Chapter Text
Jimin had felt it since the very day he arrived here.
It was a dappled day. Sweltering hot a moment, breezy the next. The sweaty, thick linen of his tunic had clung to his torso, coarse dust between his toes, hair matted on his forehead. He had never walked for so long at a time, but there wasn’t a moment to waste, to catch his breath; the Kims were impatient by old nature, inconsiderate by new victory.
So he had silently swallowed his protests and walked along. Not that he could do anything in the first place; not then, not before.
Tasting ash at the back of his mouth, Jimin scooped more water from the lively stream and rinsed his mouth, splashing some on his red face. The southern sun was harsh on him, everything in the Kim pack had been.
The bedding of the communal, three-storied omega quarters, the spices-rich cuisine, the much more populated streets, the rules, the protocols, the duties, and— him.
The omega shuddered.
It was a little pathetic, how even in his thoughts he didn’t dare take the alpha’s name, choosing to keep the veil of ignorance between his nightmares and their usurper's shadow. Like he would appear out of thin air behind him if he did; the alpha who had been the cause of the Parks’ undoing. Who had ripped apart his sire, siblings, and betrothed one by one, Jimin had heard.
Even their bodies hadn’t returned from the battlefield.
In his pack, a lycan so cruel would be declared rogue, banished beneath the cliffs. Here, this alpha was royalty, revered as the protector of the pack’s vast, fertile lands.
Feeling sweat once again starting to bead at his temples, the omega absently wiped them away. The grass blades under his folded legs were long and meek as he sat on them, the large clay pitcher filled with fresh cool water sitting on a mossy rock beside him, sun leaning in the west beyond the viridian horizon.
Before arriving here, Jimin had never done any chores like this in his entire life. He was the only omega child of the pack alpha, a pampered pup since the beginning; food had been held to his lips, tantrums pacified before the first cry, nests piled with warm furs gifted by all alphas of his family whenever there was a celebratory pack hunt. Now he couldn’t remember the last time he slept in an actual nest; the war had snatched away even the barest illusion of safety from them.
The omega inhaled, killing the choked out whimper bubbling in his chest at the thought. Refugees from the decimated enemy pack didn’t get to throw tantrums, if they even could be called that.
Spoils of war. That was what his status had demoted to; him and the other handful of omegas and pups, the only survivors of the one and a half month long war. Everybody else— everything else— had been wiped out from the face of the earth like they never existed.
Yet when he had to walk into the territory of the Kims, into their pack house to meet the pack alpha, with his head bowed under the weight of humiliation, shame, and grief, followed by the small, scared cluster of familiar faces huddled close to him like he was their lifeline; Jimin had felt it like one felt hot iron pressing on their necks, naming them a slave for life.
That gaze. Unbearable, unignorable. Incessant, unsubtle.
Vulgar. Hungry.
Heartless.
Seated on the left of the pack alpha at the main table, posture relaxed since Jimin had lost all status needed for his presence to demand respect, hair pulled behind his head in a bun to relieve the heat in the atmosphere a little. His robes were clean and meticulous, suitable to be worn by the pack alpha’s younger brother, but the omega still felt like he saw dried blood marring them in the colour of irreversible sin.
Blood of his mother. Of his older sister and younger brother. Of his fiancé. Of another one thousand thirty two other lycans, whom he knew as his people.
The omega uprooted the grass under his palms from the ground with a frantic yank, digging his fingertips into the moist soil, lips parting in a whispered scream.
Jimin had bowed to them next, to him, thanking them for accepting him and his remaining people as new pack members. All of them had been escorted to the communal omega quarters to stay until the designated homes for those with pups finished getting built, had been handed simple linens and little time to get changed, then a plate of rice and venison for dinner; meat from the captured northern snow deer, who have been the emblem of the Parks for generations.
He had thrown it all up to the last morsel two hours later in the toilet, and cried, envious. Envious of his whole family’s fate for dying in the battlefield, with their honour undamaged, bile burning his throat; because he himself was set for a thousand deaths far worse than that everyday, now that he was in the palm of the tormentor greedy for his tears.
The omega rigorously washed his hands clean in the river once again, standing up, hoisting and adjusting the water pitcher on his hip by the ropes bound around its neck. It had been some time since he had filled it, the water might start heating up if it stayed out in the sun any longer. Cold water held special value here.
