Work Text:
Omegas dread the courting rite.
For them, the acts of brutal violence are too much to handle. Alphas drugged into their first pre-ruts are pitted against one another, every feral instinct forcibly pushed to the forefront until they are nothing but mindless beasts clawing at each other's throats, ripping through flesh to expose rabid hearts pounding with the pheromones coursing through their blood. Consumed with the hunger to kill and court and mate and fuck.
The first pre-rut is enough to break the mind of any alpha. But when paired with the creeping scent of virgin Omega slick, even the most self-controlled alphas have their humanity ripped from them, just like the glands they'll rip from rival alphas.
And unmated omegas who've turned of age are forced to watch, preened up into their ceremonial garb, picked and prodded at until they're as alluring as a fresh slab of meat, the pureness of their untainted bodies left exposed for all to see. All just to be brutally courted and bloodily claimed by those same alphas at the hest of the congregation's betas.
The courting rites are for their entertainment at the end of the day, lounging and betting as they drink the finest of honey mead to their hearts content, laughing with wide mouths as alphas and omegas parade their true nature, debased to their most intrinsic animal qualities.
“Nothing more than beasts,” they'll pitter from the rows of stone seating, “true feral things, they are.”
Ghost has no need to disagree with them, not when he so dearly loves his lot in life, his designation. Those feral, animalistic qualities naive betas speak of are a source of pride and power; both of which they all laughably lack.
And as for the other omegas in the village, the only thing more meek than their fragile little bodies are their stomachs.
Ghost couldn’t be more different from his brethren and sistren.
He basks in the violence, in the carnage, in the purity of their most basic instincts. Bloodshed calls to him, as a form of art, as a display of one's true dominance, more so than anything else ever could.
Bloodshed is love incarnate. His omega coos at it, pleading for warm fascia to caress his skin and kiss at his scent glands, desperate to sink his needle-pointed fangs and claws into sticky flesh until they pierce bone, craving the intimacy of holding a still beating heart in his hands as an alpha painted with gore kneels at his feet.
He would then groom his newly claimed mate of those disgraced alphas' blood with his tongue as his alpha took him, clamping his large fangs into Ghost's nape, tearing through flesh until he could rip out his mating gland with one misplaced twitch of his jaw. His alpha would pin him to the ground, fucking him open until his cervix was bruised with the intensity of their bond. And Ghost would bite his alpha back, claim him as his just as he did, gift him with the nerve-searing drug of a fresh bond until his alpha went crazed with rut.
If only an alpha deserving of Ghost's omega had presented in the rites. Year after year, no one has yet to prove themselves as capable enough to mate him.
That's not to say there hasn't been courting attempts. A rare few have tried, but there's not much that feeds his omega more than rejecting the courting efforts of an unfit alpha, a shiver racing up his spine as their pre-rut addled faces twist in dejection.
His refusal to accept a mate doesn't go unchecked—the betas see any unmated alpha or omega who has presented as a wildcard worthy of their highest contempt. But no punishment by a beta's hands could ever compare to the disgraced hell of letting some posturing, self-serving, snivelling, feeble-minded alpha claim him.
Not that Ghost truly minds participating in the rite. It's a season to look forwards if anything, an opportunity for him to fall into his sex designation, release the fine control on his instincts so they can unfurl their cramped spines and scour freely.
And if he must endure the touch of the beta servants unlucky enough to be assigned as his handlers for the rite so be it. It's not as if they're worthy of Ghost's attention. They’re barely threatening enough for him to even notice their presence.
Ghost is collected from his house for the commencement of the purifications on the morning of the courting rite before the first teases of sunlight even crest the tree line. Two beta servants, one stout little male and the other a lithe, older female, lead him to the sacred spring in the east-most part of the village.
As they pass the humble, limestone-masoned sister temple designated for omegas built along the rocky shore of the spring, they make quick, clinical work of stripping Ghost of his clothes. They place his chiton into a small fire set into a small depression in the soft dirt. As flames catch on the wool, one of the betas, the female, shoulders open the large oak doors roughly stained with lampblack, and disappears into the temple. She returns a moment later with a small clay vessel of tallow.
There's a handful of other omegas already down at the spring and more will only continue to arrive as the sun rises. Most of them are newly presented this season, as they tend to be. Only a slim handful of his brethren and sistren will be comprised of familiar faces.
With a finite number of alphas and roughly half of any season lost to the fangs of the others, not all freshly presented omegas are courted. A few attend two rites, three at most, but the other omegas wouldn't dare refuse a courting, too scared of any consequences that may come of it and too petrified of the bloodied alphas covered with gore that has yet to dry, who press into their space and shove gushing hearts to their lips.
Ghost is by far the oldest omega still unmated in the village. Then again, he's the only one with a fucking spine.
The water parts around his shins like specks of dust in the early morning light as he steps down the mossy rocks into the spring. Its warmth envelops him as he slowly wades farther into the water, the two betas following not far behind. Once the rocky springbed turns to soft silt under his toes, the male beta stops him with a clammy palm around his bicep.
The female circles him until she's standing before him, her expression a stiff and unwavering mask as she raises her outstretched fingers to Ghost's forehead. She stretches up onto her toes to accommodate for Ghost's towering height.
When she presses her fingers down against his head, Ghost lowers into the water without fuss until he's fully submerged. He greets the endless still that meets him and the budding heat that spreads through his chest. The silk touch of the water is a balm to the relaxed skin of his eyelids, and the slight, ever moving presence of the current dances between his outstretched fingers, the spring welcoming him back into her embrace once again.
Just as his lungs begin to burn for air, the fingertips on his forehead go lax.
His long curls cling to his forehead, water dripping into his lashes and caressing over his lips, as he's lifted from the water. The air that meets him is cool compared to the muscle-deep heat of the spring, and gooseflesh breaks out over his skin.
The female swipes two fingers through the vessel of tallow then passes it to the male, who does the same. Their hands find the planes of his body. The female starts at his chest, the male at his back, and they spread the tallow over his skin with flat palms. As it touches his spring-warmed skin, it begins to soften, allowing its reach to expand as the betas knead it into his pores.
The tallow they use for the purifications is unscented, its only aroma the faint buttery smell of animal fat. It's effective in washing the unwanted scents lingering on an omega's skin, to cleanse them into a pure slate ripe for the claiming pheromones of an alpha.
A lush lather builds on his skin as the betas rub over the bulk of his freckled shoulders, then down the length of his arms.
The male grabs onto Ghost's wrist and his stubby fingers land uncaringly on the nub of his scent gland. His lips pull back, revealing gums the colour of fresh meat and fangs as sharp as hawthorn.
The head of every omega whips towards the sound of the bestial hiss that tears its way from deep in Ghost's throat. The beta drops his hand as quickly as he grabbed it, eyes shooting wide in alarm. The female is not so timid.
"Animals, the lot of you," she scoffs, as she takes the male's place, taking care to grip higher up on his forearm, and bullies his arm up into the air. She makes quick work of scrubbing the tallow beneath his arm and down along his ribcage, then repeats for the other side. "Feral is the only thing your kind knows—especially you, unmated omega."
Ghost can't be bothered with either of their outbursts, opting to keep the unimpressed set of his lips and to stare down his nose at them with the full intensity of his piercing glare.
The male takes one last skittish glance towards Ghost, then towards the female, before ultimately rejoining her at Ghost's flank.
Ghost takes great pride in they way their movements turn wary after his correction—and the female can pretend she's unaffected by such animalistic behaviours, but try as she might she can't hide the slight shake of her hands as she cleans him. And he down right preens when their faces both blanch cloth-white when all that's left to wash is his cunt.
Once they're satisfied with the state of his body, the betas walk him back out of the spring, up the path, and into the sister temple.
Ghost is led to one of the many daises that litter the coarse stone floor of the purifications hall. As he steps up onto the small, raised platform, the male leaves his side to scurry to the grand altar at the head of the hall. There, beneath a intricate, iron thurible wrapped with gold torcs, which hangs low from the ceiling and burns a thick herb smoke that crawls along the surface of the altar, is the ceremonial garb.
Ropes of the purest sheep's wool, braided by the finest craftsmen in the congregation and left to bleach in the sun on a dew soaked peat bog until they're the purest of whites lie in coils on the altar. Veils of the most silken tulle that spill to the ground in gentle, flowing waves of dabbled stream foam, framed with delicate lace lie folded besides them.
The male collects a length of rope and a set of fabric into his arms, then returns to Ghost's dais.
Placing the fabric onto a small side table, the male takes the rope and stands in front of Ghost, the beta's head reaching just above his navel from the added height of the dais. The female steps behind him.
They start with the longest coil, the male passing the free ends to the female then back around to create a loop around his waist. They continue this exchange of hands, pulling the ends through the loop, then between his legs.
The coarseness of the rope presses into the jut of his clit, the sensitive skin dragging along the texture as the betas pull and tuck the ends back up into the circle at his waist. As good as if may feel, he'll never honour these beta fucks with the gift that is his rumbling purr of arousal.
Separating the two ropes, they begin wrapping each one around his thigh, then into the section that runs between his legs. When they pull tight the rope parts, creating a frame for both his cunt and down the crease of his ass. For Ghost's right leg, they make two loops high up on his thigh, careful to avoid the scent gland on the inside of his leg. For his left, they create those same loops down the whole of his leg before tying it off around the meat of his heel.
From his knees, the male grabs a much shorter segment of rope and wraps a sandal-like design around his foot and up his ankle on his bare leg.
Standing once again, the male begins a circle with a new length of rope just below his chest. Tying off in the back, the female brings the ends up to his neck, beginning the collar that will encircle twice low on his nape and once above, leaving his unclaimed mating gland exposed, the proof of his purity emphasised by a frame of virgin white rope.
Once fastened in place, they start an intricate design down his sternum, with two final pieces pulled taut across his breasts, the soft fat billowing past the finely twisted twine. They tie two loose hoops that fall to hang along his shoulders.
One length of rope gets tied in circles around his right arm, much the same as his left leg, and one last length of rope is braided around his left hand.
As the female fastens off the rope around his wrist, she sneers with a curled lip at the ash tattoos lining the inside of his bicep and forearm, and the spiked piercings through each of his nipples and his navel, yet she refrains from any other reactions, apparently having learned Ghost won't offer them any satisfying reactions.
Both tattoos and piercings are inherently alpha traditions, given among alpha pack mates as a bonding behaviour and to signal their strength and virility. Omega bodies are to be kept pure, a fertile field uncultivated, land of virgin soil left untouched for the whims of their alpha mate. Much the same can be said about the scars littering his body, keloids and burns and pockmarks all interrupting his fair skin. What would be worn with pride on an alpha is talked about in hushed tones behind raised hands and sideways glances for an omega.
