#tolw

Perspiration soaks deep into the nest, capillary action spreading it throughout the mess of sheets and clothes until it’s burrowed underneath Simon. The air is sticky. Thick with warmth, it catches in his throat each time he inhales like he’s caught in the apex of summer. A nice vacation with the love of his life—except, this is anything but. 

Overwhelmed, Simon has to peel himself away from you in order to catch a minuscule amount of reprieve, and he braces himself for what’s about to come next. Except, it never arrives. There’s no squirming or thrashing from you even in your half conscious state, no whining or clawing at him to come back as if you’ll die without his presence. You continue to lay there, limply caught without any advertence to what’s going on around you. Your chest is heaving. Sucking in deep, rapid breaths while your eyes flutter beneath their lids. When he places his hand on the crown of your head, you hardly stir. 

“It’s time to wake up, sweetheart. C’mon,” he urges as his hand swipes along the curve of your skull. 

All you can manage is a squeak. There’s no movement. Nothing more than the panting of your existence. Thick fingers trail along your body until he’s got them pressed against your wrist where your pulse thuds like a hammer beneath his touch. Your heart beats so fast he can hardly tell when one ends and the next begins, tachycardia overwhelming your body in swathes of relentless waves meant to drown you. 

Cursing, Simon relinquishes his grip on your hand while he studies your limp body. He’s heard of people dying from heats before. Yearning for stimulation, the body heats itself up with wretched fevers meant to cook the body from the inside out like a bad sickness. For evolutionary reasons, he supposes it makes sense. Any alpha would drool over an omega who presents as sick, and they’d do anything to take care of them. 

Even now he can feel the effects of nature gnaw on him. Your scent is thick in the air, changing rapidly, morphing physiology until it’s just the perfect concoction to tug on the strings of his heart. There’s an undertone of rot to the sweetness that bathes you. A festering wound needing to be cleaned. A harm he needs to undo. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Simon apologizes. The bed shakes as he rearranges himself, and his throat tightens at the way your limp body jiggles with the movement. Knees digging into the space beside you, he rests a hand on your stomach. “Should’ve knotted you like you asked, huh? My poor girl. I’m gonna fix that.” 

There’s not so much as a squeak in response from you. His teeth grit as your body seems to stay the same. He has to move fast—he can’t bear the thought of failing. Of not giving you what you need. Of having to rush you off to the hospital all because he doesn’t know what his omega needs. His girl. 

Tender fingers brush along your sex where he pries your thighs apart for better access to you. Your legs fall open, unused muscles jiggling from the impact. It’s difficult to tell the difference between your arousal and the sweat clinging to your skin, but either way it makes dipping his fingers between your labia easier as he slides your slick along your clit. The sensitive tissue hardens beneath his touch and twitches, sending shockwaves all the way down to your pulsing cunt. Even in your half lucid state you’re able to suck him in with ease. 

Wary of your fragile state, he starts off with two. You’re impossibly warm. A damn oven waiting to suck him in and make good on your cries to have his children. You don’t make a sound until he adds a third. It’s pathetic and faint, something that catches in the back of your throat—what a pretty hole to fuck. 

It doesn’t take long before he’s straining against his joggers again. Even though he’s had some reprieve during your nap, his knot is still stretching, angry for being denied its purpose when he had fucked you earlier. He wants to take things slow, but he’s not sure he can afford that luxury. You’re trembling now. Thighs quivering around his hand as he pumps them into your pussy, chest seizing as you attempt to make sense of the sensations rippling throughout your body—you’ve waited long enough. 

Simon makes sure you’re comfortable once he’s relieved himself of his clothes. Still baking in the room, he hisses when he sinks back into the nest as the heat envelopes him once again. Your thighs are limp around his hips, and he finds he has to maneuver your legs for you; heels digging into the mattress, knees knocked against his iliac crests. Muscle and skin turned into liquid, he kisses a line up from your navel to your mouth. You can scarcely embrace him back. 

“Gonna fuck my pretty ‘mega nice and proper now, yeah?” he murmurs into your mouth. He takes your whimper as a response. “I’ll knot this pretty hole ‘n get you all fixed up and feelin’ better. Just relax now, baby.” 

He feeds his cock into you slowly. He pulls back on his foreskin until the fat roundness of his head is fully exposed with florid glands and glistening tears. Teeth dig into the tender skin on the inside of his lips as he presses against you, tepidness smothering him as your cunt flutters, pulling him in with each contraction. 

Once he’s shoved himself as far as his anatomy will allow, your eyes flutter open as if finally being drawn back down to earth. Your gaze is glassy. Obscured with inert tears that don’t quite have any use but to confuse you further. Your tongue wets your lips as your hips roll with a groan. 

“Simon?” you breathe. 

“Easy baby, I’m takin’ care of ya,” he reminds. Carefully, he moves back, weight shifting until he’s sliding out of you almost too fast, suddenly emptying you, until he fills you full once again with a stifled grunt. “Gonna let your alpha do that, yeah? Gonna be a good girl ‘n take this knot?” 

Your reply comes in the form of the whites of your eyes flashing while your gaze rolls into the back of your head. Spine curving, you lift your arms above your head in a stretch before your fingers are curling into your nest for purchase. Simon’s grin is near sinister like a wolf with fresh meat.  

“Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl.” 

It doesn’t take long to work you open so he can set a comfortable pace that leaves you keening like the bitch in heat that you are. You're dripping. Each thrust leaves your bodies squelching together upon impact, skin slapping on skin, sticky and sodden. Simon becomes hypnotized by the plush bouncing of your tits each time his hips rock against yours. He wonders how big they’d grow if he really knocked you up. Swollen with milk, liquid nutrients to care for a kid or two, playful pups to love and care for—

He hisses between his teeth as he hides his face in your neck. Your begging earlier in the kitchen has really done a number on his state of mind, and your scent isn’t helping. It screams at him. Magnetizes his body to yours, keeping him bound to you chemically as if the strings of fate have wrapped around the two of you to keep you together. 

Even now he can feel the way he melts into you. Hardened cock carving out a space for himself, and your cunt welcoming him with open arms, squeezing him impossibly tight at the base—he second guesses if he’ll even be able to slip his knot into you at all. Not when you’re this tight. 

Once he’s fucked you leisurely enough for you to get your words back on your tongue, you start begging again. For everything. Every piece of him that you can get your hands on. His chest, the tightening muscles of his stomach—it doesn’t take long before you’re clawing at him. Nails digging deep into skin, raking until there’s long, red marks in their wake. An uncharacteristic frustration overwhelms you in an instant until you’re digging holes into him, epidermis peeling until the juice of his body flows. 

Grunting, he wrenches your wrists into his grip and pins you to the bed. With your strength sapped from the brutality of your heart, you’re hardly able to fight back with anything more than a pout and writhing feet as his movements cease. His brows raise as he stares down at you, almost intrigued by your actions. 