It was almost a grove, the path he had chosen to the river. The densely shadowed one which omegas tasked with bringing water for the pack’s kitchen used in the summer, he had soon learnt. Though the lunch rush had long passed, and his only trusted friend here was busy in the laundry house, so there wasn’t anyone else here to accompany—
“Where are you headed, omega?”
Or so he thought.
Jimin halted dead in his tracks, opening his mouth to breathe as soon as the first notes of rum spice and lavender hit his nose. His head lowered on instinct, or because of muscle memory, the hair on his nape pricking in anxiety.
It was summer. There were various potent scents in the air. It was an open space. The bastard had taken unfair advantage of that to mask his scent till now, hiding behind the sharp turn on the road; he realised, grip tightening around the rope-straps attached to the pitcher.
“Greetings, Alpha Kim.” The omega bowed low, eyes on the ground below, voice automatic. “I’m going to the kitchen, it’s my duty to fetch water this afternoon.”
“Water?” From where he was leaning his back on the trunk of a broad mahogany, twisting a lifeless wheat sheath into a flower, hair casting a fragile yet impenetrable shadow over his eyes, Taehyung stared him down, unwavering. “For the evening refreshments?”
“I believe,” Jimin breathed out, pinned on his spot under that smouldering gaze, exactly how he was on his first day here, instincts on edge at the mere presence of the alpha, legs itching to escape. “Please excuse me now, I’ll be la— ah!”
Like how shadows eclipsed light, the omega felt strong arms grabbing his waist, and shove him against the mahogany in a blink, the loose-lidded pitcher spilling water all over Jimin’s chest while he haphazardly scrambled for an anchor, slipping on the ground from his burning hip and smashing into pieces, pouring every last drop of his labour on the green grass.
“The water!” the omega shouted in utter distress, trying in vain to catch the pitcher, to prevent at least some of his hard work from wasting, to escape from the alpha’s hold by pushing him away, heartbeat erring when he simply couldn’t. “Let go of me, Alpha Kim!”
“How rude, omega.” Taehyung leisurely complained, pressing the caged omega flush against his own chest despite his thrashing, tightening his arm around the soft waist, leaning down until they were eye to eye. “You were trying to get away without even asking me if I am thirsty? Tsk tsk!”
“I apologise, then.” Jimin immediately turned his face away, pursing his lips, rum spice clogging his windpipe, balling his hands into shaking fists, pulling the other’s shameless hands away from his body with all his might, to make some direly necessary distance between them, but coddled omegan limbs were never a match for war-chiselled alpha strength. “I naively assumed the pack house has plenty of fresh water, Alpha Kim.”
“It has.” The alpha’s free hand gripped his chin, forcing Jimin to look back at him, a lazy smile smudged at the corner of his mouth. His face was hand-crafted by the devil himself, the omega just knew. “But none of it has your sweet touch in it. It doesn’t quench me like I know you will, Jimin.”
Jimin shut his eyes, heat spreading over his face, breathing ragged.
It was shameful. So very shameful. The first time this bastard had ever greeted him, when they had been the same in status, he had been addressed as Omega Park. Now this spawn of devil spared not even the basic respect to the son of a late pack alpha, not in words, not in actions.
The omega opened his eyes again, cheeks flushed, arms pushing against the alpha’s solid chest in vain, waterline burning with more humiliation, voice strained. “Please let me go, Alpha Kim.”
Taehyung just tilted his head, no leniency to be found anywhere on his face, unfazed. “To do what? Fetch water for the kitchen?”
“Yes. It’s my assigned duty—”
“Look at yourself, omega.” The alpha let go of Jimin’s chin, slowly trailing his knuckles down his jaw in a feather-light stroke, chuckling when the omega’s pulse jumped under his touch; a venomous sound to his captive’s ears. “Such soft skin…” the hand travelled to his aching left shoulder, marked red by heat and labour, the omega keeping himself as still as a corpse to not feel a single touch, but still breaking into shivers nonetheless, “such delicate limbs…” Taehyung grasped his left wrist in his hand, exposing the tender lacerations and blisters on his palm to the sunlight like the proof of his statement, “you’re not made for this, Jimin. To work under the sun, to repetitively soil your hands with dirt and soap until your skin peels off. Why are you torturing yourself this way?”