And yet if anyone is deserving of an emblem of vigour it is Ghost.
As he shifts minutely on the balls of his feet, he lets his corded body ripple in the rising sunlight, flexing the muscled fat layered thick on his body, much more than even most alphas possess. He revels in the way the female slinks in on herself in his presence, even if it is quickly hidden behind a clearing of her throat as she stands to retrieve the four pieces of sheer fabric, the last additions of the ceremonial garb.
Lined with delicate lace, sewn by even more delicate hands, and intermixed with faint, swirling designs of petalled flowers, the silk tulle is ethereal in its beauty.
It spills to the ground like silk waterfalls shimmering in the light as the betas hoist the fabric up around his legs. It catches not halfway up his thighs, the waistband straining around the bulk of his quads. A teasing smile tickles at Ghost's lips as they're forced to slowly bully it up his thighs, then spreads into a sneer dripping with satisfaction when its even more of a laboured process up the curve of his arse.
Once secure at the highest point of his waist, just below his sternum, the soft fabric hugs down the curves of his hips and the length of his legs. A slit starting at the top of his thigh parts around his leg before caressing the stone floor of the dais.
Two of the other pieces of fabric are slid over his arms, billowing at openings around his biceps and forearms, then fastened in the rope at his back.
The last is the veil, donned with the same lace and fabric. The male pushes the comb hidden among the lace into his hair so it lays atop his head. It cascades down around his face in lazy waves, framing the jut of his cheekbones and draping across his shoulders and arms until it too just kisses the floor.
He breathes deeply, letting his chest expand into the bite of the rope and the gentle embrace of the fabric, tenses his thighs and arms to feel the tight cling of the rope there as well, presses his hips forwards, chasing the feeling of coarse rope as it digs into the junction of his hip and hugs tight around the fat of his cunt. He sighs into the feeling of it, letting his mind float as his body heartily welcomes the ceremonial garb back to its rightful place.
Ghost loves the dress. He truly does.
The way the rope will cut into his muscled-fat as he sits atop the viewing platform designated for omegas, watching with outright disgust as the poor excuses for alphas tussle among each other like pups, killing each other in a desperate attempt to woo him. How the wide set of his hips, the soft bulk of his thighs, the plush curves of his chest, and the dark red, glistening folds of his imposing cunt all are proudly on display, his pale skin bulging from between white rope tied taut around his body and veiled beneath the most elegant white lace and silk tulle, while the pitiful alphas fighting below bruise and bleed, growls of shallow pride twisting into yips of anguish.
He feels all-powerful while draped in the beauty of the ceremonial garb. It suits him. It suits his omega.
Now fully adorned, the beta male returns to the altar. Directly underneath the thurible is a granite mortar and pestle engraved with crude, braided patterns of dog rose. Inside it lies the prepared paste used to trigger an omega's pre-heat. With his fingers, the beta scoops out a small palmful of the dull scarlet paste and transfers it to a small clay vessel much like the one used for the tallow. With the paste in hand, the male walks back past the other omegas perched on their own daises.
Ghost's mouth eagerly parts before the male can even raise his hand. The beta gathers the paste and lifts his fingers to Ghost's lips where his yawning tongue meets him. Fingers pressing as far back as they're able, the beta spreads the paste onto the deepest part of Ghost's tongue.
A spark of bright juniper, the tartness of unripe rose, and the warm spice of caraway fills his mouth and curls around the backs of his fangs. It almost tingles in the sensitive flesh of his maw as its taste invades his senses. He swallows readily, and those sparks spread down the length of his throat before settling like burning embers in his stomach.
He purrs heartily into the feeling, a sound of pure ecstasy compared to the stilted whimpers echoing throughout the hall from the other omegas.
Weak—the whole lot of them.
The effects are almost instantaneous. A buzz like the flap of a damselfly's wings settles beneath his skin, leaving him hypersensitive to the smallest of rustling of lace and silk, to each and every fibre of the rope wrapped tight around his body. The exposed mating gland on his nape starts into a steady pulse, heated blood pounding beneath the thin skin surrounding it. The glands on the insides of his wrist, in the divots of his cheeks, on the inside of his thighs, and on the flat ridge of his collarbone fair much the same.
His fangs itch with a torrent of unchecked need, to sink deep into the fresh flesh of an alpha's heart, to award his fit mate with his bite, with his claim, his bond. To feed his alpha with his arousal until they're drunk on the scent of Ghost's pheromones and the virgin taste of his slick and the untamed animal of their new bond.
His nerves flare with a subtle yet bone-deep arousal, heat dripping down the vertebrae of his spine and pooling in between his thighs. A stickiness gathers in the folds of his cunt, not enough to run down the inside of his legs but enough to send a shiver through his body every time his hips shift or the sheer fabric at his loin grazes the thick mess of unruly, pale hair lining his pubic.
Outside of the brutal displays of violence, the influence of the paste and his pre-heat might be his favourite part of the courting rite. He thoroughly enjoys the way the drug curls like fire in his veins, draping his consciousness in a haze of heightened sensations and unfettered instincts. The way his raw meat and unripe blackcurrant scent flares into a wild beast, a tangible weight on his tongue as thick oil seeps from his throbbing glands and pools in his pores.
It makes him feel feral, a dominant, omega force to be reckoned with, even more so than he normally is.
The betas ruin the intoxicated high Ghost sunk into when their hands find his body.
A rumble of a growl builds in his throat, not to correct but to warn. He knows this is part of the purifications and he is willing to behave, so as long as they keep it short and sweet.
With a reassuring hesitation, their fingers find one of his scent glands. They massage into the raised mound of flesh, firm fingers coaxing more of his pheromones from his glands so his cleansed skin is pungent with his unclaimed scent. It serves to rile the alphas up, more so than they already will be with the paste and their pre-ruts coursing through their systems. It’s an extra measure to ensure the most rabid of courting rites—to get the alphas drunk on the smell of virgin omegas preened for their taking, if only they have the strength to survive and successfully court.
The betas' fingertips continue to trace the nubs of his glands until oil trickles like blood down their fingers. They spread the excess liquid into his skin, then repeat with the remainder of his glands until they're all red and puffy, the potent, unyielding dominion of Ghost's scent dripping from their swollen flesh.
Once Ghost's scent fills the air with fresh flesh and berries still tinged green, the betas wash their hands with the tallow, then wipe them on a stray cloth. Their faces pinch when they realise they still smell strongly of an omega falling into heat.
By now, mid-day light streams in through the glassed-slits lining the limestone walls of the hall, signalling the end of the purifications and the beginning of the rite.
"Here's to hoping your prickly arse finally gets courted," the female derides as she fiddles with the last finishing touches. "Lest we'll have to meet again."
Ghost doesn't bother looking towards the female as his lifts his chin. "Plenty of ways to ensure we'll never meet again," he threatens over his shoulder as he makes his leave towards the large temple doors even as the betas are yet to finish their preening.
Both of them squawk at the gall of his sudden departure, yet all they can do is rush to keep pace with his powerful, graceful strides.
Soap could do without the courting rite.
Ever since he was old enough to learn about the traditions he'd been born into, the courting rite was the thing he'd been looking towards the least.
But after being kicked from his pack as a pup for having been born an alpha to a family of betas—gifted a ragged scar on the jut of his chin on the way out as a parting goodbye from his traditionalist mother—and taken in by two mated alphas, Soap convinced himself he'd somehow be spared from the rite.
While the two alphas, Price and Nik, weren't outright ostracized for their choice in mates, they were definitely… encouraged to the farthest corner of the village. It was easy enough to assume their own lots in life had been the reason they so easily took Soap in; why else would they have opened their den to a chaotic spitfire with a temper as big as his bite, and the muss of hair to match.
It didn't take long under their care for Soap to realise they would have done it regardless.
As an unmated alpha strictly prohibited from interacting with any of the unmated omegas and given a wide berth from most of the congregation for his chosen pack, Price and Nik were all Soap had. The two alphas had given him a den, a pack, love and unconditional support, even though they were both young males themselves at the time. That meant more to him than any prissy omega mate or any other pair bond ever could.
They'd also gifted him the highest of honours. Many nights were spent huddled around the small fire in their den, Price and Nik’s steady hands pressing ash ink into his skin. Soap's right forearm is now adorned with a boar's head, crowned in a bundle of thistle and heather. It announces to all the character of his will, and that finally he has a pack to call his own.
And when an alpha from a different village, Gaz, had showed up injured and bruised as Soap had been, Price and Nik had taken him in as well. The whole lot of them took to each other like fire and kindle, Soap and Gaz forming the type of close-knit, brotherly bond that only comes with similar life experiences, and a whole season hadn't even passed before Gaz made enough of an impression on the two older alphas to be joined into their pair bond.
So Soap couldn't really find it in himself to give a fuck about the rite.
He is rather vehemently against it, as a matter of fact.
He avoided the druid's eye for long enough after he presented and was put on their suppressants, able to slip into the dredges of the congregation's attention until he'd practically been forgotten, hidden behind the apparent absurdness of three mated alphas. But all that's good can only last so long.
His pack stated loud and clear they'd accept any decision Soap made, even if that meant leaving the congregation behind to avoid being forced into taking a mate—or die at the hands of another alpha during the rite, though they all knew the chances of that happening.
There hadn't been a moment to breath before the three of them said they'd follow Soap if that were the case, and despite his incessant bickering that if he were thrown out of the congregation there would be no reason for them to leave their life of comfort behind, there positions on the matter hadn't budged. Price had even lashed out at the mere mention of it, lips curled up to his gums as he snarled about the audacity Soap fucking had to imply they'd leave a member of their pack behind.
Looking back at it, Soap shouldn't have been surprised at their reactions.
But he can't imagine being the reason his pack is forced from the house they'd long made into a den. Gaz had already experienced the harsh realities of what living between villages brought, and Soap would prance about for the whims of the betas until his fucking feet bleed if it meant Gaz didn't have to leave his life of safety behind—or the rest of them, for that matter.
He had to posture right back when he finally told them he was doing the rite, his fangs exposed and his subharmonics ripping through his throat in response to his pack's outrage as they tried to convince him otherwise.
They'd do anything for him—but it's the highest of insults to insinuate that Soap wouldn't do the same, if not more. If it means he can stay with his pack, the choice is easy.
And that doesn't mean he has to actually court anybody.