“I want… want more,” you mope. Your fingers flex, opening and closing, and he can feel the tendons in your wrists move beneath his palms. 

“Yeah? Then you use your words, baby,” Simon grunts, correcting your behavior. 

“I want more,” you repeat again. 

“More what?” he prods. 

The words won’t come out right. He sees the concentration in your brows as the wrinkles form on your forehead, but nothing comes out except for frustrated grunts and huffs. If this were any other time, Simon wouldn’t be so kind, but deciding to offer you some grace, he moves both your wrists to one hand before snaking his freed one between your bodies.

“You just want everythin’ don’t ya?” he asks. He palms over your tits and chuckles at the way you arch into the pressure, but he doesn’t linger long before he’s pressing his thumb against your clit. “Want your alpha’s cock, want his knot, want his babies—just a greedy, greedy girl, yeah?” 

You gasp as he swirls his thumb along the sensitive tissue between your labia, rendering your mind a useless mess. All you can do is nod at everything he says as he begins to move again. You’re tighter now. Walls closing in on him while electricity shocks your muscles until they’re spasming. You writhe against his hand, but the last thing you want is to get away from him. 

“Lucky for you, I love you too much to tell you no.” 

After that, Simon continues without caution. Thumb assaulting your clit until your legs are quivering, cock burrowing into you as if trying to find its way home—he plunges you into utter bliss. Pure friction, a new warmth chasing away your heat, murky eyes focused on your body, scarred lips against your shoulder, trailing up your jaw, tongue in your mouth; he doesn’t give you time to think about anything else. Not the ache, or the sweat, or even the tears that flood your cheeks. 

Your scent changes right before you come. No longer the wounded pet needing to be taken care of, there’s something sweet on your sillage. Something like a treat meant to spring Simon into action. And he takes the honeyed promise. Hands finally relinquishing his grip on you, his fingers curl underneath your knees to push them up toward your chest, folding you in half as much as your body will allow. 

He stares down at where your bodies are joined. His knot is beginning to swell, bright pink and widening as blood floods into it, veins protruding along his shaft, foretelling what’s about to come. Breath catching in his throat, Simon’s vision lands on your face just in time for him to shove himself inside of you one last time. 

A burn accompanies the intrusion of his knot as it slips inside of you. At first, it’s minor. A gentle sting. A reminder that it exists. But when the expansion begins, you feel as if you’re torn apart. Pussy spreading to its limits, you whine as Simon’s weight crashes on top of you as the pulsing begins. Cum shooting inside of you, plugging you full with nowhere to escape as his knot keeps you locked against his body. 

Simon shoves his face into the side of your neck with a groan as you flutter around him. You’ve got your arms wrapped around his back now as your legs kick out behind him, not used to this new sensation. 

“S-Simon you’re—you’re so big,” you whine. “Too much.” 

“I know, baby.” His orgasm finally begins to wane and he feels febrile. Refusing to let himself crush you, he keeps himself propped up on his arms while mentally cursing himself for the position he knotted you in. “Doin’ so well.” 

Eventually you get used to the stretch. Now, everything feels right at home, as full of Simon as you can get with his cum dangerously close to giving you what you begged so desperately for earlier this morning. As your scent envelopes him, he notes the way your temperature drops. It’s nothing sudden or drastic, but enough to keep your brain from frying with unrelenting hormones controlling your every waking thought and action. 

It’s bliss laying here with you. He feels every ripple of your fingerprints as you rub his back, breathing eventually slowing, content with what you have. The minutes pass by slowly, but your physiology is deeply in tune with his. The moment his knot begins to soften you’re whining again. Desperately pawing at his skin. Hips wiggling underneath him as if trying to keep him sucked inside of you. 

“No…” you groan. “Not yet.” 

Insatiable. A desperate little thing, you are. Always taking and begging. Simon doesn’t mind it, he likes feeling useful, but a heavy fatigue is beginning to pull at his body. It’s a weight in his muscles that pulls him down, chest against yours, bodies melting until he can’t tell the difference between your lives.

But all this is superficial. Hardly skin deep. You’re not the first omega he’s fucked through their heat before, but he wants you to be the last. The one who takes his knot whenever you want it, the one who marks his den with a comfortable nest the two of you can sink into at the end of a grueling day. 

This isn’t the first time he’s brought an omega to his bed, but it’s the first time he’s ever done this. 

Lips suctioning tight around your scent gland, Simon’s tongue swipes along your neck and you tense. Breath caught in your throat, eyes widening as you stare at the ceiling; you curse when his teeth graze against you. Dull but with enough fire to ignite you until you’re nothing but cinder. 

“Oh fuck, Simon… Simon, please,” you beg.

And it’s all he needs to hear. 

Eager canines partake of your flesh as if it’s the last meal Simon will ever have. You puncture easily, and flood into his mouth like nectar from fresh fruit. Your body goes rigid as you come from the sensation, neurons going haywire, synapses misfiring as your limbs begin to quiver. Bleeding, open wound, marked, and all Simon Riley’s. 

He decides he can’t stop there. Leaning back on his haunches, he stares at the blood seeping from your neck and into the nest before taking your hands into his own. Nosing over the puny glands on the insides of your wrists, he breathes deeply before he bites into those, too. You cry out, a pitchy gasp that hisses through your teeth, but he quells any ache as he runs his tongue over the loving wounds he leaves for you. Then, he’s dropping to his elbows. Burrowed between your legs, his teeth mark the insides of your thighs, leaving nothing untouched by him.

All his. Tied with bindings that can’t ever be broken. 

He collapses next to you once your body ceases to function. All you can do is lie there and whimper as the shockwaves of your orgasm pierces through you. Simon takes his time licking at your wounds until the bleeding stops. He’s never tasted ichor sweeter than yours before. Cherries and jasmine, with just enough rotted iron to keep him requiring more. 

“How’re you feelin’ baby?” he whispers. He’s enveloped you in his arms, face buried in the crown of your head as you rest. Your heat must be waning—at least, you’re not sweating as bad as you were before. 

“Perfect,” you mumble, hardly able to get your mouth to open. 

“Good,” he hums. “Get some rest now, sweetheart. I’ll take care of ya.” 

The next few days pass by sluggishly. Hours are lost in your nest, curled up against Simon’s side, breathing him in as you drift in and out of the waking world. Every now and then he rouses you with a water glass pressed to your lips, cold liquid seeping out of the corners of your mouth and dribbling along your throat. He swipes his thumb over the excess and rubs it along your neck, quelling the sting of his mark that scabs in the shape of his teeth. 

There are times when you wake up in a febrile mess with the side of your face shoved into your nest and your rump lifted high in the air with stacks of pillows to keep you steady. Something sears through your core. It burns and stretches you wide like a needle through flesh. It isn’t until you try to move your body and you find yourself stuck to Simon that you realize you’ve woken up in the midst of him knotting you. 

