you ride him on the couch during a match, his rough, calloused hand grasps your throat and he can feel the uneven scarred skin over your scenting gland. a mark he gave you <3

[the-californicationist]

The Old Way

Listen... I don't even know what I'm on with this. Just... don't judge me. Omfg what is wrong with me.

AO3 Link -- TW: omegaverse wildness, biting, blood, etc.

Your people are starving, and your clan's Alpha has asked you, their only remaining Omega, to give yourself up as a sacrifice to save them. So, you agree, and you are to be mated to one of the Alphas of Clan 141, praying that it is to any of them except Alpha Price. He is known to have a knot that is impossible to take, but when you finally meet him, you're not sure of what's possible anymore. Will you risk it all to be with him, even if his knot might kill you? One way to find out…

The Old Way

You couldn’t see the stars. The shroud that hung over your head was made from fine, black silk, and through its thin organza, you could barely make out the shape of the Watcher in front of you, much less the glittering galactic expanse overhead. You were wrapped like a gift, and if you wanted to save the lives of everyone you’d ever loved, you would remain cloaked in your darkness, hidden, waiting for your big moment. More than anything, you wanted to pull your veil away from your eyes just to see the familiar constellations again, to comfort yourself with their shapes, to make one last independent choice before all of your volition was stolen from you forever. 

That wasn’t the right word. You couldn’t steal something that was given freely. You were not bound, and you were certainly not forced to wear the shadowed veil against your will. You had selected this path for yourself, and now you were living through the consequences of that decision.

As the only Omega in your clan – the first one born in seventy years – you were raised on the knowledge that you may one day be asked to give up your life for your clan. After the war, life was hard, and now that your people were stuck in a seemingly endless drought, it had become even more desperate. Your clan leader, Alpha Roan, had come to you six weeks ago with a terrible look in his eyes, a palpable guilt, still wearing his mourning collar for his long-lost mate, Omega Kiran, and he had asked you if you would be willing to undergo The Exchange.

His own wife had come to your clan through The Exchange, and although they had chosen to perform a private ceremony, you knew that it had been a challenge for her. Before she died, she had taught you much about your role, but you were still a youngling, and some things were just not for you to hear at such an age. 

You thought about the years that had passed after the loss of your clan’s Omega. Alpha Roan had insisted on your education, and your training, but the idea that you would be asked to leave your clan through The Exchange was always a distant threat. But, now, here it was. You had been called by your Alpha to sacrifice yourself for their benefit; not in a marriage of love, but in a clan trade. 

You had been asked by your Alpha to think about your choice. After he left you to ponder your choice, you sat down in your chambers surrounded by your Watchers, the women who had raised you, who had taught you to read, to write, to fight, and to charm. They looked at you with the same guilty, knowing eyes, and they asked you if you were prepared to make the sacrifice. 

“You do know what awaits you at the end of The Exchange, don’t you, Omega?” Watcher Trinity had asked you quietly, holding your hands in her shaking fingers, the wrinkled skin of her knuckles folding and stretching over her thin bones. 

You nodded, “Yes, Watcher. I am to be given to a new Alpha.”

She had looked at you then, her eyes sharp and calculating, trying to figure out how she would ask her next question.   

“Do you know the way in which you will be given, Omega?” 

Her tone chilled your heart, sinking through your body like ice across a pond, freezing you in place. You waited. There was more that she needed to say, and you allowed her to explain. 

And now that you knew the truth, you felt fully prepared to accept the terms of the agreement. You would deliver your people from their strife, and any pain, any shame, and any horror that you experienced from this point onward would be in service to your clan. You hoped that would be enough solace to sustain you. There was no shame in your sacrifice, you knew that. But, in your soul, you knew that knowing a thing and experiencing a thing were two vastly disparate sides of the same coin. 

You informed your clan Alpha, holding your chin high, 

“I accept the terms of The Exchange, Alpha Roan.”

“Your people are forever in your debt, Omega. Watchers,” he addressed your caregivers, “Please make preparations in the old way of our clan.”

“The old way, Alpha Roan?” Watcher Trinity had asked, her voice giving away her apprehension.

“Yes, Watcher. We will follow the law, no matter how… upsetting it may be. Clan 141 is too powerful for us to take any undue risks. If they do not accept her, we may not survive their engagement.”

Even in your sheltered little academy, you had heard of Clan 141. Their clan was small, but it was deeply feared. If any other clan dared step out of line, the 141 were there to rain hellfire and destruction down on them until there was nothing left. They were not cruel, but they abided no violent acts in their territory, and any whisper of rekindling the war efforts or of superseding the peace treaty was dealt with swiftly and decisively. 

Before the war, kings and presidents and generals had pulled the strings. Now that the world lay in ruins, the 141 was the only thing between your small clan and total destruction from larger, more aggressive packs. The 141 was the only reason your people still had other clans to trade with; they had made sure smaller communities had access to fair market costs for food and services, and no one dared to shun your merchants now that you were under their protective wing. 

Your Watchers had done their best to ease you into your preparations. Clan 141 would be at the neutral ground in six weeks, and your team had tried to make every moment of that window meaningful in your training. They had started slowly, teaching you to stretch your untouched hole with your fingers, showing you diagrams and depictions of your own anatomy, warning you of the physical trial of taking an Alpha’s knot. 

It was mortifying when you endured your first test. Watcher Gillar and Watcher Bhin had made you sit in front of a mirror and show them your progress. You were told to clench and release the muscles of your hole on command, fluttering it to prove its strength. Then, they had produced a carved, glass phallus, expecting you to practice on a smaller model before moving you up to a more advanced size. 

You took it from their hands, looking at its curved, rigid shape with wide-eyed curiosity, trying to swallow your grief at being seen doing the unthinkable by people you considered to be your closest friends and caregivers. It almost made you regret your decision. But, your people needed you, so you rested the smooth tip of the phallus at the entrance of your hole and began to shove it inside of yourself. 

This new feeling was overwriting your mind, so alien and yet so very comforting to you, confounding in its sensations yet overwhelming in its unique, bright pleasure.

It was a struggle, but you managed to slip it into your body almost down to the large, bulbous knot on the end. The sharp pain of being entered for the first time was not as terrible as you had feared, but when you pulled the phallic rod back out of you, it was cloudy with your slick and your blood. 

“Try the knot, Omega. Your Alpha will be twice as large as this, at least. You do not want your first experience to be at the ceremony. I know that you will want to appear strong in front of the other clans.” Watcher Bhin encouraged you, holding you to her shoulder as she sat behind you, trying her best to comfort you through such a harrowing ordeal. 

You put their practice cock back inside of you, slipping down further than you had, feeling the wide anatomy pressing against your entrance, but still unable to take the full knot inside. You pushed and pulled with your muscles, just like your Watchers had taught you, but it wouldn’t budge. You were panting, sweating, and teetering on the edge of an embarrassing orgasm in front of your Watchers, and you gasped out, exasperated, 

“I can’t. I don’t think I can do this, Watcher.”

“Lay back, Omega. I will help you,” Watcher Gillar said softly, replacing your hand with hers at the base of the phallus. 

You lay down on your back against your soft pillows, trying to avoid your Watchers’ pitying eyes. Then, you felt a cool gel being applied around the sore ring of your hole; something to ease the way since there was no true Alpha present to coax your slick from your glands. Watcher Bhin had held your hand in hers, gripping you tightly, letting you squeeze her through the pain, wiping away your tears as the glass bulb of the pretend knot began to split you, stretching your body before finally popping into place.

You Watchers had comforted you for a few minutes, but then you were told to begin your meditations.

With much difficulty, you sat up, feeling the heavy knot nestled against your walls. Then, Watcher Bhin handed you a firm pillow, and you understood that you must straddle it, and that it would push the knot against you. You were to train your body and your mind to accept it so that you would have the stamina to withstand the ceremony. 

“Do not be afraid to listen to your body, Omega. We will return to help you remove it and recover. I will light some incense for you. Concentrate on your strength.”

You nodded, uncrossing your legs and settling yourself over the firm pillow, feeling the deep, sacral grind of the phallus as you set your weight against it. When you were left alone, you began your breathing techniques, but all the while, a flush was rushing across your skin, the shadow of a rising desire to come, and yet subtly different. Something whispered in your mind, and you wondered if you could call your slick down yourself, without an Alpha’s help. 

So, you tried, rocking back and forth across the pillow, churning the knot within your core, feeling the rounded tip rubbing against your deepest parts. You removed your robes, letting the flush keep you warm, watching yourself in the tall mirror, meeting your own eyes. 

It took only minutes before a true orgasm was upon you, but you tried to hold it at bay, searching through the sparkling, cracking fog of pleasure for the part of you that made you special. No Beta would survive a knotting; they never did, and it was a crime to even try. But, you were meant for it, and you knew that your Watchers’ training would not let you down. You breathed through the bliss, reaching out with your mind towards your slick, imagining it, visualizing your success, manifesting it deep within you. 

When the Watchers found you later that night, they woke you with cool rags and worried faces,

“What happened, Omega? How did you…” Watcher Gillar looked down at your bare legs to where the pillow sat under you, seeing a torrent of slick and milky come covering your skin and the silk of the bolster, confused by how you could produce it without an Alpha’s beckoning call. It was just not done, not even considered to be a possibility. 

After that night, there was much chatter amongst the Watchers. They consulted old tomes, dusting off the pages in the library of your little academy where you trained far away from the rest of your village, kept up here in your tower like a Delphic oracle, buried like a treasure. 

The training became more intense, and each practice phallus that your Watchers produced became harder and heavier, each bearing knots that were unfathomably large. You used your newfound power to face each of your challenges, less ashamed now to perform in front of your team, but knowing that the ceremony would be something else entirely. 

You had asked about it one night as your Watchers were helping you bathe after a particularly difficult practice session, 

“Will there truly be none absent from the ceremony, Watcher Trinity?”

“Only the cubs and their mothers are forbidden from attending. Otherwise, all clan members are obligated to witness The Exchange. We will even invite Clan Farlight and Clan Seres to the feast as a token of goodwill. You know this, Omega,” her tone was a little impatient, wondering why you were asking such a basic question, “Your Alpha has asked for your ceremony to be conducted in the old way, according to the original scrolls.” 

“I am worried that I will dishonor you with my abilities. I cannot seem to take even these false knots without tears,” you repeated the old scripture, chanting it rote to your Watcher just as you used to do when you had started your adult training, “Omegas are vessels. They will silently submit. The ceremony will be still, honoring the sacrifice.”

Watcher Trinity knelt down beside your bath and made you look at her. Her eyes softened, and she told you,

“Yes, that is what is written, but it is not that simple. You have already honored us with your sacrifice. We have no grain. We have skinny, milkless goats, and our well is nearly dry. When we feast after your ceremony, the full bellies of your people will mean so much more than any perceived weakness that you are reluctant to show.” She grabbed your hand out of the warm water, holding it in hers, “If you need to cry, we will understand, and we will be comforting you from the crowd. Trust me, Omega.”

You tried to put it all out of your mind as you marched down the path, following behind your Watchers as they surrounded you, adorned in their own ceremonial garb. They had worn their armor and their long, red robes, carrying huge, black scythes like walking sticks, as was the custom of your clan. Your Alpha was walking in the front of your pack, guiding your clan to the meeting point. You could just see the white, canvas tops of the tents and yurts that had been constructed for the ceremony, meant to house hundreds of people for at least three days. Yours was the biggest, its adornment the most splendid. But that was little comfort to your frayed nerves. 

You were miles from home at this point, missing the comfort of your room and your books, knowing that you would never return there, and that perhaps your new Alpha would not allow you to keep any of your belongings from your old life. 

You’d heard horror stories from some of the Betas in your clan, tales of Alphas who used their Omegas like slaves, keeping them clad in irons, surviving in dark dungeons only to be used to breed and to give their Alphas carnal pleasure. 

While you were being prepared for this journey, a pair of Beta women had helped you paint your skin, drawing intricate symbols and prayers in gold flake, chittering about the ceremony and the feast without knowing what you had been through over the past six weeks.

“This is the first time I will witness a ceremony done in the old way,” Beta Lilia said. 

“Do you know which Alpha will claim you?” Lilia’s friend, Beta Tyran, asked you, not knowing how loaded her words were.

You shook your head; you didn’t even know how many Alphas belonged to Clan 141. Lilia gushed about them for you, taking the conversation out of your hands,

“Clan 141 has four Alphas! Can you imagine? I hear that they have an entire army of Omegas as well. Alpha Garrick is so handsome, and he has three gorgeous Omegas. They are almost too beautiful to look upon.. I saw him when I was at the central market once. He was leading a team, hunting the vagabonds who set fire to a farmer’s field, you remember when that happened? It was years ago now. He was so imposing. But, that other one was there, too.” 

She made a face that was strong enough to make you ask about it,

“Which one?”

“The Ghost, Alpha Riley. They say that no one has seen his face. He wears a terrifying skull mask. I heard from Yair that he has three Omegas as his guards, all masked as well. Yes! Guards! They have armor and weapons and huge, bulging muscles. Beautiful and lethal –”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Beta Tyran interrupted, “No one would give their Omegas weapons. No one would let their Omegas out in the public markets! Imagine the danger.”

Lilia shrugged, “Yair said that these Omegas were the danger.” 

Then, you heard about Alpha MacTavish, a descendant from one of the ancient warlords, charming and fearsome. He kept two Omegas as his brides, always pregnant, but almost as fearsome as Alpha Riley’s guards. Alpha MacTavish often expected them to travel with their Beta friends, to take their children up into the mountains, hunting and fishing and exploring outdoors. All sorts of stories about his large, loving family. You silently hoped you would be claimed by him. It would be nice to live amongst Omegas and their cubs. 

“Which one is their Apex Alpha? There must be one in a clan with so many Alphas,” you mused, asking the girls since you did not know much about Clan 141 yourself.

The Betas shared a look, and then Lilia shook her head,

“You will not be claimed by him, Omega. Don’t worry.”

“Why?” You pried, using your influence to force her to tell you.

“His name is Alpha Price, the leader of Clan 141. He’s the deadliest man in the entire land, and he’s the one who destroyed Clan Konni.”

The weight of that news sank in, and the dramatic tone of her story had attracted other Betas and Watchers to gather around you to listen to her tale, 

“Alpha Price has never claimed an Omega. They say that he had tried. He had found one of Alpha Garrick’s Omegas to be very pretty, but she tried to take his knot and failed, so Alpha Garrick took her under his protection instead.”

“Failed?” Watcher Bhin asked, shocked by the implication. 

“My sister was a medic who served with the Alliance in the most recent skirmish, and the 141 helped defeat the rebels who were killing members of Clan Darrah a few years ago. She said that she served under the doctor who had healed Alpha Garrick’s Omega. Said he’d never seen anything like it before in his life. She was so strong, and yet…”

Lilia’s words hung heavy in the air, and all of the women looked at each other and then at you, suddenly feeling the weight of your sacrifice, ashamed at their earlier levity. Tyran shook her head and patted you on the arm, 

“Don’t worry. Alpha Price will not claim you. You have nothing to worry about.”

That night, painted gold and covered in your black silks, you sat in your tent and meditated while you waited for the other clans to arrive. Your mind kept wandering to Alpha Price and his lonely existence. Had he really injured an Omega during his claiming of her? How large must his knot have been to do so? It made you shudder to think about it, and yet deep inside of you, your core warmed from the thought. If he imprinted on you…

But, imprinting was just a myth. Something only written in old texts as a footnote or a story. It was a part of the ritual of The Exchange, but it wasn’t real. 

“Omega,” Watcher Trinity interrupted your meditation and peeked her head into your tent, “It is time to present The Cloth.”

Clan 141 was here, then. 

The ritual of The Exchange began with The Shroud, which you were already wearing. Then, it was The Cloth. If all went well, it would then be The Meeting. And finally, The Ceremony.

The Cloth was a gift from the Omega to her new Alpha, a token of her affection and a chance for him to smell her scent for the first time. In ancient legends, this is when her true mate would imprint upon her, her Omegan scent bringing out his Alphic marks, dark spots or stripes across his neck and back, making him look like a big cat, ready to bite into her neck and claim her as his own. 

She tried to shake herself out of that fantasy world. All she could hope was that one of their Alphas would be drawn to her scent enough to accept her. Her people were depending on her.

“Here is your cloth, Omega. I embroidered it myself. I hope that it honors you,” Watcher Trinity handed you a wooden box, carved and adorned with great care, and when you opened it, you found a red silk square of fabric, sewn with the sigils and symbols of your clan in fine gold thread. You smiled up at your Watcher and reached out to hold her in your arms,

“It’s perfect, Watcher. Thank you for caring for me.”

You were both fighting off tears when she finally pulled away. You hoped that your Alpha would at least let you say goodbye after the ceremony, even if you might never see her again. 

Watcher Trinity and all of the other women left you alone again in your tent, giving you privacy to prepare The Cloth. You made yourself naked, and you began to rub the silk across your neck and glands, trying to soak your scent into the piece. Then, you wiped it between your legs, swiping up some of your wetness to coat the fabric. Usually, this would be enough. You could call your Watcher back into the tent and give her the box, and you would be done. 

But, something in your heart told you to try to call out your slick. You listened to your instincts, and you began to rub the soft fabric against your folds, bringing your own pleasure to a warm, shining height. Just when you thought you might not be able to do it, that your nervousness would make it too difficult or that you might black out again from the effort, you felt something inside of you slip free. Then, your hole was flooded, the orgasm making your vision go blurry and form spots at the edges, your whole body convulsing from the strength of your pleasure, and you had to lay down just to try and stay awake through your gushing bliss. 

You felt it coat the silk and your hand, a thick, milky slick, and your heart swelled with pride. You knew that a gift this special would sway the attention of at least one of their Alphas. You trusted in your skills and training that you were worthy of this ceremony and that your people would be saved. 

Sitting up, you carefully opened the box and returned The Cloth to its resting place, soaked with your scent. You took time to clean yourself up, stuffing wet blankets into your laundry packs and hiding them away, remaking your nest before your Watcher would know what you had done. You weren’t sure why you were keeping a secret from them, but you just felt like this was something between you and your Alpha. A promise, of sorts. 

You replaced your black silks and veil over your otherwise unclothed body and called your Watchers. They entered your tent along with Alpha Roan. 

His eyes widened as he approached you, taking the box from your hands. Quietly, as if knowing that this was an extremely private affair, he whispered to you, 

“What have you done, little Omega?”

“I am doing what needs to be done, Alpha. Please, deliver my message to my new Master.”

You use of the ancient terminology caught your clan Alpha off guard, but you were glad of it. If this was to be done in the old way, then you would withstand it, but you would also do it your way. You were the Omega, here, and you were the reason your clan would survive this struggle. It was time you started acting like the heroine that you were. You would be your people’s strength, no matter the cost.

“Very well,” Alpha Roan sighed, closing the box, calling out to your team, “Watchers, bring your Omega to The Cloth ritual.”

You were guided to the path again, leaving your tent behind and walking towards the big, outdoor theater. It was a crude coliseum of sorts, a large circular pit lined with rows and rows of carved seating that was cut into the land. People had already begun to line the viewing platforms, each clan decorated in their traditional garb. You felt proud to see the stripe of red where your people sat, holding each others’ hands and praying for your safe arrival. 

You were not greeted with raucous applause but instead with reverent silence. Alpha Roan walked in front of your Watchers, and you were the last one into the theater, dressed only in your sheer shroud, trying your best not to feel self-conscious about the fact that - because of the firelight - everyone could see your naked, painted body through the veil, even though you were covered head to toe in the organza. In the tent, the lighting was low and kept you in darkness, hiding your body under the thin silk. But, not here in the theater. Your skin was illuminated by the torches, and you knew that even your friends and neighbors could now see your most private parts. 

You made sure that your face did not give away your lingering shame. 

Alpha Roan took center stage, and you saw the Alphas of Clan 141 for the first time. 

Alpha MacTavish was standing between his two Omegas, and you mused that his oldest children must have stayed behind to care for his cubs. He was dressed in his Clan’s black gear, covered in armor like a gladiator, his head shaven into a mohawk, spiked and messy on the crown of his head. His body was huge and stocky, and the Omegas seated at his sides looked so tiny compared to his bulk. But, they were strong. Their bellies were round with the promise of future cubs, and their skin and hair glowed like the stars. 

Alpha Garrick stood next to him, his Omegas seated together to his right, dressed in the finest robes you had ever seen. He clearly had a type, and you thought that they looked like triplets, all decorated in jewels and gold, riches you’d never even dreamt of. Their Alpha was every bit as handsome as the stories had promised. He had pouty, full lips that were curled in a snarky sort of smile, and his soft brown eyes exuded pure confidence. His hands were wide and powerful, resting on his curved blade that lay sheathed at his hip. 

Alpha Riley was masked, as you had been told, as were his Omegas. They were not seated, and every bit of armor that was strapped to his hulking body was also strapped to them. They had glittering knives, bows, arrows, and slings, looking like they could win their own war by themselves. Their bodies were heavily muscled, and all four of them seemed as tall as Alpha MacTavish, standing proudly in leather boots. 

Then, you saw Alpha Price. He was holding a large wooden stick, at least seven feet tall, with hundreds of notches sliced into the side. You wondered what he was keeping track of, and you shuddered to know. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his hair was cut high and tight on the sides. He was certainly bigger and better muscled than each of his men, but that was not what you noticed about him first. It was his eyes. They were piercingly blue, like glacial ice, and they were looking right at you. Hungry. 

Something inside of your core tightened under his scrutiny, but Alpha Roan’s voice shook you from your trance,

“Clan Arlos welcomes Clan 141 to The Exchange. We present you with our offering, an unmated Omega, 26 years of age, fully trained in the old ways of our people. She is our greatest gift, and we ask for your acceptance of our sacrifice.”

Alpha Roan held up the box with The Cloth inside for all to see. He set it on the large, marble altar in the middle of the stage and backed away from it, waiting for the other Alphas to take part in the ritual. 

Alpha Price spoke, and your body nearly trembled at the sound of his deep, purring voice. You were more nervous than you thought, and you tried to breathe to manage yourself. 

“We will consider your honorable offering, Clan Arlos.”

With that, he slammed his huge stick against the stony ground and Alpha MacTavish stepped up to the altar. He opened the box, and along with the other Alphas in attendance, his body had a visceral reaction. His hands went to touch the cloth and he brought it to his nose, smelling your scent with a sort of wonder and amazement. 

Then, to your great relief, he raised his hand, palm outward, as a show of his acceptance of your scent. If you accepted him as well, you would be mated. 

But, the slamming sound of the stick shook you out of your celebrations. Alpha Price called up Alpha Garrick. 

This was most unusual. Typically, only one Alpha had to agree. It wasn’t like you had much choice in the matter. Even if Alpha MacTavish’s scent did not stir your heart, you would still submit to him as expected. This was not a marriage of love but of convenience. 

MacTavish looked back over his shoulder at Price, just as shocked as you were. His Omegas looked even more taken aback, strangely offended that you would not automatically join them. But, Alpha MacTavish returned the cloth to the box and made room for Garrick, disappointed and visibly confused. 

Alpha Garrick opened the box and buried his face against The Cloth, breathing in once, twice, and then tasting the fabric, right in front of everyone. It was his right, but it was a little audacious. 

His palm went up, high in the air, and his Omegas smiled and held each other’s hands, excited at your acceptance. 

Another loud slam. Another rejection. 

You may still end up with MacTavish or Garrick after negotiations, you remembered, but you were now wondering why Alpha Price had chosen to test you against all three of his men before making a decision. It was very odd. Alpha Roan looked greatly concerned. 

Alpha Riley approached the altar, his gloved hands prying open the box, then, he lifted the bottom of his mask to reveal his mouth and nose. The slightest murmur of shock rippled through the crowd. He bent to smell your scent, and he raised his hand in the air, signaling his acceptance before replacing his mask. You thought you caught the hint of a smile just before his pale lips disappeared beneath the skull plate again. 

Slam! The stick pounded against the floor.

All of Clan 141 turned to look at Alpha Price at once. Your heart stopped. Why would he… Why would Alpha Price want to undergo The Cloth ritual himself? He had no Omega. Surely, he wouldn’t claim you now, not after what had happened. You watched Alpha Garrick’s Omegas. One of them stared at Alpha Price with wide, glossy eyes. You thought that it must be his prior candidate for a mate. She was afraid for you. They were all afraid.

All eyes were on Alpha Price as he approached the altar, and the entire theater was silent as he took The Cloth in his hands. He lay it out flat, in no rush, inspecting the wet stain that you had left for him, using his thumb to feel the fine, gold embroidery. Then, his eyes darted up to yours. He was the first one to look at you while he held The Cloth to his nose, that icy gaze making you tremble with anticipation. 

You were so lost in his eyes that you didn’t see what was stirring the crowd. There was a loud gasp and then an explosion of whispers. You looked around, trying to understand what was happening. Then, when he tucked The Cloth into his breast pocket, keeping you for himself, you saw it. 

Long, red lines began to stain his skin like lightning. All of his veins tattooed themselves across his neck, and although his armor was covering his shoulders, you knew that the marks would be there as well. 

Alpha Price had imprinted for you. 

Then, he silenced the crowd by raising his right hand, palm up, staring at you the entire time. 

You were whisked away, surrounded by your Watchers, hearing Alpha Roan’s voice behind you, sounding like protest, but you couldn’t make out the words. Compared to the initial silence, the area erupted in a shattering din, clans shouting and yelling over each other, the drama from the ritual dividing the people. 

You thought you would be taken back to your tent, but you were brought to a large lake about five hundred yards from the theater. It was quiet again. No one was allowed to follow you here, it seemed. 

Watcher Trinity tried to explain in a rushed whisper, helping you climb into a boat and rowing you out to the middle of the lake,

“There is a dispute for your claiming. Alpha Roan will negotiate new terms, and Clan 141 must decide who will be your Alpha. It will be alright, Omega. It’ll be alright.”

She sounded like she was trying to reassure herself more than you.

“What now?”

“Because there is not just one Alpha who has claimed you, they will undergo a ritual called The Trial. It is a fight; a test of will. Whichever Alpha can win will be granted the right to appeal to you first. If you reject him, then you will be given a chance to hear the appeal from the second.”

“So, it will be up to me, then?”

“Yes. Alpha Price has put the choice in your hands. Very odd, and not in our custom, but we must honor his wishes. You will wait here for the winner.”

You looked around. You were now in the middle of the lake, and there was a platform lingering just below the water. It was a wide stone block, about three meters wide in each direction. Watcher Trinity helped you out of the boat and you stepped tentatively onto the platform. 

“Will you wait with me?” You asked, feeling the uncertainty and fear finally get the better of you. 

“No, my Omega. I cannot. These waters are forbidden to Betas. Only Alphas and Omegas can touch it. Take this. It is your flare. If you are in trouble, if he tries to get to you, fire it high into the sky and we will rescue you. You can do this. I know you are strong. Wait patiently for your Alpha,” she paused, grabbing your hand, “I realize you are doing this for us, but please, follow your heart.”

“I will, Watcher.” 

So, you waited. You meditated, standing in an inch of cool lake water as you tried to commune with the land around you. And you waited some more. Hours passed until, finally, you saw torches. Your Watchers lined one side of the lake, and they greeted the newcomers. Then, you saw him. Alpha Price was being stripped down by your Watchers. They took his weapons from him, and then his clothes, making him naked on the shoreline. He craned his neck, trying to look for you in the lake, but it was dark and you were dressed in black. 

You could see him just fine, though. His huge body was covered in short, curly hair, dense and dark against his skin. His muscles bulged and popped as he peeled away his layers of clothing. They left his undergarments on, little more than a linen loincloth. Then, you saw your Watchers attach a huge, metal collar around his neck. They clamped it together with a padlock in the back, and a huge chain was attached at the latch. 

They bound his hands, chaining them together, and then loaded him into the boat. They rowed toward you with his back facing the platform, and as he got closer, you saw his imprint markings, red and raised like jagged scars across his neck and shoulders. Your scent had marked him permanently. The welts would go down, and the red would fade, but it would always be there, evidence of his imprinting. 

The boat reached you, and he climbed out of it, sitting on the opposite side of the platform from you, just far enough to be out of range for your scent. 

His eyes found yours again, staring at you through your veil, finding your gaze with a natural ease. He held a small box in his hands, and you thought you saw the phantom of a smile across his lips as you looked over his face. 

The boat rowed to shore, dragging the long chain all the way back, and you were alone with him. It was quiet for a long while. You were just staring at each other, studying each other, trapped in a silent battle. 