The question felt like poison served in a golden chalice, and for a moment, Jimin saw red. “War strategies must have kept you away from this precious knowledge, but I’m doing what every other member of the pack does, Alpha Kim,” he snapped.
The jab, however, provoked no reaction from the towering alpha. Regarding the omega’s unfriendly attitude with nothing but indifference, he only lowered his voice, like he was telling a secret, “I’m not your enemy, Jimin, you know this. I don’t want you to behave around me like I am.”
“I fear the nature of our relationship isn’t dependable on your wishes,” Jimin hissed, digging his nails into the palm not held tight by the alpha, searching for a solid ground in that pain, sorrow clouding his vision with sugar-bristle anger. “Our enmity was sealed the dreadful day you had torn both my sire– my sire and my entire pack to pieces.”
“It was a dreadful day indeed.” Taehyung agreed without missing a beat, but any signs of regret were still absent on his frame. “I call it a tragedy whenever I have to eliminate a warrior as great as late pack alpha Park, especially when she wasn’t even our actual enemy in the battle. A shame to lose her in such an unnecessary inconvenience, truly.”
“Unnecessary inconvenience?” stunned at the audacity of this alpha, Jimin mumbled out, disbelief spreading all over his face. “It’s an age-old rule among pack alphas to aid their omega child’s mate in war, to help keep their diplomatic relationships secure! Why, haven’t the Jeons been doing the same, accompanying you in every battle since their son got mated to your brother?”
“They have been; quite successfully so, I assure you.” Taehyung inched his face closer to the omega, amused by Jimin like a hunter amused by a struggling prey stuck in his trap, his exhales painting the omega’s face with notes of infuriatingly sweet lavender. “But here’s the difference between them and your late pack, omega— the Jeons have chosen the most powerful pack in all of south to form an alliance with, not a reclusive clan with dwindling numbers and worthless customs.”
“Better a reclusive,” the omega firmly planted his sandalled heels on the grass, facing away again as an act of defiance, feeling his morals being scrutinised under that pit-less dark gaze, “than a monster.”
Hearing this, contrary to the strike Jimin was expecting upon himself, Taehyung only laughed out loud.
Dumbfounded, the omega felt his captor’s body shaking with the force of his cackles as he rested his forehead on his clavicle, too close to his mating glands, a place Jimin had never given him permission to touch, hating the alpha furthermore when his own body didn’t flinch away at the sudden contact. He had flinched every time his very own fiancé had held his wrists to scent him. “How ridiculous, that you call me a monster, omega. I’m a monster, yet here you’re; alive, with all limbs intact, fed, clothed, sheltered, and most importantly,” the alpha lifted his face, bringing his mouth to the omega’s ear, voice suddenly a velvety knife, “completely untouched.”
A jolt of nausea coursed through Jimin’s stomach, making him feel light-headed, body freezing up, ice and lava coiling like two serpents in his guts.
“I could’ve had you over my knees right there in the battlefield, like my war prize that you’re, right before the corpse of your betrothed— you would’ve been dragged from your home by your hair, thrust into my bed, stripped bare until your dignity had been entirely auctioned off to me. But like the monster you say I am, I let you walk into here on your own instead. Hah, not in the war, Jimin, the Parks would’ve suffered the most devastating blow to their name if I had conquered you like how I’ve conquered your lands.”
Feeling like he had been dunked in icy water from head to toe, the omega asked with an eerie coldness, “Shall I worship you as a god for treating me like a sentient being, Alpha Kim?”
“I don’t dare dream that high.” Taehyung pulled his face away, expression even, laced with mirth like he didn’t just threaten the other with heinous cruelty. “But I want you to remember the mercies you’ve been granted from this monster, omega. Both you, and your people; you were talking about the Jeons, weren’t you? Surely you’re aware of what they do with their spoils of war. If any of your surviving pack members are here with you today with their dignity unharmed, it’s solely because of my interference.”
Jimin’s hand moved before he could think.
He didn’t even feel it, didn’t even understand what he had done, not until the sound echoed off around them, and blood oozed at the cut corner of Taehyung’s lips, face turned sideways by the force of the slap.
The omega gasped, back to his senses at the sight of the other’s bloodied lips, palm tingling as a reminder of the blunder caused by it, panic surging in his chest. He had hit the younger brother of the pack alpha who had been merciful enough to grant them a new home— and as much as he hated to admit it— the only reason why they were still alive after the war.