He'd be happy enough delaying for the rest of his life, letting himself be used as the betas’ entertainment fodder year after year, displaying an act pitiful enough that no self-respecting omega would ever accept his courting. It just means that he has to try.
And maybe have a little fun while doing it.
Don't get him wrong, he loves a good fuck—he's certainly charismatic enough to have bedded a fair share of betas despite their self-imposed opinions and the congregation's tight grasp on intermingling—and he loves a good kill. And even he can admit he's coming to enjoy the feral bite of the paste they fed him this morning and the tightness of the rope wrapped in a simple harness around his hips and chest.
But not if it's all for the bond of some weak-willed, frail-bodied, cloyingly sweet-scented omega.
So, from how the day has gone so far, stripped and poked and prodded by beta hands that didn't deserve to touch him—that weren't calloused enough to boast of any true ability—he could definitely do without the courting rite.
As he's herded to the rite through thick forests by the two betas who'd had their hands all up his arse this morning, and surrounded as he is by the raging scents of pre-rutting alphas and the lingering omega pheromones the betas rubbed on their glands, a pounding headache flares to life behind his eyelids.
While not much of his control has been stripped from him, he's affected enough by the pre-rut drug that it has his lips drawing back and a quiet yet patently disgruntled growl reverberating in the cage of his teeth where he'd otherwise suffer in silence.
The two betas at his side cower at the sound despite their attempts to stay neutral—a reoccurring theme for the day so far.
A small break in the dense trees forms up ahead. Oaks older than the congregation itself open like the jaws of a wolf and split the forest in two, forming a wide clearing. Encircled by looming silcrete rocks near three times his size and dug deep into the ground, bordered by two separate viewing areas made of the same limestone as all the buildings in the village, and cast in the sprawling shadows of long, spindly limbed trees, the grounds long ordained for the courting rites cast a rather enigmatic presence.
The raucous baying of the other half-crazed alphas only grows as they enter the clearing, the potent scent of omegas in heat suddenly overwhelming as their raging pheromones curl like sharp claws, cutting along the breeze and pawing like desperate, needy mutts at the scent glands of any alpha close enough to smell them.
It all just lands like overripe sugar cane that stings like poisoned air against the length of Soap's fangs and gathers like sickly sweet, rotten peaches congealed under his tongue. Soap's nose pinches in disgust. He can't be bothered to even look at the sources of those pheromones as he's corralled to the centre of the ring, white clover and crabgrass scratching at his ankles.
He's stopped before a stone platform resembling an altar carved deep into the land. The alphas are placed shoulder to shoulder in a circle around the stone by the two betas that flank each of their heels. Each one writhes like a beast in chains, their hackles raised, their pupils blown black and dilated, a rush of yips growling from aching teeth.
Soap is placed with his back to where the omegas sit—all doled up and dressed as dripping, untouched fruit ripe for the taking—instead facing the rows of stepped-seating littered with betas, proceeded by the lavishly erected viewing area designated for the druids.
The head druid stands, his long, dark red robes crafted of such heavy fabric they settle at the ground like the large stones spread out around him, unmoving in the wind.
He begins to preach, his voice large as it echoes off the encircling of oaks, and yet Soap can't hear a word over the feral barking of the alphas and the stench of spoiled molasses flooding the air.
The druid's hand rises, his fist clenched before his face. He speaks one last resounding benediction before his hand comes arching back down in a flourish of crimson, finishing with a fist pressing at his core as if stabbing into his own heart.
Chaos erupts.
Ghost has heard the druid's speech enough to recite it by heart, so instead of listening to his grating, nasally preaching he casts his attention to the feral prattling of the unruly mutts centred around the raised stone in the middle of the ring.
So it's a pleasant surprise when the largest of the alphas, a pale skinned male with dark, buzzed hair, lunges for the throat of the alpha to his immediate left, a sickening crunch cutting through the air as his fangs sink past the hardened, ribbed armour of the alpha's windpipe and into his spine. Before the large alpha's blunted claws can crudely tear through the cage of his ribs and to his heart, a female much smaller than the large male and yet clearly more deadly grabs his arms, takes his legs out from under him, and pins him to the ground with ruthless efficiency.
The beautiful havoc around the grappling male and female is much the same, blood splatter coating the glistening skin of sweat-soaked alphas and flooding the ground until even Ghost's sense of smell cannot tell the hot iron of spilled life from rutting pheromones.
The omegas sitting to either side of Ghost whimper at the bloodshed, many staring with fear-wide eyes, their faces twisted into masks of horror, frozen in the face of pure carnage. Others even curl in on themselves, desperate to hide from the acts performed to win claim to their bonds.
Ghost's gaze drifts, if only because the scene before him is rather a bore, the capabilities of the alphas much the same as every year—disappointingly tame compared to the brutality he himself is capable of, to the violence of an alpha actually worthy of mating him.
Every piled scuffle breaking out across the field is simple in its mindless brawling, like blind boars attacking at the first crunch of a branch, tusks and hooves poised low as they charge without thought. None of it is targeted, as all true violence should be, devised and precise, imbued with a curdling bloodlust that sheds from the skin like wafts of smoke. Methodical, so every blow snaps bone like brittle twigs and bruises tissue and muscle, and every nerve is alight until screams run red.
Chaotic, only in the unrelenting conquest for bloodshed, in the untainted desire to feel a life wink out beneath your fingertips, but never in the act of violence itself.
He can hear the nauseated voices of the beta handlers standing behind each omega, disgusted by the ghastly sights before them, their tones stained green with condescension.
If only they knew what true violence entails. What the omegas whining from their delicate throats and adorned in their sheer fabrics have the capacity to do if only they had the hunger for violence. What the alphas fighting like young, naive pups could do if only they had the will power. If only they knew the capacity for inflicting pain held in the hands of someone who was born with an affinity for brutality.
As Ghost eyes lazily scan the rite playing out before him, he notices a break in the violence.
Somehow, amidst the disappointing displays, he missed… this one.
An alpha, a hand shorter compared to most of the others but larger than all in presence, ruddy tan skin slicked in the midday sun with a fine layer of sweat, a coarse coating of hair the colour of fresh dirt darkening his skin and his jaw. A proud warhawk that's even darker lines the length of his head, the curled ends tickling at the nape of his exposed neck. Thick arms hang loosely at his muscled sides and legs larger than most skulls poised with an overwhelm of latent strength stand firm from where they’re planted in the tall grass.
The dark ceremonial attire he adorns, a simple harness looped just below his clavicle and once over each bulky shoulder and wrapped twice just below the dip of his ribcage, and another harness at his hips, rope tight around his wide waist and right bulging around his thick thighs, submits easily to the commands of his body, a primordial grace evident with every step he takes as he defends against yet another alpha out for his throat.
And jutting from between his thighs is his cock, slightly firmed from the effects of the paste and the adrenaline of violence, yet relatively soft compared to the others. Even then, it hangs low under its weight, its tip flushed a beautiful, deep red reaching past the loop of rope wrapped around his leg and hugging against his thigh. Its length is dark like the hair growing in a unruly mess at its root, and his balls hang low and heavy, round and fat with his evident virility.
The alpha is large, his cock much longer than one Ghost has ever seen despite him still being soft. It's impressive enough as is without taking in its most impressive aspect; his sheer girth. The width of his flared head sets a burning desire coursing through Ghost's cunt, a desperation seeding within him to be stretched to breaking around this alpha's thick cock.
But it's not just this alpha's body that has Ghost's legs rubbing against one another, anything to try and disperse the arousal itching at his cunt.
The way he moves around the ring reminds Ghost of fire, teasing in its beauty, drawing you into its delicate clutches, blinding with its breathtaking smile as if there isn't a beast capable of complete destruction hidden within. This alpha is toying with the others, Ghost realises, as he stalks between the bloody heaps of thrashing claws and snapping teeth, getting just close enough to promise a kill in their favour before he dances away like a flame in the wind.
Our alpha's having a time of himself, Ghost's omega purrs in his head. He admonishes the brash, audacious claim, but even he can't pretend it has any true conviction behind it.
When the alpha wanders too close to a female, whose fangs are lodged in the chest of a male, talons digging through flesh to try and reach his heart as he squirms uselessly below her, her head snaps towards him, the scent of fresh prey and the untainted omega pheromones thick in the wind clouding her judgement.
She scrambles to her feet, knees bent in a predatory stance, lips pulled back to reveal a sharp hiss, fingers sprawled in crude curves, and lurches at him.
Her bare feet barely land in the wild grass after her first bounding step before the male—his male—brings her colliding with the ground with two quick, precise movements. Sprawled on her back, she looks up towards the sky, mind clearly dazed with the force of her landing, before a different alpha is on her.
The tan skinned alpha goes to make his leave, features laced with annoyed tedium at how easy it seems to be for him to toy with his alpha brethren and sistren.
Except when his head rises, their eyes meet.
Across the grassy expanse of the clearing, the bright blue of an untamed river locks onto eyes of burnt barley.
It feels like everything within Ghost lurches forward, his heart, his stomach, the nape of his neck, the flesh of his mating gland, his sticky cunt, pulled on a rope like the ones tied tight around him towards the alpha. He suddenly feels incomplete, halved like a corpse with only half its organs.
The omega beast within, while always lazily lounging in the back of his mind, solely content with the qualities of its human, bashes against the cage of his ribs, driven absolutely mad by the need to run to this alpha, to lie down and roll over into submission, show its belly, bare its neck, expose its cunt, all in supplication to the male that stands before him, sun-kissed like the gods themselves have preached the quality of his virility.
It takes Ghost a moment to realise the sound around him is his own purring, deep and husky, born from the raging fire flooding beneath his skin and the rush of slick sticking to his thighs, refined by the pounding flesh of his mating gland as that fire rises along the back of his throat.
Blue the colour of engorged veins burns ablaze. The alpha's nose flares wide and his ears twitch towards Ghost's direction. His mouth parts, robust fangs dropping from his maw, shrouded in the clouded heat of his breath.
His claws part into the flesh of another alpha Ghost hadn't even noticed approach like a leaf through water. With one graceful, savage pull, he tears out the alpha's spine, tissue dripping off bone like dew from a petal, viscera spilling from the empty crater now spanning the length of the alpha's back like thick honey from a plush hive.
The omega next to Ghost heaves, chest hunching over their thighs. A gasped sob spasms in their lungs before they vomit onto the stone at their feet.
Ghost shivers, sparks of pleasure ravaging up his spine, his fangs drawing blood from where they're piercing into the plump flesh of his bottom lip with the need to claim, his cunt clenching as it begs to draw its alpha into its tight heat.