“There she is,” he coos, smoothing a wide palm over your lower back, melting the muscles beneath his touch. “Thought I’d lost ya, sweetheart.” 

After a week, the worst of it is over. Your fever breaks and you no longer squirm and whimper in your sleep. Each word you speak grows more coherent instead of a muddled mess comprised of a heavy tongue and needy fingers curling and pawing into Simon’s flesh. He celebrates your hard work with a large breakfast. Pancakes, bacon, potatoes—you don’t realize how hungry you are until you place the first bite in your mouth. Days of lost calories finally catching up to you, you begin to shovel spoonfuls into your maw, chomping them down and swallowing them half digested. 

Once your plate begins to glisten with grease, no longer covered by your meal, your brain begins to process everything that’s happened to you over the last few weeks. Marco’s death seems like a long forgotten memory. Unimportant. A gravestone already covered with moss with sketched lettering hardly discernible from any other crack in its crust. Your life has been filled with someone else now. Something worthwhile. 

Tongue wetting your lips, your thumbs begin to press at the still healing wounds on your wrists. You can count each indent of Simon’s teeth. Incisors, canines, the dimpled crease of his molars. 

You’re pulled out of your thoughts as Simon swipes up your finished plate. He gives it a half-hearted rinse in the sink before urging you up from your seat and ushering you into the bathroom. After all the time the two of you have spent together, you make no protest as he strips you of your clothes, peeling you like fruit until the cloth is scattered around your feet—fallen petals off a pruned flower. 

The bath he runs is perfect. Preconditioned with cleansing soap, your muscles melt right off your bones the moment you lower yourself into the water. The warmth quells any ache that remains from the last few brutal days of your body attempting to destroy itself and Simon’s cock stretching your hole beyond its limit again and again. You lean back into the water, submerging yourself until you’re as covered as you can get, and he wastes no time getting to work washing you up. 

You’re more filthy than you realize. Coated in a thick layer of sweat, dried cum sticking to various parts of your body, blood and scabs washing away into the water as swirls of iron, the brine of your tears mixing with it all—the sight makes you dizzy, but Simon is gentle as he washes it all away. Wash rag soft on your skin, he uses his own body wash. The scent lures you into such a deep security you nearly fall asleep in the tub. 

“After I’ve cleaned you up, I can head to the store to get you some pills,” Simon speaks up, shattering the silence. 

Brows knitting together, you look up at him as he begins to rinse the suds off of your chest. “Pills?” 

Nodding, you watch as his eyes carefully trace over your body, lingering around your navel. “Mornin’ after pills. Knotted you enough times to get you pregnant ten times over, I reckon,” he says with a chuckle. Pausing, he leans against the side of the tub, elbows on the rim, shoulders hunched over as he leans closer to you. “Unless you really were serious ‘bout havin’ my babies.” 

Looking down at yourself, you place a hand over your stomach as if you can feel all the swelling taking place from the last few days of abuse. Before all this happened—when you were still collared and chained to Marco—you’d nod your head and go along with whatever everyone else wanted. Now, there’s something different. A little worm wiggles and writhes at the base of your skull, controlling every neurological function. Your heart rate picks up at the idea of ridding yourself of the opportunity to be pregnant. Your fingers curl. Everything goes rigid. 

“You okay, baby?” Simon prompts. 

“I…” This idea is foreign on your tongue—speaking up for yourself. “I dunno… it feels… wrong.”

“What feels wrong?” he asks. When you don’t answer, his fingers find your chin where he tilts your head back, forcing you to look at him. “What feels wrong, baby?” 

You swallow. “If I am pregnant, I-I think I wanna keep it.” 

Simon stares at you for so long that you fear he might not agree with your wishes—this strangeness that suddenly overtakes you. Eventually, a small smile flickers over his lips as he nods. 

“Okay, baby. We can do that,” he says, dropping his hand from your chin. “We’ll have to get a bigger house. Somewhere with more rooms and a nice yard, yeah? Don’t think this little place will do us any good for long, not with the litter I’ve given ya.” 

As he speaks, his hand snakes between your breasts and traces a long line over your stomach as if already imagining the way it’ll soon swell with his kids. When he dips his fingers between your marked thighs, you don’t even pretend to be shy anymore. They fall open for him, inviting Simon in as his fingers find your sex with precision. 

“Y’know, I’ve heard stories ‘bout sweet ‘megas not bein’ quite fertile enough in their first heats,” Simon continues. He presses two fingers into you and your gasp nearly cuts him off as he pumps them into you. “Guess it’s the body’s way of givin’ you a break after somethin’ so brutal. Might not’ve taken, but that’s okay, yeah?” 

“But I—” Your thoughts sever just as his fingers curl, deftly finding the spot inside of you that seems to shut your brain off and leaves you a pliable mess. 

“How badly do you want my babies? Huh, little ‘mega?” he asks. 

“Please!” you squeal, hips bucking into his hand. “Please alpha, I-I want it.” 

Simon’s grin is adoring. Something sharp enough that it doesn’t betray his nature, but you’re not afraid of those teeth. Not the ones that have bound you to him by blood and flesh. 

“Good. C’mon then, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you’re knocked up good ‘n proper.” 

It doesn’t come easy. You wake often in fits, whimpering and writhing as you try to pry yourself from the nest for no discernable reason other than the fact that you’re uncomfortable. Itching from the inside out. Stuck within your own wretched skin. Sweat glues the two of you together as he holds you back, not that it takes much effort. You’re weak. You give in easily at the mere weight of his forearm across your torso and quiet shushing against the shell of your ear. 

The only thing that truly quells this discomfort blossoming in you seems to be his scent. Thick hormones—a near paralytic. For hours he lies next to you with his palm cradling the back of your head as he keeps your face pressed against his neck where the secretions of his scent is most potent. You nap like a baby when he’s got you like this. Quiet, and drooling as if you’re starving for a taste of him. 

A few hours in, you almost rouse. Somehow during his own sleep, you’ve managed to turn away from him. Back against his chest, face in the sheets—he wakes at the sound of your groan. Thick and caught in your throat like phlegm, he snaps awake as if it’s an alarm. Panicking, he grabs the first article of his clothing he can find within the nest and shoves it against your nose as if to gag you. It knocks you out cold as if it’s chloroform and not the mere scent of him. 

When Simon notices that it’s a pair of his boxers, he thinks he ought to switch it out for something less degrading, but the way you mindlessly nuzzle into it with a sigh warns him he shouldn’t. 

Dawn breaks over the house in pale silver. A storm is brewing. Downright angry with thunder humming in the distance and light rain already spitting against the window panes. When he notes that you’re still fast asleep, Simon does his best to slip out of the nest unnoticed. Careful, strong limbs guide him over your body until he’s steady on the floor. 