“Now this will be a problem,” Taehyung let go of his wrist, wiping the blood away from his lips with a swift thumb, looking at the red smudge like he was in a deep dilemma, “if only I go back there with bloodied lips, won’t it? My hyung might even suspect I got slapped for playing my hands on some small feisty omega under the solitary shadows on the way to the river! What should I do now to save myself from such false accusations, Jimin?”
The omega swallowed his nerves, neither oblivious to the alpha’s roundabout threats or his own precarious position in the Kim pack, instinct chipping away at his conscience, forcing him to cower under the other’s authority, in the hold of the alpha every part of his rationale had named an enemy. “Alpha Kim, I—”
“Wait, what if,” the alpha glanced back at him with the grin of a deceiver, like he had found the key to all his worries, with a relief so genuine it hurt to even look at, “I make the accusations real?”
Jimin’s eyes widened, face paling, limbs frigid. “No! You can’t do that to m—mmph!”
Taehyung nipped the rest of the omega’s protest straight from his lips, the back of his neck gripped tight in his hand, sealing the rosebud mouth with his own starving one.
It was no lover’s touch, Jimin realised it the second the alpha’s lips touched his like he owned his kisses, body frozen in shock. He was quenching his own thirst, drinking him like Jimin had served himself on a silver platter to be finished.
The omega’s fingers coiled around Taehyung’s shoulders, gathering all strength in himself to push him away, unknown waves lapping at his insides when his palms touched defined muscles; only for the alpha to bite his upper lip, and pry his involuntary whimper into an entrance for his tongue.
Feeling the sting, the Jimin’s toes curled where they were on the ground, eyes going cross under the onslaught of warm rum spice and lavender pouring into his throat, knees wobbling, the alpha’s arm squeezing around his waist, pushing his melting body farther into his embrace.
Chins sleek, Taehyung smiled against his omega’s mouth, a sharp canine catching on the swollen lip getting sucked to tenderness into his own, drawing a drop of Jimin’s blood on his tongue; its taste sweet.
Canine cuts on the lips of an unmated omega only arrived here a few weeks ago; Taehyung bit down harder on Jimin’s lip, the fire in his guts fuelled more at its delightful implications, sucking in every breath, every softness, and every sound leaving the omega’s mouth; the scrabbling hands that were pushing him away moments ago now helplessly clutched to him, curling around his nape like he was the only anchor they had ever known.
Too bad that his birth star had declared him a storm the moment Taehyung was born.
The alpha pulled his swollen mouth away, only for a second, dipped his head into the omega’s blushing neck, and in a snap, ripped away the scent-blocking patch there with his teeth.
Peaches and peonies burst around them, knocking Taehyung off balance for a second, sizzling his blood with each greedy lungful as he buried his face into the spring of this sweet intoxication with a low growl, sealing the engorged mating gland into his mouth, lapping on it like a famished creature, the tang of omega slick prominent in the air.
To any onlooker, they’d look like a pair of long lovers.
Knees giving in at the thought, Jimin dug his nails into the alpha’s biceps for support, head tipping to the side to give Taehyung more room to defile him however he wanted, tears gathered at his eyelashes. This was the man his whole rationale had named an enemy, but his omega? The part of his soul that he had recognised as himself before anything else?
His omega had named Taehyung an alpha worthy of him, the only alpha worthy of him; not now, but since the very first time they had met, when Jimin was engaged to another; and there was only so much he could fight with himself each and every second.
Canines scraping over the nerve endings on the omega’s body meant to signify eternity, Taehyung pushed a stout thigh between the two trembling ones, a far-gone moan touching his ears like a petal on waves, searing heat bearing down on his skin.
“I’ve heard, omega,” the alpha bit Jimin’s earlobe, leaving his pulsing mating gland alone, eyes alpha golden, voice liquid heat, “that the northern packs like the Parks didn’t allow intimacy until official mating. Tell me, Jimin, am I the first one ever to have you dripping in my arms like this?”
Jimin whined at the unabashed vulgarity of the inquiry, silver bleeding into his irises, arousal licking at his body, sweat trickling from each limb pressed tight against the alpha’s, flushed everywhere that counted.