You looked down at his hands, noticing for the first time his cut, bloody knuckles, and he saw the worry cross over your eyes.

“They’re fine,” he said quietly, “My men. If that’s what you were wondering.”

“But, you triumphed over them, clearly,” you replied, not trusting your own voice. 

He chuckled a bit, sighing, 

“I did.”

“You fought for me, then.”

The laughing stopped, and he lifted his chin, proudly, 

“I did.”

“And you are here for my acceptance.”

He didn’t respond to your cue, but instead, he took the box in his hands and slid it across the platform, skittering it along the surface of the water, making little splashes as it landed in front of you. 

You reached for it, opening it up to reveal a shining key. 

“Throw it in the lake,” he commanded you, using his Alpha’s voice to bend your will. 

It shocked you, and you were so close to obeying, but you stopped, cutting your eyes at him,

“What is this?”

“Throw. It. Omega.”

His voice seared through your blood, calling to you with old magic. You fought hard to keep your mind under your own control, 

“Stop! Stop it. Tell me what this is, Alpha.”

“It unlocks my collar. Otherwise, if I make so much as a shift in your direction that they don’t like,” his head turned to look back toward your watchers, “They will pull me into the lake, and I will drown.”

“And if I unlock it…”

“Then, you will be my mate,” his tone turned vitriolic then, “And you will die.”

You let his words sink in, your curiosity overcoming your fear,

“You believe your knot cannot be taken.”

He spat back, 

“My belief is not –”

“But, it’s not up to you,” you interrupted him, “Is it?”

The shock that washed over his bright eyes filled you with a sort of sick satisfaction. You should be afraid of him, but your roles were reversed out here on this rock, and you were holding him under your command. 

“Toss that key, girl. MacTavish fought hard for you. He’ll care for you. He’s a good man.”

“Are you a good man?”

“No,” he growled, his eyes dropping to the water, examining the chains around his own hands, inspecting them for the bloodstains that he obviously thought should be there. 

“I am here for my people, Alpha Price. I am not looking for a husband. I am a resource to be traded for other resources. My clan needs The Exchange. Our people are starving, and I –”

“I would not let them starve,” Price’s eyes shot back up, indignant that you would suggest that he would leave you and your clan without food or water. 

You let yourself smile slightly, teasing him, 

“Spoken like a good man.”

He twisted his lips over his teeth, but he stayed quiet. You continued to torment him, 

“Why did you raise your hand for me?”

He sighed, sitting forward, sloping his shoulders toward you,

“I couldn’t help it. My Alpha…He…” He paused, searching for the words, “I could smell you through the box. I knew you from the moment I saw you walk through the arena. And when my men all raised their hands for you, I knew you would be accepted as our Clan Omega. You are mine in every way that matters. And I cannot have you.”

His voice was full of bitterness. You wanted to smell him. What were the chances that he was your true mate? One-sided imprinting was rare, but true mates were one in a million. 

You stood, surprising him, and he jolted back, sitting up right. The chain around his wrists clattering. You looked over at the shoreline. Your Watchers held the long chain around his neck, heavy and sagging into the black water, ready to yank it tight if he lunged for you, if he fell prey to his Alphic instinct to breed you. 

He watched you approach, seeing how the water rippled with every step you took, gazing upon the dripping silks that clung to your legs, devouring you with his eyes. You stopped in front of his crossed legs, Knowing that he could smell you now. Your pussy was shielded only with a few layers of silk, and you watched him flare his nose, sniffing you right in front of his face, blowing a slow exhale of air through his lips, making the organza billow between your legs. 

“Can I smell your scent, Alpha?” You whispered, your voice slicing through the silence of the still lake. 

His chains clattered as he twisted his head to look up at you, peeling his eyes away from your pretty pussy to meet your gaze. Then, he bent his head to one side, giving you his neck, showing you his scent gland, a sea of red stripes emanating from its center. 

You bent over him, closing the gap, steadying yourself by laying a gentle hand on his huge shoulder. Then, you took a long pause and breathed him in. His scent swirled through your body, wrecking your other senses. It was only him. Alpha. Alpha. Alpha. Your Alpha. Your mate. Your true mate. 

You felt the red marks of your imprint streak across your skin, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw them branch through your veins and across your gland just as his had done. 

The click of a lock made his eyes flash back to you, and with that movement, his heavy collar tumbled into the lake, the drag of the chain singing as it scraped the side of the platform. 

“What have you done, my Omega?” Price breathed. 

It was the second time you’d been asked that question. Your response was still the same:

“I am doing what needs to be done, Master. I am giving myself to you, my true mate.”

The boats were in the water the moment the collar slipped from his neck. The Watchers were on you in moments, and Price’s Beta soldiers were there to collect him. You watched as they rowed you two apart, taking you back to your camps to prepare for the ceremony. 

Your Watchers were in a rush. There were only a few hours until sunrise. Your wet robes were switched out for red ones, and a red veil adorned your head. Underneath, you were rubbed and painted and sprayed with oils, until finally, Watcher Trinity came forward with a bowl of salve. She had made it herself, you could tell. She cared for you so deeply. 

“I trust you, Omega. I know you know what you’re doing. But, please take this. It will help your muscles relax for him, and it will make it easier to bring on your natural defenses.”

She was being coy, avoiding using the word to refer to your slick, knowing that you had your own method of calling it forth using your special power. But, you took it from her anyway, and after you were left alone again to meditate, you used two fingers to massage it into your hole, feeling its effects begin to warm you, making your flesh supple and pliant. 

A hand curled around your tent flap, pulling it open. Instead of your Watcher, you saw one of Garrick’s Omegas. It was her, the one who had failed to take your Alpha’s knot.

She stepped inside,

“May I speak with you?”

You nodded, motioning for her to sit,

“Yes, but I’m afraid I already know what you are about to say.”

Her eyes widened, 

“If you know, then why have you accepted this? Alpha MacTavish was his second. He is not to your liking? His Omegas are kind and –”

“No, they were all to my liking. I am eager to join your pack in whichever way I can, but Alpha Price is my true mate.”

You showed her your skin from under the red silks, knowing she could not see them through the red of the veil. She gaped at them, 

“Your… true mate? He could… This could kill you, Omega. I don’t want to see you come to harm, and it would destroy him. I saw how he was after my accident. I nearly blamed myself for his deep sorrow.”

“I trust my training, Omega, and I am so grateful for your support, but he is my mate. What is meant to happen to me, will.” You stood with her, seeing your Watchers hovering just outside the tent, signaling them that you were ready to leave. 

“Then, I trust you as well. The others are so excited to meet you. I wish you an easy path, and I hope your ceremony is just as you want it to be. After this, you will be our Clan Omega, and I will serve you until the end of my days.”

She kissed your cheek through your veil and left you to be delivered back to the altar. 

For a long time, you had wondered if this final walk away from your pack would be a sad one. You expected every step to be filled with hesitation and fear. But, the only thing you felt was joy. Your mate awaited you at the end of this long path, and you were ready to submit to him. He was worthy of your strength, and he would help you deliver your people from danger. You would rule beside him, helping him use the 141 for good, eradicating the evil from your land. 

The sun’s pink wash was rising out of the horizon line just as you reached the theater. The crowd was silent again, and you saw the pallor and shock painted on all of their faces. They were expecting a funeral instead of a feast. They had no idea why anyone would be so desperate as to sacrifice their only Omega to this Alpha, especially when it was not necessary. But, they didn’t realize that you were no prisoner. You were no one’s puppet. You were in charge, here, and your Alpha would breed you as you commanded him to. 

Your Watchers led you to the altar, kissing your hands through the thin cloth as they passed you to take their seats near Clan Arlos, tears in their eyes and staining their cheeks, and finally, your clan Alpha approached you.

“Alpha Roan,” you greeted him. 

“Little Omega,” he smiled, kissing your hands just as your Watchers had done. He didn’t need to, but it was his way of showing everyone that he trusted your choice, “I hope you know what you are doing.”

“I do,” you said, smiling at him through your red silk veil. 

Then, Alpha Price’s men came through the center of the theater, each of them bending to kiss your hands. But, instead of the back of your knuckles, they turned them over to kiss your palms, a sign that they would accept what you had to give them. Alpha Riley was first, and he lifted his mask to show you his mouth and chin, his kiss warm and tender against your skin. Then, Alpha Garrick knelt down, placing multiple kisses along your fingers and wrists, displaying his loyalty and respect. Finally, Alpha MacTavish knelt before you, daring to whisper to you as he kissed your palms, 

“Brave lass.”

You used your thumb to pet his lip, acknowledging his trust in you. 

Then, it was time for the Omegas to join you. They approached as a unit, not individually as their Alphas had done, and they helped you lay on the altar, guiding your body back onto the marble platform. They pulled at your silks, allowing the crowd to see your naked body, painted in fine brushes of intricate gold designs, of prayers and songs of your people, their symbols adorning you from neck to toe. Finally, they began to kiss you, licking and sucking at your mouth like lovers, showing their devotion to you as their clan Omega. 

As they kissed you, your skin began to flush hot, your body somehow knowing what was about to happen to you. The Omegas felt your fire against their lips, and they pulled your legs apart, each of them bending to lick and suck at your flower’s drooling petals, slurping and sucking up your creamy nectar. They were at your breasts, your neck, your belly, your hands and feet. You were overwhelmed with pleasure, shaking and trembling under their affection, yet moved by their deep loyalty. You knew you would be safe with them. They would care for you just as your clan had done. 

Then, you heard the familiar slam of a longstaff. Your Alpha had arrived. 

According to the ceremony, you were meant to be still and silent as a showing of your acceptance. If you moved or cried out in any way, you risked a clan war, as taking a mate without their consent was a dark offense. You had to prove to your people that you were here of your own free will, and even though you were feeling the static cling of apprehension beginning to worm its way into your chest, you tried to breathe through it, trusting your Alpha to lead you through this moment with his protective power. 

Your legs were lowered to the stirrup-style rests that were carved just below the stone table, keeping your knees wide apart, allowing your pussy to drip openly, glistening with the beginnings of your slick. You calmed yourself as they left you alone, each of them kissing you softly once more to show their reverence. 

Then, you heard the clatter of fallen armor. He was undressing, removing his warlord’s mantle and coming to you fully bare. You spotted him between the vee of your legs as he approached the dais, his imprint marks flushed a deep wine red, his body shining with the traditional oils, meant to give him another layer of aphrodisiacs, promoting his production of his seed, keeping his cock tall and hard. 

But, you knew that your imprint on his gland would do more than all of their drugs combined. He would kill every last person in this arena to get to you at this point, and although you had consented to this joining, you were no longer controlling it. He would take you, no matter what. 

Then, when he got close enough to your platform, you saw it. It was standing proudly against his thick, furry belly, dripping with precome and lubricants, glittering in the rising sun. His cock was immense. You had not practiced on one so large. And his knot was larger than your two fists pressed together. He was intact, and his foreskin was slipping down his flushed head, unable to contain the swelling glans. Your body threatened to quiver from your suspense, and you tried to move your mind into your meditative trance. 

As he approached, he did not go straight for his position between your legs. Instead, he walked around the front of the marble platform and bent to look you in your eyes, leaning his head down for a deep, heady kiss. He fed you his tongue and suckled on yours, letting it writhe inside of his mouth, rubbing against his own probing muscle.

He pulled away to gaze upon you, his eyes soft and full of joy. You smiled up at him, watching as he enjoyed the rest of your body, caressing your breasts, admiring your paintings. 

“Did my clan show you their loyalty, my Omega?”

“Yes, Master,” you answered quietly. 

“Are you prepared for me to show you mine?”

“Yes, Master. I am,” you replied, giving him a brave face despite the absolute weapon that was slobbering for you against his belly. You wanted to taste it, but now was not the time. 

He returned to the base of your platform, kneeling in front of your wet hole, bending to place his mouth against you. He began to suck, pulling your soft lips into his mouth like he was starving, lapping up the beginnings of your body’s fluids, moaning from the taste and the smell of your scent. You wanted to moan, you wanted to pin his head to your trembling quim, but you didn’t dare move a muscle or make a single sound. Breathing in, breathing out, letting the sparks of an orgasm rush through you, bringing tears to your eyes from holding back so much pleasure. 

Your Watcher’s salve was almost too effective. It had made you pliant, but now you were beyond sensitive, able to feel the pound of your own heartbeat through your hole, desperate for something to press inside of you. You needed his cock. 

But, he did not give it to you. He just sucked and sucked and sucked, and his fingers began to rub along the entrance of your slippery hole, pressing down on your pussy’s walls, testing their strength. You fluttered for him, just like your Watchers had taught you, and you felt him stumble in his movements, shocked by your power. 

He stood between your legs, his face and beard soaking from his meal, letting you drip off of his chin like a messy hound drinking from a river. Then, to test your resolve, he teased you with a little bit of meanness, stepping forward to let his cock lay along your body, measuring himself on the outside of you. He reached far beyond your navel, his lubed phallus warm and heavy, his knot resting in the softness of your folds, and you could feel him throbbing for you. 

You didn’t dare move, but you wanted to cradle his cock in your hands, to rub up and down his length, to feel the smoothness of his head and the firmness of his knot. But, you stayed stock still, showing the crowd that you would not waver. There was some soft chittering from the clans, the shock at his size obviously enough to break onlookers out of their respectful quiet. 

Then, he began notching his head at the entrance of your pussy, letting the tip slide up and down your tight ring of muscles that guarded your entrance.      

“Last chance, Omega. Call it off. Cry out, and my own men will cut me down,” he bade you under his breath, having a hard time holding his words and sentences together, his voice shaking in his throat. 

You looked up at him with closed lips, making a point to give him a soft smile as a response. 

No deal. 

You pulsed your muscles again, making your pussy lap up his sloppy precome like a little mouth, watching as he was torn apart by your action, no matter how minor. 

So, without any other choice, he fed himself into you. It was a fearsome experience, at first. You weren’t sure if you could actually handle him. But, you breathed through the stress, relaxing your body, finding that deep, secret place inside of you, making your slick drop down for him, flooding your hole to welcome him in. 

The confusion that painted his face was so satisfying. He couldn’t understand the sheer warmth and comfort he was experiencing. His cock was being sucked into you, deeper and deeper, and finally, you felt his knot. 

He pulled all the way out of you, and sheathed himself all the way back in, always reaching to that one spot, just above his bulbous anchor, and then starting his process over again. Each time his cock fucked its way through your body, humping himself into you, creamy, milking noises filled the quiet, open-air arena. The whole ensemble could hear him invading your hole, the lurid slap of skin on skin loud and unashamed. 

His phallus was large enough to rub against your most sensitive spot over and over, bullying it into producing more and more slick, making you come just by dragging his heavy cockhead over it, in and out, in and out, pounding into you with almost reckless need. 

You came for him, and your body began to shiver from the overwhelming bliss, but you held your voice. You tried to still yourself, not wanting to show weakness, but there was nothing you could do. You were shattered by his cock, coming over and over again. It was an endless wave. You had no idea where one started and the other stopped. 

You could taste blood in your mouth from biting the inside of your cheek. Still, you pushed through it, testing yourself with every push and pull of your body. 

His huge hands pawed at your hips and breasts, squeezing you, watching your plump flesh jiggle with every cruel strike of his hips. Your Alpha took your own slick and began to rub it all over your skin, swirling it around your nipples, letting it smear across your belly from his palm. Then, he painted himself, taking it from your well-fucked hole and rubbing it across his scent gland, down his chest, matting his hair with your wetness. 

Then, you felt his precome begin to pump out of him. You knew it had begun because this was when your slick was meant to wash through you, but there was no space for anything else. So, it began to pour out of you and over his knot. Every time he pushed it against your body, it threatened to slip into your hole, and you were filled with a twisted excitement, ready for it to be stuck inside of you, to churn and grind against your insides, to trap you in a blinding, rageful bliss. You nearly cried out from the heavy want you felt in your chest. 

“You ready for my knot, pretty Omega?” He growled, no longer speaking to you softly. There was no gentleness left within him. 

He shoved you back across the dais, climbing up onto it with you, breaking every protocol by doing so, but knowing there wasn’t a single other Alpha in attendance who would do anything about it unless you asked them to. But, he trusted you, lifting himself above you, bringing his face to your face, kissing you and beginning to lick your scent gland, making you see stars. 

Would he really bite you right here in front of all these people while you were about to take his knot? It was beyond intimate. Not only was it private, but it was dangerous. It was when an Alpha was most vulnerable. The audacity of this man shook you to your core. 

“Bite me, Omega. Please take me. Claim me as yours, sweetheart. Show them that you are mine. My Omega.”

His voice was ragged and deep, a hoarse purr of commands, all of which you were happy to obey. You began to lick his neck, putting your mouth over his gland as you began to suck at the round swell of flesh. Then, just as you canted your hips, feeling his knot slip inside of you, shoving and burying itself within the tight sheath of your pussy, you used your muscles to yank him the rest of the way in, and you bit down on his neck, hard, your body seizing from a hard, ruthless orgasm. . 

You heard the crack of his gland, and you felt him sink his fangs into yours, the pain and the pleasure mixing within you like a drug, his cock firing rope after rope of searing hot come into your belly, flooding your womb with his spend. He pulled his mouth away and stared into your eyes. His pupils were blown wide, his face full of disbelief, 

“My love…”

You kissed him, taking his lip into yours, suckling on it, trying to guide him back down from his tantric high. He was struggling above you, stuck deep inside of you, unable to stop himself from dumping heavy loads of his come into your body, his cock pulsing and throbbing with each burst of his cream. 

He rested his head on your neck, returning his mouth to your gland, and every time he licked it, now, you felt your pussy twist around him, threatening to slam you with another orgasm. You licked him, too, hearing him cry out against your skin, feeling the mirror of your sensations, his heavy phallus jerking as you sucked on his broken gland. 

Finally, he was able to rock back and forth, letting his knot slip out of you before popping it back inside, fucking you with it just like he did with his cock. He twisted his hips forward, driving into you with all of his strength, and then he would pull himself back out, the swell of his knot increasing with each thrust until, on the last thrust, he was finally trapped, unable to remove himself from your core. 

Now, though, it was your turn. You began to use your muscles to push and pull him from the inside, fucking him like a sleeve of smooth, soaked warmth, jerking his shaft up and down with your insides.

“Oh, fuck…” He whispered, not expecting your skills to be so advanced, but you had trained hard for this moment. You weren’t about to let it go to waste. 

You moved him inside of you, letting his knot take the brunt of your efforts, squeezing it like a fruit, making sure all of his juice melted into your skin. You made him come like this again, using the salve that your Watcher had given to you as an advantage, knowing that the heightened sensitivity you felt was now being passed on to him. He filled you up, his knot plugging your hole, preventing any of his seed from leaking out, and your tummy was swollen from his load, round and full for everyone to see. 

He sat up on his heels, looking down at you with his eyes full of adoration and wonder, watching your strong abdominals clench and twist as you used them to help you work inside of yourself, edging him over and over before pulling him down into the depths of another hard come with you. 

His hands went to the bulge of fluid in your belly, most of it flooding into your womb, unable to escape anywhere else. Your Alpha caressed your skin, marveling at the fullness. Then, he looked down at your stretched hole, playing with your clitorus that had been forced out from under its hood due to the sheer size of his knot, all of your skin bowing around it and pulled tight. 

Your Alpha forced you to come like this, milking him hard, trying not to make a sound but giving away your mind-bending pleasure with shaking, whimpering breaths. 

“That’s a good Omega. So full of my come.”

You smiled up at him, enjoying the full feeling of his come inside of you. But, you were losing your strength, and he could feel it. Alpha Price leaned over you again, grinding himself down into you and helping you reach one last orgasm, pulling himself along with you, squirting the last of his spend into your pussy. Then, he carefully twisted his cock out of you, watching the gush of his come coat the marble platform, dripping out of you and down the sides of the dais. 

You were so empty and weak, but you were being lifted, cradled in his arms, and the whole arena burst into revelrous applause. The feast had begun, but not for you. You would be in your Alpha’s tent, and there you would remain until he bred you, making sure that you were laden with his cub, sharing food and drink with him in bed while you were stuck on his knot, traditionally until sunset when you would be presented to the clans as the new Apex Omega, destined to rule beside him forever. 

“Are you done being quiet, my Omega?”

“Yes, Master,” you whispered, nestling into his broad chest. 

“Good,” he smiled, “I need to hear you scream for me.”

“And I need my Alpha to breed me. I need your knot again, Master. Don’t pull it out.”

“I’m at your command, my love,” he smiled, planting a kiss on your temple, smearing his own salve across your swollen flesh, working his cock until he was hard again. 

When you felt his knot for the second time, you knew you had made the right choice. Your people were safe, and so were you. You weren’t sure if it was the high of your claiming or the truth that you felt in your heart, but you were eager to be dripping with his come every night. Trapped underneath your Alpha was right where you belonged, knotted and full of his love. 

Seriously, send help. I was too ashamed to even reread it for typos. I'm so sorry.

[tojisun]

price catches it first — that whiff spreading in the den, clogging up his throat like ratafia. it makes him pause, words failing him now, and he snaps his jaw shut at the start of a rumble pulsing from his chest.

he turns just as the others do, watching as you rub on your throat and grumble to yourself. it is bare, the first it’s ever been since you’ve arrived at the base, and his eyes drop to your collar in wonder.

he’s heard of those before — collars that conceal scents. they’ve become a privilege, not quite a necessity, so only a few are found with them. still, rarer are those who would wear them for hours on end, and in the base, you happened to be the only one to do so.

intriguing, if not at least worrying, because price had seen your file. you’re an alpha. an alpha prime, it seemed, based on your presentation records, and yet you came to him with a collar on your throat and your scent heavily suppressed. he didn’t ask, this is not the line of work where one can, and just demanded for your loyalty and skill.

so this is the first that they’re smelling of you. it is overwhelming, like all other alpha scents usually are, but it curls at the end. sweet but burnt. crackling firewood and smoke. it is pleasant but not just; like at every turn, there has to be something that gives. something unexpected; something unusual.

john breathes in sharply, his muscles going taut underneath the fatigues when he realizes what it is. the rest of the squad follow — they sit up straighter, their shoulders drawn higher, and their scents rap against each other, mixing in dizzying blends. the den becomes packed with worry, apprehension, horror, anger, protectiveness, protectiveness, protectiveness.

still, you only look at them with a cocked brow, daring them to go. to speak of what it is weighing down on their tongues.

it is kyle to do so. kyle who you trust more than anyone else.

“you’ve been bitched.”

he says it with no malice, but just as a fact rolling off his tongue, one that makes your fingers twitch while your face stays frozen, still a mask of normalcy. of measured strength and quiet fortitude.

“i have,” you reply, also void of emotion. any other day he would commend the control you have of your emotions to not even let it slip into your scent, especially after having relied on your collar so much, but tonight isn’t the right time. tonight, john’s mind swirls, his tongue heavy with the things he wants to say.

so he tries.

“was it—”

you blink at him. then, you laugh. “oh! yes, of course. i wanted it.”

your reply fills him up, stuffing him with cotton. he realizes that your tension was of worry; you were afraid that they would judge you. and john feels lighter, elated and calm now, but also he feels disjointed, like he is floating, and john, he–

he tries.

he tries not to imagine the weight of your words. he tries not to give them shape. but his mind is faster than his conscience, and john now thinks of you, alpha prime, begging for another alpha to turn you. to fill you up and drown your scent glands with their own before gnawing on your skin. biting. biting. biting. until it takes root, upending every fibre within you to make room for the submission. for the delicateness. for the heat.

john’s thoughts only grind to a halt when the new scent is snuffed out from the room, extinguished in its entirety, leaving no trail. his eyes find you fastening the collar on your neck again, your roughened fingers unlatching the buckle to loop the leather.

he swallows like he is a man parched, but his throat only grows dryer. there is nothing for him to feast on.

it goes by so slowly; your familiarity with the collar does not aid you in fastening its loose end, and john wonders if you might need help, after all. only, just as the question is building on the tip of his tongue, he realizes what you’re doing.

what teases you are leaving.

“so,” you say like you have not just presented an opportunity for them to latch onto. “can i be dismissed?”

john hums his ascent, and ends the meeting for tonight. they watch as you gather your files before waltzing away with only the sound of your boots following you. the rest of the squad stays, awashed by the… offering.

because it was everything and that.

it was a proof of your trust, and a question of their own, one that john knows that they will eagerly prove to you. but it was also an invitation; a revelation and now a question.

john watches the way simon’s knuckles turn white as he balls his hands into fists and wonders if his boys would allow him to be the first to you.

——

this is nothing and everything alike; experimenting on omegaverse in hopes that i’ll get out of my slump </3

[lay-z]

🇸🇪 Day 15 – Domestic bliss

A continuation to ❄️ Day 7 – Make do, which means it's set in the same universe!

Synopsis: This year, you’re not stuck, but willingly spending Christmas in a cozy cottage in the beautiful wilderness of Sweden. 

Pairing: alpha!TF-141 x fem!omega!Reader 

Warnings/Info: NSFW, 18+ | Omegaverse; military!Reader; a/b/o dynamics; emotional support (dog) omega; established poly!relationship; claimed mates; typical alpha/omega behaviour; knotting; breeding; fluff/aftercare  

Word count: 2.6k

↳ back to 🎅🏼 Masterlist ☃️

Location: Öjarn, Northern Sweden

EST. remng. time until exfil: Undisclosed

When the brass decided to transfer you to another unit after a year of serving with the 141, Captain Price didn't hesitate, made the necessary arrangements and swiftly claimed you as his omega, along with the rest of his squad. 

That was roughly two months ago. 

Now, the Captain's inner alpha preens whenever he catches a glimpse of the four mating bite marks along the junctures of your pretty neck; two on each shoulder, slightly different sizes, but all equal and serious in their claim. All binding for a lifetime, too. 

In return, each one of your mates wears your unique bite mark proudly; dainty crescent scars adorning each of their necks. You'd claimed them all as your mates eagerly, no questions asked, but “Who goes first?”. 

The Captain did.  

Then Simon.  

And Kyle. 

Johnny. 

You've become their perfect pillow princess. The sweetest most beautiful, supportive and docile omega each of them could've ever dreamed of and wished for. You help them decompress and unwind, sleep better and keep the nightmares at bay with your soothing scent and gentle purrs. 

They’re completely enamoured with you; so much so that the urge to hide you away and keep you from danger is becoming increasingly difficult to suppress. That’s why the Captain decided to bring you all here on leave, wanting to spend this Christmas in a more appropriate and comfortable way than the last. 

They rented a pretty cottage in the woods, close to a gorgeous lake where a herd of reindeer roams, far away from civilization, with a nice fireplace, plenty of supplies and provisions to last for several weeks, and enough spaces to relax, lounge and bond. To breed. 

John’s chest rumbles with a deep purr at the thought. He’s been planning on breeding you with his boys, start easing you into being knotted more frequently even before your upcoming heat.

It’s enough to make his cock chuff in his pants as he watches you fool around and playfight with his younger packmates, his dear Sergeants. They like to get a bit rough with you, enjoying the way you growl at them and giggle in delight, but they’re always gentle enough to never hurt you, knowing fully well that their Captain and Ghost would rip them a new one if you’d so much as catch a bruise on your supple skin.  

You squeal when Johnny pins you to the fur carpet in front of the fireplace, straddling your hips while Kyle holds your wrists above your head to keep you from thrashing. The young alphas growl playfully at you, and John hides his smile as he takes a sip of his morning coffee, keeping his distance for now. 

“Now what?” You ask through a giddy smile, eyes sparkling with mirth as your gaze flickers between Johnny and Kyle.  

“Now... we claim our bonnie prize. Right, Garrick?” Johnny shoots Kyle a look, the formers eyes already darkened from diamond blue to navy, his cock hot and heavy in his pants. Kyle clicks his tongue with a nod and licks his lips, just as excited as his packmate. Their heady arousal thick in the air around the spacious living room while your saccharine scent slowly mixes with theirs, creating a perfect concoction of a natural aphrodisiac. 

Your skin flushes, heartrate picking up at their possessive behaviour. A year ago, you would’ve felt flustered, embarrassed at how turned on you get by simply playfighting with them, but you’ve long learned that it’s perfectly natural. They want you needy and desperate, and bold about it. 

“Want you both,” you keen while your cunt slicks up and throbs around nothing, “I want you to use me.” 

Both young alphas groan. Kyle squeezes your wrists before he reaches for the hem of your flimsy sweater to pull it off you. Johnny snarls and grinds his big bulge against your warm core, seeking friction as he keeps the weight off his bad knee. 