A worthy alpha.
After all this time, after all these courting rites, there is an alpha worthy of Ghost's omega.
He can smell his omega—his mate—and the way his scent bursts forth, clawing its way to Soap, scrambling over the too-ripe smells of the other omegas and heaving in a mad dash over the death, carnage, and mangled bodies spilled across the field. It fights its way to him like a savage beast, leaving no trace of life behind as it swallows its victims whole.
Raw meat, fresh and still bleeding, twitching as the final morsels of life drain from its muscle and fat. Unripe blackcurrant, the berries yet to darken, still stained a bright, blood red, and sweet, but only in the way it still bears its virgin smell, tangy and bitter, strong and pure. It rushes over him like a torrent of crashing whitecaps, engulfing his body in a violent claiming, piercing its grip into his skin like the fangs of an adder, injecting its presence as venom through the hollow slits of its teeth directly into Soap's bloodstream.
As he stares into eyes consumed by the pitch black of night, he finds himself lilting forwards like a wilting plant desperate to chase sunlight, poised on the tips of his toes, his alpha barking at him to go to their omega, to court and claim and mate. He staggers toward him, unable to help himself, flooded by the molten need pooling in his gut, in his cock, in the tips of his fangs.
Its suddenly not enough, the spine he's ripped from this rival alpha, the heart he's currently cracking open ribs to find. One heart is not enough for an omega like that.
Devoured by a frenzy of tangible need, he lunges towards the next closest alpha. Beneath the strength of Soap's jaws, the male falls easily, necked snapped and trachea shattered like the fragile bone of a bird's wing.
He's long lost to the grasp of pre-rut that all he sees is dark wine eyes, all he smells is the lure of fresh meat and blackcurrant, all he hears is deep purring and his own resounding chuff.
He can't comprehend anything outside of the beckoning voice in his head ordering him to court his omega as he rampages across the field in a flurry of feral efficiency, ripping the hearts from alphas with one snap of his maw. He can't hear the commotion, the omegas' frightened screams or the undistinguished gasps of the betas. How the druids shout that they cannot interfere in the courting rite even as Soap hunts every last alpha with savage hunger and deadly precision.
What would they even be able to do to stop him in the face of such single-minded, predatory focus. They'd be nothing more than gnats fluttering uselessly around the eye of a beast as it stalks its prey through thick forest.
Every kill he makes only feeds the fire that flares inside him, has the smell of his omega's approval growing until he swears he can feel it. Feel how Soap's fangs will sink into supple flesh, how his omega's cunt will fit so warm and snug around him, stretched open on Soap's knot as his omega feeds himself fat from the hearts of every useless alpha naive enough to try and court him.
Soap only knows he's killed every last alpha when the chaos ceases around him, the forest draped in an unnatural silence, almost loud in the way it permeates the clearing.
The most gorgeous, hard-set, darkened eyes he's ever seen hold him in their ensnaring grasp as he gathers spasming hearts still delirious enough with past life to beat desperately for fresh blood into his arms. He stands tall in the centre of the clearing atop the raised knoll, tan skin dripping with gore.
Every step he takes towards his omega isn't fast enough, yet he's weighted down by some invisible hand, an instinct deep in his hindbrain coaxing his back straight, forcing his gate even and powerful and steady, his chin tilted down and to the side, exposing the length of his neck in deserved submission.
Soap stops before the stone altar, before his omega, honouring the truth that he has yet to be accepted. He sinks to the ground, crouched low onto one knee until the wild grass grazes the length of his throbbing cock, and lifts his offerings.
Senses wholly dialled on his omega as they are, Soap knows he stands even as he keeps his head lowered, gaze set firm on the ground in respect. Three stately steps ring out like thunder strikes in the silence of the clearing. Soap can't help the way his cock shudders at the growing proximity.
His omega stops at the edge of the altar and the ring is cast in stillness once again.
It's like he's being eaten alive, the way his omega looks down at him in judgement, those dark eyes roving over the gifts splayed aloft in his arms, the back of his nape and the exposed flesh of his two mating glands, perched on either side of his cowl muscle. He assesses all Soap has to offer, the violence he displayed and the quality of his body, even as Soap can smell the way his omega's arousal pulses thick in the air, the raw meat and blackcurrant enough to make the fresh hearts in his grip seem like long dried bone.
As the moment stretches, Soap's arms don't dare shake despite the weight from the hearts pressing down on him. He doesn't dare lift his head, or sniff the air, or let out the wanton howl that presses at the constraints of his throat. He doesn't dare press his hips forward despite the need to claim as it becomes deafening in the ragged beat of his pulse. He doesn't so much as clench his fucking arsehole with the way he displays himself, frozen in complete supplication.
His alpha rages within his chest and yet Soap kneels, and will continue to do so for as long as his omega deems necessary to evaluate the extent of his courting.
Because it is for that exact reason why this omega is to be his. To evaluate strength in the way his omega does speaks of a strength within himself. The way he watched, fully absorbed, in the violence Soap wrought. How he tilted forward in his seat, muscles straining as if needing to join his mate in the depths of the fray, itching to kill just as his alpha did with feral claws and poisoned-tipped fangs, capable of a brutality far beyond that of the other alphas.
His omega is picky. He knows his worth and will only submit himself to an alpha boasting just as much strength. He is not like the other omegas; the feeble, shrill little things, too weak-willed to stomach the beauty of death.
His omega lives it, just as much as Soap.
His flayed-raw skin feels even the most minute of shifts in the air as his omega bends towards him.
A calloused fingertip skims Soap's thumb as his omega reaches for a heart. Soap fights tooth and nail against the full body shudder that threatens to gnaw at the base of his spine.
A soft squelch tickles at the shell of his ears. A bubble of blood bursts with a wet pop, followed by an almost silent hiss of released air and the constricting sound of a thick swallow.
Then, a pleased hum rumbles to life, the sound like the most euphoric of touches as it teases against the curve of Soap's ear, against the proud length of his cock. The hum turns into a hymn of purring, hoarse and rough like the growl of a wolf as it praises the way the meat of its fresh kill melts on the heat of its tongue.
A glob of bloodied tissue falls to the stone visible in the edge of Soap's lowered gaze. As the wet splatter rings out, inaudible if the clearing wasn't still draped in an all consuming silence and yet, as it stands now, as loud as thick raindrops cleaving open dark clouds, Soap knows his courting gift has been accepted—that he's been accepted.
He can feel it, even if it hasn't been spoken. The fighting storm within him settles, raging winds and frenzied seas stilled. His alpha smiles, broad and toothy, glee glinting red from white fangs like spit-thinned blood. The judgement boring down on him melts into something wholly… heated, a feral need, finally matching the way his omega's body calls out to him with his arousal.
Until a hiss, all dripping venom and promising of death, tears from his omega's throat.
It all happens in a rush, Soap's realisation that somehow someone approached them unnoticed, and a flurry of movement disturbs the air before Soap's taken another breath.
The chaos in the clearing fades back into existence. Bodies move around him, all haggard and hostile, and yet he doesn't move from his spot knelt before his omega. There is no threat that his omega cannot handle; Soap knows this to be true.
The words of the druid reach Soap's ears for the first time today.
"—a disgrace, you vile animal! To the tradition, to the springs and to the beat bogs, to the ground that has blessed us betas with the gift of rationality and transcendence—" It's all said in a mumbled rush, panicked breaths coming fast, before the sickly sweet crunch of bone and cartilage puts it to an end.
Curdling screams ring out in the clearing.
A gurgle rasps from the druid, the life draining from him evident in the tortured noise. Then, his omega finally speaks to him.
"Rip out its heart for me, alpha, and I will accept."
The affects of the paste can't hold a candle to the way his omega's voice, and the promise of their mating, burns through him. His voice is raspy, his brogue strong, and his tone blunt, nothing like the other omegas whose shrill voices grate on Soap's ears. It's a sound Soap's already become addicted to, reliant on just as he is the air or the sun or the rivers.
A voice he knows will sound perfect while split open on his cock, all knot drunk and fucked-out. A voice he knows will send Soap to his knees anytime he's told—will do anything his omega asks without so much as a thought. It's a voice Soap will fuck to tears, will finger him open and eat him out and worship his body until his low rasp is breathy and hoarse, scratchy moans spilling unbidden, choked gasps pitching his voice into a desperate, screaming thing.
Soap lifts his head.
His omega stands before him, lording over Soap like a virgin god of death, all flowing lace and tight rope stained pink with blood, fields of pale skin as white as snow and as untainted as the wild lands to the north, touched only by the loving fingers of blood and gore. Freckles dust his cheeks and shoulders like flayed mica, and moles dot across his body like specks of upturned dirt. Fresh blood drips down his chin, smeared across his cheeks like rouge, congealing in the dip of his full lips and the nick bisecting them. Scars paint his body in swaths of iridescent silver, and hair the colour of freckled sunlight falls in light curls across his forehead. He's right gleaming in the midday sun.
He's large—bloody fucking large—casting the whole of Soap's brawny body in shadow, and he's tall, taller than any omega he has ever seen and most alphas he knows. But it's his muscled form that's truly impressive, a bulk of such corded muscle teaming with raw power and predatory lethality, all layered with thick fat that caresses his hips and thighs and breasts like the most devoted of lovers. His omega's legs stand rooted to the ground, their girth like the old oak trees near his childhood home, with wide hips perfect for bearing young, and a supple chest with plump nipples eager to nurse hungry lips. Soap can see his scent glands, ruddy and swollen, a glean of his omega's potent pheromones pearling at their slits, just about begging for the soothing touch of a mate.
Those eyes, that guided Soap to his omega from across the clearing, are even more breath-taking up close. Framed by thick eyelashes as bright as gold, irises the colour of pools of dried blood, long shed from an unwilling body and long stained a deep hickory, lure him into their unyielding grasp. All they do is blink lazily, slow and unbothered like a basking cat, pupils full and round, and Soap obeys their command, falling headfirst into their depths.
And the druid, neck all open and raw muscle, tissue furling in on itself like dried leaves, is cradled between his omega's legs, head held back against his muscled thigh by pointed claws as white as bone. The druid is looking up, eyes blank as life gurgles from him like a shallow stream, as if praying one last time to the sacred spring for repentance. Soap fawns at the way his omega so easily rendered this male so close to death, toeing the line between living and dead.
His omega's other hand still holds Soap's gift, the heart mangled to shreds of stripped crabgrass, blood dripping from his fingers and down his forearm like the juice of blackcurrants.