“I asked you a question, omega. Answer me.” Taehyung chuckled, low, dark. The hand that was holding his omega’s nape, slid down on Jimin’s soaked chest, long fingers encompassing the full roundness of the nearest teat, and squeezed down with full force.
“Alpha!” Jimin gasped at the sudden pain, senses clearing away with its sharp intensity, the suspended tears rolling down his cheeks, swollen lips wobbling, mindlessly grasping the other’s elbow in a futile plea for gentleness. “Hu- hurts.”
“Mm. Not what I wanted to hear.” Taehyung twisted the pebbled nipple between his index and thumb in a complete circle, pressing his nails into it, kissing Jimin’s tears away, ironically patient.
This was the alpha his howling inner omega wanted to bear the mark of for life, this is whom it wanted to offer their bare neck to for the rest of his days!
The omega sobbed, muffled against the alpha’s shoulder, hips helplessly grinding down on the thigh between them. “Yeh– yes.”
“Hilarious.” Taehyung let go of his brutal hold on the omega’s breast, massaging the supple flesh with deftness, soothing the forming bruises on his skin like a lover. “That Min scum kissed his life goodbye before his lips could ever touch you! A gutless dastard, won’t you admit? If it was me—” leaving open, wet kisses down Jimin’s throat, the alpha smiled on his skin, lifting his weight entirely off the ground, “—your nest would’ve been soaked with your slick before your enemies’ blood could’ve dried on the battlefield.”
Jimin’s breathing hitched. Images of them both tangled in his nest back in his home, naked and in love, wasn’t hard to picture; until the keen ice prick of epiphany speared through his heart, reminding that it was impossible for him to ever return there, for this alpha now relishing in toying with him had himself burned it all to ashes.
Not a lover, never a lover; this was a conqueror staking his claim on his loot.
Tasting the sudden rot mixing in the peachy sweetness on his tongue, Taehyung glanced over at the omega’s face, to see his eyes closed, more clear tears joining the streaks on his cheeks, lips bitten close, visibly pained.
A hot flash of anger washed over the alpha, rum spice setting on fire around them, choking Jimin with its intensity. “Are you missing him now, omega?”
There were immediate protests in every fibre of his omega, restraining his tongue to fit what wouldn’t displease their alpha, but Jimin had always held a reputation for matching his every word with his better conscience. “Would it be– be a sin if I am, Alpha Kim?”
Taehyung chuckled, a warning wrapped in satin, grip tightening around his waist, the other hand busy fondling the omega’s other teat, carelessly raking his pointed nails on the soft, soaked skin. “I guess not. But it’ll be a refreshing experience for me, that’s for sure. Usually omegas here don’t think about other alphas— dead or alive— when they’re leaking for me.”
Jimin winced, opening his eyes to look at his tormentor, omega hurt like the words physically lashed him. In his pack, a decent alpha would never be with other omegas if they had one they wanted to woo, let alone compare them together on their intended darling’s face. But this alpha was simply punishing him for admitting to reminiscing his fiancé of three years in front of him, he knew.
“But let’s not compare omegas from here with you, right, Jimin? They’re nowhere equal to you,” Taehyung continued, as if aware of the effect he had over Jimin and his omega, revelling in exploiting it to his whim, rough fingers pinching his other nipple. “They’re common lycans honest with their desires, not the son of a pack alpha coming undone under the touches of the very enemy who has murdered his betrothed in the battlefield less than a month ago.”
“Alpha!” Jimin sobbed a lament, ears filled with cotton, arousal tight beneath his skin and heart slashed bloody, another dollop of slick wetting his panties at being handled with such obstinate ruthlessness.
“You parade yourself above accepting my courtship proposal, but have no problem falling into my arms beside an open road.” The alpha snickered, leaving the omega’s breasts to wrap his hand around the back of his left knee, smoothly hooking it up around his hips, pressing their famished loins together, groaning. “You want to paint me as an aggressor, so you can call yourself guiltless. You’re telling me no, because you trust me to be a scumbag lowly enough to do what you want despite your faux defiance.”
Jimin choked on whatever he was going to answer, all protests in his head silenced, drowned beneath the flood of rum spice and lavender, eyes hazy and thoughts blurring as the alpha’s rock hard erection pressed firm against his clenching slit.