“Alright! That’s enough for now, lads. Give our sweet omega a break.” John barks commandingly, sauntering over to the throuple on the floor. “Make yourselves useful and go chop some wood outside. It’s going to be cold tonight.” 

Both Kyle and Johnny leave you be reluctantly, the latter more hesitantly than the former, but as the leading alpha, the Captain’s word is law in this pack – in and outside of the field. He keeps the peace and balance, even if he must bring in Simon as his enforcer sometimes, and neither Kyle nor Johnny wants to get scuffed by the Lieutenant again. 

“Send Simon back inside when you see him, aye? I need to have a word with him.” He calls after the younger men as they scurry off to get dressed and follow their orders. 

John approaches you slowly, eyes never leaving yours as you roll over onto your stomach, lifting your legs, crossed at the ankles with your ass perched up a little, already presenting for him and luring him in. It always works. 

“Quite the tease today, aren’t you, sweetheart?” John kneels on one leg, knees popping as he goes down. He cups your chin, tilting it up to him. “How’re you feeling?” 

You blink your pretty eyes up at him with feigned innocence. “Good, sir,” you purr, flashing a warm smile when John huffs in amusement, “I feel toasty warm and safe here.” 

John nods, pleased with your answer as he rubs the pad of his thumb over your chin in contemplation. 

Your back arches against Simon’s flushed chest, damp skins sticky with sweat while he breathes down your neck, mouthing along the curve of your shoulder as he keeps you impaled on his massive cock while he sits with his broad back against the headboard of the large bed, your thighs spread wide open and draped over his strong legs, giving John a perfect view of your wonderful cunt and the way it swallows and stretches around Simon’s prick. 

Your syrupy slick is dripping around your hole, down your crack and his heavy balls. You feel so full and yet it’s not enough. You’re burning up inside. The squelch is obscene whenever he lifts you up a little only to drop you back down on his length, making you cry out in pleasure each time. 

“Remember, lad, don’t knot her. I need you to prepare her for mine.” John reminds him sternly, still casually leaning against the bedroom wall. 

Simon grunts, nodding curtly. “Yes, sir.” 

John hums in approval at his obedience. Although he’s allowed Simon to drop the formalities off duty, especially in an intimate situation like this, his Lieutenant simply cannot do it, can’t give up the control. Deep down, John knows it’s so that Simon won’t forget himself, scared of his own self that he might do something to you he will regret if he’d ever lose control. It’s like he’s clinging to the power dynamic; clinging to John being the leader, the one and only alpha who can keep Simon on a metaphorical leash, ready to pull on it if he gets too rough. 

John knows Simon would never do anything harmful to you. John also knows that Kyle and Johnny are more prone to wearing you out when no one is around to keep them in check. He makes a mental note to have a pack briefing soon. If he wants to start breeding you, he wants to do it right with everyone involved and on the same page. 

And then your high-pitched moans pull John out of his thoughts, and he watches your body quake and tremble while Simon keeps thrusting up into your convulsing walls, large hands gripping the fat of your thighs as he coaxes another orgasm out of you while he holds his own release back. 

John can see how badly Simon wants to come, too. The tendons and veins throbbing in his thick neck, the sweat trickling down his temples, pale and heavily scarred skin now flushed and hot, and the way his shoulders shake with restraint, are all clear indicators of this pleasurable torture, though Captain’s orders hold him back and he’s a fiercely obedient pup. 

John tilts his head to the side, eyes zeroed in on the way your slick keeps gushing around Simon’s cock. “Would you like Simon to come inside you, sweetheart? You want to relief him of his suffering, hm? Your choice, love.” 

Your lips are parted, eager to be stuffed with another cock, as you regard John with a heavy-lidded gaze, head lolling back against Simon’s shoulder as you moan and whimper, and ultimately nod.  

Your pleading voice and verbal permission is the only push Simon needs, and he drops your thighs to wrap his bulky arms around your torso instead as he pumps his hips and starts fucking you with wild abandon, grunting praises in your ear while his dark eyes keep flicking down to his claiming mark on your right shoulder. His jaw twitches and his canines ache to bite and claim you all over again, but he manages to suppress the urge for now. 

“Yes,” you whine, hands grasping and holding onto Simon’s tattooed forearms desperately while you turn your head, nuzzling his throat while your warm breath puffs against his sweaty skin. “Yes, please, Si!” 

When Simon cums and spills his release inside of you eventually, John is already shedding his clothes, dropping the fabrics on the bedroom floor before approaching the bed. 

You’re mewling and chirping happily as Simon’s cock keeps throbbing while his chest heaves with rumbling, satisfied growls. He tilts your head to the side to seal your lips in a sloppy yet sweet kiss, licking into your mouth to taste you thoroughly before John’s arm snakes around your waist, ready to claim you for himself. 

Simon doesn’t snarl, doesn’t growl possessively when his Captain comes to steal you away. No, he only whines deep in his throat, but lets go of you, nonetheless, right when his knot starts to swell, eager to lock inside you. 

“Not yet, Simon,” John reminds him with a low rumble as he pulls you into his own arms, against his warm hairy chest. “You’ll get your turn, lad.” 

You’re already at that point where you’re just happy to be passed around along your alphas, eager to serve and have their cocks fill you up repeatedly. It starting to feel different, though, and in the back of your mind, you already know why that is. 

“How do you want it, love?” John asks softly, meaty palms caressing up and down your flanks while his own cock is bobbing against his lower abdomen, weeping with precum from its ruddy tip. You want to lick and cherish it. Behind you, Simon traces the curve of your spine with the rough tips of his fingers, needing the contact. You shudder and whine needily. 

John’s eyes soften. “That bad already, huh?” He reaches for your wrist and pulls you closer until you straddle his lap and he can kiss you properly. 

“Something wrong, sir?” Simon asks, his gruff voice laced with concern for you.  

John pulls back from the sensual kiss, a string of saliva connecting your lips that he licks away. 

“Our omega is going into heat soon and you know how needy she already is out of it,” he answers matter-of-factly. “Isn’t that right, princess?”  

You nod slowly, eyes becoming all glossy as you tremble under John’s loving gaze. 

Kyle and Johnny push and shove each other like a pair of rowdy pups after kicking off their wet boots by the front door, both carrying a pile of cut firewood. They’re still restless and buzzing with energy, even after exerting themselves outside in the snow, chopping wood for the past hour. 

“You smell that?” Kyle asks suddenly, dark brows furrowed quizzically as he drops the logs next to the fireplace, sniffing the air. 

Johnny rubs the cold tip of his nose with his equally cold hands. “Nah. Smell what?” He scents the air as well, eyes squinting as he picks up a familiar sound instead, one that has his heart start thudding rapidly in his chest. His eyes widen with glee as he looks at Kyle before they both take off sprinting down the hallway towards the master bedroom. 

What they find in the bedroom has them both freezing on the spot and their throats start rumbling with whiney growls, pricks already swelling with unbridled need and desire for you. 

The air is thick with the heady scent of sex, familiar alpha pheromones and your sweet, sweet slick. It makes their mouths water, and their chests swell with affection and pride.  

You’re on all fours on the bed, head resting on your folded forearms, your plump ass is up in the air, your back arched so beautifully as their Captain takes you from behind while Simon watches with heavy-lidded eyes, jerking his cock in rhythm with John’s shallow thrusts into your fluttering cunt. Neither of them minds the audience and you’re certainly calling out to them with soft, saccharine whines. 

Johnny doesn’t hesitate another second before he starts undressing in a hurry, more than eager to join, and Kyle swiftly follows the lead. 

“Permission to join, sir.” Johnny requests breathlessly and the mattress dips and creaks as he climbs onto the bed, already reaching you to pet your hair lovingly; his other hand squeezing his shaft to release some of that gut-wrenching pressure. Kyle crawls onto the mattress behind him, opting to lean against the headboard like Simon. 

Meanwhile, your eyelashes flutter as you blink up at your other two alphas; their heavy, delicious scents making your walls clench and convulse around John’s thick, swollen knot. Pressing your face into the mattress below, you keep panting and whining and moaning while John gropes and squeezes your ass cheeks soothingly, hushing you with his deep, husky voice before he addresses his packmates. 

“She’s going into heat soon. I had to knot her now, but she’ll need more.” He grunts out as his knot keeps throbbing, locked in past your soppy entrance. 

And their eyes darken at their Captain’s explanation. Now that they know what’s going on, it all makes sense.  

“Heat.” Kyle repeats under his breath, eyes trained on your while his cock twitches inside his boxer briefs. He remembers the first heat that got triggered when they’d claimed you as their omega, and his heart flutters in his chest, his stomach doing a little flip. It was one of the most stressful yet best and rewarding times of his life so far. 

When Johnny lies down next to you and starts caressing the curve of your spine, Simon glares and gives his calf a warning nudge with his foot. “Let her be, Johnny. Don’t overwhelm her.” 

“Am not even doin’ anythin’!” Johnny grumbles, glancing over his shoulder with a frown before his Captain’s stern glare makes him duck his head and simply lay down next to you like an obedient pup, and when you turn your head to gaze at the youngest alpha, he scoots closer to nuzzle his cold nose against yours sweetly. 

“And just to be clear,” Simon mutters, his cheeks flushing brighter as he keeps himself from bucking into his fist, “Cap’ already said tha’ it’s my turn to knot her next.” 

[diejager]

This is omegaverse related so please here me out… What about something different? What about…

A

Feral Omega?

I’m talking like, this omega isn’t your typical omega. This omega is downright dangerous, reports of Omega going feral but causes of harm to them due to some omega discrimination.

So what if, reader who is feral omega, is down right butchering enemies. And doesn’t hesitate to almost maul some alpha recruits if they want to mess with her..

Cw: omegaverse, feral!reader, violence, blood, weird pack dynamic, discrimination, protective behaviour, tell me if I missed any.

You were a ‘one-of-a-kind’ omega —spoken with utmost reverence by them. You were their strong and independent omega, whispered in crowded halls, mumbled in darkest nights, screamed in busy moments, and kissed to in warm and comfortable beds. You were anything but a strong and dedicated and reliable soldier, someone Ghost had grown to respect after a joint Op, then coaxed to rely on by the others when they saw how welcoming Ghost was and simply how skillful you were at your job. 

You were small but spry, less bulky but flexible, weaker but resourceful. You were everything they sought for in an omega. You were so much alike Soap, yet molecularly different. Though it was every alpha’s dream of finding a soft and loving mate to provide and protect for, someone smaller and more fragile than their thick muscles and broad build, there was a thrill in being reminded that they weren’t always at the top, being grounded and brought back down from their high horses. Against all of traditional mating couples, your current age and time had demanded more equal partnering, a relationship where both parties stood on the same ground. 

And Ghost and Price thrived on that, their employment demanded a level of independence from their mates and pack mates, the capability of standing on their own and manage grief and stress. That’s where Soap stood, an omega at it’s finest, strong and independent and emotionally knowledgeable, the glue to their pack, and Gaz, the stabiliser, the soft and gentle hand that reminded them of who they were. 

Then you came bulldozing through their well-built dynamic: feral and wrathful, full of hate and anger for the world who had wronged you. When the military had rejected you for both your sex and gender, you’d worked up the ranks in the CIA with your blood, sweat and tears, starting from a fresh agent - a rookie - to an experienced one. You’d gotten so far that Laswell had eventually reach out to you, acknowledged by someone so powerful and partnered with The Ghost had gotten you the acknowledgment and respect you’d dreamed of. 

It was a rough start with Ghost, but he learned to rely on you as much as you did him, you had formed a mutual understanding that only grew into fondness after meeting the rest of his pack. They were a functioning mix of weird and quirky: a leading alpha that was a big, soft bear, another alpha that was rough on the edge but caring, an overenergetic and fiery omega and a beta that represented everything you liked in one, calm, open-minded and smart. It was odd seeing you join them so often and continuously on Ops that didn’t need much of CIA intervention, but you all made it work.

You’d become a familiar face on base, a blunt and no-nonsense agent to new people, but cracked jokes and smiled with those you knew. Fiercely protective of your pack as much as they were with you. If Soap was a menace, then you were an omen, your deep frown and growling snarl, baring your teeth as a warning before you attacked. The world had taught you to bark and bite —and bite you did, a strong and dangerous one, leaving you bruised and roughed up, but your opponent gasping for life and battered.

Honestly, sometimes you were more trouble than it’s worth, but wouldn’t have it any other way.

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @danielle143 @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @petwifed @randominstake @haven-1307 @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @cod-z @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce

[moody-alcoholic]

These Violent Delights

Chapter 2 - Show Me This Life

Summary: Poly 141 x fem!reader, a/b/o alternate universe. 7.5k words. You’re trying to learn more about yourself and the people around you, which is easier said then done, especially now you’re moving across the country. At least you can trust them right..?

CW: a/b/o alternative universe, a/b/o dynamics, typical a/b/o universe tropes (scenting), talking about periods, alcohol, language, mentions of past abuse, nightmares, angst.

Previous - masterlist - next AO3

Enjoy <3

“Professor?” He’s not listening to the downright annoying voice behind him. His hands balled in fists as he looks at the broken earth. They came as quickly as they left. He sniffs the air. 4 of them, all men, and the omega she’s gone too. He can’t smell her death in the air. There is no point in a clean up effort, even if there was it could take months. The omega is gone. That’s his priority, to find her and take her back. 

“Professor?” 

“What!?” He snaps turning round to see Miles stood behind him gripping a tablet. He watches the alphas eyes dilate as the scent of anger fills the air. He doesn’t want to see him right now, or anyone. He wants his omega.

“It was the CIA.” He says reaching out with a tablet. The professor grabs it out his hand looking at the profile. 

“Who is she?” His voice still filled with anger. He needs answers, he sees the name Kate Laswell. It doesn’t ring a bell. 

“I’m not sure we’re working on it.” He says. Pathetic. Useless. 

“Get out of my sight!” He shouts, thrusting the tablet in the man's hands. He turns back around as the first drops of rain are starting to fall. Now the place will be flooded too. The smell of death hangs heavy in the air. He closes his eyes breathing it in. It’s metallic, harsh, he can taste it in the air. He wonders if any of it is her blood. Her scent is fading with each gust of wind.  

Kate Laswell.

The name spins round in his head. How did the CIA find out? He thinks back to the visitors he’s had over the past few months. It could have been any of them. He’s just come back from DC to secure more funding, what was he going to tell them now? The lab is destroyed and the omega gone. His phone buzzes in his pocket. He wants to ignore it throw it into the sinking earth and forget about it. He lets it ring out watching the sky darken as heavier clouds move in, he can feel the electricity in the air making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. 

How dare they take his omega.

Johnny comes to see you after breakfast. He always looks so cheerful, beaming as he comes over. 

“‘Mornin lass sleep well?” he asks 

“Yeah.” You reply, you had good dreams again, Dr. Piper was there too.

“Wanna go for a walk? Thought you could use a change of scenery.” He winks at you. You nod almost too enthusiastically, swinging your legs out the bed. He brings over your slippers and a dressing gown. You put them on following him out the room. He loops his arm in yours leading you out the ward and towards another building. You enjoy the fresh air and the sun on your face.  

“What’s Dr. Piper doing?” You ask, stopping to look through a door window. 

“She’s been teaching us all about you, and us I guess now we’re all in the same boat.” He says, as she’s sat typing on a laptop. John and Kate must trust her enough to give her access to a laptop, that makes you smile. 

“Think I could join?” You ask. 

“I don’t see why not, but what do you need to know about yourself?” He chuckles. You’d be surprised. You walk through the door. Piper's head looks round from the laptop and she smiles. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” She asks. 

“Fine, I would like to get out of the hospital.” You say smiling, she nods looking past you at Johnny. 

“I heard you’ve been teaching them.” You say. 

“Yes, as much as I can. I’ve been helping Kate go over the research they took from the lab.” You don’t know why that makes you swallow hard. 

“Can I join? I’d like to know more about what was going on.” You say trying not to sound nervous. She smiles. 

“Cause you can, although some things you might already know.” She says. 

“What are you talking about today?”

“Scenting, hopefully, maybe get the alpha’s to control their scent more.” 

“That would be nice.” You say before you can stop yourself. She smiles as you hear the door behind you open. The scent of alpha fills the air. It’s not John though the presence is darker. It’s Simon. The hairs stand up on the back of your neck, you’re too scared to turn, you don’t want to turn. You look at Piper, she looks sympathetically, she wont project her scent onto you, you know that. They need to get used to you and you used to them. Besides, one of them might be claiming you next month.   

“Where have you been hiding, ey?” You hear Johnny say.

“None of your business sergeant.” A gruff voice comes back. You slip down into a seat not taking your eyes off Piper. You hear a chair scrape back as Johnny sit’s down talking with him. It’s a few minutes later when you hear John and Gaz arrive. Kyle you learned his name, but he likes to be called Gaz. The smell of John’s alpha washes over you, it’s more calming then the other man, even Piper can feel it. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Gaz asks you as he sits next to you. 

“Fine.” You say smiling at him. You look back over at Piper as she begins her lesson. 

A lot of the information you already know, how scent works, where it comes from. Alpha’s have the strongest scent but also have the hardest time controlling it. Betas are very good at controlling scent and masking, it’s common for beta’s to use their scent to calm alphas and omegas. Omegas are the best at detecting scent, it’s a defense mechanism at the end of the day. Being able to smell the threat before it’s right next to you.

“You’ve all scented the omega, what about each other.” She says stepping to the side. “Any volunteers.” You almost step up automatically but instead it’s John who steps up. Piper walks around him. 

“Kyle.” She motions at him, he steps up. 

“Stretch your neck your, your hormones will do the rest. Remember the scent comes from the back of your neck.” She explains. You watch as Price bears his neck towards Gaz. His nostrils flare as he breathes the scent in. The scent of his alpha fills the room, you can see Gaz wobble as he breathes it in. It makes you chuckle, the memory of new betas passing out after scenting you or an alpha. Doctor Piper moves to pull Gaz away and she helps him back to a seat. He looks out of it, and John won’t be the only alpha he has to scent today.

“Who’s next?” She asks the room, her eyes landing on you for a second. You get up walking over to him. You’ve only ever scented one alpha before. The professor, John’s scent is already overwhelming enough. You get up going towards him, he smiles at you, it helps put you at ease as you reach up. He’s taller then you and you have to step up on your toes. 

“Scenting each other is important for packs, once each member has gone through the process of projecting their scent onto one another it creates a bond between you all.” She explains. A pack. You never thought you could be part of a pack before. You close your eyes leaning in to scent him. 

“The ground after rain.” He says quietly as his scent fills your nose. You slowly open your eyes, your mouth hanging open, pupils dilated.

The ground after rain and smoke, that’s John’s scent.

You smile at him, you don’t need Piper's help to get back to your seat. John’s eyes stay on you as you sit down.

The next few minutes you’re blissed out enjoying the alpha’s scent, it’s calming, safe. It’s only when John’s finished you start paying attention. The two beta’s go next if not just to give you all a break. It’s followed by an explanation of masking, the ability to hide your scent, betas are the best at it. You feel the energy in the room change when Simon eventually walks next to Piper. 

“Two alpha’s in a pack is unusual, doesn’t mean it cannot work though.” She says, you can tell she doesn’t seem that confident. John goes first then Gaz and Johnny. It’s only you left. You get out your chair walking over to him slowly. His scent is strong, he looks down at you through his mask as you tip your head up to him. He bares his scent for you. The ground after rain and something you can’t name, it’s metallic, it makes a lump form in your throat.  

You back up from him, he’s not as scary as he seems now. He makes your head spin as he turns to look at you, his eyes meeting yours. He has dark brown eyes, you let out a breath, smiling at him. You feel Pipers hand on your arm. Goosebumps rise on the back of your neck. You turn going back over to your seat. 

“Okay, that wasn’t so bad.” Piper continues as she presses her hands together. “The calmer you are, the less prominent your scent is. If you’re stressed or upset you’ll have a harder time controlling it.” You look over at Simon, he sat down next to John instead of going to the back of the room.

You stop listening to Piper, keeping your eyes on him. What was the other smell, the ground after rain, something else, thick and heavy, harsh as it hit your nose. You flare your nostrils trying to breath him in but you can’t smell him anymore. 

Dr. Piper talks about masking and how to spot it. She says as soon as there is a beta specialist here, they will be able to help them more, she can only do so much. You know from your own experience that a lot of things are just instinct. The last thing she talks about is scruffing.

A pit forms in your stomach, you’ve never had good experience with that. That’s the point though you’re not supposed to. You remember back in the bunker, the professor would sometimes do it for no reason, sometimes for hours on end. Your hand goes up to the back of your neck. 

“For alpha’s and beta’s it’ll just feel like someone has jolted you, or hit you hard in the back of the neck, it’s painful. For omega’s it’s completely immobilising. It’s only to be used in extreme situations, I personally would argue there should never be a reason to do it. There are less invasive ways to subdue someone without resorting to scruffing.” She looks round the room, her eyes landing on you. You would happily go the rest of your life without being scruffed again. 

The door to the room opens and you turn to see Kate walk in with a tablet in her hand. Dr. Piper wraps up her speech moving back over to her laptop as Kate walks up to hand the tablet to John. You’re watching them as you hear Johnny move to sit next to you wrapping his arm around your shoulders. 

“So what do I smell like?” He asks. You smile, breathing him in. 

“You smell like clean sheets, straight out the dryer.” You say. 

“That’s boring, anything else?”  He asks huffing. 

“It’s a good smell, a nice smell, safe.” You reply smiling. You’ve always felt safe around betas. You both watch as John get’s up pressing something on the tablet. 

“We’re going to be moving to Washington.” 

“DC?” Johnny asks. 

“The state.” John says.

“Lot’s of rain, you'll be right at home.” Kate says. Dr. Piper looks over from the laptop. You watch her eyes flick between Kate and John. 

“I’m sure it won’t take you long to pack?” He asks looking round the room. Johnny and Gaz are already on their feet. 

“C’mon love, I’ll take you back.” Johnny says holding his hand out for you. 

“It’s okay, i’ve got it.” Dr. Piper says smiling. Johnny winks at you before he leaves with Gaz. You’re not sure what all the winking is about, but it makes you smile, heat rushing to your cheeks. Once the room is empty Dr. Piper comes to sit next to you. She rests her hand on your thigh. 

“I have some clothes for you so you’re not suck wearing hospital scrubs all the time.” You smile at her nodding.

“You did well today, you should be proud of yourself.” She says squeezing your leg. 

“Simon is intimidating.” You admit still thinking about his scent, the scent you can’t place. 

“He’s an alpha, you’ll get used to him.” She says standing up. 

“Let’s go get you changed and something to eat before we leave.” She holds her hand out for you. You take it as she picks the laptop up. 

“You’ll like Washington.” She says. “It’s by the ocean, lots of evergreen forests and sea air.” You smile at her, that does sound nice. 

You’ve never been on a plane before. It’s massive, bigger then you expected, it’s a cargo plane. You can’t help staring at it in awe, you watch soldiers driving crates up into it. You see Kate and John talking outside the ramp of the plane you stick close to Dr. Piper letting her lead you up to them. Kate turns to look at you. 

“It was nice to meet you, I’m sure we will see each other again at some point.” Kate says, reaching her hand out. 

“You’re not coming with us?” You ask, she shakes her head. 

“No, I'm needed elsewhere, I’ll be in touch though.” She smiles. You feel sad she’s leaving at least you had one other woman around. Piper’s hand presses on your back leading you into the plane. You’re looking all over the place, something always pulling your eyes in a new direction. Piper walks you to the front of the plane through a door into a room with what you recognise as ‘normal’ seating. Johnny and Gaz are already sat down talking. 

“Hey lass come sit with us! We’ll let you have the window seat!” Johnny calls waving at you. You turn to Dr. Piper who nods at you smiling. Johnny and Gaz move, letting you sit by the window. 

“Excited?” Johnny asks, sitting back down next to you. 

“Nervous, I’ve never been on a plane before. Does it go fast?” You ask. Gaz chuckles. 

“Oh yeah, like hundreds of miles an hour.” He says nodding. You swallow looking back out the window. You can see people walking around, driving around in strange looking vehicles. 

“How long will it take?”

“About 4 hours.” Johnny says. You look back over at them, looking past Johnny at Gaz. His head is turned away from you as he looks out the window in the other aisle. 

“You know I had an aunt who was afraid of flying.” Johnny says. You turn to frown at him. 

“I’m not scared.” You say. Johnny smiles. 

“Well if you do get scared you can hold my hand.” Johnny winks. 

“Christ.” You hear Gaz chuckle. You hear the door open and see John and Simon walking in taking seats behind you. 

“LT’s scared of heights.” Johnny says nudging you. You hear him sigh behind you. You can tell it’s not true but you smile anyway, you know he’s just trying to put you at ease. You watch out the window as you hear all kinds of banging and new noises. When the plane starts to roll back you feel strangely nervous. You can tell Johnny picks up on it nudging you to pull your attention to him. 

“This is the best part you know.” He says putting his hand out palm up, you lace your fingers with his without thinking. He gives your hand a squeeze as the plane turns. You hear the engines start then before you know it the plane is barrelling down the runway. You squeeze Johnny’s hand way too tight until you feel the plane lift off the ground. As soon as that happens you relax. 

“See, not so bad.” Johnny says nudging you. You nod at him before looking back out the window, watching the ground get further and further away. You watch the plane go through the clouds as it turns, making your stomach drop. You squeeze Johnny’s hand tighter, there’s a quick stabbing pain in your side as you rearrange your position. 

“Do you have any family?” You ask Johnny without looking away from the window. 

“Yeah, you?” You weren't expecting him to ask you. You turn to him, pulling your hand out his. 

“I don’t remember my dad. My mum liked to bake, I have this memory of her. It was a sunny day, she always smelled of apple’s or cinnamon.” He has a sad look in his eyes. You don’t want him feeling sorry for you. You look back out the window. 

“What happened to them?” Johnny asks. 

“They died.” You say. There’s another scent in the air, it makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. You know that scent, it’s Simon. 

When you land, you travel a few hours on the road to get to the base. The whole place is surrounded by dense woodland. It makes you happy seeing so much nature. It's an army base but it's deep in the forest. You saw the ocean Dr. Piper was talking about while the plane was landing.

You've never seen an ocean before.

When you get into the barracks the smell of fresh paint hits your nose. The walls are bare and tall, there are windows with grates over them. You’re walking into a sparsely furnished living room, a sofa, a dining table and chairs. There’s a TV, you’ve not seen one of those in years. A kitchen in the corner, it’s only a small with a sink, fridge and oven. 

Apparently this building is just for you and them, the people who saved you. 141, you've heard people call them.

“Ooo, fancy.” Johnny says as he comes in behind you throwing his bag down. You move to let the rest of them come in. Fluorescent lights flicker on and you walk in looking round. There’s a corridor that leads to an emergency exit. 

“I call the biggest room.” Johnny calls from behind you. 

“You can’t just call a room.” Gaz says. 

“Yeah, says who?” Johnny asks going over to the sofa with Gaz following after him. John’s hand comes to rest on your shoulder. 

“Why don’t you go pick first?” He says watching Gaz look inside the kettle. You turn to look at him as he moves his hand. He nods you in the direction of the hallway. You smile at him and head down. 

The first two rooms are an office and what looks like a shared bathroom. You continue down to the next two rooms. They’re both bedrooms, they’re pretty much identical, a bed, a wardrobe and a desk. You keep going all the way to the end of the hallway, there are 6 rooms 3 on each side. You find yourself at the last room to the left. It has a massive window looking out over a field, you can see the walls of the base. 

You walk in the room running your fingers over the desk. It’s bigger then any room you’ve ever had before. You look in the distance through the window, you can see trees, more trees then you’ve ever seen. You're surrounded by an evergreen forest. It makes you happy, maybe you could convince John to let you explore it one day. You lift the handle on the window. It only opens a small amount but you can smell the fresh air, hear the trees swaying in the wind. This is your room. 

“What do you think?” You turn to look at Dr. Piper standing in the doorway. You smile going over to her. 

“I like it.” You say. 

“Wait till you see the lab they’ve got ready for me.” She smiles. You close the door behind you as you leave, locking it and pulling the key out. You look at the room opposite you, Dr. Piper's bag is already on the bed. You’re happy she’s going to be close to you. You make your way back down to the common room where you can hear laughing and talking. It makes you smile. You haven’t been in an environment like this before. 

“Tea?” Gaz asks from the tiny kitchen. You blink at him, looking as he stands there with mugs in his hand. 

“I’ve never had tea before.” You say walking over to him. 