It’s hard to fight his own instincts as he looks down at your curled form, and he can’t pretend as if your scent isn’t intoxicating. All things soft that follows brutality—blood after a laceration, gauze on wound, a shuddering breath from a punctured lung. Your hand begins to stretch in your sleep, fingers unfurling before curling into the mess of blankets and clothes. The sight makes him dizzy; forces all the blood in his body to flow where it knows he needs most. 

Swallowing, he strips his shirt off of his torso before placing it on top of his boxers, gifting you his fresh scent before he leaves the room. 

If he had known your body was about to spring such a brutal heat upon you, Simon would have prepared better, and a part of him is a bit frustrated that he wasn’t able to pick up on the scent. He stares at the sparse contents of his fridge with pursed lips. For half the night you’ve been sweating, overheating, and damn near combusting. Body thrown into overdrive, forcing your mind to undergo something you’ve never had to experience before. You’re using up too many nutrients. You need food. Water. And, of course, the obvious. 

Simon snatches up a half finished packet of bacon before turning the stove on and shoving bread in the toaster. He rummages through his pantry in search for more protein. Nutella, or peanut butter—something with calories, something that’ll fuel the two of you with enough energy for what’s about to take place. 

The bacon is halfway done when an inconsiderate clap of thunder shakes the house. Every wall rattles around him, and he wrenches his eyes shut as he holds his breath, hackles raised. It isn’t long before he picks up the faint sound of your feet trudging down the hallway. 

“Simon?” He can tell from your voice alone that you’re already dehydrated. Each syllable cracks in your throat as you walk up to him with mist in your eyes. “Come back to bed, please.” 

And he wants to. Oh, how he’d sweep you into his arms and lay you back in your nest and shove his cock into your pussy as many times as you need—and he will, in due time. But right now the drive to take care of you is stronger than something as debauched as that. 

“Not yet, baby,” Simon murmurs. He stifles your pout with a gentle caress of his thumb against your cheek. “Gotta get some food in ya, first. Grab a seat, I’ll be done soon.” 

You don’t wander far despite his prompting. Wobbly, unstable knees give out beneath you and he finds you sitting on the kitchen floor next to him as he continues to cook. Bacon grease pops and sears the bare skin of his chest, but it’s easy to ignore the pain when you’re clinging to his leg. Hands wrapping around his thigh, forehead rolling back and forth over his hip. 

It isn’t long before you begin to wander. Nose prodding against his crotch, Simon feels himself harden within an instant. He does his best to push it out of his mind as he sets a plate for you, but the audible sounds of your inhaling leaves his mind spinning. It only worsens when your lips fall apart to press against the band of his joggers in an open mouthed kiss, wanting tongue already darting out to wet the cotton. 

“Sweetheart,” Simon sighs. He places his hand on the crown of your head, prompting your neck to crane back to look at him. Everything about you is wet—your cunt, your eyes, glistening tears on your cheeks, sweat coating your throat, all failing to douse the fire churning within you. “You gotta eat.” 

“I don’t wanna eat.” You’re getting bratty now. Whining with your brain telling you to devour one thing, and it certainly isn’t food. Trembling fingers curl into his joggers before you yank, sending the band pulling past his hip bone. “I feel worse. I just—everything is so foggy. You said you were gonna—Simon you said—you were gonna take care of me.” 

He steadies both your body and attitude with a soft grip on your jaw. The movement silences you immediately, and all you can do is stare up at him as he clicks the stove off and retrieves your breakfast with his free hand. 

“Poor little ‘mega thinks she’s got this all figured out, yeah?” He tilts his head to the side as he leans forward; nothing but a curious dog. “But you don’t, do you sweet girl? That’s why you need me. Need your alpha to take care of you, don’tcha?” 

Simon slinks low enough until he’s on the ground next to you, plate of food on the floor to his left while his legs sprawl out. When his thighs part, the straining bulge in his pants is glaring. Growing ever rounder, more firm, damn near throbbing through the fabric—it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the sight when he pats his lap. 

“C’mere sweet girl. We’re gonna eat.” 

He situates you until you’re between his legs, back pressed against his chest and head rolling against his shoulder. Simon feeds you by hand. Slowly. Salted pork, buttered toast—it all presses past your lips until every crumb is in your mouth. Though your whimpering hasn’t stopped, your kvetching has. Jaw too busy chewing, biting through flesh, retaining the energy he knows you’re going to need. 

While one hand feeds your mouth, the other feeds your cunt. Shoved past the band of your panties, Simon’s fingers swirl around your clit effortlessly with the wetness that’s accumulated over the countless hours. You’re impossibly firm, tender skin perking up nice and pretty just for him. Every now and then he slips a finger into your hole just to feel the way your hips jump and writhe. 

“S-Simon,” you gasp. 

“Less talkin’ and more eatin’ baby.” He brings the last half of toast up to your mouth where you gingerly take a bite, incisors hardly stealing more than a nibble. 

“B-But I’m—you’re—everything feels weird like… like tight and… fuzzy…” 

He knows exactly where this is going. It’s been growing for the last few minutes in the twitching of your legs, nerves misfiring, muscles contracting, a flood of spasms waiting to erupt. Before he lets that happen, he presses the last mouthful of toast into your mouth and waits for you to swallow before his fingers begin to pick up their pace. 

“Yeah? What else, baby? S’it feel good?” Simon prods—playing with his food. 

All you can do is mumble something hardly coherent as you nod. Back beginning to arch, hips levitating off the floor, heels digging into the hardwood—you shatter with a squeaking groan. Taut thumbs curl into his thighs where you hold purchase to keep yourself steady before you’re panting and gasping as if you’ve already sucked all the air from the world and you’re still hungry for more. 

“Atta girl, there she is. Wasn’t so bad, was it? Eatin’ all your food like a good pet.” Once your breathing has calmed down a considerable amount, he raises his hand to your mouth where his fingers are still stained with bacon grease and crumbs. “Be a doll and lick me clean.” 

You follow his order with a gusto he didn’t expect you to muster after he dismantled you like this. Taking his fingers into your mouth, you suck each and every one of them clean, all the way down to his thumb. When he raises his other hand away from your sex, your jaw falls slack, waiting for him to ask you to do the same, but he only chuckles. 

“Nuh uh, this treat’s for me, sweetheart.”

Tight muscles begin to melt beneath his touch as Simon’s hands wander over your body. Heat still emanates out of you as if you’re a furnace, but he notes how the perspiration isn’t as thick anymore—which could either be a good or bad thing. He hums something about needing to clean up before he slips out from behind you. With all the strength sapped from your body, you do not wander off, but instead lie on the floor with your cheek pressed to the cold ground. 

Rain slaps violently against the window as he begins to wash up. The food he had made for himself has gone cold, but he shovels it into his mouth before disposing of the grease and soaping the plates and pan. Thunder purrs overhead and Simon thinks about how perfect everything is. You, here where it’s safe as this storm rages on, hidden deep in his den where not even the elements can lay a hand on you. 