Soap stands on steady feet, his eyes never wavering from those of his omega. He prowls to the edge of the raised stone platform and lifts himself effortlessly. Once he can feel his omega's subtle breath tickle at his cheeks he sinks to his knees once again with a quiet chuff.
His palms find the sides of the druid's body, his touch soft and tender as if Soap was holding his omega instead. He leans in towards the male's chest while his lips draw back to reveal the girth of his fangs, holding his omega's gaze all the while. His omega releases the druid's hair and runs his hand down his chest until his fingers splay above the druid's heart. The tips of his claws catch on thick robes and with one easy glide of nails through fabric the robes fall away like dead leaves, exposing the vulnerable skin underneath. Before his omega twists his fingers back into the druid's hair, he plays with the open flesh at the beta's throat and skips the tips of his talons up the hard ridges of his windpipe.
The muscle of the druid's chest twitches pathetically as Soap's teeth sink into his skin. He eats through the beta's flesh as if he was fucking his omega with his tongue, carving out space for himself before he curls the tip of the pink muscle around the most sensitive, untouched spots within. The brown eyes boring into his shiver as Soap's fangs wrap around the druid's heart.
Soap's lips wrap around a cut valve like the nub of a clit. He takes the heart into his maw and its slow beats convulse along the walls of his mouth like a cunt as it comes down from an euphoric release
Soap draws back, the heart tucked in the safe embrace of his mouth, and lifts it towards his omega.
A calloused hand lands on his stubbled jaw. It feels as if Soap comes right then and there at the first touch of his omega's skin on his. A scarred thumb, its fingerprint rough and scratchy, strokes to the corner of his mouth. His omega's nail presses into the heart until blood bursts from it in a torrent of red.
Iron floods Soap's mouth, inhales his senses, and then lips that smell more like fresh flesh than the heart itself are a breath away from his, opening wide to pierce needle-pointed fangs into the organ. His omega clamps his jaws, and more of that fresh, fruit wine blood splatters onto Soap's face.
They're so close now, separated by only the width of a heart valve, the small hairs on the tip of Soap's nose brushing against those on the tip of his omega's. Soap wants to press forward, needs to close the distance, and yet he waits.
His omega tears his mouthful of flesh from the heart and unfurls his spine until he's back to his full height. His hand lowers to press his thumb and fingers into either side of Soap's neck, his wide, rough palm flat again the column of his throat.
"Swallow," his omega says. It's a plea said in the thick mask of an order—to accept his own courting gift, an act uncustomary for an omega and an insult to most alphas whose fragile pride can only see it as a threat to their authority instead of for the mutual act it is.
Soap gladly obeys.
As the organ glides down the length of Soap's throat, his omega's palm tightens around his neck just enough to feel the fluttering of the heart and it's last desperate attempts to cling to life. The raw meat settles in Soap's stomach. He chuffs, loud and blissful, beyond thankful for the gift his omega offered him.
Following the path of the heart, two of his omega's fingers land at the seal of Soap's lips. Soap opens easily, and his omega pushes into the wet heat of his mouth and presses down on his tongue until his jaw hinges open. The soft, twitching muscle of his tongue billows around the length of his omega's fingers from the force of his grip.
His omega stares down his gullet, dark eyes heavy lidded. His gaze traces the fleshy corners of Soap's mouth, curls along each of his fangs, looks under his tongue and roves across his soft palate, all in reassurance that Soap has accepted his courting, swallowing every last piece of all he had to give.
Fingers retreating, his omega lets the body of the druid fall to the wayside. Hinging at his hips, he lowers until that alluring mouth is right before Soap's, the very edges of their lips brushing as they breath into each other's lungs.
His omega's mouth twitches into a soft smile Soap can feel in the scant air between them, and then his omega speaks, full lips dragging across his.
"Simon."
The name cements itself as the last missing piece within Soap, rounding out the jagged corners of his alpha and filling in the gaps of his being like water in the cracks of rocks. His omega's name expands, just as when water freezes, tearing Soap from the inside out, bullying its presence into its rightful place, changing Soap for all eternity to fit around the shape of his omega.
"John." His voice is barely loud enough to pass the space between them and yet Soap has no doubt his name has the same impact on Simon as his omega's name did on him. If he did have any doubt, they flit into ash when Simon purrs, rough and unwavering, right into Soap's starving maw.
The moment stretches into a million as they feel their respective beasts sniff at each other's stifles, rub their necks down the length of each other's flanks, press the corners of their jaws into the dips of their withers, nose at the side of their muzzles and just below their ears, lick the blood of their enemies from off their pointed teeth, before they mould around each other, braiding together like two trees sprouting from the same furrow.
"Johnny."
It's his name, torn from Simon's heart as if it was too large to contain within himself, that rips away the last impressions of their control like young saplings in an ocean storm.
Simon turns his head in a rush, exposing his neck. John lunges from his knees, fangs fully extended, and clamps tight around the puffy flesh of Simon's ripe mating gland right through the sheer fabric of his veil.
The fabric is an inexcusable intrusion, daring to separate John from the full heat of his omega's body. Without releasing his bite, he pulls hard on the veil. His fangs cut through the delicate lace easily, leaving long gashes in the fine knitting, and then John is exposed to the unhindered skin of his omega's virgin gland.
The finalising of the bond courses through him like a cascade of trees falling victim to the touch of fire, pits of fiery ash billowing into the sky as they impact the ground. He has just the last whispered remains of control to keep himself from finishing the bite and tearing out a piece of Simon to keep for himself, safe in the walls of his stomach.
John tackles Simon to the grass, pinning him with the grip of his jaw around his nape, holding what remains of the veil above Simon's head. Their bonding burns away the last of the paste’s effects until John's swallowed by the feral clutches of an unfettered, full-fledged rut for the first time in his life.
The amalgamation of it all—it being his first rut, his omega falling into heat with as intensity that matches his own, and the grips of the fresh bond still wrapped tight around his spine—has him spiralling into a frenzy. Enough so that the chaos around him passes by unnoticed; the other druids still crying in outroar, the betas gasping in nausea, and the omegas weeping in huddled messes besides them. They all start filtering their way out of the clearing in hurried masses, desperate to flee the scene that's played out before them.
None of it registers as John crushes his omega farther into the soft ground, Simon's head and chest flush with the grass, his knees under him, trying to appease the instincts raging in him to pin and mate and fuck. He bites down harder when Simon spews muffled purrs into the grass. Simon presses his neck up into John's mouth as if he's just as desperate to be claimed, to be subsumed into his mate by John's lethal maw.
John can feel once the bond has taken, the way the tender skin of Simon's mating gland hardens around his fangs, memorising the shape of each imperfection, every grove and every nick, and moulding to the length of John's canines. He holds still for one last breath, needing the bond to cement without question, before slowly releasing.
The sight of his bite, previously unmarred, pink-flushed skin now bruised and permanently etched with his teeth, rips a full-throated growl from John. The gland pulses an angry shade of purple, and John can't help but latch his mouth back onto the fleshy mound, roving his tongue along the raised bump, sealing his lips on Simon's nape and sucking the skin into his mouth, anything to further claim his omega's mating gland.
Arousal like the savage bolts of storming lightning courses through his veins. His cock shudders from where it's pressed into the dip of Simon's back, and a breathy rumble has him freeing Simon's neck.
"Bite me," John gasps, his hot breath panted right onto the shell of Simon's ear. Alphas have mating glands, two small ones to either side of their neck on their shoulders, yet within the congregation omegas are discouraged from leaving their own mating bite. His omega deserves to bite every swath of his skin. John needs it, in fact, the physical evidence that this choosy omega has chosen him—that Simon has claimed him—plastered across his body for all to see. "Simon, please. Bite me."
Pain erupts from his shoulder, then morphs into rapturous pleasure, as Simon tilts his head and clamps down tight on the junction of John's shoulder.
"Fuck." John moans as he feels the bite take hold. "Mm—ye're fockin' perfect."
Simon's iron and berry scent flares as he purrs into his neck. The rumble of his subharmonics has his pointed fangs jostling deeper into John's skin, the slight inwards curve of them catching in dense tissue and striated muscle so no force alive could tear them apart.
John's own pheromones, like wood bark burning and popping sparks, ignites into a beast around them, marking its scent with its potent odour until their smells merge, raw meat seared over a fire, the tang of unripe blackcurrants smouldering like firebrands.
It's suddenly incessant, the need to submerge himself in the purest source of their mixing scents. Simon releases and John pounces, his hand landing between his mate's shoulder blades, his bloodied fingers wrapping around the rope that parallels his spine through the sheer fabric, staining both whites a deep red, as he draws back to his knees to finally look at his omega's pink core.
The white rope cuts down the curve of Simon's arse, pressing relentlessly into the soft fat, flesh bunching under its touch, until it parts around the lips of his omega's cunt.
The gooey slick that leaks unbidden from Simon sticks to the white lace and tulle, the fabric plastering over the folds of his fat cunt. He has the smallest of moles right next to the dip of his labia—one that's almost too dainty for the large, dark red, swollen lips of his cunt—and yet John knows once he gets his mouth around it he won't come up for air until the skin around it is as dark as the blemish itself.
Course hair, just barely pale enough to catch the light and yet clumping in dark strands where they touch Simon's slicked core, emit a raw musk that has John swaying forward, uneasy and intoxicated.
"Y'smell so bleeding good, like fresh blood—like a fockin' virgin." John can feel the pulsing heat from his mate's cunt caress his face as the tip of his tongue just brushes wet fabric.
"Don'tcha fuckin' dare," his omega hisses, slightly slurred but commanding nonetheless. His engorged pupils glare back at John from over his shoulder. "You're gonna fuck me—now."
To be ordered like that, by his beautiful, deadly mate, breaks something in him. John snarls, loud enough that it rumbles like thunder across the clearing. Both of his hands find the rope at Simon's hips as he curls his fingers around the bondage to muscle Simon's hips back and up. His back arcs in a deep, tantalising curve.
Fingers tense, claws pointed and primed to cut, John rakes his nails down the material of the sheer fabric separating him from the sticky cunt of his mate, tearing though it like a knife through soft flesh.
Torn tulle flutters to the ground, and the unadulterated scent of raw meat and blackcurrants still clinging to the branch barrels into him full tilt.
"Need my knot tha' bad." John thumbs the lips of Simon's cunt open, who growls at the teasing touch, the sound as sweet as fruit wine. A thin, almost transparent piece of tissue, as pale as primrose compared to the deep crimson of his core, stretches around the opening of Simon's pussy, leaving only a small hole not wider than a bramble.