“Want to try it?” He asks, you look at the bags in the cups as he pours the water in. The smell fills your nose, it's herbal. You nod watching him spoon sugar into some of the cups. He pushes one towards you then reaches into the fridge taking out some milk. You hear the door to the building open turning to see Simon walk in. He walks over to Piper and hands her something. She thanks him as he walks away. His eyes meet yours and you smile at him. You wish you could see if he was smiling back. At least he’s not sending shivers up your spine any more. 

“Want to come see the lab?” Piper asks coming back over to you. Gaz pushes a mug in your hands. You shake your head. 

“I’m going to try tea.” You say smiling and following Gaz over to the sofa. Piper smiles. 

“I’ll see you in a bit then.” She nods at you heading out. You sit down on one of the sofa chairs. 

“This is rubbish, all these channels are American, how are we supposed to watch the footy now?” Johnny says as you watch him flick through the channels. You warm your hands on the mug pulling your legs up onto the chair. You blow on the tea waiting for it to cool, Johnny lands on a news channel. You watch it mesmerised by what’s happening. You get distracted by John coming out of the office, he walks over to pick up a mug and comes over to see what’s on the TV. 

“What do you think?” He asks looking at you, you look confused for a second then you remember the tea. You bring it up and take a sip. It’s warm and milky, you can’t place the flavor but it’s sweet. You nod at him and he smiles. 

“Where did Dr. Montgomery go?” He asks. 

“She went to the lab.” Johnny says without looking up from the remote. You take another sip of the tea, your stomach growls and you realise how hungry you are. John checks his watch. 

“You should all get something to eat before the mess closes.” Johnny jumps up off the sofa while Gaz downs the rest of the tea. You place your half drunk cup on the coffee table with the others. 

“C’mon lass before they eat all the cake.” You smile at that. 

“Is there really going to be cake?” You hear John laugh as Johnny throws his arm over your shoulder. When you get to the dining hall there are still a few people hanging out. You pick up a tray following Johnny and Gaz’s lead. You see foods you’ve never seen before you want to try everything. Johnny recommends things and you end up with two plates of food. And 2 servings of chocolate pudding which you end up eating first. Johnny and Gaz chuckle at you while you go round your plates trying a little of everything until you’re full. 

You eat so much you feel like you can’t move when you’re done. Johnny steals one of your plates to finish off your mash. You lean back wondering why you’re so hungry, you count in your head again. It’s definitely not your heat. There’s the stabbing pain again. It’s not in your side anymore it’s in your abdomen. 

Shit. It’s already the end of the month, your period should be any day now.

You sigh, you’ll need to tell Piper and ask her for a mattress protector. You don’t think John would be happy if you ruined the bed on the first night. You listen to Johnny and Gaz talking about past missions. You can’t help but catch people looking at you. It makes you feel self-conscious, you feel like Johnny and Gaz can pick up on it too because before they start a new anecdote they decide to leave. 

It’s late evening as you’re leaving the mess hall with Gaz. Johnny said he needed to ‘hit the gym’ so you were left alone with Gaz. You don’t mind, following him as he leads you across the grounds back towards the barracks. 

“Do you have a family?” You ask him trying to distract yourself. 

“Yeah, a big one actually.” He says smiling. You smile back at him. 

“Do they all live in the UK?” 

“Yeah London.” He smiles. 

“Do you miss them?” 

“All the time.” He sounds sad, you feel bad. “I can show you some photos, I have some in my room.” You nod seeing him smile. There’s the pain again, a stabbing pain in your bowels. You stop, Gaz stops too turning to you. 

“You okay?” He asks. 

“Yeah, I just need to see Dr. Piper.” You say. You look over at the red brick building. 

“That’s where the lab is right?” You ask. Gaz nods.

“Want me to come with you?” You shake your head smiling at him. 

“I’m good.” You say walking off towards the building. 

Dr. Piper is filling up a cupboard with new lab supplies when a door slams closed, making her jump. She turns looking round the lab. 

“Hello?” She calls, gripping the test tube rack. She takes a breath in. Alpha. 

“John?” She asks, looking round the stack of boxes. She takes a step back backing up into something. The contact makes her jump, spinning round to see Simon standing behind her.

“Jesus, have they thought about putting a bell on you lieutenant?” She breathes feeling relieved. He hums making his way round to the other side of the table. 

“Price wanted me to come and see if there was anything you needed?” She can’t read his expression under his mask. He has such a looming presence in the room, John told her Simon was taking the changes the hardest. She only had time to quickly look over the files John had given her on him, maybe there would be some answers in there. Maybe she could get him to talk. 

“I think I’m good, got enough equipment in here, we're going to give the CDC a run for their money.” She says trying to lighten the mood. He looks at her nodding. A man of few words, along with his overpowering alpha sent, he’s always the most intimidating person in the room. 

“Has John made any progress on finding the people I recommended?” She doesn’t expect an answer from him but she’s already decided she’s going to get him to talk to her. 

“Working on it.” He says looking in a box of supplies. She nods, pressing her lips together. She tries to remember what she learned in her psychology classes. Her eyes follow the bulking figure around as he heads over to the door of her office.  

“What made you work for someone like the Professor?” He asks, she smiles, keeping her distance. 

“I agreed with his original vision for the project. I was fresh out of med school, he was offering a unique career path.” She explains watching to see his reaction. He’s good at hiding it, he’ll be a good alpha.

“What changed?” 

“He started getting more extreme. His experiments getting more and more unethical. He started to lose track of his goals.” She moves over to open another box of lab supplies. 

“Why didn’t he kill you?” He asks, walking towards her. 

“I was close with the omega, the professor had broken his bond with her. She needed someone safe, she could trust-”

“So he could keep torturing her.” He cuts her off, she looks up at him, his arms crossed. His eyes are digging into her, she can feel the anger in the air let alone smell it. 

“I’m a doctor first, I never hurt her.” 

“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.” He says, his words harsh causing her to sigh and close the box up. 

“Like you’ve never killed anyone.” She scoffs.

“I’m a soldier.” 

“I’m a doctor.” 

“Just because you didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean you haven’t killed people.” He says 

“She’s alive, that's all that matters!” Piper snaps. 

“And that makes you think you’re different then him?” He scoffs. Piper shakes her head, taking a step over to him. 

“You don’t get to judge me. I did what I had to do to keep her safe, alive.” She says, tipping her head to the side watching his expression. His scent doesn’t change. His eyes are still digging into her. 

“I read the report, over 15 years she was down there.” His voice is low, it makes the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. 

“You don’t get to judge me.” Piper repeats, she can’t lose her confidence now. He shakes his head, his anger is heavy in the air. She should back down, everything in her body tells her to run and hide from him. 

“You haven’t told her about the professor yet?” He asks. Shit, she was hoping to avoid this conversation. She lets out a sigh.

“Did John ask that?” She asks. He doesn’t say anything, she stands her ground. 

“You say you’re one of the good guys but what else doesn't she know? Does she know who he is?” His alpha is on full display, his scent thick in the air. It makes her back down, she can’t avoid it this time. He shakes his head. 

“Her own father, christ, she should at least know he’s alive.” 

“Why do you care so much?” Piper says backing up, she doesn’t want to but she can’t help it. A new scent fills her nose. Omega. 

You step out from round the corner. Hugging your chest, tears in your eyes. Simon and Piper both turn to you. You feel like you can’t breathe, you stare, mouth hanging open as they watch you waiting to see what you’ll do. 

Your dad. It can’t be real. He wanted to claim you. 

You feel sick, you can’t even remember what you needed from her now. You take a step back, before you know it your body is turned and you’re sprinting out the room. You sprint as fast as you can across the grass back towards the barracks. You don’t stop, throwing yourself through the door. You don’t even register Gaz calling you as you rush past him to your room. You slam the door, turning the lock. You brace yourself on the desk sucking in gulps of air. Your lungs are burning.

He’s your father. 

He’s alive.

There’s noise in the hallway.

“What happened?” It’s John’s voice. You can smell the alpha in the air. Simon is here too. Someone tries the door handle. Then there’s a knock. Dr. Piper calls your name. She is the last person you want to see. She’s knocking on the door. 

“Go away!” You shout, your voice breaks. 

“He’s not your biological father, he married your mother to get to you!” Piper calls through the door. You don’t care, you're angry you want to scream. You go over to the door pulling it open. It almost knocks Piper off her feet. 

“That makes it better then, he just groomed me instead! Why don’t I remember him!” You snap. You look round at everyone standing in the hall. Your eyes flick to John, he looks confused, worried, they all do.

“It was a side effect of the first formula, it effected your memory.” She says. 

“I remember my mother.” You say. Dr. Piper shakes her head. 

“Who do you think of when you think of her?” She asks sympathetically. You think of the memories, of her baking, you playing in the house on the hill. It’s a sunny summers evening, you can even imagine the birds singing in the trees.  

“My mum, the house on the hill-.”

“With the pies, it’s a summer evening.” Piper finishes. She reaches out to grip your shoulders. You flinch but she holds you in place looking into your eyes. 

“Think hard about who you see when you think of your mother.” You close your eyes out of spite. You try to imagine her face but you can’t. You let out another sob, why can’t you picture her face. She’s always so real in your head, the pies, the garden.

You squeeze your eyes. It’s Dr. Piper, she’s who you see, she’s who you always think of when you think of your mother. You open your eyes, you can hardly see her through your tears. You back away from her. 

“She was so real.” You say between sobs. 

“I know, she had to be. You needed something to cling onto. Something to keep you grounded.” She says, taking a step forward but she doesn’t enter your room. 

“You lied to me!” You shout at her wiping your tears away. You’re angry, you don’t think you’ve ever felt this angry. 

“We did what we had to do to keep you safe.” She says, you can hear the pleading in her voice. 

“We? You mean you and the professor.” You say dropping your shoulders. You can’t believe what you’re hearing, you trusted her. You want to hate her, you wish you could hate her. You turn back to look at her, she looks sad, you can smell the sincerity in the air. You want to scream at her, you want to be mad, you never want to see her again. You rub the back of your neck. You feel betrayed. 

“I’m so sorry.” She says. You don’t want to see her anymore. You reach over and slam the door in her face. You wish you had a nest you could crawl up in. You don’t even have that. You hear their voices from the other side of the door.

You don’t care, you throw yourself into the bed pulling the covers over your head. For the first time you wish you were back in the bunker. Back in the tiny room you called home for the most of your life. You close your eyes. You wish you could think of your mother but the memories are tainted now. 

...

When you wake it’s dark out, the window is still cracked open and you can hear the wind blowing through the crack. Your head feels heavy, your throat dry, you get out of bed. The room is cold but you leave the window open, you want to smell the fresh air. You take a breath opening the door, Dr. Pipers door is closed, all the doors are, there’s no noise in the building now.

The only light you can see is coming out the bottom of the office. You take a deep breath in as you pass it, it’s John. You go into the kitchen looking through the cupboards for a glass. You hear the office door open as you run the tap. John sticks his head round the corner, you watch his nostrils flair. You don’t care that you smell distressed, it must be strong enough for him to pick up on it though. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks as you sip the water. 

“Fine,” it’s a lie, you don’t really know how you feel. He takes a step towards you. 

“We were going to tell you, Dr. Montgomery  thought you should get settled in first.” He says, you put the glass in the sink. 

“It’s okay, I’m sorry I acted the way I did.” You say, you don’t know why you feel like you have to apologise but you made a scene. You’re not supposed to do that. Omega’s are to be seen and not heard. The professor's words spin round in your head. 

“Don’t be silly, come on I have something for you.” He says, you nod following him. He goes into his office, the room is smaller then the bedroom, there’s just enough room for the desk, a sofa and some filing cabinets. Everything is still in boxes though as he bends down picking something up off the sofa. He turns handing you a pile of pillows and blankets. 

“Dr. Montgomery said you might want to nest.” He sounds unsure what that means, you reach out taking the pile in your arms. You want to still be mad at her. She’s right though, you want a nest. It makes you nervous as you look up at John, the last nest you made was destroyed. John would never do that, you trust him. 

“Thank you.” You say feeling the soft fabric. You wish you could run off and make a nest in the forest, surrounded by nature where you can watch the birds. Maybe high up in a tree somewhere where no one can reach you. 

“If you want some space from her I can keep her busy.” You look up at him. You wish it was that simple.

“We’re bonded, if I’m away from her for too long I get moody, sad, lonely.” You wish you could explain it, the feeling of not being with someone you bonded with. He’ll understand, if he claims you, that’s the strongest bond there is. It’s the same reason you can’t bring yourself to hate her, no matter what she’s done. 

“If there is anything you need you just have to ask.” He says his hand comes up to squeeze your shoulder. You breathe him in, his calming alpha scent fills your nose. You trust him, you feel safe around him. 

“Thank you.” You say as his hand drops, he smiles at you. 

“You should get some rest, it's late and we have a lot to do tomorrow.” You nod, turning to leave. You make it to the door hearing him following behind you. 

“John,” you stop swallowing the nerves. “Do you think maybe one day we could go for a walk in the forest?” He’s going to say no, why did you even ask? You squeeze the pile of bedding biting the inside of your cheek. His hand lands on the small of your back as he pushes you through the door turning the light off and locking the door. 

“Maybe, I’ll see what I can work out.” He says. You smile walking down towards your room. You turn back to look at him walking into his room, it’s right next to the office. He smiles at you as you walk through your door. You dump the pile down under the window. You wish it would open more so you could stick your head out and breathe in the cold night air. This would be a nice place to build a nest, you’re too tired now though. You leave the curtains open and climb back into bed. You can see out to the sky from the bed, there is no moon tonight, but you can see stars. You’ve never seen stars before, it makes you smile. 

You dream you’re walking through the forests with John. It’s warm but the sun is broken up by trees. You can hear the birds singing up in the trees. The air is thick with electricity, you end up by a lake. The sky is dark, there are rumbles of thunder in the distance. John comes up behind you, his hands land on your shoulders. His hands are strong, firm as they squeeze you.

You lean back pressing your back against his chest. You close your eyes as the scent of his alpha fills your nose and you relax into him. There’s another crash of thunder, it shakes you and your eyes flash open. There’s no lake anymore, John’s gone too. You smell apple pie, when you turn the forest is gone and replaced by the house, the house on the hill. You try to back away but something is stopping you. Hands grip your arm nails digging into your skin. 

“Why are you trying to run?” The voice is low and harsh in your ear sending shivers up your spine. It’s the professor, he’s forcing you to walk towards the house. You try to stop but he picks you up in his arms, you kick and thrash trying to claw at his skin. He laughs, his arms wrapping round you tighter. The smell of pie is replaced with the overwhelming smell of blood.

You can hear Dr. Piper’s voice. It takes you all your energy to push against him in a last ditch effort to escape. It doesn’t matter though, he lets out a deep laugh, his hand coming round to grip the back of your neck. You scream as pain radiates down your spine, your body goes limp, you can’t fight it, you try to call out but your breath catches in your throat and everything goes black. 

the whisky wasn’t cutting it. It’s his second glass and his nerves were higher then they had ever been. He’d been ignoring calls all day, leaving it to his assistant, his prodigy; Miles Ashford. He’s spent the past year as his assistant. At first he wasn’t sure why he kept him around, but he needed someone to keep his work up to date above ground. He’d promised him an omega, once he had perfected the formula. He was so close. He stood up, downing the rest of the glass, the alcohol burnt his throat. He was so close, almost perfect. There’s a knock at the door. He walks over to the drinks cabinet again reaching in and taking the bottle of whisky out. 

“Come in!” He calls. He watches as the door creaks open and Miles walks in. He walks in slowly, making sure he’s definitely allowed in before closing the door behind him. The professor sits down behind his desk. 

“I spoke to your contact at the CIA. He knows who Laswell is.” Miles put a folder down on the table. “She’s been on vacation for the past week.” 

“Red herring?” The professor asks, pouring whisky in his glass. Miles shakes his head.

“She was investigating you but Shepherd did his job, threw her off the scent then she went on vacation.” Miles puts another folder on the table. The Professor recognises it straight away. Doctor Piper Montgomery. 

“She’s been putting feelers out for old staff members. I think she’s searching for someone.” He says. The professor picks his glass up. 

“I should have put the bitch down when I had a chance.” He says, shaking his head. “Where is she?” 

“She was in New York but now she’s missing.” Miles says, the professor's eyes dig into him as he thinks taking a sip of the whisky. He lets out a long sigh. 

“Find out who she’s talking with and why. If you find her, kill her.” 

“What about the CIA?” Miles asks. 

“I think General Shepherd is capable of keeping that under control.” He lets out another sigh. Miles nods, he turns to leave the professor looks down at the file on the table. He looks at the image of Piper sticking out. Anger boils up inside him as he finishes the drink. Fucking bitch. He should have killed her when he had the chance. This is her doing he can smell it from a mile away.

He grips the desk slamming the glass down as hard as he can. It shatters the broken glass digs into his hand, ripping the flesh. He grits his teeth at the pain bringing his palm up to his mouth. He can already feel the flesh trying to repair itself.

He pulls the picture out the file. It’s a picture of you and Piper. You’re looking at her, your expression soft, his thumb runs over your face. There’s an aching in him. He needs you back, he needs to claim you. He’s going to find you, no matter what it takes. 

Next

Dividers by Plum98 & gild-ui

Special thank you yet again to rememberwren <3

[autumnheartsprice]

The Hidden

Alpha!Price x Omega!Reader

|gn!reader, no smut, abo dynamics, little but not really angsty, crying, fluff|

An Omega who was a part of the military was rare, nearly non-existent honestly. Weren't even reliable enough to be an assistant on base.

That's why you hid it. After years of mistreatment and abuse of power from your higher-ups, you retired that lifestyle. With a few scent blockers and pheromone perfume to make your scent more like a beta's, you progressed your way to a Sergeant. It wasn't the easiest to have to hide it in front of a team full of Alpha's and a Beta, but that's the only way you'll be able to continue working with them.

That's why, when you were assigned to help your Captain set up a safehouse in the middle of a forest and hours away from base or even any publicity, you didn't bat an eye.

It's day two of setting up the safehouse. After just arriving yesterday, only the smallest things were completed as the hours spent hiking up the mountain to this spot used up all energy from the both of you. You dug through the items that still needed to be sorted and put away, trying to make piles of similar items. Price was outside chopping some wood for the cabin's fireplace, the cool breeze outside only to get worse by nighttime.

Once most of the items found a home somewhere in the small cabin, you started putting together a small dinner of chilli for the both of you to share. Price abruptly opened the door, carrying an armful of logs as he quickly shut the door behind him, the coolness of the air already entering inside, the breeze sending a shiver up your spine.

Price sets the chopped wood by the door, rubbing his hands together before toeing off his boots. "Sorry love, 'tried not to let the cold air in." he muttered as he started taking his jacket off. He noticed your nod, the only form of response from you. He sets his jacket over a chair before walking to the kitchen, eyeing the pot of chilli you were making, before leaning against the counter to where he could see your face. "Ye alright? Haven't said much since we got here." he says, taking notice of your pink cheeks. "Look a bit feverish there, love." He adds, walking over to feel your cheeks with the back of his hand, only to feel your soft skin burning up.

He notices how you tense up and move away from his touch as he feels your cheeks. "I'm fine, sir. Must just be the weather gettin' to me." you explain. You turn the stove off and move the pot to a different burner before grabbing two ceramic bowls for the each of you. His brows furrow in suspicion but decides to let go of it. "Alright, if you say so, Sergeant. I want you to rest up after supper though, you hear me?" He states, leaving no room for rebuttal like you usually would, but you only hum in response.

He watches you only eat a few bites of chilli, only forking at your food before eventually getting up and excusing yourself to the bedroom. He watched you walk away as he finished up his own food, before cleaning up dinner and saving leftovers for it you got hungry later.

It was his night to sleep on the couch since he got the bed last night, although he forgot his charger. Making his way up from the couch with a grunt, he walks to the bedroom, stopping himself from knocking as he thought he heard something. Small whines and whimpers came from the other side of the door, too lost in your own pain to hear his footsteps walk up to the door. His Alpha heart aches at the whimpers, sensing the Beta in distress; he slowly twists the doorknob and lets himself in. The room was pitch black, only the small bedside lamp illuminates a quarter of the room. Your back was facing the door, not sensing him letting himself in.

He makes his way into the room, silently shutting the door behind himself as he walks around the bed and to you. He starts to strongly pick up a sweet scent from you, way too sweet than your usual self, but a bit bitter. He makes his way in front of you, seeing your head put into the palm of your hands. He reaches his hand out to slowly pet your head, only for you to quickly snap your head up at the sudden touch and bare your sharp canines, a low growl coming from deep in your throat before you even realize you were doing it to your Captain, of all people. He moves his hand to scruff the back of your neck and calm you, which works as it usually does with you, but your sweet scent starts to turn more bitter and sour. He finally gets a better look at you, seeing your cheeks flushed with sweat dripping down your forehead, your hair sticking to your face, and pupils wide.

"Jesus Christ, the fuck goin' on with you?" He mutters, expecting a damn good reason for why you look like you just crawled out from the pits of hell itself. He gently puts your hair behind your ear to get it out of your face. You shake your head, acting like you don't know, which very clearly doesn't meet his expectations. "You tell me what the fuck is happening right now. That is not a question, that is an order, Sergeant." He husks out, gripping your jaw and pulling your face up to look at him.

Your eyes start to brim with tears, your chest tightening and getting harder to breathe; he only tightens his grip on your jaw, expecting an answer. "P-Please.. I.. I need you, Alpha.. please, just do something.." You whisper, voice shaking with anxiety as you pull the collar of your sweater down, exposing your inflamed and very red scent gland.

Price lets go of your jaw and steps back, taking in the sight before him. Only Omegas get inflamed scent glands like that... Only Omegas..

He has to force himself to take a deep breath to remain calm, he can't scare you in a state like this. For fucks sake, it'll take hours to even get help to you.

"You.. You're an Omega..?" he slowly asks, taking a step closer to you. He watches as a tear rolls down your cheek as you hesitantly nod. "I-I'm sorry.. I'm so so sorry.." You quickly mumble, hands coming up to cover your face in embarrassment. "Hey.. sh, shh.. it's alright, love.." He whispers, slowly taking your hands in his and pulling them away from your face. "Let me see, okay? Can't help ye if I can't see what I'm working with, lovie, I'll be nice and easy." He soothes you. Gently rubbing the back of one of your hands with his thumb as he uses his other hand to lower your shirt collar again to reveal your scent gland. You unconsciously tilt your head to the side so he can get a better look. He softly runs his thumb over your inflamed gland, causing a pained whimper to leave your mouth and making him pull away.

"Alright, lovie, it's okay, I'm not gonna touch it no more.. Let's take this off of ye, okay?" He explains, carefully taking the fabric of your shirt into his hands, he looks up at you for your consent and with your nod, he gently pulls it up over your head. He brushes your hair behind your shoulder as he thinks.

"Love, I know you haven't been fully honest before, but right now, I need you to tell me the exact truth so that I can help you." He says, a firm tone in the Alpha's voice which makes you whine. "Are you in heat right now or is this from abusing scent blockers?" He asks. He watches as more tears roll down your cheeks, he's sure it's from the stern voice during a vulnerable moment like this or even from just plain embarrassment or pain, but he doesn't have time to worry about emotions than your physical health. He sees you stick up 2 fingers to silently tell him it's the second option and he nods.

He's sat on the bed with you in his lap, your back against his chest, and the two of you both shirtless. He rubs some soothing lotion on your scent gland, having to hold you down as you try to get out of his grasp as you whine in pain. He whispers soft reassuring words as he tries to get you to lay back against him. "C'mon, sweet girl.. it'll be better once I can get this on ye." Which somehow gets you to rest your back against his chest again, earning an "Atta girl." as he starts to continue treating the inflammation.

He gets you to rest for a little bit, almost falling asleep before you start to whimper in agony, trying to claw off your scent glands, before he quickly realizes what you're trying to do and pries your hand away from your neck. He sighs, not knowing what to do anymore to help you besides give it time. He wraps his arms around your chest to pull you back against him, and he starts to pick up that bitter, almost rotting, smell again. "Sweetheart.. ye gonna let yer Alpha scent ye? Hmm? Help make the pain go away?" He murmurs into your ear. He gives you time to think, before he sees you nod and he knows that's the only response you'll give him until you feel better.

He readjusts you on his lap, turning you around so that you're facing him, telling you what to do if you ever want him to stop. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, breathing in your scent. He nudges his face, telling you to tilt your neck more, which you do. He rubs his scent gland against yours, starting to scent you. He feels your head fall back in relief; He puts a hand behind the back of your head to give you support while continuing to scent you. His gruff beard rubs against your soft neck, reminding him to shave in the morning. He feels his heart ache listening to you whimper and cry on his lap, but he knows it's because it's making you feel better.

You soon fall asleep in his lap, finally feeling comfortable enough. He takes advantage of this and lays down, letting you lay on top of him. He pulls a blanket over the two of you but doesn't turn the lamp off, not wanting to not be able to fully watch you in case of anything.. Or because his Alpha instincts are taking over and want to protect his Omega.

PT. 2?

[hedgehogsaretheultimatelifeform]

Something something alpha!reader arriving to a coffee shop in a suit and tie to meet omega!141 because they care about making a good first impression

[yeyinde]

old, grizzled retired alpha!Price who gets stuck in his cabin with omega!Reader when the winter roads, the only way in and out of his domain, melt with the encroaching spring. and really. what's an alpha like him supposed to do when an untouched, unclaimed omega like you—so sweet, so desperate—is thrown headfirst into a vicious, blistering heat without any suppressants. it's not like either of you really have a choice, after all.

dub con; age difference; power imbalance; rough sex; size difference, size kink; abo dynamics: knotting; breeding kink (astronomical); mean!Price, Dom!Price; unsafe sex; oral (f!receiving); slight innocence kink; implied kidnapping; coercion; slight baby trapping; possessive, greedy Price pulling strings from behind the scenes, as per usual. this is basically Alpha John Price knotting Omega Reader in mating press, bullying you into submission

It's an accident, of course. 

An unfortunate combination of poor timing and human error.

But this accident culminates in Price folding his body over you—mating press, you note a touch hysterically; you'd have expected him to be all tradition: presenting to an alpha on your hands and knees, cunt bare for the taking, waiting to be claimed. And while it might not be traditional, Price will claim you tonight. Bully his cock into your drenched cunt, split you wide on the thick of him, on his knot (fuck, fuck, fuck—), and keep you plugged up around him until the unexpected heat passes. 

And really. What's an old, grizzled alpha like him supposed to do when an untouched, unclaimed omega like you—so sweet, so desperate—is thrown headfirst into a vicious, blistering heat. It's not like either of you really have a choice, after all. It's agony. It's want. Primal, instinctual. You need him. Ache with it. The urge, the desperation, to be filled. Claimed. Conquered. Owned.

As he presses bluntly against your drenching slit, notching heavy and insistent into your fluttering, aching hole, spilling slick in thick rivulets down your thighs, over the engorged head of his cock, you can't help but wonder how could you be so stupid? 

“Spread your legs for me.”

The command rolls off of his tongue, slips—liquid, molten—down his chin, where it dangles for a moment. Pebbled hest. A globbing demand. You want to roll away when it starts to fall, unspooling slowly until it drips down to your chest, but you can't. You're stuck. Trapped. All you can do is watch helplessly as this barking order, matchstick casuistry, touches your kerosene-slick skin, igniting in a bloom of fire that spreads, rapidly, through your veins. Your body. 

An Alpha's whim must be met. Even this one. This one—

Your former chief, boss. Now retired in the mountains, chiselling out a little place for himself in a corrie, pitching this log bivouac beside a marbled blue tarn. Cut off from the rest of civilisation every spring when the only way in—and out—melted into a raging, uncrossable stretch of river. The ravine frothing too furiously for boats to dock safely on either side. Trapped here with him until next winter—

(oh god oh god—)

You don't know how it got to this point. Scorched. Soaked. With him leaning over you, in all his tartarean glory, making demands of your body as easily as pulling on loose thread between his thick fingers. 

You could blame Gaz for this. 

Sat pretty at his desk, idling a jar of gun oil in his hands. Your gun is spread out on the desk, taken apart. Worrying his lip between his teeth, he said, “someone should check in on Price. Haven't heard from him in a while.” 

Through a quick game of hierarchy, that someone ended up being you. Forced to trek halfway up a mountain just to make sure your mercurial boss didn't die over the winter. Bitten off more than he could chew and too much of a proud Alpha to admit defeat, and call for help. 