Simon’s drying his hands off by the time he turns back around to check on you, and that string that tugs at his navel nearly forces him to pounce on you. Knees digging into the hardwood, rump raised high into the air while your face stays flat on the floor—your hands are between your thighs and he can see everything. How you desperately try to move the soaked gusset of your panties to the side, the way your fingers pitifully press into your hole, palms pressing at your cheeks, spreading yourself wide for him. 

“Too empty,” you cry. “Simon, i-it feels wrong; please fix it, fix me, I can’t…” 

He’s on his knees behind you in an instant. Hands ghosting over your lower back, kneading into the tense muscle before his fingers slip beneath the band of your underwear. You’re swaying with his movements, unsteady even as you’re nearly laying. Jasmine wafts in the air and his eyes nearly roll into the back of his skull. 

“Need your alpha’s cock, is that it sweet girl?” he asks. Simon tugs at the fabric and yanks them past your hips until there’s nothing covering your sex. He can see her in all her quivering glory—glistening and clenching. Waiting. “C’mon, what do you need, baby?” 

“You!” Your response leaves in a near shriek, only to die off to a susurrus. Then, your swaying tenses. “My… my alpha?” 

“Yeah, your alpha, baby,” he nods. 

“My alpha. I want it.” 

You’ve waited so long, and been such a good girl about it. Laying pretty for him in a nest strewn in his bed, waiting by his feet as he cooks, came so sweetly on his fingers—he cannot deny you this. Simon shoves the waistband of his joggers down and grunts at the way he springs free, cock bobbing as he tenses before he takes it into his hand. Warm metal greets his palm as he lazily strokes himself, squeezing precum free from his tip so he can wipe it off on your cunt and chuckle at the way you jolt. 

A sob escapes your throat when he pushes in. You stretch so well around him, pulling him in and forcing him to stop once you’ve swallowed the head of his cock. You’re panting, fingers curling into your palms, nails digging into the flesh, knuckles tapping against the floor as your feet begin to kick. 

“Easy baby,” Simon says through a hiss, grabbing your hips for his own stability. 

“More, more please, I can’t- too empty, Si, too empty,” you babble. 

He’s impressed at how easy it is to shove the rest of himself in. Not even his frequent lays before this could ever take him as well as you do now, and he has to bite back the murmur that bubbles in his chest. This is proof. Your scent—sweet and tender in the way death always is—how you’ve so easily wrapped him around your finger, consumed every thought—his mate. His omega. 

That tender spot on the side of your neck looks tastier by the minute. 

Simon’s pace is quick—you won’t accept anything less. Whimpering every time he attempts to give you a break, begging for more, refusing to let him treat you as if you’re delicate; he relents. Fingers curling into your hips, broad thighs slapping against your own, sending sharp claps echoing throughout the empty kitchen; it’s raw. Pure and unadulterated. 

It’s frustrating how fast his orgasm approaches, but he can tell by the kicking of your feet that it’s exactly what you’re wanting from him. To be full not only of him, but everything he has to offer. You’re begging now. Incoherent rambling hits the floor as your head lowers as if in prayer. All Simon can do is hold on to the fat of your ass as he watches the way his cock plunges into you, wetness glistening along the back of your thighs as you soak him to the very bone. His jaw clenches, teeth creaking, diaphragm spasming—

A strangled sob leaves your throat when he comes. He’s twitching inside of you, half sheathed but still filling you up properly with all the spend he has to offer. With narrowed eyes, Simon witnesses the way his knot swells just outside the entrance of your pussy and he growls. It hurts. Too much pressure and not enough counterweight to squeeze him tight—the tender skin bulges and reddens. Cursing, his palm slams against the cabinet as he grinds into you, but it’s useless to offer any reprieve for his aching knot. 

Once you’ve caught your breath, he finds you finally looking back over your shoulder. Neck craned, hips rolling—it isn’t long before you’re pouting. Dazed, Simon doesn’t realize the way you’re pulling away from him until it’s too late. You rock back into him, body colliding with his knot in a way that makes him growl. Instinctively, he reaches a hand for the nape of your neck before he presses hard, forcing your chest to the floor, leaving you squirming. 

“None of that,” Simon warns. 

“You didn’t give me your knot,” you whine. 

“You’re not ready for that yet, baby.” His weight forces you to collapse until you’re flat on your stomach, legs straightened with his thighs forcing them apart. The fear of being crushed ought to scare you, but all you do instead is moan. “Too much at once for a sweet ‘mega like you.” 

Hips still wiggling, you attempt to shake your head as best as you can. “I can take it! I need it, need you so bad Simon, you’re so- you’re so mean.” 

“Mean?” He can’t help but chuckle at that. “No baby, I’m takin’ care of ya. Just like I said I would, yeah?” His grip loosens on the back of your neck, but his thumb begins to wander to that quivering gland. You tense, body ready and eager; your head tilts to the side. “I’ll give you this knot nice and proper later, yeah baby?” 

You wiggle in defiance. “I can’t wait, Si. I don’t wanna wait.” 

“You can do it, sweetheart. I know you can.” 

Without warning, his thumb digs into the side of your neck where the skin of your shoulder meets your throat. Your mouth falls open but a sound doesn’t escape you for a long moment until a moan eventually bleeds out between your lips. Soft gland pinched by his nail, every inch of you begins to tremble. Cock still shoved inside of you, he feels the way you come just from that mere touch—that feigned bite that he knows your brain craves primally, but is unsure if it’s what you truly want. 

Simon’s eyes close as you squeeze him in rhythm with your orgasm and he doesn’t loosen his grip until you’ve gone truly limp beneath him. Perspiration coats your face but that doesn’t stop him from leaning down to kiss your cheek. 

“You’re drinkin’ some water, then you’re gonna nap, yeah?” It’s not a question, but rather a preordained series of events he knows you need. 

The fight has been drained out of you—for now—and you nod with a sigh. “Yeah, okay.” 

It takes several minutes to get you back into the nest you so meticulously put together on his bed. Pulling out of you, Simon sits on the floor next to you as he rubs your back until the strength returns to your body, but even then your knees are nothing but jelly, and he has to guide you to the room with an arm wrapped around your waist. 

You settle into the plush sheets and mess of his clothes so nicely, having already carved out a space for yourself. He lets you rest for only a moment before he’s cupping your chin and pressing a water glass to your lips. Half of it spills out of your mouth. Soft streams dribbling down your chin, wetting your chest—you hum at the way it cools your feverish skin. 

Simon hardly has time to settle into the nest next to you before you’re winding up again. Hands pawing at his chest, nose nuzzling against his flank, mouth wandering too far down for his comfort—he has to cradle your face into the side of his neck to even temporarily sedate you, but even then your wiggling persists. He attempts to satiate you by jamming his thigh between your legs to allow you to grind against him, but if anything the stimulation only works you up even more. 

“Is it time for more?” Your question is so saccharine his teeth ache at the thought of biting into something so sugary. 