"Aren't ye just a fockin' sight," John praises as he presses at the tissue, watching as the slightly fringed edge barely gives at his touch. "Untorn 'n everything, all fer fuckin' me. Haven't even touched yerself have you?"
"Never," Simon says, blunt, despite the way he slides his knees wider, his one leg right bulging from the slit in the dress, falling farther back into his hips to try and entice his alpha to lay the final claim. "Kept myself for when I finally found a worthy mate, and none of these fuckin' alphas ever deserved it. Weak and feeble, the lot of them."
The rut coursing through John's body becomes an inescapable need at his omega's self-assurance, at his pride—all rightly earned. "Good fockin' omega, such a strong thing ye are, such a capable mate." John fists his cock, pulling back his foreskin to reveal his near purple tip. The light breeze doesn't do a damn against the sting of the burning skin. "Bein' picky like that."
"So bloody get on with it," Simon growls, tone more threatening than any alpha's. "Else I'll change my mind."
The tips of John's canines part through the wide cast of his blood stained lips as he grins, all predatory and feral. One hand finds the ropes circling Simon's hips while the other lines his cock up to the tight, fluttering furl of Simon's cunt. He repositions his knees to either side of Simon's calves so his corded quads are pressed flush with the back of his omega's legs.
"Anything ye wish."
It's like the springs themselves have ravaged his body when he hitches his hips forward and finally presses into his mate. But he comes to a halt not two inches in. He looks down, searching for the force that dare keeps him from claiming the deepest parts of his omega, and nearly comes, white-hot and instant, at the sight before him.
That near transparent swath of tissue is stretched taut around his thick girth, baring him any farther entry, his omega's virgin cunt still yet to be opened.
John's hips twitch forward, testing, and he watches, mesmerised as a small split forms on the edge of the tissue. A drop of blood beads along the edge of Simon's pussy, then circles his cock and falls to the grass when it breaks under its own weight.
"Johnny!" Simon barks as he tries to fuck himself back on John's cock. He doesn't so much at grunt at the pain. "Stop fuckin' teasin' me. Take me."
John teases forward another inch. "Just fockin' look atcha," he says drunkenly, blank to the world except for the way that piece of tissue slowly tears just that much more. "Such a pretty flower."
The need to bask in the proof that John is the first, that he is the only, is overpowering. He's desperate to drag out this moment for as long as he can, watching as Simon's body opens for him, becomes permanently claimed in the most sacred of places.
He swears the blood is brighter than any he's seen before, as pure as fresh cherries or the poppies that grow on the edge of the village. As red as the vivid fruit wines, or the blood on the muzzle of a white wolf. Another little, scarlet pearl pools along the pale flesh. It's slightly bigger than the last and it falls more freely as it catches on a vein that runs the length of John's cock and seeps into the unruly hair at his pubic.
He dips a thumb and follows the delicate tissue stretched taut around his girth. That virgin blood smears down his finger, staining the skin beneath his nails, pooling in the divots of his knuckles, collecting in the lines of his palm. When he places his hand flat on Simon's arse and draws his fingers across the supple fat, white skin as pure as lace is painted by that gorgeous red.
The elegance of white suits Simon—looks downright sinful in it if John's being honest. But red…
To see Simon covered in red; how the gore on his chest only brought out the starkness of his skin, how it brought out the burnt ruby colour in his eyes, how the gooey bits of muscle and the webbed fascia matched the blush burning his cheeks and shoulders, how the white rope around his cunt gives way to red as his blood seeps into the twine, matching the puffy flesh of his cunt—
John would kill every last member of the congregation if it meant he could bathe his omega in their blood, pour the red over his skin like molten gold until it draped him just as the dress did.
Another snap forward of his hips, and every instinct within him is raving in rut-drunk ecstasy. One more inch deeper, and his omega is yowling, bellowing, roaring at him to fuck him, yet all John can hear is the almost silent tearing of virgin tissue and the quiet whisper of blood caressing skin.
Needle like pain pierces into the skin on the inside of John's thighs. It's confused as pleasure with how deep he is in his rut, and it takes his cunt-drunk brain a great deal of effort to realise it's his omega's claws sunk deep in his flesh. What he can't miss though is the order that follows.
"Fuck. Me."
The order rakes up the length of his spine before tunnelling into his brainstem, and spreading like creeping smoke through his mind. It sends him into a psychedelic trance, body dizzy and mind consumed with only one thought, echoing over and over until it is inevitability fulfilled.
To fuck his omega.
He drives himself to the hilt in one ruthless thrust, aided by the punishing grip of his omega's claws in his thighs that muscle him forwards. The lingering tissue gives way, splitting with a plethora of hairline fractures and a burst of splattered blood.
With Simon's entrance now flowered, pale pink petals opening to reveal the gushy, red, fertile flesh beneath, John is readily accepted into his omega's pussy. The grip around his cock is like a fucking vice, his cunt squeezing around John until the crinkled furrows of his walls leave scars on his cock, changed forever just as his omega is. He keeps carving his way farther, thrusting impossibly deep, until the head of his cock meets an impenetrable wall of muscle.
His mate's body fucking sings for him. Simon trills, a truly pleased sound, completely satiated now that's he's finally been filled. His pussy ripples around him, convulsing in tune to the rabbiting of John's own feral heart. Wetness gushes from around his cock, drenching the course hair at John's pelvis. It's drips from the thick strands, sluicing down his thighs and seeping into the crabgrass under his knees. It's tainted pink and his omega's scent wafts from it in crashing waves, submerging him until he's long lost to its mighty pull.
The single-minded command raging within John melts into the background as it settles in satisfaction, lazy and content now that it's been followed, that his omega has come. But left in its wake is the rut that wrecks havoc within John's hindbrain, it’s call even more incessant than before.
The animal within him cries out, yowling like a teething pup to look down at where their bodies are connected, to rejoice in the bond between omega and alpha.
As deep as he is, pressed tight to the seal of his omega's cervix, the whole width of the spongy flesh where his knot will soon inflate is left exposed to the heated air between them.
"We'll have ta stretch ye out won't we, for my knot to fit," John mumbles, barely loud enough for Simon to hear, as he hitches forwards to try and breach the gap between them. All it does is press his head harder against that heated wall.
Simon hisses. "You fuckin' better."
"Have your virgin cunt huggin' me like those fockin' ropes."
"Alpha, fuck, just—" Simon cuts off into a full-throated snarl as John slowly draws out, words turning to incoherent curses as he's left empty except for his rim, which seals tight around the dip of John's head, hugging around his fraenulum.
"I'll getcha open for me, dinnae worry. Give ye what an omega like you deserves."
Aided by the harsh grip John has around the bondage at Simon's waist, he starts into an unforgiving pace, the skin of his hips slapping loud against Simon's arse, the plush fat rippling like the water at the sacred spring with every thrust.
Frilled tissue lies limp just like the shredded lace. The thin membrane drags along his cock with every thrust, spreading more of that bright red, virgin blood with its touch. The sight of it has John's balls drawing tight to his body, a shudder working its way low in his gut. The close edge of his release only has him more emboldened, his pace hitching faster as he works himself into a frenzy, bloody feral with the chance to mould his mate's cunt.
Praise spills from his lips like the blood of that druid's heart and drips onto the divot of Simon's deeply arched spine.
His mate is bucking back into him wildly, meeting each of John's thrusts with one of his own. With the force of their mating and the curl of wind around them, the tulle that's yet to shred whips violently in the air, fabric snapping at John's arms like low hanging branches. He needs to feel the skin of his mate beneath him, heated, supple skin marked with scars and perfect imperfections and thick muscle pressed against John until his rib cage swallows Simon whole.
John leans over him, splaying his body across his omega to engulf him in John's blazing wood pyre scent, and presses him farther into the ground. His nails find the hem of lace, skewed around Simon's hips, and rips the rest of the tulle off in one pull.
It's like he's a blood-starved leach with the way he latches onto the curve of his mate's rumbling body, his hands grasping and clawing at any unmarked skin he can find. With how much larger his mate is than him, he can't take the freshly bruised mound of Simon's mating gland into his mouth despite his best efforts, but he is well appeased as he bites hard into the fat at his hip, the skin right mouth-watering as it spills out from the tight hug of the rope.
When he releases, virgin blood licks against his fangs and coats his mouth, thick and gooey like honey. His tongue aggressively scours his mouth, cuts stinging deep as he recklessly ruts against the tips of his own fangs. He's delusional enough by the taste to want to eat his own mouth if only to ensure he swallows every last drop.
His palms rake down the corded muscle of Simon's back, catching on thick keloids, before his large, blunted claws made for keeping prey in their clutches sink into the sides of Simon's ribcage. Simon shudders beneath him, moaning tight and hoarse, as John's nails entwine with each dip of his ribs. The way Simon's body responds to him sends molten fire brewing at the base of his cock. He can feel the bulbous flesh of his knot starting to fill out, the arousal pulling at his gut. The call is loud now, deafening, penetrating deep in the folds of his brain like roots of bone—
Knot. Knot. Knot.
On the next thrust in, the curve of his knot just barely teases at Simon's rim, the puckered skin sucking at the rounding flesh, the web of frayed, bloody tissue sticking to the sides. Yet the wall of his cervix remains impenetrable.
He can't help the growl of frustration that curdles like spoiled animal fat at his fangs.
"Harder, alpha." Simon writhes beneath him, his heat flaring at the prospect of an alpha to milk, his ripe, raw meat scent blazing around them until John can barely see past the haze it clouds him with. "Give me your knot."
"I'll getcha plugged, darlin', I promise." He thrusts again, muscles cramping with the force, teeth clenching, using the full strength of his arms to help pull Simon back on his cock. His slightly puffed knot, while hugged by Simon's fat lips, still barely touches the tight circle of Simon's entrance. The tip of his cock is pressed so deep he can feel the rounded, raised muscle of the entrance to Simon's womb, his slit nestled against the smallest of openings.
Fuck, he wants this. He wants to feel Simon's body give way to him, to open for him and him alone, to take him into Simon's virgin womb, a sacred spring where only John and the futures lives of their young are allowed entrance to bask in her waters.
But he needs this too, to give his beautiful, feral mate a knot he deserves, to prove himself an alpha capable of satisfying him, of providing for him, of breeding him. To give Simon the utmost of pleasures, to let him milk an alpha's knot equal in worth to a cunt like his.
And John's been accepted, been claimed, just as much as Simon has, so there is no better. There is no knot more fitting than his, his omega has deemed that so.