You had enough suppressants to last you there and back. Three days. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. Price, despite his surly disposition, is an intense Alpha to be around—

Even for Betas. 

Some, unintentionally, succumb to his whims without even a forethought spared on rationality. It's innate. He says something, and people listen—

Like now. Hours after you discovered your suppressants were gone, and his heavy, cloying scent thickened in the air, suffocating you. When he leaned against the thick log doorframe on the porch of his cabin, thick arms folded across his broad chest, murmured, “come all this way just to see me?” and all at once, the world fell out from under you—

Plunging you into his arms, his embrace. His growl in your ear, “you’re in heat,” he grunted, fists balled against your sides. “fuckin’ Christ—” and the death sentence he imparted on you: “either I take care of this, or your heat becomes too much for me, and I tear you to pieces. But it doesn't matter does it, mm? You can't make it back down in this state,” more snarling anger, dry heat. Scorching. His chin jerked to the river at the foot of the mountain. “In a few hours, It’ll be melted through. Uncrossable.”

Per usual, John Price leaves you very little room for choice, doesn't he? 

Slowly, shakily, your pitched knees part, unveiling your bare cunt to the man towering over you with a condescending coo on his lips, red-hot desire in his smouldering Tartarean eyes. 

“Tha’s it,” he murmurs, voice full of sarky delight. “Such a good omega for me, aren't you?”

It’s not meant to be answered—the jeer chock full of hyperbole. Despite this, your body responds instantly. Back arching, legs spreading out wider around the bulk of his frame, nearly flush against the warmed fur covering the floor of the cabin—wolf, he muttered proudly before he pushed you down against the soft pelt, mouthing teasing at your jaw. Chest heaving. Fingers curling, knotting into the pelt. 

The urge to present for him is intense. An unanswerable call when he pins you down on your back, body a cage keeping you trapped where you lay. Open, inviting. All for him. 

This surly, awful man—

His hands are rough, padded with calluses and hard, jagged scars that jut up from his flesh. It feels abrasive, sandpaper grit, when he leans down, hand pressed against your knee. The drag, then, when he lets it drop down the skin of your inner thigh, makes you keen in the back of your throat. Gnarled palms bleed heat into your soft skin. The contrast is dizzying—size, scale, texture; it all leaves you breathless. Victim to your own instincts, ones that scream at you to roll over. To run. To make this massive, virile alpha yours—

He cups your pussy in the palm of his hand, heel pressed against your clit, fingers sliding between your slit, touching your entrance with the tip of his middle finger. The way the length of it swallows you whole, long, thick fingers reaching beneath you, grazing the cheeks of your ass, sets you on fire in a way you've never felt before. 

Price sees it. He must. He leans back on his haunches, broad chest heaving as he stares, transfixed, at his hand folding over you, wrist propped against your mons. 

He groans low in his chest. When he speaks, desire scorches his words to cinders. 

“Ever had an Alpha's cock here?” 

His question is scorching. 

In a small town, choice is slim. The ratio of alpha to omega, and beta to both, is skewed highly in the latter's favour. You think, Price included, there are maybe five eligible alphas in the whole township. Two omegas, yourself included. Everyone else—

Unbothered, unburdened by this horrific anomaly of genetics, of lingering animal instinct. A relic of when people were more beast than man.��

But even with that, the suitors lining up ready to claim you since you arrived three years ago is negligible. Nearly nonexistent. 

The shame of it is absurd. You know without any shadow of a doubt that your worth is not measured by the number of Alpha's wanting to claim you, but that prickling unease in the back of your head won't be quelled by common sense. Who cares, you want to scream. Who fucking cares—

“No,” you bluster; choking on your anger, your shame. Despite being an omega—rare as they are—everyone in town seemed soured by your scent. Adverse to the pungent pheromones you released innately. 

“No?” He echoes, and the stab of worthlessness needling into your pericardium makes you want to howl, want to cry. 

He doesn't let you. He leans down, hand resting on the floor beside your head, the other still anchored to your cunt, and presses his lips to the shell of your ear. His breath is a humid kiss that tickles across your flesh. 

“Good.” 

The praise bubbles in your marrow. You melt under the heat, whimpering. Head lulling to the side, exposing your neck. Offered up for him to take. 

He huffs, chest expanding. The coarse bed of hair tangled on his sternum in a smattering of black catches on your nipples, the rough graze making you gasp, soundless, into the humid space between your bodies. Aching already and he barely touched you. 

Price follows the twist of your chin, lips pressed flush to your ear. With him crowding so close, you can feel the rumble, the low vibration, through his chest before he even speaks. A soft purr, sultry and rich. Pulling you deeper into the throes of your submission with a startling ease. 

“I don't share, and I'd hate to have to tear another alpha apart for touching you,” his beard scrapes against your cheek, words soaked in possessive fury at the thought alone. “You're mine.”

You want to fight against it. Against him. No one owns you. Has claimed you.

You have only ever belonged to yourself. 

“M’not—”

Price shushes you with a nip, blunt teeth dragging down the plush flesh of your earlobe. “Don't fight it, love. Just—give in.”

You won't. Can't—

Despite the heat—heavy, oppressive, and wet, like the balmy swelter of a tropical jungle; bubbling dross on molten metal—you fight. Rage. Push back against the heady scent he exudes, ones meant to soothe, melt. Until you're malleable. Tensile. Mouldable to fit his needs, his desires, his cock. Putty in his scorching hands. 

It bleeds through, though—noxious and potent. The acrid miasma of a wild, untameable man: leather, hide, and animal rot; bleached bones; felled timbre. A wet forest after a wildfire; charred wood, argillaceous soil. Damp. Cloying. Choking. 

Reeking of authoritative power, he leans over you, breathes in the heaving exhales you let out. Lets the taste of you sit on his tongue, curl between his crooked teeth. 

He's close like this. All fire, all heat. And underneath the scent of a pursuing alpha, you pick up hints of him. Of what he smelled like before, when you were his subordinate and he spent most of his days making yours miserable. Stale smoke, wet tobacco, old leather, dry whiskey. 

You hate how much it calls to you. 

Maybe sensing your defiance, or growing tired of this push-pull game, he huffs out a breath that sounds less aggrieved than you'd want it to, full of playful amusement. Like he expected this. Like he knew you'd fight back with brittle fists and wicked teeth. 

Price pulls back, leaning against his haunches. Content now to devour you at a distance. His eyes leave a scorching trail from your heaving breast, your quivering stomach before fixing once again on the way your pussy is swallowed by his hand. His middle finger circles your sopping hole. The tease is a burst of pleasure, of sensation. A tickle, a taunt. The drag of it makes a loud, sticky noise; the unmistakable slosh, the squelch of just how wet you are for him. 

And it is for him. All for him. 

Your heat is an incipient bloom on the horizon—a slow, crawling sunrise. You shouldn't be this slick yet. This drenched. 

The embarrassment blisters through you when he makes a choked sound in the back of his throat. A loan bitten, swallowed before it can fully form. 

Price coos, voice scorched. Full of char. “All’fer me, mm? Such a good little omega.”

You hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it—

—but nearly choke yourself on a moan. 

He chuckles, dark and rich. The sound entirely too similar to crushing a fistful of charcoal, and you're reminded suddenly why he's unmated at the age he is. 

Surly bastard. As approachable as a fucking grizzly bear in a rut. 

Your lips twist, jerking downward. “Fuck you—”

He circles your rim once more, chuffing low as he does so, letting the slick noise of your soaked cunt speak on his behalf. 

You bite back a snarl, letting it fizzle out in the back of your throat. However reckless you might be, however much you might dislike him, he's still an alpha. Snarling in his face would only get you bent over his knee (at best). 

And at worst, well. Maybe they'll find whatever is left of you next spring. 

Next spring. 

Thinking about just how long you're trapped here with him—no phone, no service—makes you want to cry. To break down, to—

No. You can't. Won't. Not in front of him. 

Not Price. The awful man who spent three years picking away at everything you've ever done. Writing you up for every little misstep. You wondered then, and you still wonder now, if he hated you because you were an omega who dared to work with him, as his equal, or if his brand of distaste was just for you. 

(The latter, it must be—he’s always been so kind to Alex, an older omega. 

You're just the exception.)

This sprawling train of thought is clipped when he sinks his finger into you, to the second knuckle, and you choke. 

“Ah, fuck, don't—”

He curls his finger. “Protest as much as you'd like, but if you didn't want this, your pussy wouldn't be this fuckin’ wet would it, love?”

He's right. You hate him for it. 

But he doesn't give you a chance to complain. He slips his finger out, the wet drag of your flesh pulling on him, unwilling to let go, is loud. Awful. You burn hot—hotter still when he groans at the noise. 

“Such a good girl for me, ain't you?” 

Price circles your entrance as he says it, pressing two fingers against your rim, rubbing. Gathering slick. You wish it didn't feel as good as it did—electric shocks of pleasure sparking at his touch, but the feel of it is a tease. You want more. Much more—

He presses those long, thick fingers inside again. Two this time. All you can do is mewl around the sudden stretch, the sting. 

Your discomfort is a palpable thing. Unease, distress—the acid scent plumes around you, leaking from your pores. Price stops suddenly, fingers still crooked in a half knot inside you. 

“You're tight,” he drawls, jowls working. Tensing. His eyes flash, heat lightning. “You—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, eyes narrowing into slits. They drop down to where he disappears inside of you, flesh stretched tight around him. Drilling into the way the slick runs down his fingers, over his knuckles, drenching the back of his hand, and he hums. 

“Has anyone ever touched you here before?”

More shame. It bubbles in your chest, this awful, insidious thing. 

It hasn't been for a lack of suitors, really. But rather, other things have always taken precedence over heats, over ruts. School, then your career. And well—

Betas around here don't seem very interested, either. 

Maybe you have peculiar wants. Urges, needs, that you've always been hesitant to fill. A wellspool of desire that runs deep, vicious. You want to mate. For keeps. 

Maybe they can scent that on you. A loud cry that says, stay away. 

You take a shuddering breath before nodding shallowly, twisting your head away so you don't have to look at the patronising gleam swirling in frothing Tryhennian. 

“Look at me.”

The command bludgeons your resolve. Your chin jerks back immediately. Desperate to obey. To listen. Frantic with the urge to quell the alpha, to soothe his plight—

But where you expect anger, you're met with the most peculiar sort of expression etching itself into his brow, his rugged face. 

His lips parted, lax. The picture of surprise.

Your eyes widen. A gasp is ripped from your throat at the raw, fractured look in his eyes. It's new, this. Unexpected. Where you anticipated scorn is instead a slow, unwinding look of want, of greed, so thick, it glues to the air. 

Patchwork hunger, predatory and damning, hews into your skin. Fine needles piercing, pricking, along your flesh. 

Branded ownership. You feel it settle against your chest. Dig in when his chest expands with his, hissing inhale. 

There's a dark tremble to his shoulders that makes your toes curl. 

“I should take this slow, then, mm? Prep you. Get you nice and ready for my cock,” his words have you keening, arching for him. Achingly empty. His hand lifts, settles against your quivering stomach. The slightest pressure makes you shake, quieten; submitting to the touch. “But. I don't have the patience for that.” 

He slots his thighs between your legs, pressing it tight against your cunt. The pressure—blissful pleasure; frantic at the touch—is almost your undoing, but there's a plexiglass between full submission and the urge to flee. Still. The heat is rapacious. The desire, the yearning, doesn't abate. 

The haze is thick. So thick. It would be easy to slip under the veil, to let yourself go. To give in—

"Easy, omega," it comes out as a guttural rasp; the charcoaled command uttered in a mockingly placating tone. The sort one might use to soothe a wild animal or a startled mare. Fitting, of course, when you're rutting against the thick spread of his thigh, leaking slick all over him.

down girl, he doesn't say, but he might as well have because you're clenched tight around nothing, aching hollowly in a way that rings through your bones. You can't help it, you want to whine when he huffs, lips pulling downward in a frown. Disappointed in you, perhaps. But how do you fight instinct when you're hardwired to want to spread your legs at the pungent, lour stench of a virile alpha's incipient rut, the briny tang of his pre-cum saturating the air. A heady elixir that sends shockwaves of agonising need through your body.

It's too much. The burn of your heat is a vicious, deadly combatant. Knife to your jugular, hand around your throat, it demands compliance. 

And when he reaches down to his stained slacks, drawing your eye to the tent in the front, to the dark pool at the front where he leaks his spend into the fabric, you keen. Jealousy scorching through you instantly at the sight; animal instinct that makes you want to bare your teeth at it because his cum is just for you, all for you—

Amusement pierces the air. Punctuates it with the heavy, noxious weight of his satisfaction. 

He hums, reaches into his slacks. Curls his fist around the thick of himself. 

“Want this, don't you?” 

You gnash your teeth against your desperation, legs popping open further. Inviting. Eager. 

“Of course you do. Want this—” he frees his cock, pulling it over the band of his trousers, and you choke. 

It's wet with his spend, and angry looking. The mushroomed head engorged, swollen. Flushed a deep vermillion. Veins run the length of it. Pulsing with his need. His want. 

Price groans, strokes his hand down his shaft. Pearlescent beads of pre-cum bubble up from the tip. 

You ache. Suddenly, viciously. Hollow. Empty. You want him. Need him—

“Yeah? Want this fat cock inside of you, mm?”

And you, finally, give in—

"Please, please, Price—"

"No." He taps the head of his cock against your clit once, twice. A warning. A reprimand. You keen at the whitehot agony, the unfathomable burn of pleasure ripping through your body. He coos into it. Echoing your whimper with a derisive snort. Mocking. Cruel. You hate him. Hate him. Need him so badly you think you might go insane if he doesn't pry you apart right this instant—

"I'll give you my knot when I'm good and ready. Now, be good for me, mm?” His eyes are dark in the harsh flicker of the wood stove. Burning liquid black. Molten puddles of crushed sapphire. You hate the way he looks at you. Hate how it makes you want to roll over on your belly, soft and submissive, giving all of yourself over to this terrible man. “That's it. Good omegas get what they want. Bad ones get punished. And I don't think you'll like being taken over my knee, would you?"

His words send a fresh wave of heat through your veins. Hellfire. Scorching. You want to blame the fever on the stove burning away in the corner of the room, on a sickness you can't scrape off of your bones no matter how many times you chisel into your skin. An infection eating away at you from the inside out. 

But it's futile. He doesn't care about your excuses. He never has—

“Spread yourself. Go on and show me that pretty cunt you want me to ruin so badly.” 

Unspooled, liquid under his bulk, you don't even hesitate before your fingers unfurl from their fight knot in the fur, making a slow, timorous crawl down the supine length of your sun-scorched body. 

Your flesh feels foreign, like it belongs to a stranger. To someone else. Each touch is a phantom whisper gliding along sweat-slicked skin; new and different, and not yours. 

Not yours at all because your skin would never prickle with goosebumps over the sight of your chief kneeling between your legs, the hair on his thigh matted, slick with your wetness. The unruly black thatch darkening into a patch where you shamelessly rutted against him, eagerly seeking friction over the place you ache the most. 

For him. All for him. 

It's impossible. Impossible. And yet—

As your fingers curl over the tops of your thighs, notching into the soft, heated flesh at the bend of your hip and groin, you feel just how soaked you are for him. How wet. How eager. It stains your skin, reaches almost down your bent knees. Beneath you is a puddle drenching the fur. 

Your fingers slip, sliding in the mess you made. You flush when he huffs, humoured by it all, and dip your chin away from the scorching, piercing look in his cerulean eyes, drilling holes in the apex of your thighs. Greedily taking in his fill as your fingers glide over your sopping folds, gingerly parting them. Presenting to him on your back. Ripe for the taking. 

“One hand,” he rasps, words clicking in his throat. He holds his hand up, curling his fingers down and leaving his index and middle finger up in a pointed V. “And the other—” he swallows thickly, Adam's apple bobbing. “I want you to touch your clit for me.” 

You follow his instructions, slipping your fingers between your folds, opening yourself up for him. Your other hand sits on your mons, fingertips brushing your swollen clit as heat floods you. Electric. Each touch is a shock of pleasure roiling down your spine, and more slick dribbles out of you, dripping down your aching, empty hole, down your ass, until it soaks into the furs below. 

The scent of a needy omega fills the air. Your scent. 

Where most are sweet, supple, yours has always had a bite. A tartness to it, an earthy tang. Boysenberry. Loam. Lemongrass. Beeswax. You bluster. Flushing. Embarrassment plumes up, mushrooming in the air—smoked orange peels, coral berry sour—and you wonder if he's repelled by it, this strange smell of yours—

Price’s head rolls back, nose pitched in the air. Breathing in deep, groaning with his exhale. Eyes fluttering, flashing. He eats it clean from the air. Mouth dropping open, panting. 

It's then when the unmistakable musk of a pleased Alpha—smoked tobacco and sage—clots beside your scent do you feel the prickle of free will hewing into your periphery. 

None of what he demanded of you carried the unignorable weight of a command. Before you can even think of the ramifications of that, he's moving. Heavy body falling, sliding down the furs. His hands come to rest, hot and firm, on your knees, spreading you wider, wider, to fit the boxy heft of his broad body between them. 

He hovers over you, head bending to fit in the brackets of your thighs. Leading with nose, nostrils flaring, fluttering, as he pulls in deep lungfuls of your scent. Over and over, and—

His head bows. Humid air ghosting over your sopping cunt when he exhales. It's then when he dips his chin further, further, until the bottom of his face is flush with your pussy, mouth parting around a groan that reverberates through the floorboards, rattles your bones. 

“You smell s’fuckin’ good, love,” he rasps, choked. His eyes are gyres. They might just swallow you whole. You fight back a shiver, resolve threadbare. Stitches coming apart. “Bet you'd taste even better.”

It's all the warning you get before he pushes his face into you, mouth dropping open to let his tongue lull out. Licking a scorching stripe from hole to clit. And, oh—

Oh. 

Your head drops, eyes slipping closed at the liquid feeling between your thighs. The whitehot sensation of his tongue laving across your slit. 

So this—this—is what you've been missing out on. Pure feeling. Molten. It blooms in your loins, knots tight like a spooled bow. 

Your fingertips are in the way from him pressing his tongue flat against your clit, where you throb the most, and you move to pull your hand away. To give him access to everything, all of it. Every part of you he wants. It's all his, his, so long as he keeps doing what he's doing with his mouth, his tongue—

But his hand slashes through the air, snatching your wrist in a vice grip. Stopping your retreat. You whimper, hips flexing up, wanting his mouth. Needing more of what he's doing between your thighs. 

“Look at me,” he demands. You obey. Instantly. His eyes are black holes. Everdark. Eclipsed, totally, by the bleed of his black pupils spreading out. You moan, thighs parting wider, wider. “Good girl. Such a good omega for me, aren't you?”

He doesn't let you answer. Draws your wet fingers to his mouth, pressing the pads against his lower lip, nails scratching his teeth. He breathes in, shoulders bunching up. Eyes fluttering again, rolling back in his head. And it's divine—

To have such a surly, contemptuous Alpha on his knees for you, fat, heavy cock drooping between his thighs, spitting a steady stream of spend onto the floor. Wasteful. You keen again, back arching. Needy. Wanting—

Price sucks in your fingers, tongue laving between your knuckles. The pressure, the feeling, is good. You like this. Like his mouth. 

But your fingers are not where you want him. 

“Please, Price. Please—”

He pulls off with a pop. Leans his cheek on your inner thigh. 

“What do you want? Use your words, omega.”

Heat blooms in your chest, but you're long past the point of embarrassment anymore. Shame. It's all awash under the torrent of need. Desire. Swept in the rage of your heat. Nearly rendered delirious by it. 

“Want your mouth.”

“Where?”

“M–my—” you swallow, fingers spreading your folds wider. Opening yourself up to him. He glances down, nostrils flaring once again. But he doesn't move. Won't. You groan, head rolling back. “My pussy. Please. Want your mouth on my pussy, Price—”

He groans, low. Dark. But then he's moving. Head bowing. His tongue is scorching. Whitehot. He drags it through your folds, teasing at your rim. Presses it inside, just a touch, a shallow thrust. And—

Ah. 

You make a noise in the back of your throat. Awful, wet. Choking. The feeling of his tongue inside of you is good. Beyond words. 

It slips in more. The full length. Stuffed. You keen, arching. Aching. Hips flexing, jerking against his mouth. He lets you ride his face like this, fucking your hole with his fat tongue, nose glued tight to your clit. 

All you can do is sob his name, fingers curling, knotting, into his damp hair, holding him close. 

His tongue leaves you, sliding up your seam until it cups your clit. Laves over it. He lifts his chin, and seals his mouth over you. Sucks—

The spool unravels. Pressure released. You flood around him, on him. Pussy gushing slick over his chin, drenching him. Drowning him. 

Lips sealed over your throbbing clit, he moans low. Deep. Eyes rolling back in his head. Gyre blue. 

“Tha’s it,” he coos, pushing two thick fingers inside your throbbing cunt. “Think you're about ready for my cock, ain't you?” 

He doesn't let you answer. And—

You don't think you can form a coherent thought. Running on sensation. On instinct. You make to roll over on your belly, ass pushed into the air, ready for his knot, but he stops you. Hands squeezing your hips. Firm. 

“No. I'll take you like this.” 

And it's hard to reconcile the urge to present with his demands. His wants. You whimper. He answers it with a grunt. 

“Stay still.” 

You flatten to the fur, body melting. Lax. 

“Good girl.”

The praise is a serrated knife to your jugular, cutting a jagged line across your skin. Spilling blood. You quieten under his bulk, now. Desperate. Docile. Collared in blood. 

His hands push behind your knees, lifting your legs. Pushing, pushing. Until they rest under your ears. Spread open for him. Ready to be claimed, owned. Bred. 

“Price, Price, please—”

He shushes you with a coo, pitching your heels over his shoulders. Shuffling closer until his heavy cock, hanging thick and fat between his legs, bumps against your ass. Your cunt. You whimper, back arching. Needing him to fill you up. Split you apart. 

Ruin you—

“Gonna fuck you now. Knot you.”

It's a warning. A threat. You feel it trail over your skin, branding. A collar. You lift your chin, letting it settle there. So long as he makes you feel this good, he can do whatever he wants to you. Anything—

And so, he does. 

His cock is a heavy weight against you, pressing. Pushing. He doesn't wait for you to adjust, for your body to acclimate to the burning stretch of him splitting you apart. 

Your slick aids in the brutal onslaught of his cock prying your untouched flesh apart, chiselling open a space just for him to fit. 

It should hurt more. And maybe it would if you weren't drowning in the throes of a vicious heat, numbed to everything but the way his cock feels as it slides, inch after inch, inside of you. Thick, fat. Pulsing. You pant shallowly, head turning. Chin pressing into your shoulder. 

It's good. This burn, this ache. This madness—

“Christ—” he spits, sounding almost angry. Furious. You peer up at him, eyes wet with unshed tears. Through the murky haze, you catch the clench of his jaw, the prominent divot between his brows. Face tightening with pleasure. Rapturous. “This cunt was made for me, wasn't it, love?”

“Yes—” it's breathless. An airless whisper. “All yours, all yours, John—”

You repeat this as he reaches halfway inside of you. As he bends down, mouth feverish he slots it greedily over your lips in a bruising, sloppy kiss. You mutter it against his teeth, his tongue. He swallows your acquiescence, your submission, down with a moan. Drinks you in as he takes, takes, until you're full of him. Stuffed. 

John bottoms out with a moan that trembles down your throat, balls pressed flush against your ass. Split apart on him. Claimed. 

He settles, letting you adjust to the sensation. Content to simply mouth sloppy kisses over your face, your cheek, jaw. Nipping your skin. Basking in this, in finally having you stretched around him. His pleasure is ripe in the air. Heavy and acrid. Smoked leather. Fresh, and heady. 

It's novice, this feeling. This pressure. This fullness. Your hand drops, falls, palm sliding between his heavy, hairy belly, resting over yours. Feeling the unmistakable bump of him rearranging your anatomy to fit—barely—in you. 

He lifts up, elbow dropping to the floor beside your head so he, too, can feel for himself the way he fits within you. His hand comes to lay beside yours, flattening over the bulge of him protruding from your flesh. His cock jerks inside of you, twitching. The feeling makes your toes curl, your cunt throb. 

“Like that, huh?” 

Your nod is slowly, languorous. Everything feels unreal. Like you're staring at the world from underwater. Inky. Fractured. Raw. 

The burn of the stretch is there, throbbing like a bruise. A contusion. He scents the sting, the ache, and slides his hand down, cupped over your swollen, stuffed pussy. Fingers tangling into the thick bed of curls grazing your mons. Price quells the burn with a swipe of his thumb rolling over your clit. 

It has you clenching, tightening even further around him. Feeling the thick stretch thrumming inside of you. Plugging you up. And fuck—

If that doesn't just light you up from the inside out. Supernova. Blistering heat. 

Pieces of yourself chip off, fluttering to the soft, downy fur below you with each heavy breath he takes. Your heat swells to a crescendo, breaking over the edge of your lingering cognisance. It's all sensation now. Pure, unfettered feeling.

And Price takes no time at all to exploit it. To batter your melting, liquid body into submission even further. 

It starts with shallow grinds against the plug of your womb. Carving more space inside of you for him to fit, to ruin. 

He fucks you like this. Cock heavy and fat inside of you. Giving you the full length until your rim catches on the burgeoning swell of his knot. Over and over again. Pulling deep, delirious moans from your throat. Breaking you to pieces on the spread of him seated deep. Tugging more and more compliance from your body, wringing pleasure out of every nerve ending. 

The sounds are horrific, and had you any sense of self left to mull over them, your shame, embarrassment, would have burned you alive. The wet squelch of your cunt swallowing him down, over and over and over again—

“Needy little pussy,” he bites out, blunt teeth skirting over your pulse point. A tease. 

The press of them heightens everything, elevating it to a tipping point. 

This is what you were made for. What every atom in your body screams out to. Wanting. Needing to be spread out under him, this dark, awful man. 

“I'm not going to claim you,” he's saying, words wet against your temple, tongue snaking out to catch the droplets of sweat beading on your hairline. 

It makes you whine in dismay, desperate for his teeth buried in your skin. 

“No, no, please—! I need it, John, I need it—”

“Then beg me. Beg for it—”

You do. It babbles out of you. Broken, fractured. Pleas, orisons, screamed to heavens; aching for his teeth on you, in you. Claiming you for his own. You want it more than you think you've ever wanted anything in your whole thing. Half of you, empty and vacant, hollow, begging to be filled. To be completed. 

And really—

You've felt it from the beginning. This stirring, agonising want. Desire. A bone-deep yearning for the man who looked at you, up and down, and dismissed you with a charred scoff and shallow shake of his head. 

“What's a little omega like you doin’ runnin’ around the woods, love? Ought to be at home—”

Where you belong. 

It didn't make sense at the time. He's so different with everyone else—Alex, Farah—but reserves his scorn, his discrimination, just for you. Special little thing, aren't you? 

But even still. Still. You tried. Struggled against the crushing weight of his derision, burying your fingers into the rubble, clinging on for three, devastating years until your nails broke, bled. Left stains on the pavement. Until he, stiff-lipped and clipped, told you he was retiring. Escaping the loose binds of a non-existent town on the fringes of civilisation for the sanctum of the wild, untamed forest. The mountains. 

You wanted him to say, come with me, even if you might have gouged his eyes out for even asking. Tore his still-beating heart out with your bare hands. 

But instead, he nodded at you. A quiet goodbye. Left you bewildered, furious, and unclaimed, unwanted, and now—

Those blood-stained fingers dig into the softness of his nape, biting flesh until it gives, breaks, under the jagged stumps of your nails, and you wrench him forward, into you, snarling mad. Apoplectic with fury at being denied so long. 

“Fuck you,” you bite out, brittle with ire. Disobedient even through the noxious curdle of heat subduing your senses. Your rationale. “Fuck you, John—!”

His skin breaks first. The bitter scent of hot, wet pavement, pennies in the summer sun, sickly sweet iron, fills the balmy cabin. He groans, choked, throat bobbing, jaw clenching. You don't let him get anything out. 

You pull him by the scruff of his neck into you, face buried in your collarbones. Heels dig in, sliding along the slick sweat of his broad back. Finding purchase against the knob of his spine, and pressing. Pushing. Kicking at him until he slots his hips into yours, pressed as deep as he could possibly go. Throbbing inside of you. Spitting molten spend as he wrenches you open. 

The first person to ever do so. 

He must know this, feel it simmering in the air, because he groans low, deep. It bubbles out of his chest, a half-bitten snarl saturated in the smoke of his desire. Feverish, possessive. 