So close, so close. The omega in him clawed at his ribcage like a kicked mutt, desperate to please and pacify. Alpha could just push his panties aside and slip it in; he’ll be a good little omega, he’ll let him fuck him right here against this tree, take as many knots as alpha wanted him to take, fill him up with seed until it successfully catches.
“Have nothing to say to counter that, omega? Did your arguments leak out of your poor cunt?” Bunching up Jimin’s skirt on the pale thigh hooked around his waist, Taehyung mouthed at his ear, condescending in his amusement, kneading the malleable flesh under his palm like warm dough, calloused hand leaving pink in their wake.
The omega cheeped like a wounded animal.
“But I’ll tell you what, Jimin. You’re absolutely right. I’d claim you mine right here on this wet grass, or throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my bed all the way to the pack house, before the very eyes of everyone that may dare glance at us.” The alpha slid his hand against the omega’s bare abdomen, feeling it quiver in tandem with the rest of his body clinging to him. “Or maybe I’d drag you to where this river enters our territory, where it’s quiet around and the air is crisp. The sun gets muted under the canopies, maybe it’ll also mute your whimpers and moans. Does that sound appealing enough to your dignified tastes, Omega Park?”
Like this was any plausible shelter and not the one thing endangering his very life and sanity, Jimin hid his face into Taehyung’s clavicle at being addressed with his former title, the scalding mockery feeling like soothing balm on his heated skin; arms wrapped around his alpha’s back, scent turned to syrup, tears wordlessly begging for something the omega knew would do unrepairable damage to his pride and righteousness.
“I see that’s a yes, hm?” Hooking his forefinger on the panties’ waistband, Taehyung pulled it inches away from the omega’s hips, then abruptly let go, dropping a loving kiss on Jimin’s hair when a tortured moan vibrated through the writhing body in his hold along with the whip-sharp snap. “Ah, I would’ve done what you want right this moment, Jimin. But I happened to be needed in the pack house in half an hour.”
As if sobered up from the trance he was under in a second, Jimin whipped his head up to look at the alpha, trilling lips blood red, disbelief and longing leaving his eyes moreover glassy; almost convincing Taehyung to not be so cruel. Almost.
“To hone the war strategies you admire so much, omega. You know how they keep me away from things every other member of the pack does; including enjoying my evening freely.” Untangling himself from the flabbergasted omega’s unprepared arms, Taehyung pulled himself away from him, leaving Jimin to stand on his own two legs; which failed him as soon as the alpha let go of his weight, making him fall on the green grass with a gurgled whimper, beside the shattered pitcher.
“Aish, my omega is like a newborn fawn.” Smiling, Taehyung leaned down over him, grasped his chin, placing a last kiss on his forehead.
“Till next time, darling.”
One moment the alpha murmured so on his skin, the next he was walking away towards the river with languid steps, whistling under his breath without any signs of hurry, leaving Jimin exactly where he was beside the dusty path, mouth agape and speechless.
Like an abandoned pet, the stubborn, hopelessly hopeful omega in him didn’t allow him to look away, not until the alpha had vanished behind the turn, and not until rich golden streamed through each broken crevice of the afternoon sky, filling every hollowness.
Then, slowly, his eyes returned to his surroundings: the warm summer air, the broken pieces of the pitcher, the green grass, the old roots of mahogany, and the flower made of yellow wheat sheath.
Just another pretty trinket on this grass made of dead things, thrown away after being toyed with.
Jolting awake at the destitute sight, as if back to his senses, Jimin looked back at himself, utterly ashamed; at his red wrists and bruised neck, lingering touch still burning on his waist and chest, cooling stickiness pooled between chaffed thighs, peonies dying in the air.
This was what Taehyung wanted, no? To humiliate him with the one aspect of his nature he had no conscious control over? To prove to Jimin how easy he was to get, how the only reason he wasn’t claimed yet was because the alpha had spared him so till now?
At the realisation, like a blind man, the omega forced himself on his weak legs, supporting his weight against the mahogany, trying to regulate his breathing; smoothened out his clothing, and pretending like he wasn’t reeking of the pack alpha’s younger brother, sprinted in the direction of the omega quarters.
He had to get rid of all signs of this encounter.
The paths which were deserted during afternoon, the awakening evening was slowly blowing life into them; no matter how much Jimin wanted to be unnoticeable, multiple heads still turned towards him as he speedily passed them, gasps of realisation and murmurs of exclamation following him, raining down on the omega like a thousand new needles of shame, piercing through his bones.