“Not yet, baby, you need to rest first,” he gently reminds. 

“No, it’s okay, I’m ready.”

He chuckles. “No you’re not.” 

You attempt to look up at him but he refuses to let you rip your face free from his neck, so instead your hips begin to rock more violently. Naked clit sliding along the fabric of his joggers, he can smell the wetness. Brine and cum, flowers and blood—his growl emanates low in his chest. 

“But I want you. I want- I want everything, Si,” you whine. 

“Everything?” 

“You, and—oh everything. Your babies, I wanna- I just- it’s too much, I just need it, I know I do.” 

Electricity shoots through his brain at that. Your babies. Everything short circuits as your hips continue to rock and grind, stomach dangerously close to the growing desire separated only by the cotton of his trousers. His knot is still angry—frustrated at being ignored—but your talking has him riled up again. 

“You don’t want that, baby, that’s just the hormones talkin,” he murmurs. 

“Yes I do,” you huff with a challenge. “I can… smell it. It’s so strong. You. Your scent. Fuck, it’s so good. My alpha. My alpha, and I’m your omega, you said it! You said it! You can smell it too.” 

He can’t tell what’s worse—your rambling or the fact it’s making so much sense. Puzzle pieces falling together, intersecting lines pulling taut, dragging him towards this fantasy. Images of you, plump and round with his kids haunts his mind and he finds his heart freezing at the thought because fuck why does that sound so good? So delicious? 

“My alpha… my mate… want you to fill me up, wanna have your babies, wanna—oh—be all yours a-and… f-fuck…” 

Legs tightening around his thigh, fingers digging into his arms—your orgasm catches him off guard as your hips stutter to a stop. Though your words are now lost, Simon feels them echoing around in his skull, bouncing off the bone and burrowing straight through the grey matter of his brain. It’s a dangerous seed. Quick to germinate and root until all rational thought is snuffed out. 

His only saving grace is that you’re riding out your high and melting in his arms, temporarily satiating you. Holding you closer, he takes a deep breath with his nose pressed against the top of your head while he attempts to ignore the sticky parchedness of his canines. 

“Try to get some sleep, baby,” he urges before you can regain your energy again. 

You grumble against his throat. “I’m not tired.” 

“If you get some rest, I’ll knot you properly when you wake up.” 

At that, you perk. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Sitting beside you at dinner, having long accepted the new scars that line your neck and wrists—she grows quiet for a moment. Stiff. Nose flaring, eyes narrowing in confusion, quietly mulling over her own thoughts as she sips on her water.

The round table sports the four of you perfectly—you, Aelin, John, and Simon—a reunion of sorts after spending so many weeks locked up in Simon's home, recovering from your heat, healing after being caught in Marco's teeth for so long. For the longest time, you had only seen glimpses of one another. Heard morsels of voices and get well soon through the speaker on your phone.

Sapori is the only place that makes sense for your meeting. After up and quitting your job once Simon claimed you, you wanted to give back to the place that supported you through the worst times in your life. Bee smiles at you as if she's forgotten about her own fresh mark on her neck while she takes your order. She recommends a wine that pairs well with your meal.

Aelin's eyes narrow.

It isn't until the wine glass is up to your lips that she says something. Alcohol close to your tongue, aroma wafting off the liquid—she snatches it out of your hand.

"You can't drink that," she hisses.

The glass greets the table with a clink as she slams it on the hardwood, pulling it closer to her. You jump at her forwardness. There's a fire in her eyes as she raises her brows, lips pressing tight together—waiting.

"Why not?" you ask slowly.

As if second guessing herself, Aelin takes a deep breath. She holds the sapor on her tongue. Rolls it along her taste buds until it's settled in her throat.

Her voice softens to a whisper. "You're pregnant."

Not even Simon's famed sharp nose picked up the notes in your scent—the gentle change in balance of your hormones. It's as if the restaurant melts around you. He takes your hand into his and rubs his nose against your wrist. This revelation has his eyes dilating wide enough to swallow you, to wrap you in the warmth of his gaze, milky irises coddling you.

That night after an awkward dinner of explanation, reassurances, and a cheap at home pregnancy test, he spends the late hours of the evening rubbing against your stomach. Hands and mouth on your bare skin, he worships you. The softest part of you. The warmest. Lips below your navel, crooked nose sucking in deep breaths of you like he can't get enough.

You lay there for what feels like forever, fingers running through his cropped hair, heart thudding in your chest as you think of all the ways your life is going to change. How it already has changed.

Tired of your own thoughts, you swallow them down. "What are you thinking about?"

Simon's movements pause at the sound of your voice. He continues with a hum. "Gonna need a bigger house."

It's the first thing he does. A new den. A bigger den, he says. Safer. Something large enough to wrap up everyone he loves. He finds a house not too far away from the Prices'. Two stories, a yard with a plush lawn, perfect for a few kids to frolic about, plenty of rooms so that no one has to share one (he still shivers at the memory of sharing one with his own brother).

Then, you nest.

It's worse than your heats. Not even showing yet and you're fluttering about from room to room, cleaning everything, complaining about some lingering smell your sharpened hormones have cursed you with. Hardly even two months pregnant and you're already setting up bassinets. Buying clothes despite not knowing the gender. Hoarding diapers. Eyeing maternity clothes.

You start showing at twelve weeks—the doctors note how strange that is for a first time mom. Even the radiologist overestimates how far along you are when you do your placement scan. Simon holds your hand the entire time, eyes hardly straying from the screen. They're nothing but a little blip for the moment. Quiet implications of a head and hand, so incredibly small that the baby doesn't even look real.

Then, the wand moves. Warm gel smears across your stomach. Your eyes close at the feeling—sticky, uncomfortable. Once you get over the sensation, you remind yourself to look at the screen where you watch as one head becomes two. Two hands become four. A gentle battle. A fight for dominance. Lives twisting inside of you, growing in the same womb.

"Oh, look at that," the technician coos. "Twins!"

Though you're reclined and steady on the table, you feel the rotation of the earth beneath you for a moment. Grasp tightening on Simon's hand, you crane your neck to look at him, eyes so wide you can feel them threaten to pop out of your skull.

"Simon?"

It takes him a moment to look at you, too enthralled with the babies on the screen. His smirk is quiet as he kisses you on the forehead. "Told ya I was gonna do it properly, yeah?"

Now, there's double everything. Bassinets, clothes—with each addition, Simon keeps mentioning how glad he is to have bought this house. With each coat of paint he hums about hoping the kids like the color when they're older. He's always pawing at you. Hands on your stomach, chuckling at the way they kick against his palms or his lips when he tries to kiss them through your skin.

He echoes his gratitude especially when he's got you laying on your side, cock shoved as deep as your tender pussy allows (always reminding you that you can't lay on your back—bad for circulation with the babies). Always so gentle with you, pressing against your softening cervix with tender ease, leaning forward to kiss your swollen breasts where the tissue is most troublesome.