“Mate me,” you demand, head tilting back into the awaiting plinth of his palm, cushioning your crown. “Claim me.”

He—John, you think, delirious; gone—John places a tender kiss to your pulse point, soft despite the uneven, desperate way he fucks into you now. All that careful finesse falling to pieces under your foot, growing choppier as he sinks in deep. Pistoning shallowly into your sloppy cunt, taking. Taking. 

“Please, John,” you breathe, clenching tight around him. Needing that last push to drop over this vertiginous precipice that yawns out, a growling, hungry chasm, before you. Heat spears into your marrow, drowning out all the fight inside of you. Dousing those flames until they're a smouldering heap; clumps of hot, wet ash in your hands. “Please take me—”

The growl he makes is inhuman. Lingering in the shadow of it is a mocking burst of laughter. Dark, hellish. He leans in close, mouth tight against your skin, and whispers, “already have, love.”

Those words lose any meaning when he opens his mouth wider, licking a stripe over your neck. A soothing rinse. And then he buries his teeth into your pulse, tearing through your skin. Claiming. Owning. It rips through you—all heat, sensation: blistering, inferno. You burn alive beneath him, smouldered under his possessive, heavy bulk.

Price leans back with a vicious, terrible growl. Blood dripping down his chin, mixing with the tacky slick of you still covering his face. Pinkish under the waning light of the dying sun. 

The sight of it, the horrible throb in your throat, breaks over you.

His tongue flicks out, chasing the drops. With a swipe of his finger over your clit, you fall to pieces around him, clenching. Throbbing. Screaming with your release. Gushing around him as he grips you tight, working you through it, muscles fluttering, flexing. The deluge of pleasure is molten, spreading liquid through your body. Inescapable bliss. 

He grunts, pace slowing to a sloppy grind. Letting you leech pleasure from the overfull feeling of being speared open on him. Knot swelling. Bumping into your rim. John gives you respite for a moment, content to hump against your messy cunt until you melt into the furs, panting with exertion. With pleasure. 

He keeps his thumb pressed against your clit, stroking. Shoving you into the side of too much, of pleasure-pain. Overstimulated. You mewl, whimpering. 

“Greedy girl,” he chides, cruel, and pulls back. The wet drag of his cock against your sore, sensitive walls is overwhelming. You keen, shaking under him. “Couldn't wait to cum around my knot, mm?” 

He doesn't wait for your excuses. He never does. He just thrusts into you again, a slow climb until his knot bludgeons into you. Fatten up at the base of his cock. He holds it there, grinding it against your pussy as you arch, mewling at the sting of your hole being stretched further around the curve of his knot. 

“You can take it,” he coos. The muscles in his shoulders flex. You reach out, petting along his chest. feeling him. All powerful, corded muscles hiding under a thick layer of pelt. Soft flesh. 

His knot catches. Slips. He bullies it against your sore, stuffed rim, throwing the full heft of his weight behind his shallow grinds until finally, finally, your body yields. Giving in. Opening for him. 

He sinks in with a broken groan, mouth dropping open. Lax. His shoulders slump under your hands as he pumps you full of cum. Plugged up tight on his fat, pulsing knot. It's too much. Too much. All you do is cling to him, nails biting into his flesh. Marking him like the bloody ring around your neck marks you as his. 

Locked together, damned, he leans down. Huffs in your ear. 

“Gonna fuck you full all spring until it takes, love. Until you're swollen, fat, with our kid.” His voice is a thunderclap. A promise. A threat. “Won't keep them lonely for long, though, will you? We'll give him a sister or brother. Gonna breed this pussy as much as I want, mm. Give us a big family. I've already started on the nursery for you. After your heat, I'll let you pick the colours, yeah?”

Satiated Alpha permeates the air. It's thick in the back of your throat, clogging your senses. Drowning you. Pulling you under. 

The last thought before you sink below the waterline is a broken, fragmented sense of dread, confusion. It comes in a daze. Flickering embers. Quickly snuffed out by his palm gliding across your eyes, closing them. 

“Sleep now,” he rasps, hips stuttering as he fills you with more cum. Uncomfortably full, it floods your cunt, locked tight against your womb. “Gonna need it when my rut starts later.” 

And, docile, collared, you obey, drifting. Dazed. But wondering, in the back of your head, in the part of you not yet consumed by the ink-black darkness that eats away at you, why did he build a nursery for you if he didn't know you were coming today—

—swallowed, eaten. his teeth are buried in your neck once more, and all thoughts dissolve in an instant. Dissipate into the gnawing aether where he splits them between his molars, gulps them down. 

nothing matters anymore. you belong to him—

The cabin reeks of satiated omega—sweet, pungent. Rotten apple peels, and burnt orange. It's this heavy scent—sex, loam, and you—that draws him out of his doze, tired eyes blinking against the flickering light of the wood stove pushed into the corner. 

Price groans when he shifts, body aching. Muscles stiff, sore, from disuse. 

It’s been a long, long time since he knotted an omega, and he underestimated the sharpness of your claws, your needle-like teeth. But he wears the marks, the scars, of your aggressive coupling on his shoulders, his back. Clawed up, torn. He grimaces when a clotting scab breaks, peels back from the wound. Blood drips down his spine in a steady, ticklish trickle. 

It took a lot more than he expected to make you submit. Had to force you to take his knot twice more before you finally, fully, relented, slurring his name into the sheets as he rutted into you from behind, begging for your Alpha to fill you up. 

Had you again after that—so soft and sweet for him now. Pulled you down on his lap, let you take what you wanted from him, sluggish and lazy, until he gripped your hips tight, fucking up into you as he thickened with his release. Plugged you up nicely as you drooled on his shoulder, lulled to sleep from three brutal rounds of fucking. 

But the battle was worth the victory in the end. To have you tucked into his chest, purring with contentment and too blissed out from heat exhaustion to worry about anything else, was enough. More than, really. 

Especially now, with you curled on him, snoring lightly, breath tickling his chest hair, he feels more sated than he ever had, breathing in the heaviness of your smell. Your thick miasma. New, now. Different. 

His scent, his mere essence within you, changes your smell already. Chemicals admixing. Body moulding, morphing, to adapt to him. His presence. You smell like the sea, salt water. Algae blooms. He leans down, breathes you in. Tastes his own headiness in the back of his throat—charred timber, smoke; leather. It clings to you. A second skin. 

No matter where you go, everyone will know you belong to him. 

This thought, this truism, makes him purr. A deep rumble from the pit of his gut. Satisfaction rolls off of him in towering waves, hewing the air where it congeals into plumes of conquest. Hard earned, too—

Three years. It only took three years to get to this point. To chisel under your skin, to break you down in his paws. Fine powder. 

He lifts his hand from your back, and scours it down his salt-slickened face. He feels heat blooming under his skin. A telltale flush of his approaching rut. Perfectly timed, too. And that reminds him—

He pushes away from you slightly, spent cock slipping free from your warm, drenched cunt. His cum drips out of you, a deluge that leaks steadily onto your thigh, the ruined fur below. It puddles there and stains the air with his unmistakable musk. The conquering of an omega in heat; claimed. Owned. 

He doesn't go far. Can't. There's a possessive, needy thrill under his veins. A snarling growl in the back of his head, snapping rabid jowls at him. Demanding he stay close to his mate. His omega. Don't leave the nest, it warns, or another could crawl in, fill the empty space—

Price cuts that thought off with an aborted snarl. There are no others. He made sure of it. Bloodied his knuckles against every alpha within a one-hundred-square-mile radius of his territory. Growled in their faces, hand against their throat, and told them to stay away from, you, this pretty little omega. 

Message received, of course. But you were a prickly little thing. Bitter. As much as he wanted to roll you on your belly, make you present your cunt to him, he knew he had to tread carefully. Baby steps until you were close enough to his jaws to snap up, all his. Always. Ever since you stepped foot into his domain, your tart scent coalescing perfectly with the pine, oakmoss, tang of him. You've been his before you even knew who he was—

Wily omega with your shaking fists and bared teeth. Skittish little thing. Needed to play his hand slowly, to box you into a corner before you were even aware of the walls closing in around you. Snapped up tight his maw. Bear Trap quick. Had to be smart about it, bide his time. Push and push until all you thought about was him. 

(checkmate)

John reaches for the loose floorboard, prying it open, and pulls his cell phone out—one he knows he’ll have to bury in the yard before you wake. There are very few contacts on his list, and he idly scrolls through the messages (steaming Jesus, the smell o’er—ye sure ye don’ share, cap?; better take her, Price, before I do) before he finds Gaz’s. 

The last message sent was hours ago from Kyle. on her way. but fuck, didn't realise how fast fake suppressants worked, chief. gonna have to find her quick. might not make it up the mountain smellin as good as she does—

Good boy, he types with one hand, the other petting possessively down your spine. Curled there, a weighty pressure. You found him in the end, right on the cusp of your burgeoning heat. Pawing desperately for the suppressants Kyle made sure wouldn't be there. 

(His parting gift brought on by a conversation ages ago—

“why haven't you mated, cap? not gettin’ any younger.”

“haven't found the right one. ain't gonna settle.”

“more like, your shitty attitude scares all the pretty omegas away, huh?”

“that, too,” he bit down into his cigar. suddenly angry, viciously so. “‘cept one.” 

Kyle followed his gaze, and—

“so, take her. she wants you. reeks like she does. you can smell it, too, can't you?” his eyes flashed. playful. “maybe that'll be my retirement gift to you.”

“not funny, Garrick.”

“m’not tryin’ t’be, cap.”)

Three dots appear almost instantly. It takes a moment. Then: fuckin’ prick. Another message from Kyle pops up seconds after. told you, didn't i? i wasn't bein funny. congrats, cap ;) 

As if sensing the sudden whiplash of his mood—deep, proprietorial—you stir in his arms, mewling in confusion. John drops the phone, hiding it from view, and pulls you tighter in his arms. In his embrace. Mouth pressed tight to your hairline, he rumbles, “shush, shush. I got you.” 

His words make you quieten slightly. Quelled under the susurrus lull of his bellowing purr. But there's still a deep ravine between your brows. Unease lashes the air, acidic. Bubbling up from deep within you. 

None of this must make any sense to you. Mercurial boss to mate, but he knows you'll come around to the idea of him soon enough. After all,

he has you all to himself until winter. 

all to himself. 

His hand falls, cups your lower belly possessively. Covetous. You grimace in your sleep, shifting away from the heavy, oppressive brunt of his smell. Obsessive. Potent like a wildfire. Dangerous. 

But there's nowhere for you to run. Nowhere to go except deeper into his arms, his hold. Gyves around your throat; a bloody ring of his teeth. 

Price hums. “Best gift I've ever gotten.” 

[waves-against-a-cliff]

After the end - Post-apocalypse Omegaverse AU

Summary - The first shot is fired. While you come up with a plan to confuse and bait these four alphas, they come up with their own strategy.

Tags - Omegaverse (duh), alpha/beta/omega dynamics, non traditional dynamics, all of the 141 are alphas, you're an omega. Eventual smut, dub-con, knotting, mating press, polyamory, alphas love alphas. 141 x reader. Omega has a shotgun, I REPEAT, Omega has a shotgun. Mentions of violence.

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2

You looked at the four men with wide eyes and they stared back at you with equally wide ones as well. Your finger moved to the trigger of the shotgun and the one with a scraggly mohawk stepped forward. You growled without even meaning to and he hesitated. "Come on Bonnie, drop tae shotgun," he tried to negotiate but you snarled at him.

"Get the fuck out of my woods," you replied, snarling so hard spit flies from your mouth. You pointed the shotgun at the four of them but mostly focused on the Scottish brute in front of you, "Or I'll kill you."

A nasty smile crossed his face, feral and unnatural. "Oh ye wouldnae. You're just a little omega," he cooed and you pulled the trigger. The kick is a little more than you expected and you're pushed flat on your back from the kick. You the blast heard echo through the woods and your ears are ringing. Behind the ringing you hear curses and you looked to see the Scottish alpha on the ground clutching his shoulder with a dark look in his eyes.

His three other alpha packmates gathered around him, fretting over his wound and so you took the chance to get onto your feet and get away. "She's gettin' away!" You heard another shout and then more curses. You assumed that one fell into the hole you had covered up. You hoped he enjoys the wooden spikes.

You huffed and puffed after a while, your breathing fogging the air around you. The winter chill had made your nose hurt and your fingers were stiff. You rubbed them together to try and gather some heat in them. You shakily reloaded the shotgun, putting the spent shotgun shell into your pocket.

You don't need anymore tracks leading them to you.

You can't help but wonder how they figured it out. How they knew someone was still lingering around this long forgotten small town. You racked your brain for the answer as you kept walking, snow crunching under your well worn boots.

You thought back to a few days ago, the last time you had been in for resupply. You had noticed one of your traps had been triggered. The false floor in a building had collapsed underneath the weight of someone. You checked it and found a very big, unnaturally big, beta. He was already dead, he was wearing a T-shirt as a mask of all things. It had taken a lot of effort to get him from the pit, you'd had to grab your old jeep, rarely used except for times like these when you needed to haul something big.

In this case, a tall T-shirt mask wearing beta.

You had cut yourself on a shard of glass picking him up and loading him into the back. You hadn't even thought about it when you wiped your hand on the wooden pole. "Fucking stupid," you whispered to yourself. Carelessness.

After all this time it was carelessness that had gotten you at last.

Then it gave you an idea. If they were able to track your scent using blood...

You grabbed your pocket knife and looked at it, the idea of the perfect trap starting in your mind.

"Fuckin' bitch," Soap hissed from between clenched teeth. The shotgun blast had barely grazed his shoulder but it still hurt like a massive bitch. "She actually shot tae damn thing."

Gaz scoffed as he wrapped his mild puncture wound, the wooden stakes at the bottom not sharpened enough to do any real damage. "That's what you get for provoking," he replied as he stood up.

"I was not provoking!" Soap said and Gaz rolled his eyes.

"Shut it you two," Price finally snapped as he pinched the bridge of his nose using his index and thumb. Gaz had been right, there was an omega running around in this forest still. The issue was now that not only did she know that they were here but that she had known before hand.

"How's Soaps shoulder?" Price asked Ghost, who had a stronger bond with Soap. It was natural. Price was more bonded with Gaz and he could feel his inner alpha snarling and pacing that he was hurt.

"It'll be fine. Luckily the shot mostly missed," Ghost replied gruffly. Price turned to his pack and looked over them.

"What do you think Ghost?"

"I think she has more 'f these traps laid out through the forest," he replied, his shoulders tensed at the idea of having to navigate an entirely booby trapped forest.

"Did you hear what she said?" Gaz asked and Price raised a brow.

"Yes Kyle, what of it?"

"She referred to this place as her woods."

"What of it?" Soap snapped and Gaz glared at his fellow sergeant.

"This is her territory," Gaz finally finished and everyone gave him a skeptical look.

"Omegas don't have territory," Soap responded, "they aren't built like that."

Gaz rolled his eyes. Out of everyone within the pack, Gaz might be the most versed on how omegas operated with Ghost not far behind him. "Even if this is her territory," Price said and even he sounded skeptical, "there's still an easy solution."

Ghost looked at his captain, his stomach churned at what he was about to say. He knew what he would say. They could scruff her.

"We just have to get close." Price said and Soap huffed out a laugh.

"Damn thing is fuckin' feral. We aren't gettin' through these woods without a few more scratches."

"So you're willin' to give up a ripe omega?" Gaz challenged and Soap shook his head.

"I didnae say that."

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 38: Shattered

Summary: Things aren't okay. They never will be again.

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 8,520 words

Warnings: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, angst, PTSD, nightmares, POV changes, depression and anxiety, medical stuff, injuries, brief description of a possible death, language, mention of weight loss due to medical stuff, emotionally heavy chapter (again), slightly graphic imagery, illness, so much crying

A/N: I just want to make something very clear here since there's a scene in this chapter that might be interpreted this way, but 'mega is NOT suicidal. That's not something that's going to be in this fic, and neither is self-harm. It would have been well warned in advance if that was going to be something coming up in this fic. She's struggling a lot, but she's not suicidal, she's not going to become suicidal, nor will she self-harm even off screen. So don't worry. That's not what's happening. It won't be happening.

Okay, just wanted to make that clear. Enjoy the suffering!

11/30/24: **This chapter has been edited and rewritten from its original version**

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

The scream slices through the silence seconds before chaos erupts. 

John is on his feet and out the door before Kyle is even fully awake. Simon is on his heels down the stairs, the two of them nearly colliding in their rush. His heart thuds in his chest as he sees your door open, the overhead light on. It’s bad. It must be bad if the overhead light is on. You hate the overhead light. 

He barrels in like a bull, ready to fight. The screaming has stopped, but it still rings in his ears. The fear, the panic. Something has happened. Someone got in. He should have made you take the room upstairs. He should have put a barrier between you and the door. That window. Someone could break that easily and grab you before they even noticed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” 

The screaming has stopped, but gut-wrenching sobs have taken its place. He takes a moment to scan the room. Nothing is misplaced. The window isn’t broken, there’s no bodies, no one that shouldn’t be in there. 

“You’re okay.” Christine soothes you as you sob. “It was just a nightmare.” 

The bright fluorescent overhead light burns his eyes as he stands there, staring at the bed. Christine is right there, having beaten them across the living room, or perhaps she had already been in there, having heard you in your distress before they could. You're tucked in her arms, your face against her shoulder as she holds you. 

Nightmare. 

The safety and security the cottage promised has faded, leaving you at the mercy of the horrors your mind can conjure up in your sleep. Something twists deep in John’s stomach as he turns, motioning for the others to back up and give you some space. You won’t want them there, and things will only get worse if you notice them. 

His heart is still thudding in his chest as he stands there, the sharp sound of your scream still ringing in his ears despite his confirmation of your safety. The other three look just as startled as he feels, standing there tensely in the dark living room. He brings himself to move, turning his back on them for a moment to try and gather his thoughts as he flips on the lamp in the corner. It casts a warm light across the living room, far too warm for how he’s feeling. He’s trying not to panic, trying not to be sick on the floor from the worry. His heart is in his throat, trying to choke him. He’s trying so hard to be strong, not just for him, but for his pack, for you. 

He sinks down on one of the couches, rubbing a hand over his face. He had been so sure something had happened, that their safe little bubble had been breached and someone knew about their whereabouts. He had been so sure someone was trying to hurt you with a scream like that. 

Maybe someone was, but not in reality. 

What is it you dream about now? Your nightmares about your father and your traumatic presentation must seem like nothing now compared to what must haunt your mind. Do you dream of Graves and his torture? Do you dream of them leaving you behind? Do you dream of dying because of their failures? 

A hand settles on his shoulder, a body sinking onto the couch next to him. Arms are wrapping around him, easing him against a solid chest. 

He’s crying. 

He didn’t even realize the tears had started flowing. 

He can hear the reverberating voice in his head, yelling at him, telling him not to show such weakness in front of his pack, in front of his team. He’s supposed to be the strong one, he’s supposed to be the stable one keeping the pack afloat and steady. Yet here he is, breaking down in front of them. 

“It’s okay.” 

Kyle. 

His sweet Kyle. 

How he’s been neglecting his sweet beta, and yet, how willing Kyle still is to reach out and comfort him in such a time of visible distress. That’s what betas are supposed to do. Mediate and balance the emotions of the pack. How have they been coping with all of this? How have Kyle and Johnny been managing in such a time of disarray and upheaval? Have they been managing it? He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t even know the state of his pack, of the members of his team. 

What a failure he is. 

He lets himself lean against Kyle, something filling his chest as Kyle’s soft scent seeps into his senses. He’s projecting it, not just for John but also for the whole room. Johnny is crying too, soft sobs tearing from his chest as he sits on the other couch. Simon is on his knees in front of him, trying to get him calmed and breathing. 

They’ve been ignoring and denying each other for days, fraying the bonds further while trying so hard not to. The pain they’ve been causing in their emotional constipation and intentional neglect is almost worse than the pain caused by their infighting. At least fighting they were feeling something. At least fighting they weren’t cutting each other off so willingly. 

“We can’t do this anymore.” He says, his voice thick and shaky from his tears. “Cutting each other off. It’s not helping anything.” He doesn’t move from where he’s tucked against Kyle’s chest, letting the comfort wash over him for the first time in a week and a half. 

How he’s missed this. 

“It’s not doing any good for any of us.” Simon says, shifting onto the couch next to Johnny. 

“Especially not our omega.” Kyle says, voicing the thought flashing through all of their minds. 

“We may not be able to do much to help her right now, but we can focus on each other. That is something we can do.” John swallows thickly, his alpha starting to come back to life, his instincts aware again as he stares at Johnny and Simon. “Doing nothing isn’t good for any of us. We need to have something to focus on, something tangible we can do. Denying each other comfort isn’t going to help anyone.” 

“I full-heartedly agree.” 

John whips around, Christine standing in front of your closed door. He hadn’t even noticed her enter the room, hadn’t sensed her standing behind them. Johnny and Simon are the only two that don’t look startled, but they must have seen her come out from their position facing your door. 

“Sorry.” The corner of her lip twitches up in a smirk. “Thought you would have noticed.” 

John clears his throat. “How is she?” 

“Settled again.” Christine says, moving over to the chair. 

“How long has she been having nightmares?” Kyle asks. 

“Since that first day in the med center in Dallas.” She says, sinking into the chair. How heavy this must all be on her shoulders. “I’d almost call them more sleep hallucinations. Mostly of Graves. Seeing him in the room, being attacked by him.” 

“Is there anything that can be done to help?” John asks. 

“For these kinds of nightmares? Not really.” Christine folds her hands in her lap. “Her brain is trying to process what happened. Until she feels safe enough to truly begin working on processing the trauma, it’s likely the nightmares will continue.” 

“Is there anything we can do to help her feel safe?” Kyle says. 

Christine’s lips purse as she looks between the four of them. “I’m not sure any of you could do anything right now directly, at least. She’s not open to that yet. Working on your bonds with each other, though, could help her omega finally settle and allow her emotions to even out again. That can help her feel safer, remove that instability and the fear of losing control again.” 

All of them share looks, John and Simon staring at one another. They hadn’t even thought about that. Well, at least he hadn’t. Christine had told him months ago that omegas need their alpha when they distress, when their omega takes over. They can come back from it with the help of an alpha...their alpha. Without one, the chances of survival were slim. Yet here you are, trying to do it all on your own. Having to do it all on your own. 

That ache in his chest starts again as he stares at Simon. He sent Simon after you, he made Simon go through that process of seeing you in that state and scruffing you. He made Simon be the one to help you through that. He made Simon be there when you needed an alpha most because he couldn’t face the fact that he abandoned you, he left you behind like you were nothing but another faceless soldier. 

He wipes his face as the tears start falling again. He truly is a failure of an alpha. 

Despite Christine’s reassurances, John can’t help the automatic reaction to your screams. On his feet instantly, his heart pounding in his chest ready to fight bare handed whatever might be causing such a reaction. Whoever might be causing such a reaction. He can’t fight the demons in your head, though, and he’s always greeted by the sight of Christine by your side, comforting you as best she can. 

He wants to hate her, wants to be angry at her for taking his place, doing what he should be doing. His alpha scratches at his mind every time he sees her by your side, giving you comforts he should be giving, but it’s his fault. It’s his fault she’s the one there with you. It’s his fault you’re suffering so much. Those thoughts send his alpha crawling back into its cage with its tail between its legs. 

It doesn’t matter the time of day, whether it was a nap or the middle of the night, your screams have a pain throbbing deep in his chest. His heart is constantly racing, waiting for that rush of adrenaline at the sound of your terrified scream, at that rush of instinct to protect and fight. He’s not sure how much his heart can take. 

He might have a heart attack by the end of their stay at the cottage. 

That’s something he’s been trying not to think about. 

They can’t stay here forever, no matter how much he knows you’ll want to, how much the others will want to. Eventually they’ll begin to go stir-crazy, itching for something to do. They still have jobs, and Kate can only keep them off the radar for so long, and can only give so many excuses. Eventually they’ll have to go back. Eventually they’ll have to make that decision of what comes next. 

He’s going to delay that as much as he possibly can. 

They can’t go back while Shepherd is still out there. They can’t trust that anywhere is safe while he’s still skulking around, while he still has contacts that could put them all in danger. That could put you in danger. 

That’s not a risk he’s willing to take again. 

But what comes next? 

What will they decide to do? Can they go back, knowing what the inevitable will be? Can they take that risk of having to leave you again, put you through that constant fear and worry that they might not come back? What if they all leave again? Could you survive the fear that something might happen while they’re away again? Not to them, but to you? 

Could they leave you alone again? 

Those are thoughts for another day when they’re inevitably faced with the fact they have to return to society and their lives and jobs. 

They have time. 

He has to make sure you’re okay first. 

You’re not okay.

You’re so very far from okay. 

The bedside lamp is on, casting a golden glow around the room. 

There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. 

It’s one of the rare times you’ve woken before you can react, before you can scream and alert everyone in the house that you’ve had a nightmare. They’ll all come running. All of them. 

You hate it. 

You hate the nightmares, you hate the fear, you hate the constant pain and worry and the constant knowledge that your pack is right there. They want to go back to how things were, they want things to go back to normal, but they can’t. They expect you to forgive them, to go back to loving them, but how can you after everything? 

They left you. 

They let this happen to you and they just want you to pretend like nothing happened. That’s what they would do. Go back to normal life after being tortured and forget it all happened because that’s what they do. 

You’re not them. 

You don’t want to be like them. 

Cold. Heartless. Uncaring. Unwilling to put anyone but themselves first. 

Fuck them. 

The only thing keeping you here is the fact you’re bonded to them. That, and you’re an omega. You’d get picked up off the street and brought right back here to your owner. Or, worse, you’d get picked up by someone looking for a cute little omega to add to their collection. 

Or worse. 

You’d get picked up by someone else. 

Graves. Shepherd. 

If you’re lucky, they’d kill you instantly. Leave your body on the front porch for the others to find. You won’t care anymore. You’ll be dead. 

You hastily wipe the tears from your cheeks, wiggling yourself back until you’re leaning against the headboard. Your shoulder doesn’t hurt quite as much anymore. It still throbs, still aches, still occasionally almost puts you on the floor when you try to reach over your head with it. Your throat is healing too. Soup isn’t quite as horrible as it was a few days ago. Solid food makes you ache, but at least you can get it down without feeling like you’re swallowing glass. 

You still haven’t spoken to them, though. 

You can hardly stand to look at them. 

Fuck them. 

Just the thought of them makes you want to scream. 

Dr. Keller says it's normal, being angry. ‘It’s all part of the process.’ The anger, the fear, the pain, the depression. It’s all normal. It’s all part of the process. It’s all necessary. You won’t get better holding it all in. You won’t get better numbing yourself. You won’t get better if you don’t allow yourself to feel everything. 

You hate it. 

Why should you have to go through all these feelings, all this pain? Why should you be the one suffering because of their decisions? It’s not fair. They should be suffering. They should be in pain. They should be the ones on the brink of insanity because of the fear and the pain and the suffering and their omega constantly screaming at them. 

It makes you want to scream. 

Screaming will only draw them in, force them closer. Screaming will alert them all, make them all come running. You don’t want any of them near. You don’t want to have to see them again. 

Fuck them. 

You let out a huff before wiggling back down the bed until your head hits the pillow. You won’t go back to sleep. You never do. At least you have the pain and exhaustion and tumultuous emotions and your very nature to excuse your constant naps, constant sleeping during the day. They don’t need to know you’re not sleeping at night. They won’t care. They don’t care. None of them do. 

Fuck. Them. 

You want your phone, you want something to keep you occupied. It’s probably lying somewhere on the side of the road shattered beyond repair. That, or it’s back in the barracks. The barracks. Fuck that place. You’ll rip your hair out strand by strand if you have to go back there. It’s not safe, it’s not happy. There’s nothing good about that place anymore. 

It’s just a place of pain. You might as well have been tortured by Phil there. 

You were tortured there. 

It wasn’t a physical torture, but a mental one. The entire experiment was just torture for you. No one thought of you, no one cared about you. 

Dr. Keller cares. 

It’s her job to care. 

Still, you can’t hate her entirely. She’s the only one that understands. She’s the only one that can help. She’s the only one that’s been helping. Not just now, but back then. She cared, she fought for you, she did her best with what she had. Sure, she made mistakes, but so did you. She’s the only one you can forgive. 

She’s the only one you want to forgive. 