“Is that—”
“Hush, don’t say another word!”
“Dear goddess, just look at him! Why’s he out here in the open in this state? That too with his scent unmasked!”
“Isn’t it… isn’t it Alpha Kim’s scent on him? Holy shit, is the pack alpha even aware of this?”
“And here I thought the northern packs were all prudes! How scandalous!”
“Man, even my mate doesn’t smell this ravished after her heat! Alpha Kim surely knows how to enjoy himself, doesn’t he?”
Chest heaving, Jimin slammed the door of his room shut, back in the omega quarters, muting out the streak of gossip that had followed him all the way from the river, and collapsed on the floor, face pressed on his knees.
Why?
Why was he being punished like this by his fate? By this alpha?
What had he done wrong to be humiliated like this? Was his very lone existence in this place full of strangers, under the rule of the clan which had annihilated his family, not a humiliation satisfactory enough?
Why was Jimin in a fight with his own omega for this despicable man?
“Jimin!”
Careful hands grasped his hunched shoulders, shaking him out of his mental spiral with worried shouts, and when he lifted his face, he was met with the familiar face of Hoseok, cool winterberry scent overwhelmed with fear, clearly fresh out of a bath after returning from the laundry house, like every other day.
“What happened, Jimin?” the other omega asked, kneeling beside him, cupping his face in his hands, face paling the more he looked at Jimin, at every mark and bruise on his body, the pungent scent of rum spice and lavender dirtying his skin. “I was just about to come to you after freshening up, what— what happened to you in the meantime?!”
Blankly, the addressed omega stared at the other for a moment— his best friend, whom he had known since his childhood— then, not for the first time in the past month, buried his face into the other’s chest without a word, tears silent.
It wasn’t a hurt suitable of being told.
“Jimin, please, say something to hyung, please?” the elder omega begged, nearly certain of his suspicion. “Please tell me that disgusting bastard didn’t—”
Jimin furiously shook his head, in denial. “–didn’t, heh– he didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Hoseok reprimanded him immediately, enraged on his behalf. “Your mangled scent alone is proof of what he has done to you! Come with me, we’ll meet the pack alpha right now and tell him what his precious brother has—”
“No!” Jimin frantically pulled himself away, horrified at the prospect. “No, no, hyung, we can’t! We can’t! Our pack has only started settling in here, we can’t take their newfound peace from them!”
“Are you out of your mind, Jimin? What are you even saying?”
“I’m saying what our only logical course of action should be, hyung. We’re in no position to challenge Taehyung! Our pack has already suffered so much because of me, I can’t make them suffer anymore.” The omega stood up again, hastily wiping away any wetness from his cheeks, limping towards the bathroom, forcing some light into his tone. “Besides, it isn’t even anything out of the ordinary. Unmated alphas are unruly like that, aren’t they? It’s foolish to take it to heart.”
“Nonsense! Nothing that has happened was your fault, Jimin, every Park will agree on that. And that homicidal beast is not a pup, don’t defend his filthy actions!” Hoseok followed suit, unable to believe his ears. “Jimin, please—”
The younger omega opened the bathroom door, feeling like he was already underwater, not meeting the elder’s eyes. “Anyway, I still need to bring the required water to the kitchen, hyung. I’ll be awfully late if I don’t go back there soon.”
“Jimin—”
“Please, hyung. Please.”
Like he was a mere spectator watching a flower wither, Hoseok stood there, staring at him. Then let out a curt exhale, jaw tight, grabbing a scent-blocker patch from the nightstand attached beside his bed. The Kims didn’t wear them, using the warm weather as an excuse, but he wholeheartedly refused to participate in such perversions. “You don’t need to go back out there. I’ll finish whatever it is they need done in the kitchen. Go, take a shower without rushing.”
And hear what atrocity they’re spewing about him himself, to determine if he should let Jimin out for the next few days or not.
Other than his best friend, Hoseok had been his chaperon for years despite being barely older than him, thanks to his strict senses of propriety. Obeying his solutions had become his second nature. So Jimin nodded, agreeing out of habit, the other omega setting off the next second, closing the door of their room behind him for safety.
Even if it was just another illusion; because his omega had been promised— there will be a next time.
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