Again, he thrusts. Simon's clenching rim kisses at the lip of his knot, just a hair width's deeper than the last. He can feel it inside, the way he's somehow bullied himself enough into his mate that that little opening welcomes the smallest tip of his crown into its forbidden embrace. But it's no where near enough to welcome the swollen bulb of his half inflated knot.
Simon mewls out at the intrusion, shrilled and wrecked, higher than anything he's hear him capable of, babbling yes and fuck and please over and over again, stretching his back until he's practically folded in on himself, spine curved tight, legs a quivering mess at the intensity of it all.
John pulls all the way out until he's only held by the tissue of Simon's broken hymen. His hips hinge. The muscle of his arse and down the backs of his thighs clench in preparation to make that final claiming thrust, when two heels ram into his arse, hard enough for bone to hit muscle with a dull thud, and callused hands and pointed talons dig into the sides of his thighs.
It sends him colliding forwards, forced by the strength of a mighty omega.
The tight ring yields to John's presence and his cock forces it's way into a suffocating heat. Simon's rim expands around his knot, stretching taut as it gets to the widest girth, then seals tight as it's pushed to the base. Simon's arse fits flush along the planes of John's pelvis.
Simon outright screams in intoxicated euphoria. His body twitches like that of dying prey caught between John's fangs, spine spasming from the intensity of the pleasure that rakes through his body, of the overwhelm that comes with being claimed in the most sacred of places, one meant only for the curled body of young life. A new wave of slick squirts from him, splattering onto the blades of grass like fat drops of storm rain.
Simon's calluses scratch hard on John's skin as his hands bruise into John's thighs, and John collapses in on himself, back hunching, hips bucking forward wildly, as he succumbs to the tight heat of his omega's deepest channel. The alpha beast within him shatters like shards of iridescent ice as his orgasm tears through his body.
He feels like his soul leaves him as cum pulses from his cock in large spurts right into the protective cradle of Simon's womb. At the first drops of his spend, the slick, gummy folds of Simon's cunt constrict around him like the hug of a stomach stretched fit to bursting around a whole carcass still warm from life, convulsing around his knot and his cock in rhythmic intervals as if Simon's trying to digest him, instead of coaxing all the seed he has to give from him.
The deep purring rumbling against his body, low enough it travels through his chest cavity and takes over for the beat of his heart, only aides the process, drawing his cum farther into Simon's womb until he's painted the purest of whites.
John's never dreamed of having an omega, nor a mate to care for or young scampering around. He's never imagined what it'd be like, never really cared enough to do so.
But right now, in this moment, it feels like he's been slighted—has slighted himself—for thinking he'd be stupid enough to resist this. For thinking his life would ever be complete without Simon by his side, without his prickly omega nestled on his cock, snug on his knot, his cunt split open and begging to provide him with pups.
John would crawl in there himself if he could, carve Simon open wide enough to climb inside and curl up in that loving embrace, feed off the nourishment of his omega's placenta and amniotic fluid, wrap himself in his amniotic sac like the softest of fur pelts, braid his fingers into the length of his umbilical cord, nuzzle his muzzle at the opening of his cervix, scenting the channel with his potent, raw fire pheromones until any future pup of theirs know their father's scent before they'd been conceived.
He collapses over his mate, rutting mindlessly against Simon knot-drunk, pliant body, anything to ensure he takes.
Looking like a wild cat still stuffed on fresh mice, pupils blown from over-indulging and movements lazy from the pull of an after-meal nap, Simon noses at the junction of John's shoulder. He licks a languid stripe along John's sweat-slicked skin, right over the mound of the other mating gland that's yet to be bitten.
Sharp fangs skitter over his skin, then jaws wrap around the gland and bite down into his shoulder. The arousal from this bite is less pressing, more of a basking pull, like a long shiver that works its way up his body one vertebrae at a time, wraps around each jut of bone, each spinal process, each divot, before travelling up his spinal column to the next.
Simon's purrs are a constant presence now, reverberating deep within John's tissues from where he's still latched onto John’s neck with his mouth and where John is still plugged deep, sluggishly leaking fresh cum into Simon's open womb.
It's peaceful, here in his mates arms. The thick grass tickles at his skin, the wind cards long fingers through their hair. They melt into each other, two rib cages becoming one, as the rustling of the trees hums along to their union.
Their arousal grows and crests and wanes long after night has claimed its hold and long after first light teases the land. They fall into each other, into their bond, again and again, their mating moving in rhythm to the movement of nature around them, a part of her will just as the chaffinch that flutters down to the clearing, just near their heads, and digs for young shoots within the grass. Just as much as the late night rain that sluices down their bodies and the spring dew that collects in crystal drops on their fingertips.
John fills his mate over and over, Simon long since stretched enough to accept him easily, his cunt wide and gaping any time they're forced to part to adjust positions—they're never apart for more than a fleeting breath. The last of the frayed, pale tissue is long lost to the writhing of their bodies. His womb is stretched wide as well, bullied and bruised, but greedily accepting all John has to give, the impenetrable ring of muscle fluttering around John's crown, enticing John's seed to seep into the emptiness within Simon, to fill the yawning space with future life.
Their mating is violent and as much as it is loving, the two opposites indistinguishable as claws cut too far into skin and fangs nick bone and bruises in the shape of fingerprints are pressed onto their skin.
In the more peaceful moments, Simon meets his eyes, dark brown all muddled and satiated, the edges of his pupils bleeding into his irises, and croons in the softest of blissed-out pitters. "I'm so full, alpha."
And John nuzzles his neck, licks at his chin and the bone white length of his fangs, and purrs back, just as satiated. "Y'feel so good, omega."
They loose track of the cycle between day and night, until finally John's knot inflates for the final time, the last of raw meat and unripe berry slick pours from Simon's cunt, and their rut and heat bleed into the dirt beneath them. They wrap each other in their limbs, curling strong and steady like the branches of great oaks around slowly beating hearts, and savour the feeling of their bond as John slowly goes soft tucked deep within Simon.
He slips from his mate's puffy cunt, a gush of pink blood, slick, and foamy cum following in its wake.
John coaxes Simon onto his back. He's fucking breath-taking like this, all splayed out in the soft grass, dabbled in spots of golden sunlight that right glows off his pale skin, his scars practically burning in the light, his large frame and bulging muscles lax, glistening with sweat. The blood smeared down his torso and the viscera caked on his chin looks like the sweetest of meals. When licked off the skin of his mate, the remnants of his courting gift and the druid would keep John fat and feed for the rest of his life.
His omega is ethereal in his capacity for violence and worthy of the most lavish of zealotry.
Tilting his eyes downward in submission, he kneels, bowed low at Simon's feet. John will spend the remainder of his days proving that he, and he alone, can be the source of that devotion.
Simon's hands extend towards him, arms outstretched in a gentle embrace. "Groom me. So I can groom you."
John goes.
They lay beside each other, their sides tightly embraced by the crabgrass as if it too needs their bodies flush. John wraps his arms around his mate as he presses his nose to the underside of Simon's jaw. His fingers find the knot of rope between Simon's shoulder blades and unfastens it with deft fingers. The blood-stained bondage falls away as John carefully unravels it, soothing the exposed, raw skin beneath with the pad of his thumb.
Meanwhile, Simon's hands land at John's shoulders, doing the same with the rope harness tied there, then with the one around his hips. Their arms work in tandem, flowing together like long strands of sweet grass dancing in the wind, weaving seamlessly in each other's space.
Taking Simon's hand, stained with the blood of John's courting gift, he lifts his lingers to his mouth then presses them deep onto his tongue until the deadly tips of Simon's fangs just skim the flesh at the back of John's throat. He seals his mouth, then roams his tongue across the underside of every knuckle. Once the bite of iron becomes just a fleeting aftertaste, John slides Simon's clean fingers from his mouth, a strand of pink spit clinging to the tip of Simon's claw before it eventually snaps under its own weight.
He takes the other arm, the one adorned with a sleeve of ashen images; gaping maws, sharp fangs, skulls and death, littered with delicate primrose, and a great, red deer skull, its large antlers climbing up the sides of his bicep. Forearm cradled in his palms, John traces the shapes with his tongue, cleaning the red from the dark ink.
John's jealous of the one who got to touch Simon, piercing ash into his skin for hours on end, their nimble fingers caressing skin that belongs to him, marring skin that belongs to him. It's enough to make him want to stalk, to hunt, to rip out their throat, bite off those fingers and carve open their chest.
But John knows he wouldn't be here if Simon had deemed that lucky cunt worthy of Simon's bond. The alpha tradition of tattooing one's strength he took for himself is not for show, after all. He is worthy of all the beauty and death the sleeve depicts.
John lowers to work at the rope at Simon's hips and legs. While he unties the rope, Simon's fingers sink into his hair, slowly working through any tangles. His mate then bends to lick at the dried blood hardening the strands into pointed tips. John presses a lingering kiss to the junction of his thigh in gratitude.
Both devoid of their ropes—which are quickly and blindly cast aside—they settle once again.
They take turns laving their tongues across each other's dirtied skin, thick saliva dripping from their lips. John cleans at Simon's muzzle with kitten licks while the tips of Simon's claws skim down the valleys of John's back, leaving red lines that leave his skin buzzing.
They breathe into each other's maws for a moment, lips fitting together but never touching, only surrounding themselves in the potent life of the other, feeding each other the poisoned air from their lungs.
The tip of Simon's tongue extends to briefly trace the dip of John's cupid's bow, then lowers to the jagged scar on his chin, following the small valley. Rising along the line of John's stubble, Simon licks across the length of John's tongue which lies lax in his open mouth. It's intimate; if intimate could even be used to describe something that soothes every jagged piece of his soul with such breathless ease.
John whimpers, just the tiniest of sounds. But he can't help it, not when he feels like this, like he's tied to one of those large oaks with fire licking at his skin, melting his flesh straight from bone, marrow dripping from the hollow crevasses like dew from a blade of grass. Like hands are rendering him of all the things that makes him a body, of flesh and blood and replacing it with Simon, his omega, his mate.
John lowers to Simon's chest to continue grooming him because it's the only thing he can do in the face of such nameless, boundless emotions.
He tends great care to the plush fat of Simon's chest and to the fine, snow-white hairs there. He tends even more care to the cherry nub of Simon's nipples and the metal spikes that bisect each one—another alpha tradition that he's rightfully taken for himself—leaving them glistening with spit.
All the while, Simon licks at alpha blood stained on John's hands, taking each of his fingers into the tight heat of his mouth.
Shifting, John attempts to raise to his knees so he can start at the gore caked on Simon's lower half, yet an unyielding arm wraps around his waist and muscles him back flush against the curve of his omega's body.