Fuck the others. Fuck your pack. Fuck those fucking soldiers who were never going to care about anyone but themselves, who were never going to care about anything but their jobs and their duties and the good of the world. 

You should have been their world. 

They couldn’t put you first. They wouldn’t put you first. They didn’t want to put you first. 

They won’t change. They can’t change. There’s no hope for change. 

You’ll just go back to the way things were before and be forced to pretend everything's okay and that you’re happy and fine and content. Were you ever really content or were you just trying to make the best of the situation? Were you deluding yourself into believing you loved them and cared about them and that they loved you and cared about you to numb the fact you knew deep down that they never would, that they never could. Were you deluding yourself into thinking everything was fine and dandy to hide the constant pain from the knowledge that you would never come first? 

The pain begins to burn in your chest again. It’s hot like acid, rising in your chest to your throat, threatening to choke you. It’s a deep pain, one nestled right in against your soul. Tears leak out of your eyes again as you squeeze them shut, pushing your right hand against your chest in an attempt to get it to pass. 

You thought you were dying the first time. 

You could only be so lucky. 

The bond. 

It’s trying to break, trying to sever itself, trying to free you from the constant pain, but it can’t. 

Maybe because deep down you don’t want it to. Maybe deep down you want to forgive them and move past all of this. Maybe you want things to go back to normal, even if normal means pain and distress and fear. Maybe you want to believe them that they’re finally going to put you first. 

‘Maybe’ is only a doorway to disappointment and pain. 

Fuck yourself. 

Fuck your omega. 

Fuck your pack. 

Hell, fuck Dr. Keller for not fighting harder, for not doing more. 

Fuck Graves and his haunting of your nightmares.

Fuck Kate for choosing you.

Fuck Shepherd for creating the initiative in the first place to try and cover his own ass. 

Fuck them all. 

You tug the blanket higher around yourself, rolling onto your right side. 

Fuck. Them. All. 

You don’t want him here. 

He does it now, usually in the mornings. 

You hate it. 

You like it. It’s nice. He’s the only one making an effort. 

He never says anything, surprisingly enough. It’s silent as he sits there, steaming cup of coffee in hand. Always coffee, never tea. He won’t sink that low. He brings you a cup, but you can never bring yourself to touch it. You feel like a mental patient stuck in a straight jacket. You could free yourself, but that would bring too much awareness, too many questions, too much pain. 

You don’t want to. 

So instead you sit there in silence, staring out at the sea. It’s so far away still, yet it’s right there. You can hear it and smell it and see it. 

The sea. 

They brought you to the sea. 

John remembered. He did it for you. 

The thought has something stirring in your chest, and it’s not pain or anger. 

You hate it. 

Johnny leans back in the chair, his eyes on the horizon like yours. He sits there in that chair every chance he gets, usually in the mornings when Dr. Keller takes time for herself and leaves one of them watching you through the sliding glass door. You do feel guilty for forcing so much on Dr. Keller’s shoulders, yet you need her. 

You’re not ready for the others yet, no matter how loudly your omega screams at you. 

You don’t want them. 

Fuck, you desperately need them. 

Your eyelids flutter frantically as you try to keep the tears at bay. You can’t cry. You can’t let him know how close you are to breaking down. You can’t. 

You can’t reach out. 

You can’t take his hand. 

How desperately you want to. 

You nearly breathe a sigh of relief when the sliding door opens, Dr. Keller’s soft footsteps crossing the wood planks of the porch. 

“Ready to go inside now?” She asks, pressing the back of her hand against your cheek. You don’t say anything, don’t react, frozen in fear of everything coming tumbling out in front of Johnny. “You’re getting cold.” 

Johnny glances your way and you immediately turn to look at Dr. Keller, scared to look him in the face. That desperate hold you have on the gaping wound in your abdomen will open and your guts will come spilling out like some gory scene in a horror movie. 

Disembowelment thanks to your own weakness. 

Dr. Keller holds the crutch out for you as you push yourself to stand. Your legs are strong enough you could probably walk without it, but it’s still nice to have it in case you get tired. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

It’s the weakness from your liquid diet over the past week and a half. The weakness of being unable to eat solid foods, to properly nourish. You’ve lost weight, your clothes hanging from your body in a way they never did before. You’ve lost the softness that marks you as an omega, but it feels fitting. You don’t feel like an omega anymore. 

You don’t feel like anything anymore. 

You’re fighting your instincts out of pain and suffering and stubbornness. You keep taping your omega’s mouth shut despite how loudly she screams at you. You don’t want your instincts. You don’t want that need. Eventually it has to go away. Eventually it has to recede and your omega has to go back into her cage and sleep. Eventually you can numb yourself to it and force it away forever. 

That will certainly make things easier. 

But will it make things better? 

No. Probably not. 

It’ll make things worse. 

But if it allows you to keep your distance, allows you to avoid them, you’ll risk it. You’d take numbness over anything right now. 

How you miss those long days of depression while they were away. How you took those days for granted. 

Who knew those hours spent worrying about them and their distance and what might happen to them would be for nothing? 

What you wouldn’t give for all of them to disappear right now. 

How badly it would destroy you. 

“She’s at war with herself. That instinctual need is screaming at her, but that emotional pain is keeping her shut away. If anyone is going to get through to her, it will probably be you.” 

“I can’t do that.” 

“Can’t or won’t?” 

Simon clenches his jaw as he stares at Christine. As much as he wants to hate the doctor and her ability to see straight through him, he can’t deny how necessary her presence has been. She’s the only one you tolerate, the only one you’ll let close. Without her you’d probably be rotting in bed, stuck and unable to do anything out of stubbornness. You won’t let them close, yet you need them close. 

You’re going to rip yourself in half, metaphorically and possibly even literally. 

He shakes that mental image from his mind. The horrifying images his mind has conjured up over the last few days have his stomach churning. Even his tea no longer looks appetizing. 

He put milk in it this time. Almost how he likes it. Almost how he wants it. 

“Johnny’s the one actually trying.” Simon says, staring across at her. She doesn’t shy from his gaze, doesn't even flinch. “You should talk to him.” 

“While I agree, reintroducing a beta from the pack is the first step, eventually she’s going to need an alpha.” Christine says. 

“She needs her alpha.” He argues. 

“She doesn’t want her alpha.” Christine counters. “He’s going to be the last she lets close, but she’s going to need some kind of stability.” 

“I can’t give her that.” 

“Can’t or won’t?” 

Simon clenches his hand around his mug, his knuckles going white. She’s infuriating, yet he can’t be mad at her. Not completely. The good she’s doing for you, for the pack, far outweighs his annoyance with the doctor. She’s right. He knows it deep down, but he can’t. He can’t do that, he can’t put you through that. He’s already done enough. He did his part, he faced his fears, he saved your life. That’s enough for him. It’s up to John now. 

John has to do the work to fix it. He broke it, it’s no one else’s job to fix it. 

“Maybe both.” Simon finally says, pushing himself up to stand. “It’s not my job to fix this.” 

He leaves his mug behind as he stalks out of the kitchen, heading for the front door. He can’t stand being in the house any longer, cooped up with the same five people. Four people and a ghost. 

He shakes his head, jogging down the steps into the gravel. He should go for a jog. A long jog. He could jog to town and back. That will clear his head. 

That’s a long jog.

If something happens while he’s away, he won’t get back in time. It’ll be his fault because he took the time to do something selfish. He can picture it, coming back to find five bodies laying in pools of blood, dead because he wasn’t there to help, because he wasn’t there to fight. 

It’s a ridiculous thought. There’s three other highly trained soldiers in the house. If anyone tried anything, they wouldn’t make it past the door. He can see it now, Price’s alpha coming out in a rage because someone dared try to enter and hurt his vulnerable omega. He’d probably win in a fight ten to one if that happened, and he has Kyle and Johnny to back him up. Christine would take you and run the first chance she could. She wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Not again. 

Still, he can’t shake that fear. If he can’t sprint back, then it's too far. If it will leave the pack too vulnerable, he can’t. 

To the beach and back, then. 

She’s like an angel. 

The soft sunlight streaming through the clouds makes her glow. You wouldn’t be surprised if the sun was shining just for her, sending down a beam just to illuminate just how ethereal she is. 

The Garrick beauty is genetic. 

Kyle is beautiful in terms of a man. He shares the same ethereal glow as his sister, but Ashley? You don’t feel worthy of looking upon her. 

“Kyle never mentioned an omega, but then again, he never says much about his job.” She gives another dazzling smile, your heart rate picking up just slightly. “Can’t, I should say. You haven’t been with them long, huh.” 

“About nine months.” You say, your voice still a bit hoarse. It’s not quite healed yet. It might be that way forever. 

“Such a short amount of time to go through so much.” She says, giving you a soft, sympathetic look. You don’t know how much she knows, though it’s still fairly obvious you’ve been through hell. That you’re still going through hell. “Christine told me a bit about what happened. I don’t blame you one bit for being upset at them. I would have left them, but I know. In a perfect world, right?” 

You make a quiet sound. Indeed in a perfect world where omegas have rights and can make their own decisions and could leave and have support in doing so. You’d leave with Dr. Keller or even Ashley, even though you’ve only known her for ten minutes. She has the same magnetic energy as Kyle, so much so you don’t mind the way the scent blockers burn your nose. She probably smells like something warm and soft, something comforting. 

“So, tell me about yourself. What do you like to do?” She says, settling in the chair. It’s cool outside, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it one bit. 

You scramble for something, anything. What is it you like to do? What are your hobbies? You’re drawing a blank, your mind searching through its filing cabinets to find where you shoved all the things you like to do. 

“I like to read.” You finally say, remembering the stack of untouched books on the dresser across from the bed. 

“Oh? What do you like to read?” She asks. 

What do you like to read? What is a genre? What are books? 

“Oh, I read anything, as long as it’s interesting.” Is that the truth? You’re not quite sure. 

“I see, I see. Well, there’s quite the collection on those shelves inside. I’m a reader too. Read through those entire shelves over the years.” She grins at you. “We could do a little book club, if you’d like. Read some books and talk about them over some tea. We could get Christine in on it too. Have a little thing just for us girls.” 

You nod, staring at her in awe. This is the first time someone outside of your little circle has offered to do anything with you, for you. 

You want to do it. 

You want to spend time with someone who isn’t your pack, who isn’t Dr. Keller. 

“Okay.” You say, still staring at her in awe. 

“I could come over on the weekends, or we could do a call if you’re not up to seeing anyone.” She continues, and you’re not sure if she made this plan before she came, or if she’s coming up with it on the spot. Regardless, you're still impressed by her and her dedication to a complete stranger. 

“Would...would that be too much?” You ask, your brain starting to wake up again, the wires connecting once more. 

“Not at all.” She shakes her head. “I live and work in Exeter, so I’m not too terribly far away.” 

You’re not sure where Exeter is off the top of your head. Your mental map isn’t even sure how far away London is...or even where you are on a map of England. Are you even in England right now? 

“What do you do for work?” You ask, realizing you’ve been silent for an awkward amount of time. 

“I’m a finance lawyer.” She says. “Mum used to say ‘you love to argue so much, you should become a lawyer.’” She laughs. “So I did.” 

“You must make a lot of money.” You say. You don’t know how much lawyers make in England relative to the US. 

“I make enough to be comfortable.” She says. Enough to travel back and forth every weekend. “Seriously, though, if you need or want anything, let me know. I’m more than happy to come sit with you and give you a break from those stinky men.” 

You’re not quite sure what happens to your face. It contorts, muscles shaking off the dust and starting to move before you even realize it. Your lips are tilting upwards instead of downwards. Something is happening. Something that feels good, something that you’ve been missing. 

You’re smiling. 

You’re smiling. You haven’t smiled in a long time. Weeks. Not since the cameras. Not since your pack left. You haven’t felt like smiling in so long you’re certain you forgot how to. But yet, here you are, smiling at Ashley. It’s not a genuine smile, one that crinkles your eyes and shows joy, but it’s a smile. It almost hurts your face after so long. 

She’s funny too. 

Stinky men. 

They are that. 

Your smile falls as soon as the sliding glass door opens, your head whipping around to look. Ashley turns to look too, perhaps out of instinct at your sudden movement. 

You’re half expecting it to be one of the guys, maybe Kyle out to ruin the moment, but it’s only Dr. Keller. 

“How are things going?” She asks, stepping up beside you. 

“Good.” Ashley says. “We’re planning a book club.” 

“Oh?” Dr. Keller raises a brow, looking between you. “I think that would be fantastic.” 

“You’re welcome to join in if you’d like,” Ashley says, giving Dr. Keller a smile. 

You stare up at Dr. Keller, watching the way her lips turn up a smile, her eyes shining with...something. Her hands open and close, tugging at her pants almost nervously. Your brows raise as you look back up at her face. She almost looks...flustered. 

Oh. 

Another grin forms on your face as you stare between them, Ashley still smiling and Dr. Keller still looking a bit flustered. 

Oh. 

“You could join us if you want.” You say slowly, still looking up at Dr. Keller. 

She seems to snap out of her daze, her gaze darting down to you. She gives you a soft smile, back to her composed, professional self. “If that’s what you’d like.” 

You nod. Even though you see her constantly every day, you’re not tired of her existence yet. She’s the only one whose existence in the house doesn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out, the only one you want to talk to, to see, to have around. If you had the choice, you’d be here alone with her. 

That’s not possible. You know it’s not. 

“A thing for just us girls.” Ashley says. “On the weekends. No pressure whatsoever.” 

“I think that would be fantastic.” Dr. Keller says. “A nice little distraction.” 

“A nice break from those stinky men.” You say. 

Both Dr. Keller and Ashley erupt in laughter. 

Another smile tugs at your lips. 

You don’t want to be here. You can feel him staring at you from behind. He hasn’t moved since Dr. Keller left, still just standing there like he’s not sure he can approach you or not. You hope he doesn’t. You want him to. 

You don’t say anything, still staring out at the ocean, but you can see him reflected in the glass, obscuring your view of the horizon. Hatred burns inside of you as you have no choice but to stare at him, even when you’re trying not to. He’s like a ghost, always haunting you. He always will be. 

“I didn’t want to try to rush into this.” He finally says, knowing you’re not going to say anything. You won’t greet him, welcome him into your space. It already feels like an intrusion into your safety, him being here. 

Is this becoming a safe space? A nest? No, not that far. It’s becoming sacred to you, though, and having him in it without invitation feels wrong. It makes you uncomfortable. 

You hate it. 

“But I just wanted you to know that we’re all feeling the weight of what we did, I’m feeling the weight of what I decided to do. We all feel guilty for putting you through that, for forcing you to endure things you never should have.” 

He swallows thickly, falling silent for a moment. You almost feel like laughing at his attempt at an apology, another attempt at an apology. Why is he even bothering? He knows you won’t forgive him. He’s probably doing it for himself again, to make himself feel better. 

“I know it’s not an ideal situation, being forced in such a small space together, but we all wanted you to know that you’re the one setting the boundaries. If you don’t want us to be somewhere or do something, then you can tell us, or have Christine tell us. If you don’t want to see us at all, we can make our best attempts at that.” 

“That would be ideal.” You say, breaking the silence you’ve held for days. It’s the first time you’ve spoken to him since the hospital, since his first sad attempt at an apology. 

It shocks him to stillness and silence. 

The words hurt, burning your throat like acid as you stare at his reflection in the glass. You hate it, how pathetic he looks standing there. Where’s the big, tough alpha? Where’s the strong protector? Where’s the person that’s supposed to take care of you and care about you? 

He never existed. 

He left you behind. 

He never cared. 

Anger begins to bubble within you. 

“I’m sorry.” He says, his voice shaking. “I never meant for this to happen-”

“You think your sad attempts at apologies are going to work?” You hiss at him through your teeth. You push yourself to stand, turning to face him. “You left me. You fucking left me there knowing full well what was going to happen!” You’re shouting now. All the quiet movements on the other side of the wall in the main area stop. 

They’re all listening. 

It’s not like you’re giving them much of a choice not to. 

Fuck them.

“I know,” He says, his eyes wide as he stares at you. 

“Do you? Do you know?” Your voice is wavering, your throat starting to ache but you can’t stop. Not now. It’s all coming out and there’s no stopping it. “You. Left. Me. You willingly turned your back on me time and time again even when I was being tortured! You leaving was torture enough and you still chose me second. I’ve always been second. I’ve never mattered enough for you to even question anything!” 

You let out a sob, the sound cracking in your throat. It hurts, but it will always hurt. You’ll always carry this hurt with you, so you want him to hurt too. 

“I asked you once if you would ever leave for me. You said if things got dangerous, if my life were ever at risk because of you, you’d leave in a heartbeat.” The tears are falling, streaming down your face. “Was that a lie?” 

He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, staring at you. Does he even remember that conversation? 

“Was that a lie?” You shout, making him jump. 

His eyes drop to the floor, his scent souring. Good, you think. Let it hurt. 

“Answer me.” You say, pushing him to give some response to your question. You need to know. You need him to say it. 

“I didn’t intend for it to be.” He says quietly. 

“You didn’t intend for it to be.” You say, bitterness coating your tone. “What the fuck does that mean? You said you wouldn’t let me go even if the initiative failed. Was that a lie too? Was it all a lie to keep me happy and complacent? ‘The job always comes first,’ even when my life is in danger, right? The job always comes first over everything, even me. You lied to me.” You swallow the sob threatening to come up. “I want to hear you say it.” 

He stands there, tears brimming in his eyes. He hasn’t moved hardly a muscle, still frozen like a statue. 

“Say it!” You scream at him, your throat tearing around the words. You’re surprised you’re not tasting blood yet from how raw it feels. 

“I lied.” He says, swallowing thickly. “I lied to you and I couldn’t keep my promise. And I’m sorry-” 

“Don’t apologize.” You cut him off starting to pace as the anger burns hot in you. “Don’t you fucking apologize to me, you don’t deserve to apologize. You don’t deserve the chance at forgiveness. You’re a shitty alpha and you always have been!” 

You let out a sob, wiping at the tears streaming down your face. There’s a tear sliding down his cheek, and it brings you some sort of relief deep down. So he can feel things after all. 

“I don’t know what I expected, though.” You let out a sardonic laugh. “You military men are all the same. It’s always about the job and the image and the ‘greater good’ and making sacrifices, even if that means sacrificing your pack. You’re just like my dad. You never wanted an omega, you never wanted me. You cast me out and let me suffer when I needed you most.” 

The anger burns hot in you again, shooting through your veins until it’s choking you as you stare at him standing there pathetically. He thought he could apologize, he thought his groveling would mean anything to you. Fuck him. Fuck them all. 

“You left me.” You grit out, your hands starting to shake. “You left me! You abandoned me, you let me get hurt! You didn’t care, you never cared about me!” You storm over to him. “Fuck you!” You scream, hitting his chest. “I fucking hate you!” You shove him back, sending him stumbling. “Get out!” You shove him again, pushing him back towards the door. “Get out! I never want to see you again!” 

He stumbles back out of the door and you slam it in his face so hard it shakes on its hinges. You click the lock as you sob in pain, pain both physical and emotional. Your chest aches, a tearing feeling burning through it. 

The bond. 

You don’t care. You don’t give a fuck anymore. You hate him, you hate them all. 

The tears and sobs threaten to choke you but you don’t care. You don’t care anymore. You don’t care about anything anymore except the anger burning hot through you, making your hands shake. Your legs give out and you slide to the floor against the door, sliding until you’re laying down on your back on the hardwood. It’s cold against your skin but you don’t care. You can’t care anymore. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

John stares at the wood in shock. The slam of the door still echoes in his ears as he stands there, frozen. He knew the chance of a negative reaction was high, but something like that? Something to that magnitude? 

Your words cut into him like a knife, searing his skin and leaving blisters behind. 

Hands push him out of the way. He stumbles to the side, his brain still catching up to his body. 

“Sweetie, I need you to open the door.” 

The words are muffled from the ringing in his ears, the ringing of your screams as you cursed his very being. 

Liar. 

His legs are shaking as he turns, his body moving automatically towards the door. The other three members of his pack are frozen, watching him as he crosses the living room, as he wraps his fingers around the handle of the sliding glass door, as he pushes it open just wide enough to slip through. 

The thud of it closing feels like a seal being stamped. He’s cut himself off, fraying that bond forever. 

Your words still ring in his head as he stands in the middle of the porch numbly. 

Liar. 

He is a liar. He made a lot of promises that he couldn’t keep, promises that he broke because of his decisions. He should have made you feel comfortable enough to reveal those cameras right away. He should have gotten you off base as soon as you revealed them. He should have never trusted Shepherd, or even Kate in that moment. He should have fought harder, he should have sent you away from base as soon as he made that decision to leave. 

So many things he should have done differently. 

You can’t change the past. 

Liar. 

He left you when you needed him most. He proved time and time again that he’d always choose the job over you, no matter what he promised. You’re not a soldier. No matter how much he tried to prepare you, train you, you’d never be able to fight like them. 

Not without taking drastic measures. 

He saw the blood. He saw the bodies. He saw the proof of an omega pushed too far, an omega forced into its primordial state. 

You did it because they left you. 

You did it because you thought the abandoned you. 

Those words ring out the loudest in his mind. Above all the others those words linger, replaying over and over again. 

‘You let me be tortured.’

Christ. 

He runs a hand over his face, the realization shocking him as a cold chill settles under his skin. There’s a weight dropping in his stomach, threatening to sink him straight through the planks of the porch and into the ground below. 

You think they left you. 

He turns on his heel, shocked to find Simon standing behind him. He can’t read his face, hidden behind the mask that hasn’t come off since they arrived at the cottage. He doesn’t need to see his face to read the giant alpha. He’s known Simon long enough to be able to read him just based on his body language. 

He’s angry, frustrated. John half expects him to start yelling too, but that’s never been Simon’s style. He only gets loud when he needs to. Instead he’ll stew and glare and darken the room with his rage. The target of his anger will feel it and know, and that’s almost worse than if he’d express that anger through words. 

Despite the cold chill of Simon’s stare, John’s mind is reeling too much to care. It all makes sense now. Your distance, your turmoil, your own anger. 

“She thinks we left her.” The words come tumbling out before he can stop them. 

“We did.” Simon says, the words short and sharp. 

“No, no,” John shakes his head. “She thinks we left her with Graves.” 

Simon shifts on his feet, the planks of the porch creaking under his weight. 

“Of course Graves would fuck with her head, make her feel like she had been abandoned. It was never about following orders for him. He would have tortured her no matter what.” Anger burns hot in John, at himself, at Graves. Of course you’d assume the worst, of course you’d believe Graves because he was playing on your own doubts. 

They left you so easily at the barracks, of course they’d leave you to be tortured. 

“She’ll never believe you.” Simon says. The squaring of his shoulders has deflated a bit. 

“No, she won’t.” John shifts on his feet, staring straight at Simon. “But I’m not going to be the one to tell her.” 

Her hand presses against your forehead, wiping some of the sweat beading on your skin. Despite your shivers, you’re burning hot. A fever. You worked yourself up too much earlier in your outburst. She had been proud of you for finally releasing some of it and showing some emotion, but she knew the consequences of getting so worked up would be high. Your omega is still unstable, on top of still trying to physically recover. You hurt yourself doing that, even if it was necessary. 

She shushes you as you whine, fingers grasping at the blanket clumsily. She pulls it higher over you, your body shuddering underneath the pile already stacked on top of you. She’d put every blanket she could find over you, and yet you still shiver. Worry floods her again as she stares down at you, your eyes pinched closed. You must be aching, your show of anger taking its toll. 

It was necessary, but at what cost? 

If your temperature continues to spike, the risk of distress heightens. You can’t handle distress in your current state, which would mean your omega would come out, finally be freed again from the unprotected cage it's been pushed back into. If your omega comes out, that will require John to help, which may only drive you further into distress. 

She needs to try and stop this before the situation continues to deteriorate. 

But how? 

How can she move you past this without the help of your pack? She can’t give you the comfort you need. Medicine or any therapeutic methods can help solve the issue at its core. Sure she can try and lower your fever with medicine, but you need your pack. You need that comfort and stability that only they can offer. 

You need someone, and it can’t be her. 

If your omega comes back out, they might never be able to get it back in. It’ll be the end of you. All of your recovery, the fight you’ve put up against your body and your instincts and your mind will have been for nothing. 

You need someone. 

An idea begins to form in her head, her hand resting against your forehead. It’s hot under her hand, your skin burning. You might hate her later for this. It’s risky, but sometimes risks have to be taken in dire situations. Sometimes those risks pan out in the end. What will happen if it fails? The inevitable that’s going to happen if she doesn’t try. It’s a lose-lose situation, but if it works, it could be a win-win. 

She can’t help you, but maybe she has someone who can. 

She tucks the blankets around you, cocooning you in an attempt to keep you warm and still while she steps away. She won’t be gone long.  

She leaves your door cracked open just in case, even though she doubts you’ll be moving much while she’s away. 

Just in case. 

One can never be too careful. 

She heads up the stairs quietly, going slow to avoid startling any of them. She’s intruding on the safe space they’ve made in their solitude. It feels like invading sacred grounds, but it's a necessary invasion. Their omega is in danger. They’ll forgive her. 

The bathroom door is closed at the end of the short hallway, a light on inside. The lights are on in both rooms too, glowing beneath both doors, and she takes a gamble. Based on the heaviness of the footsteps above the kitchen she can guess the room on the right is the one Simon and Johnny are staying in. If she’s wrong, she’ll have some explaining to do before she’s ready, and she knows John will have his thoughts about this. Though, with what happened earlier, perhaps he’ll agree. You won’t see him, but maybe...just maybe... 

She lets out a deep breath before knocking firmly, waiting a breath before she calls out.  

“Johnny, I need your help.”

She just hopes you don’t hate her too much later. 

NEXT ->

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[yourabsolutemother]

At Sundown

Chapter 2 here

poly task force 141

A/N: I’m not good at narrative writing. Give me a book and I'll write a 12 page essay in two days on it. But narrative? I'm screwed. So a little constructive criticism is welcome. Also I’m using a translator app for their accents, I’m so sorry if they’re stupid hahahah

CW: Military inaccuracy, accent inaccuracy, possible lore inaccuracy, typical a/b/o sexism and classism, cursing, slightly suggestive, reader almost has a panic attack, crying, Price is upset and gets a little mean, Simon is just his mean self, slight mention of PTSD

Chapter overview: Reader has a stressful day at her job and her beta roommate does little to help. Price’s instincts are going haywire and the pack can’t figure out why.

=====

It’s the end of your shift, you work as a waitress at a bar and grill that is near your house. You mostly work during the rushes, when the small restaurant is packed with a line out the door. The restaurant you work at is open until 4 am all week, that's when they kick people out so they can clean up after a long day and get ready for the lunch rush. It’s not the best food around, but the bartender is good and it is a popular spot for business meetings. The place is dirty, but for some reason, the patrons don’t seem to care. If they don’t care, you don’t care. You’re just here to make money to survive.

They don’t exactly like you here, mostly because you are an omega. No one here really talks to you, except sometimes the beta host, but he didn't want people to think less of him by seeing him talking to the only omega in the building. You wish you could get a better paying job, but this was the only thing that paid above five dollars an hour in a 30 minute radius. This place didn’t even really want to hire you, but you begged them. It’s your last resort and you don't regret it one bit. It's hard to get over everyone saying things like. ‘No wonder this is the best job omegas can get. It's all they can handle’. No matter what you do or how hard you work, it's never good enough.

You bust your ass everyday that you work, which was most days, always kind and never showing up late. You have hardly used any of your sick days or vacation days. The only time you call out is when you’re in heat, and no one works when they’re in heat or in rut. But every time you have to call out for that reason, you’re always met with groans and stupid questions like ‘can’t you just put it off for another week?’ As if you could control something that naturally happens.

You know how to do every job in the building, other than cooking, and you have worked in all of the stations at one point in the time that you have worked here. You’re certain that you did every station correctly and efficiently, but you still can’t get them to pay you more for everything that you do. You don’t know what else there is for you to do to make them like you, even a little bit.

You can’t complain much, you have it pretty good. One of your omega friends was telling you one day about how his work wouldn't let him take time off of work for his heat. They made him go to a pharmacy and buy heat suppressants with his own money so that he could work. And then they threatened to fire him if he didn’t continue to take them while he worked for them. He has a very privileged job and makes a lot of money, even if it's only at a restaurant, so he was basically forced to continue taking them.