"Don't worry, baby, we've got plenty of room," he coos when you begin to keen. "Couple more won't hurt."

Except, that's not what he says by the time he's finally got them in his arms months later.

It's impossible for Simon to think about anything other than the two children fast asleep on his chest swaddled in blankets with colors you've decided have matched their personalities. Your little boy, clad in sage green, and sweet girl in a cream so soft you could dive into it.

They're both sleeping, noses wiggling as they coo and whine through their dreams. Hardly even a week old, Simon thinks as if he's known them his whole life. They're the best parts of him. The softer parts. Not yet ruined by the world—people for him to love and cherish.

He recalls when he was younger. Mostly, how his father treated him. Brutal nights of smothering his own cries, head burrowed beneath blankets, hands pinching his mouth and nose so that his father wouldn't hear when he eventually dragged himself home. Simon thinks of all the ways he's going to be better. Stronger. Kinder.

"How are they?"

You're standing in the doorway of the living room, scent heavy with enervation and pain. Clad in pyjamas with freshly washed skin, you waddle towards the couch where you slowly lower yourself next to him. It'll take weeks for you to fully recover. Stitches mending your skin together, a wound deep inside of you that still bleeds, inflamed womb contracting—still, you smile. Head leaning against his shoulder, hands reaching out to rub along your children's nose; Simon hums.

"They're good. Sleepy." His thumb rubs over your daughter's back and it's hard not to linger on the way his hand swallows her up. So tiny compared to him.

"Maybe they'll let mum and dad get some sleep tonight," you muse.

As if on queue, your son begins to stir. Eyes opening with color just like his father, fists curling as his brows furrow and he opens his mouth in a cry. He wakes his sister, who Simon quickly lulls back to sleep, but the only remedy is milk. Taking him into your own arms, you shush him as you pull the collar of your shirt down, presenting yourself until he latches. You hiss at the way your uterus contracts as he feeds. It's the deepest ache you've ever known, second only to being chained to Marco. You find comfort in resting your head against Simon once more.

"I never thought I'd make it here," you admit.

Resting his head on top of yours, Simon traces the knuckles on your free hand with his middle finger. "Where?"

"Here," you repeat. "In a nice home, with children… with you. Always thought I was going to be trapped with that collar on. Stuck under Marco's finger."

Truly, Simon hasn't thought about Marco in a long time. Not since he spent days helping you through your heat. Not since he first saw his children on that sonogram. "Was never gonna leave you like that, baby," he assures.

You are silent for only a moment. "I have dreams about that day at Tsar Trading," you admit. "How you killed him. I see that hole in his throat and how the man I feared for so long was rendered into nothing… they're the best dreams I ever have, Simon."

The desire to kiss you after this revelation floods strongly in his veins, but he bites back the urge until the two of you are in bed. Children fast asleep in their cribs, white noise buzzing through the television—his lips find yours. Puzzle pieces snapping together. It's a well worn path, the way your mouth slots against his, tongue flooding your mouth until you're humming.

Then, your face is in his neck, nose pressed tight against him, drinking up his scent like the only narcotic you need to quell the pain of birth. He presses the tips of his fingers into your lower back, stretching out the worn ligaments until they tremble then release.

Simon smells your tears before they even fall. Brine thick in the air, your scent changing slightly, like wood dampened by rain. He holds you tight. Arms pulling you into him, forcing you to drown in his scent until you're able to catch your breath.

"I love you," you manage to choke out. "Thank you… for everything."

After a moment of thought, Simon speaks the words he always has—the same phrase he's been repeating ever since he first met you:

"Told ya, sweetheart. Gonna take care of you. Gonna take care of everything."

It lands in a bubbling glob next to Marco’s corpse, marring the floor with a faint pink before it’s overwhelmed by the flood of ichor pouring from his yawning throat. Pearl white teeth peek out from between parted lips, now stained rose, and Simon scoffs at the sight of his canines. Sharp. Whittled down enamel. They’re fake—the mark of an alpha without control. 

Closing his eyes, Simon breathes in the scent of a fresh kill. Raw meat, thick in the air, wafting through his nose and plugging it full until his mind is spinning. Pheromones fade and are quickly replaced by decay. Wet foliage and fur caked with dirt beneath a shallow grave. 

This is what victory smells like. This is success. 

“O-Oh my god, y-you…”

Eyes like burnt umber lock onto you the moment your trembling words burrow through Simon’s brain. Sweet little omega with her back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest, and hands covering her mouth—you’re shaking with wide eyes focused on the scene behind him. Simon glances back at Marco’s body for a split moment to take in the gore and he mulls over how this must look to you. A senseless act of violence. Revenge in its most brutal form. You’ll realize that this is a gift in due time. 

“I told ya I was gonna take care of all this, sweetheart,” he patiently reminds.

The moment he steps towards you, your attention snaps to him. Blood still coats his face, wetting his maw, dribbling down to his chest. You know humans used to kill one another like this back before nature was deemed unsightly. Sharp teeth are meant for protecting, for fighting, for piercing sweet scent glands on the tender sides of necks. Still, the sheer carnage before you stuns you into silence. 

All Simon can think about is what a good omega you are looking up at him as you curl on the floor. It instills an aplomb that swells in his chest, heating his blood as it pumps throughout his body. You. Yes, you. It feels right. He can’t name why, he just feels the fact of it settle in his bones, a weight he doesn’t mind keeping around.

Kneeling before you, Simon’s hands reach for your throat and you only flinch a little bit when his fingers hook underneath your collar. Faux pink sears his retinas as he thumbs over the polymer. Real leather would be more secure, but this infantizes you. Belittles you. 

Teeth gritting, he begins to yank it apart. Plastic and metal strains and creaks underneath the pressure, and you squeak just as the collar splits open, claps coming apart and clattering on the ground. Simon discards it to the side, and your hands are quick to rub your naked throat as you sigh in disbelief. Your skin is ripe and smooth with perspiration, but you can’t help but trace the ghost of your collar. 

“Simon, I—thank you—this is—I can’t believe—oh!” 

Without warning his nose is in the crook of your neck, crooked curve rubbing at your scent gland. His breath is soft and long as he inhales you. Your gland pulses against his nostrils, white hot blood throbbing beneath your skin, and he huffs. Palms flat on his chest, instinct tells you to freeze as he continues to nudge against you, hot breath fanning against your newly revealed skin. 

There’s a pit that pulls just behind his navel when you tilt your head to the side; a snarling beast that compels his mouth to open. He nearly listens to it. That whining dog within him. Yet his nose catches the unsavory redolence of Marco, and how it still taints your skin, leaving you sordid and rotten, and he licks his teeth instead. 

“Sweet little ‘mega… you still smell like him,” he mutters into your collarbone. 

Blinking, your feet begin to scrape against the ground, body squirming beneath all of Simon’s attention. “I do?” 