Simon growls, a hiss turned full-throated by primal discontent. "Stay."
John goes stiff, his strength turning crushing as he coils around his mate at the order, hard enough the ridges of their rib cages grind together.
It's a long while, enough for the light freckled across the clearing to turn a rusty orange, before Simon's threatened rumbles turn into a pleased purr that appeases the order, and it's hold on John loosens.
"Wasnae goan' anywhere," John starts, lighthearted. "I'll never leave ye. I'd stay here forever, wrapped 'round ya, if it didn't mean you'd go hungry." He licks at the shell of Simon's ear, the only thing he can reach with how tightly he's held. "I just can't reach, and I'd like to clean ya."
"Need to clean you, too," Simon responds, incessant.
John hums. "Trust me, then."
"Of course." It's quick, before John's even closed his mouth, and he laughs, light and breathy at the easy admission. Simon glowers a little at that. It crinkles his eyes, right at the corners, and John wants to fucking eat him.
Simon lets John leave his embrace, although not without a hand that's circled in a death grip around his wrist.
From his knees, John lowers onto his opposite side, slightly tilted so he's half lying on his back. He positions Simon so he's partly covering John. Even what little of Simon's weight is pressed onto John is crushing, and yet John's tempted to move Simon until he's smothered, have the full of Simon's mass crush him into the ground. He has all intentions of finding out what it feels like to have all that bulk and muscle ride his face, using him until his vision goes spotty and his neck fucking snaps.
As Simon's mouth finds the gore at the sensitive skin at John's hips, John roams his hands across the fat layered over Simon's stomach. His tongue is not far behind, taking the taste of iron into his mouth, cleansing Simon of the tainted blood of the druid. Just as he did on the spikes at Simon's nipples, he laves his tongue across the one pierced into his navel. The skin-warmed metal comes away shiny.
Manoeuvring lower, he runs the flat of his tongue through the dirtied hair of Simon's mound, his eyes rolling deep into his skull as he lavishes in the taste of Simon's virgin blood. He can tell it from the rest—from the tainted blood of the druid and the hearts of those alphas. The taste is bursting and sweetly bitter, a toxin for the heart compared to the muddled iron of the others. John knows he won't get this taste ever again, not when his omega has finally been flowered and claimed, but as he feasts himself on Simon's sweat and musk, John can't seem to grieve the unique occasion for very long.
Not when he knows he has a lifetime of Simon's scent; when John is welcomed into Simon's nest for the first time and John christens it with Simon's changed pheromones. When he first hunts for John, bringing back a large-racked stag, and the grime of a satisfying hunt is creased in the folds of his skin. When he bares their first litter and their second and their third and their—
He is lost to the image of his mate, round with three pups, when Simon's lips skim along the fleshy nubs of the scent glands just below the v of John's hips. He hums around the coarse hair and warm skin in his mouth, drawn-out and rumbling,
John snakes his arms underneath one of his omega's pale legs, hitching it up and over his shoulder. His hands find the soft squish of Simon's sides and his fingers sink into the warm skin, relishing in his mate's body, before caressing back down to his mound. John plays with the sticky hair there for a moment with his fingers. He then lowers to skim at the thick jut of his pretty clit, and eventually settles at Simon's swollen rim.
At the hitch of Simon's hips, and the soft whine of overstimulation that leaks from his mouth, John speaks. "Just gonna look, baby. Make sure ye're nae bleeding inside."
Simon hums in response. He body goes listless on top of John and he lifts his hands to knead at the muscles of John's thighs and at the marks still left from the rope, his nails catching every so often on his skin. It feels so good to have his mate's hands on him, caring for him with such mutual devotion.
A delicate touch of John's finger follows the frilled, puffy edge of Simon's lips, checking for any lasting damage. There's still some spots where the thin, pale tissue clings in torn swaths, which will rub off in their own time, but no fresh blood beads onto his finger as he circles Simon's entrance, and there's only one or two raw spots. He'll be sure to rub thick, soothing tallow into them later.
Satisfied, John presses the tip of his finger past Simon's rim. His hips flutter weakly in response, and John starts into a hearty chuff to ease his mate back into a boneless heap. He presses deeper, running the pad of his finger around the circumference of his walls as he massages the scent gland on the inside of Simon's leg with his other hand. The flesh inside him is soft and supple, and from the way Simon keens into the feeling John is certain there's no sores.
Sliding in another finger, John uses both hands to hold open Simon's cunt and looks into his gaping entrance. A frothy mixture of his cum, freckled with spots of dull, old blood, covers Simon's channel.
Simon's breath is coming in wet pants now, breathed right onto the head of John's cock, those tantalizing lips just a hair's width away from wrapping around his length. Arousal threatens at the lining of John's gut, knowing that those lethal fangs that recently tasted upon the fresh flesh of a heart are so close to John's most sensitive skin.
The need to sink into his mate resurfaces, but he ignores it in favour of watching the way Simon's pussy clenches sporadically around his fingers, how the cloudy white mixture slowly drips down the red flesh of his walls, sticky strands arching across the opening like spider webs, all to pool in a viscous puddle.
However, he can't help the aroused snarl that builds in his throat or how he grinds his hips forwards once, the underside of his cock hitching into what must be Simon's jaw and the loose, soft curls at his nape, when he sees what lies beyond.
Simon's cervix stands pretty and swollen, the tissue around it flushed a dark plum colour. What should be puckered muscle drawn tight is instead loose, the opening sagging ever so slightly. Messy globs of his cum cling to the rim of the opening, pearling on the red flesh like thick spring foam.
Simon's cunt really is shallow—and delightfully stretched—if John can see this far into him.
He only wishes he could see farther, right into Simon's womb. To see Simon's sacred embrace and how it's engorged on the abundance of John's cum. To bare witness as his omega takes hold of his seed with desperate hands. To lick at his cervix in submission and reverence.
A light breeze curls around them, and a faint, earthy scent, almost creamy like ripe hazelnuts, tickles at his nose. He leans in, chasing the smell.
John's tongue pokes from between his teeth and licks at the slicked tissue within before he can quite comprehend what he's doing.
His beast collapses into a furl of heavy pants and shivering muscles, its cock bulging from its sheath. John has his lips wrapped tight around his omega's slack pussy not a moment later, cheeks hollowing as he sucks, drinking the intoxicating taste into his now starving maw.
His hindbrain howls the answer, the source of that new smell, the promise rolling into his awareness like a wall of mighty waves crested with thick, low-baring clouds.
His alpha is certain. John is certain.
Simon's fertile womb has blossomed with their young.
"Ah—Johnny." Simon mewls hot air against the curve of his balls, as sweet as fresh blood staining sugar cane.
John releases in a flurry. He licks over each of the scent glands at Simon's thighs, then rubs the length of his neck along the mounds, spreading the smell of new life and his own overjoyed pheromones into the skin. "Thank ye. Thank ye, my beautiful mate, fer takin' for me," he babbles, words forced from his mouth like they've grown wings and taken flight. "Fuck, darlin'—such a strong omega, pupping up fer us as easily as that."
"Stupid you think I wouldn't." Simon licks at the pre-cum leaking from John's slit, then slithers his hand down to twist into John's hair. He pulls until John's neck twinges from the strain. Simon's eyes blaze like an late morning sunrise when he forces John's gaze to his.
"I'm clean," he says, tone impatient. "Keep me warm, alpha."
John wants to keep loving on him, licking into his fertile snatch until his jaw is sore and swollen, but he'd never dare deny his mate. Not that John can whine that much about being given permission to warm his omega.
That tight grip finds John's wrist once again as he has to separate to twist back up to face his mate. John lays Simon onto his back and he's mesmerised by the way honey blond hair blends into green sweet grass. His long recovered cock slides easily into Simon's pliant pussy, John sinking in until his fleshy, soft knot is hugged by a molten heat and the crown of his cock nestles against his omega's cervix.
The purr that rumbles from Simon's lips is all pleased omega as he's filled once again.
John lowers his weight until their sternums are flush, their hearts beating as one. His hands find the sides of Simon's neck, then follows his hairline backwards to the mating gland that now lies claimed. One rough palm engulfs the flesh, just holding, the other sinks into the soft hair at Simon's nape.
Thick arms wrap beneath John's biceps and up and over his back, circling until the pressure is crushing, as if holding his ribs together to stop his rabbiting heart from beating straight out of his chest. Powerful legs come up to his waist and dig into the divots of his back, pressing so John delves farther into the ring of Simon's cervix, the puffy opening plugged shut so his cum stays snug in the heat of his omega's embrace.
He slots his muzzle into the dip of Simon's neck, nose jutting into the scent gland at his collarbone. He breathes deep and unbidden, surrounded in full by the smell of raw meat and blackcurrant and, now, fresh hazelnut.
Simon pulls John even tighter into himself, as if even the limitations of their own flesh and bone hold no power in the presence of his omega. He presses his mouth into the crown of John's head. John can feel Simon's lips curl back against his scalp.
A low growl cuts from Simon's exposed gums. "You're mine, alpha."
"All yours," John purrs in response. "No one would dare try 'n take me from you."
"The congregation's a threat," he hisses into John's hair. The tips of his claws leave angry red marks from where they're splayed across John's back.
"Then we'll hunt."
"Mmm. I like the sound o' that."
"Knew ye would."
"Bastard's won't know what hit 'em."
"Och, but they will." John burrows into his mate's neck, letting himself be swallowed by Simon's large arms. "I'll stalk each one, catch them alive, so I can hold 'em down while you kill them slow."
Simon clenches around John in reward. "Good boy." He fucking purrs it and John shudders at the praise.
"I'll do it. I’ll do anything,” John says.
"I know."
A second, long and serene, then, "I have a pack. Three bonded alphas. Nothing but a bunch o' fucking twats, but they're loyal, and more of a pack than ma own ever was. They'll treat ye as well as they've treated me, a pack ye deserve. We could start anew—us, them, our pups—do what we please, when we please. I'll spoil ye rotten, spoil our young rotten. Build our own den, you yer own nest, at the edge of the village near the field of poppies or in the forest—"
Simon licks once at the stubble on John's chin, a smile teasing at his lips. "Sounds perfect, Johnny."
Soap takes a breath, ragged from the intensity and overwhelm of the emotions beating against the walls of his heart. "You'll want for nothing," Soap promises, tone as sure and steady as the roots of white oaks.
Simon wraps his arms even tighter around John's shoulders, a lazy finger caressing one of the fresh bites on his traps, and murmurs, "Neither will you."