You thank scent blockers every single day of your life, not knowing how you could manage without them and their seemingly magic effects. Sometimes you had the occasional table with the people who wouldn’t wear scent blockers, wanting to flaunt their status. You hate it, it makes it hard to do your job. The omegas and betas don’t affect you, it mostly just annoys you because of the smell lingering around you and the table for the next few hours. It made people complain to you like there is anything that you can do about the smell. You can’t really use scent blocker on a scent that's already in the air. But what would you know, you’re just an omega afterall.

But, when alphas came in, it was a whole other story. Their scent was always so strong, leaving no room for question or confusion. Their scent would stick around you, the tables, their menus, and really anything they touched for the rest of the day. You can’t blame any of them though, scent blockers burn your nose which is why you never wear them.

It’s easy to tell when you are doing good and when you aren’t. The alphas scent would make your legs weak if they were pleased, if you weren't so scared of them. But if they were upset about something, it was like a punch right to the gut. You always step up your game when you smell their scent souring, acting purely out of a panic response, but sometimes it wasn’t in your hands and there was nothing you could do about it. That didn’t stop you from trying your best, nonetheless.

Right now, you are carrying a tray of hot food across the dining room, eyes not focusing on any of the tables just in case there was an alpha sitting at them. You hate having to look at alphas, only doing it when you have to, like when you are serving their table. Their gaze was always so intense, making your head swim as it tried to decipher why they were looking at you. You aren’t as good as most omegas at reading alphas, some say you’re too naive and will figure it out once an alpha forces you to figure it out. That’s exactly why you avoid them, if you aren’t around them, then you don’t have to worry about reading them and them getting upset because you can’t. If you ever ended up with an alpha, you promised yourself not to fall for one that would treat you as second class. You didn’t want an alpha that thinks an omega is only good if their instincts are good.

Making it to the table without too much trouble, the smell of two sour alphas enters your nose. You hold back an instinctual whine, nervousness filling your chest as you set their food down in front of them. “I’m very sorry for the wait, the kitchen is backed up.” You explain, smiling to try and relieve some of the tension. On the inside, you are panicking, playing out scenarios of what could happen in your head. You can only hope they are accepting of your situation. You waited with shaky hands and bated breath.

The alpha on your left waves his hand dismissively at you, his hand almost hitting your arm as a scowl formed on his face. That action alone is enough to make your heart drop in your chest. “That's enough, omega.” He practically spits, his tone filled with venom. Your mind raced with possibilities, it made you wonder what you had done wrong other than their food taking a bit longer than normal. Of course they blamed you. It always ended up being your fault.

The alpha on your right tosses their collective trash at you, somehow you manage to catch most of the unexpected projectiles with your shaking hands. You bent over quickly, picking up the trash on the floor and placing it on the tray in your hand. “This is why no one hires omegas anymore.” The alpha spoke to the other, speaking like you weren’t standing right there. “Especially if it's a woman.” The other response, a stupid cheeky grin on his face.

You stand up straight, forcing a smile. “Is there anything else I can get you two?” You ask, watching as they both silently pull their wallets out, shoving their cards into your hand. You place them on the tray, holding back the urge to sock both of them in the eye. “Give yourself a nice dollar tip, Hun.” One purrs, intentionally putting you down. You’re an omega at the end of the day after all. You smile and bow your head slightly as a silent departure, turning on your heel and weaving through the crowd back to the kitchen.

“Thanks so much, alpha.” You practically growl under your breath, your hands starting to shake more now that they couldn't see you. “I’ll be able to buy that gumball I've been eyeing all day.” you continue quietly, sarcasm dripping from your voice as the doors to the kitchen come into view. They always say it like they believe that one whole dollar is going to get you anything. 

When you first started, you thought they were being kind and maybe were just down on their luck with money. But then you started paying attention to how much their bill actually was, most of them wouldn't have a hard time tipping at least three dollars. Most of the alphas that came into the restaurant ate a lot of food, they were big, strong men that needed a lot of calories to keep their physique. Their totals usually came out very large, a tip of three dollars wouldn't even be close to twenty percent.

You sigh in relief once you get back inside the kitchen, ignoring the kitchen staff on the other side of the window as they basically screamed at each other. Going over to the computer to start closing out their tabs, you feel a presence behind you. You immediately recognize the smell of the owner, who is staring down at what you were doing with a critical eye. His arms are crossed over your chest as he pushes his scent out to intimidate you. It works and you are practically trembling by the time he walks away, finally leaving you alone.

You continue to mutter annoyedly once he was out of earshot, closing out their checks and not bothering to give yourself that tip. You’d rather not get one then accept money from those pricks. You put their receipt in the holders and make your way back to the two grumbling alphas, probably complaining about how long it was taking you.

You force a fake smile on your face, trying to keep your souring scent low as you place their receipt in front of them. “Come back soon.” You wish them well. They just ignore you as they throw more trash at you and sign their checks. They stand up and head towards the bar in the middle of the restaurant, making a last minute decision to get a drink before they leave. You shove their small trash into the pockets of your apron and leave the rest for the busboy.

You get back to the kitchen shortly after, doing a few tasks you have to do before you leave. You couldn’t stop thinking about those two alphas, of course they had to come in right at the end of your shift and ruin the rest of your night. You walk over to the coat rack and grab your coat and purse, putting them on before clocking out. You walk out the back door and go to your car, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible before the alphas change their minds. The others can deal with it, you’ll deal with the fallout next time you work if they end up needing something else from you. Just another day in this hellhole of a job.

The parking lot is cold and dark, the ground wet from a recent thunderstorm. You aren’t paying much attention as you start to cross the street, not noticing the car coming right for you until the driver slams on its horn and zips right by you. You gasp out and hold tightly onto your coat as you watch the car speed out of the parking lot. They’re probably drunk. You didn’t sleep well last night because your new neighbor was up all night pacing in their room. You kept hearing people coming in to check on him, talking with gruff voices that you could hear muffled through the wall. Although, you could hardly hear what they were saying. You didn’t want to intrude on their privacy.

You are glad that it happened though, because you now realize that you can’t be as loud as you once used to be while in your room. That house has always been empty since you moved in not long ago, but on one ever came by or even visited so you assumed that it was just vacant for some reason. That was until you saw four big military men moving in, you assume they’re on leave for an unknown amount of time. Your room is the furthest down the hall from the stairs, a bathroom next to you separating you from your roommates room and an office across that ensured your solitude. You were used to being able to be on the louder side, no one was close enough to hear it. But now, your neighbors are and you have to be careful

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The drive home is quiet, only the sound of your car that is hardly running because you don’t make enough money to pay rent, buy food, and do literally anything else. Someone had stolen your radio, which you find odd because what is someone going to do with a beat up old car radio? Omegas were used to belonging to an alpha that took care of those needs so they never really needed money. Most jobs that omegas had were just so they had somewhere to be while their alpha was at work. But you are working for yourself, sometimes your roommates help you out, but you hate having to ask them. Omegas that didn't have a pack truly were lost, most benefit from being part of one. This being said, you didn’t have enough money to buy a new radio, so you sat in silence.

You are too afraid of alphas to even consider being part of a pack, only if there was no alpha. Packs with no alphas were a rare sight, hardly ever making it work in the long run. Alphas are natural born leaders, even if they are unsure of themselves, it’s their instinct to always do what they think is best. Sometimes, what they thought was necessary was cruel. Which is why you avoid them, they’re unpredictable and much more powerful than you.

Due to your status, alphas are able to control omegas in a sense. If they use their tone just right, it scratches something in omegas brains that almost forces them to listen. It's instinctual, there's nothing you can really do to stop it. But, if an omega is too scared of the alpha, too fearful for their own life, they can ignore the instinct. The instinct to stay alive is much stronger. Though, alphas hardly use their commanding tone, funnily enough because it strains their voices to do it.

It sounds like the gears in your car are grinding together, the sound becoming obnoxious as you drive. It always takes your car an abnormal amount of time to get going and it chugs up hills, not being able to catch the necessary gear to make it easily up them. You have to let your foot off the gas most of the time for it to be able to change gears, even though your car is an automatic. You gave up a long time ago trying to make your car smell nice, it always smelled like burning oil, meaning there was a leak somewhere. Probably an expensive one, wish is why you haven’t done anything about it.

There is not much you can do about it right now, you brought it to a mechanic and they gave you a quote that was astronomically out of budget. It was also probably a bit higher than it would be if you had been an alpha or a beta. Mechanics always give omegas a hard time because they’re easy to take advantage of. One time, you went to the mechanic with your roommate, who is a beta, and they charged her fifteen dollars less than they charged you for an oil change.

You can see your house from the entrance of your neighborhood, relief filling you as you get closer to your safe place. But as you pull into your driveway, the now familiar smell of alpha fills your nose, coming from the house attached next to yours. It was a mix of tobacco, patchouli, vanilla and mahogany. It makes your skin form tiny goosebumps all over your arms and legs. An odd mix of smells that somehow all complimented each other. But despite your body’s initial reaction, you can't help but feel panic rise in your body. There were two and it smelled like one of them was not in a good mood at all. It had been like this for a few days, you coming home to smelling angry alpha.

It hasn’t gotten easier in the days following them showing up, you are constantly scared out of your mind that you are going to end up meeting these scary smelling alphas. You wonder why they are constantly upset, you know they had at least one beta since you are able to smell him through your shared wall some nights. It only makes you more jittery with the uncertainty that you feel. You can tell that your scent is souring.

As you sit there in your car, trying to get your things together while moving pretty frantically, something catches your eye while you’re taking the key out of the ignition. Your eyes widen and the back of your neck tingles slightly as you see someone inside their car who was also, assumingly, coming home from work and about to get out of the car.

You’re frozen in place and all you can think about is what could happen, all the things that could happen to an omega when faced with an angry alpha. You could hear the blood rushing in your ears as panic filled your body. All you could smell were the two alphas, it felt like it was flooding every inch of your nose. You felt like you’d never be able to forget their scents. You can’t tell if the person in the car is someone you need to look out for or not, but you don’t want to stay long to figure it out.

It is a tall man you can tell, you can’t tell their status yet and you aren’t about to go up to him and ask. Your vision isn’t the best and you don’t have your glasses on, plus having to look through two windows. Actually getting a good look at him felt impossible. It looks like he has a mohawk, in his mid to late twenties. He looks like a rough guy, a five o’clock shadow covering his face. His muscles stretch in his shirt because of the angle he's sitting at. He seems distracted by a laptop he has in the car. You can’t help but wonder why he has a computer in his car like that.

You panic, looking away to gather the rest of your stuff quickly, you book it inside. The slam of your car door probably immediately gave away your location, but you can’t care less about that now that you’re close to the house. You already have your key out when you get to the door, quickly slotting in the key and twisting to unlock it. You push open the door, your breath quick, hoping that the man didn’t see you. Closing the door behind you, you scurry to set your stuff down, wanting to get as far away from the smell of alpha as you can get.

A sigh escapes you as you reach the safety of your home, relishing in the familiar scent of your two roommates. You take a deep breath as you try to rid your nose of the lingering angry alpha scent. You lock the door behind you and hang up your coat and purse, which you had thrown your keys in, making your way towards the living room where you can hear the tv going. There, one of your roommates, and long time friend, Jasmine sits watching some show you don’t care about. Her long body is splayed out on the couch seat as her arms rested on the back, facing away from you as you enter the room.

Today is one of her days off, so she is just relaxing. From what she tells you, her job is very stressful. She says that she has to deal with angry alphas all day who are constantly on the edge of fighting. Something about being a mediator of some kind. It makes you wonder how many times you coming up to the table has stopped a fight from breaking out. Or how many times the alphas weren’t actually mad at you, but at each other. Fights broke out all the time at the restaurant you worked in, nobody ever did anything after they were broken up, which is why a lot of business meetings are held there.

“Welcome home, Hun.” She calls out, looking over her shoulder to see you walking towards her with a relieved look on your face. “How was work? Smells like it wasn't too good.” She asks, the following words referring to the lingering smell of angry alpha coming from your clothing. The tone of her voice is soft, like she's trying not to break you. Her head and eyes follow you as you make your way around the couch, hands immediately reaching out when she smells how stressed you are. The beta instincts inside her head tell her to help calm you down.

You let out a sigh and sit down next to her, leaning your head on her shoulder, leaning into her comfortable embrace. You can smell her calming cinnamon scent, reminding you of the cinnamon rolls your mom used to make when you were younger. “Why does everyone blame me for the issues that the kitchen causes?” You ask rhetorically in a whine, trying to relax in her reassuring hold. You just want to be able to relax in the betas presence after a stressful day at work. It was almost like a ritual at this point. You come home stressed, she works her magic, and you go on about your day feeling a bit better than before. Tonight seems to be the exception.

 A laugh comes from Jasmine, making you whine in embarrassment despite her hand comfortingly playing with your hair. “Stop laughing..” You mutter, playing with the strings coming off a tiny rip in your black pants, smelling her scent getting stronger as she continues to try and calm you down “I’m sorry, puppy.” She says through lingering giggles, pushing her knee against yours to try and lighten the mood. “It's just that complaining about your waitressing job is such an omega thing to complain about.” She continues to laugh, her head falling back slightly and her hand in your hair stilling, making you pout. Her words felt like she only thought of you as an omega, not seeing the person below the status. Her scent does nothing to help your stressed mind, no matter how hard she tries to project it.

You stand up and let out a frustrated sigh, Jasmine's hold falling from you. Her eyebrows furrow slightly and you have to look away so you don’t feel bad for standing your ground. Jasmine was the only person you are comfortable enough with to do it. “You’re being mean,” You mumble, walking away to your room which resides upstairs. Jasmine turns her head to look over her shoulder at you as you walk away. “Aw, come on. You know I didn’t mean it like that.” She calls out, not receiving a response back to you. She lets out a slight groan, making a mental note to make it up to you later as she turns her attention back to her show.

Once you get upstairs, you walk down the hall towards your room while tears gather in your eyes. You just feel so stressed out and everything is so overwhelming, you just want to curl up in your bed. Just wanting to forget about how worthless you felt in a world that doesn’t appreciate omegas for the treasure that they are. You hope that you can keep your emotions under control until you are in your room.

You pass by Jasmine's room first which was obviously empty, then you pass your other roommates room. Their door was closed, you don’t bother asking them for help, they just moved in and you barely know them. You open your door and quietly shut it behind you, toeing your shoes off as you start to sniffle. You let out a few whimpers and shuffle your shoes with your foot off to the side and out of the way, starting to let the tears fall down your puffy cheeks.

You keep your crying down to whimpers and sniffles, occasionally letting out a sad whine. You remember hearing your neighbor last night, you don’t want them to hear you crying. Your room starts to really smell like sour oranges, like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. You took your shirt, pants, and shoes off, shuffling to bed and curling under the covers as you cry your stress away. Eventually your breathing evens out and you are reduced to sniffles as you slowly fall asleep. To be fair, you were still feeling the emotional side effects of your heat which ended three days ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Johnny sits in his car after having to go into a weekly training session, the superiors demanding they stay in peak physical condition even while they are on leave.  Their superiors make them alternate weeks doing it together and doing it alone. They say they want to make sure they can still handle themselves when they aren’t together. Dysfunctional packs aren’t welcome in their field of work, always being forcibly split even if they had been together before joining.

He’s filling out his activity sheet that they have to email to Price every week, so that he could send it to their superiors, when your sweet orange scent fills Johnny’s nose. He’d been smelling you since they arrived, through the wall of his bedroom unluckily. He thanks the gods that he isn’t an alpha and can control himself better. Your scent would have driven him crazy by now if he wasn’t a beta. There was a tinge to your scent, smelling like oranges that had been left in the car for too long. He glances over at you, seeing you quickly getting out of your car with a panicked look on your face. He watches as you slam your car door and book it inside, he can practically see the trail of dust that follows in your wake from how quickly you moved. He wonders why you were so stressed out.

He wishes he could have seen more of you, only being able to see a glimpse of your face before your hair fell in the way. You looked so small and fragile as you scurried away, Johnny felt his body tense at the sight of an omega in distress. He wishes for nothing more than to wrap his thick arms around you and wash his scent over you as you relax in his hold. But by the looks of how you ran away like that, it isn’t really an option. He wonders what's got you so worked up. His brain immediately went to the worst possible scenarios. The thought of you having an abusive alpha crosses his mind, making his chest tighten.

He knows that there are no alphas in the house attached to his, at least he’s never smelled one. He knew there was you, the omega, and there were two betas. He assumes you three are a growing pack since it was originally just the one beta and how there are two new additions. The three of you being roommates never crossed his mind, almost like his brain was keeping him from getting attached to you. He couldn’t have you if you already had a pack.

He wastes no time sending the sheet to John and gathering his things so he can head inside, he has little to no patience waiting for what's his. He eagerly gets out of the car and goes inside, he's excited to see his pack after a long training day. He pushes open the door and the first person he sees is Kyle, who is in the kitchen cooking up dinner.

He goes up behind the slightly shorter beta and wraps his arms around his torso, shoving his face into Kyle’s neck to breathe his coconut scent in deeply. It always made his mouth water, having to swallow a few times so he doesn't drool. Makes him crave a pina colada. Johnny feels his muscles relax as he watches Kyle cook, his chin and nose pressing against the crook of his neck. He starts to sway slightly, relishing in the feeling of his bonded beta being close. “Mised ye..” Johnny mumbled against Kyle’s skin. Kyle responded by leaning his head against Johnny’s.

A deep growl comes from the entrance of the kitchen, making the hair on the back of  both of the betas' necks stand up. “No’ going to gree’ your alpha?” A gruff voice grumbles from the archway. Johnny smiles and turns to see Simon, standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. Simon is big on respect for alphas, though he isn’t too strict about it and is never mean about it. There is a dark glimmer in Simon's eyes as Johnny lets go of Kyle, Johnny placing a gentle kiss to the side of his head to soothe the whine that slips from Kyle’s throat. Simon tilts his head up and sniffs the air, only being able to smell coconut, this makes him growl lowly again.

Johnny practically bounds over to Simon, squeezing him tight in a bear hug despite how angry he looks.. “O course ah'm gaun tae, LT.” He holds back laughter at the older alpha's recent possessiveness. He purrs as Simon's arms wrap around him, similarly to how he had just done Kyle. “Ya smell like scen’ blocker.” Simon states bluntly as he buries his nose in Johnny’s mohawk, trying to catch a whiff of the freshly cut grass he is used to smelling. “Shower, now.” Simon orders, his tone holding authority as he pushes Johnny away gently by his shoulders. Simon may be rough and it seems like he isn't happy, but the pack has learned that it's just the way he loves. Johnny doesn't waste any time getting upstairs and to his bathroom, passing by John’s office.

“Pup.” A frustrated sounding alpha calls from inside, making Johnny turn on his heel to peak his head into Price’s office. “Whit’s botherin ye, alpha?” The scot asks, knowing exactly what the pack leader needed. Comfort from his beta. Price looked exhausted, dark bags under his eyes and cigar buds all over his desk. There was so much smoke in the air that his office was hazy, and it reeked of tobacco. His gaze lifts from the paperwork and meets Johnny’s, his eyes are fiery. It isn’t often that Price is in this kind of mood, but when he was it was for good reason.

Price’s nose cringes as the smell of scent blocker enters his nose instead of cut grass. The scent blocker mixes with the Patchouli and strong tobacco scent, making Price growl loudly. “Go shower firs’.” He grumbles, turning his attention back to the mound of paperwork on his desk. “Aye.” Johnny responds before slipping away. He could feel the frustration radiating from Price's office, leaving feeling a little bit worried for the alpha.

Johnny snickers slightly at his two alphas, finding it funny how much they hate smelling scent blockers inside their home. He hurries to his bathroom, now that he has orders from both of his alphas, stripping his clothes off so he can get in the shower. He knows better than to keep Price waiting when he obviously needs a betas touch.

His shower was quick, years of military training taught him to do so easily. He steps out of the shower and wraps one towel around his waist while he uses another to dry his hair. He leaves the bathroom to be met with the smell of sour oranges, almost causing him to double over when his instincts kick in. He lets out a strained groan and sits on his bed, holding onto his knees as he tries to calm himself. He can tell your crying, the smell of your stress seeping through the wall. Your scent was so strong, there was no reason he should be able to smell it as well as he can. His chest tightens knowing that there was nothing that he can do to help you, he wonders why your pack wasn’t doing anything to help you.

There is a sharp knock at his door and the scent of pine enters in nose. It’s Simon. Johnny knows that if Simon comes in here and smells an omega in distress, things won't go very well. Especially when that omega smells so close to his beta. “hold on noo, big fella. I haenae even had the chance tae put on ma clothes.” He calls out, having to hold back the panicked twinge in his voice. He stands up quickly and throws on the closest clean clothes that he could reach, the colors completely miss-matched.

“Hurry up.” He could hear Simon bark from the other side of the door, sounding like he is pressed right against the door and very frustrated. It bothers Simon when members of his pack don’t allow him access to their space, but he knows they deserve to be alone sometimes so he never pushes. Only sometimes when he’s being extra possessive and needy. Simon just needs to know what's happened to feel secure, to know that everything is okay and he has everything under control. But today he seems very pushy about it compared to other days.

Johnny goes over to the door and slips out quickly, not wanting to open the door wide enough that your scent would hit Simon too hard. He looks slightly up at Simon while holding, afraid of his reaction. A million things can happen in the next few seconds. Simon’s eyes darken slightly, his muscles tensing under the tight shirt he has on. “Ya still smell like omega.” Simon grumbles, pulling Johnny closer to sniff him. A slight growl left Simon's lips, his nose cringing at the unfamiliar smell and sour twinge to it.

Johnny fills with anxiety, hoping that Simon doesn’t realize that the smell is coming from his room. Or even worse, thinks that he’s hiding an omega from them all. His scent shifts from smelling fresh to smelling like it rained right after the grass got cut and it got all muddy and weird smelling. A low grumble emanates from Simon’s chest. “Relax, beta.” He almost snaps, his eyes shooting daggers into Johnny’s. “If you needed me to scen’ ya to finish up the cleaning, all ya had to do was ask.” He grumbles, his rough voice sounding softer now as he grabs Johnny’s wrists. All Simon thought of the situation was that Johnny trained near an omega and still smelled like them.

Simon rubs Johnny’s wrists against the scent glands on either side of his neck, his eyes sharp underneath the balaclava as he stares at Johnny. He always felt like Simon was staring into his soul, like he could read his mind. Simon takes his time, making sure by the end of this that Johnny would reek of him. His vanilla and mahogany scent covering his beta, just the way he likes it. He drops his wrists and leans into Johnny, doing his best to rub his scent into his neck and the side of his face. “Mine.” He growls lowly in Johnny’s ear, his hands moving to hold his hips. Simon pulls him closer, pulling him into his chest. “Can’ have ya smelling like a needy omega.” He grumbles.

Simon was weird about omegas. To Johnny, it seems like Simon thinks they’re too much work, not worth the trouble. But it’s not the case in reality, he just can’t see the benefits of having any one new in their already seemingly perfect pack. The truth is, alphas benefit greatly from having an omega to take care of. If you set expectations of your pack dynamic, like that there will be long periods of time that the omega will be without their pack, omegas aren't too much to handle. Alphas need to treat omegas with care for them to be happy and healthy, and Simon is not the most caring person. Johnny thinks that he’s scared and won't admit it, to them or himself.

Johnny rolls his eyes at Simon, which earns him a sharp smack to the back of his upper thigh. “Don’ be getting feisty now, Price needs to see ya.” Simon reminds the smaller beta, finally letting him go so he can take care of the pack alpha. Johnny can't help but notice the way Simon’s eyes watch him longingly, wishing he was able to command Johnny to stay with him.  Johnny can immediately sense this, shooting a smile to Simon. “Dinnae go thinking I forgo’ aboot ye, Si. A’ll come see ye whan A’m duin.” Johnny reassures the moody alpha, his hands resting comfortingly on his forearms before he slips away.

When Johnny got to Price’s office, Kyle was already coming out. He reeked of an alpha in distress. Johnny was immediately filled with dread. If Kyle couldn’t do it, neither can he. Kyle has always been better about this kind of stuff and now they were replying on Johnny to fix it. “Whit’s gotten intae him? Ye couldn’t help?” The scot asked, worry bubbling underneath his eyes. Kyle looked just as worried as Johnny was, scratching at his nose to help rid of the stench that Price was giving off. “I don’ know, he won’ calm down.” Kyle breathes, his eyes softening as he quietly closes the door so he can speak to Johnny a bit more privately. “He’s no’ righ’ in the head space righ’ now, I think there's something wrong with his alpha. Bu’ ya know how old military men are, he’s denying there's anything wrong..” Kyle speaks in a hushed whisper, not wanting Price to hear them talking about him.

Kyle's words don’t help to calm him down, it makes his head fill with endless possibilities of what could be wrong with Price. Kyle senses the stress on his fellow beta, his bonded beta, and pulls him closer. His hand runs though the hair at the base of his mohawk. “You’re gonna do jus’ fine, Johnny..” Kyle reassures him, projecting his calming coconut scent over the stressed beta. Johnny doesn’t know how Kyle is able to do it so well, but he is immediately calm. He takes a deep breath of the coconut and nods softly. “Aye, ye’re right..” He sighs out softly, filling the tension leaving his body.

Johnny pulls away from Kyle's hold and faces the door to Price’s office. He feels Kyles hand on his lower back as he takes a deep breath and reaches for the handle. He pushes open the door and slips inside, being hit quickly by the musky smell of tobacco stinking up the room. It’s hazy in the small space, cigar wrappers littering the ground. The smell of tobacco is so strong, from the cigars and from Price, that it makes Johnny want to cough.

“Alpha..” Johnny speaks softly, walking over to Price who was hunched over his desk. Johnny’s hands brush over his back and grip his shoulders. “youre puttin tui much stress on yersel, sir. war supposit tae be on partial lea.” He reminds the frustrated alpha, starting to roughly massage Price's shoulders. “This doesn't luik lik partial lea tae me.” He points out, letting his scent wash over the frustrated alpha

Price straightens out and lets his shoulders relax so that Johnny could get to his tense muscles better. “Somethings no’ right, pup.” He grumbles, his hand gripping the pen tightly in his large hand. It looked like he was about to break the plastic in half. Johnny imagines how it would set Price off to be covered in ink, so he gently takes it from his hand.

This causes Price to growl softly, a small warning. “Give i’ back, now.” He grumbled, his shoulders growing tense even under Johnny's magical hands. “nae can do, cap’. You're gonna break it.” The scot whispers gently in Price’s ear. “Are ye hungry?” He asks, pressing his front to Price's back as best he can with Price sitting in a chair as he changes the subject. “A smellit Kyle's cuikin whan A cam in.  A think he made soup.” He persuades, leaning down to place small kisses to the side of Price’s head.

Price doesn't say anything as he stands up and makes his way to the door of his office, roughly grabbing the doorknob and swinging the door open. Johnny is surprised by the sudden movement, not expecting it to be so easy to convince him to leave his cave. His hands fall from Price and he stumbles back a bit, being forced to make room for Price’s movements. The smell of his frustration fills the hallway as he stomps down the stairs, Johnny following close behind. A growl erupts from the living room as Prive passes by, coming from Simon in response to the intrusive scent. “Fucks up with you?” Simon asks, his bright blue eyes glaring at Price sharply. Simon tends to struggle when Price’s scent is as strong as it is, which makes it hard for him to remember they’re on the same team, on the field and as a pack.

Price glares back at Simon, huffing a little bit as Simon gets on his already agitated nerves. His fists clench at his sides, having to focus on not lashing out for no good reason. “Watch it, Ghost.” He almost growls, he tone commanding like he was on the field. Simon backs off when he hears his call sign, knowing not to press anymore. Sometimes, they struggle with their shared pack. There is a long silence as the two alphas stare at each other, both aware of the fine line they are walking

Price is the pack alpha, calling all the shots and making all the decisions for the wellbeing of the pack. Simon is an alpha of the pack, but does not have any proper authority as to what happens. The only thing Simon can do to have any say is to talk it out with Price, who always listens but can’t always promise Simon will get what he wants. While their relationship felt fragile, they still worked around it and found their own ways to be vulnerable around each other.

Johnny and Kyle look at each other, a similar look of worry. They aren’t used to feeling so unsure of everything, their alphas feeling so unsure of everything. All they can do is project their scent out to try and cover Price's burnt tobacco. “The food is already on the table.” Kyle broke the uncomfortable silence. “Your favorite, Alpha.” He continues, holding onto Price's arm as he guides him to the dining room.

They eat dinner in tense silence, Price’s eyes watching all of them as he eats, his gaze protective and observant. Simon meets his eyes everytime Price looks at him, realizing something together. Something is missing from their pack, they just can’t seem to put their fingers on it.