He nods, then covers your hand on his chest with his own as he leans back to look at you. “I’m gonna fix that.” 

“You will?” 

Lips still twitching, still yearning for something, Simon leans forward without warning, mouth planting against the center of your forehead. The taste of your skin is muted because of Marco’s blood, which now stains the crown of your head, but it’s enough to satiate the growling in his stomach. 

“Yeah,” he assures as he rubs the blood off your face with his thumb. “Gonna take you home ‘n get ya all cleaned up.” 

Before anyone can stumble upon the mess he’s made, Simon escorts you out of Tsar Trading and shuffles you into his car before speeding off through the city. Your body is airy in the passenger seat next to him. Limbs filled with helium, skull packed with balloons, everything zooms by in a blur. Hands drawn to your throat, you can’t help but hold your tender skin. How long has it been since you last felt yourself like this without a barrier? 

Without Marco’s threatening teeth hovering over your neck? 

The dull drum of your hangover worsens the moment Simon pulls into the garage, and reality crashes down around you with the sudden weight of a tidal wave. Marco. Your debt. His corpse heavy on the floor of a grimy pawn shop. A hunk of flesh in Simon’s mouth. The alluring sheen in his eyes as he spat out fresh ichor onto his latest meal. 

“C’mon, sweetheart.” 

The door is open. Simon’s hand is waiting for you. Beckoning. Calling you home. You gently place your fingers against his palm and he brings you out of the garage and into the house. It’s darker than you expected it to be. Windows shrouded with thick curtains, all overhead lights snuffed out with only lamps and secondary lighting to illuminate the rooms—it’s warm. Comforting. A blanket of drowsiness swaddles you the very moment the door is locked behind you, pulling you beneath rocking waves and drowning out the vicious storm you’ve attempted to weather most of your life. 

Simon leads you through the living room around his comfortable sectional and coffee table littered with motorcycle parts to bring you into his bedroom. His mattress is huge. Large enough to swallow both you and him for dinner and still have enough room for dessert. Much like the rest of his house it’s dark with plain walls and a strong aroma of tobacco and musk. You breathe in and your brain begins to spin; gyrating until you’re unsteady on your feet. 

Algid air greets you in the master bathroom and it acts like water against your face, shocking you back into your body. Simon turns on the spout in the bathtub and runs his fingers beneath the flow, humming to himself as steam begins to waft and he yanks on the diverter until it’s spewing from the showerhead. 

“Oh, that was kind of you. You didn’t have to run it for me,” you excuse, attempting to thank him for his kindness despite how gauche it feels on your tongue. 

Straightening himself, Simon wipes his hand off on the front of his jeans before his attention is back on you. “Course I did.” Then, he motions at you, fingers flicking up. “C’mon. Clothes off, sweetheart.” 

His order restarts your brain and you find your arms absentmindedly crossing around your midsection, guarding your stomach, the most tender part of your body. “What? Like, right here? In front of you?”

“Is that a problem?” he asks with a raised brow. When you stutter through your answer, he puts you out of your misery. Stalking closer, feet moving with purpose, he gently closes in on you, body waiting to smother yours. “I told ya I was gonna clean you up, didn’t I?”

You swallow. “Y-Yeah.” 

The blood on his mouth has dried, but the scent is still just as strong. Intoxicating curor like red wine and honey mixed with brutal sweat. All discomfort within you dissipates when he looks at you—when he’s so close that you can smell him. Rewired brain, neurons learning new pathways, doors opening that you always thought were locked shut. 

“You’re gonna let me clean you up then, yeah?” he prompts. His lips quirk into a pleased smirk when you nod. “Good omega.” 

All shame leaves you the moment you begin to peel your clothes off. Shirt, pants, underwear—it all piles up on the floor next to your shoes until you’re standing nude in the mist, nipples perking in the cold. Simon pulls back the shower curtain and ushers you inside then shuts it before too much water can splash on the floor. 

Mindlessly, you stand beneath the pelting drops of water and let it cascade down your body, ignorant to the quiet thudding that hits the floor next to you. The next time the shower curtain moves, Simon is naked. His pallid chest dully reflecting the light still isn’t enough to blind you as you watch him climb into the tub behind you. You inspect him within a single instant. The thick muscles that flex in his thighs, ink spreading along his arms in swirling designs, a fat keloid that digs into his shoulder—

—and of course, him. 

You know what he’s supposed to look like. The videos and pictures from your health class ages ago were able to teach you that much at least. Still, it’s different seeing a cock in real life. Flaccid, it hangs lazy between his legs, foreskin stretching over the head and hiding it from view. Speckles of silver attempt to make their presence known from the underside of his shaft, leading all the way down to his puffy knot where it rests as a dormant shade of pale pink. 

As he snaps the curtain shut behind him, you distract yourself with mindless swaying while your arms wrap around your torso. Hands behind your shoulders, fingers digging into the anxious muscles unguarded. Simon dips his hand beneath the stream then wipes at his face. Beads of rosy water roll down his abdomen, tracing along his sternum before eventually diving to the tub where it vanishes with the flood. 

It isn’t long before his attention turns to you. Shower gel lathering in his bare hands, he guides you how he wants your body and scrubs you clean everywhere he can reach. The side of your neck, down the curve of your spine, between your legs—you giggle when he reaches your flank, nails scraping over your waist, tickling your ribs. He spends extra time on your wrists. Thumbing over the tiny scent gland that lies just over your pulse, he brings it up to his nose after each rinse where you can hear him breathe you in even over the roaring water clogging your ears. 

“Do I—erm… do I smell okay now?” you question cautiously. 

There’s a long stretch of silence full of Simon nuzzling your wrist before he finally answers. “You don’t smell like anythin’ at all.” 

“Oh, yeah,” you say with a sheepish chuckle. “I guess that… makes sense.” 

“Do you not have scent glands?” His question is blunt—near invasive. Far from a proper thing to ask, but his need to profile you is nettling too deep beneath his skin. The only person in the world he cannot smell, here before him, and haunting all his waking thoughts. Yet, you are not scandalized. Simon’s curiosity is not the first you’ve encountered. 

“No, I have them,” you admit. “They just… don’t seem to want to do their jobs. At first they thought it was late puberty, then a hormone imbalance, then a genetic condition… Now they’re telling me I might just be a little broken with no fix.” 

Simon’s eyes narrow at your explanation as if the very notion has him upset. “You’re not broken,” he insists. 

Backtracking, you shake your head. “Oh, I know. I guess. I-I mean, it doesn’t bother me. Like, I’ve never had any of the urges everyone else gets. Nesting, or heats, or…” Your tongue is loose, flapping against your teeth before you’ve fully comprehended your words. You stare at Simon as if he’s tricked you—transfixed you—before swallowing down the rest of your explanation. “It’s for the best anyway, I mean, with all that stuff going on with Marco I wouldn’t have the time to deal with biology anyway so… s-so, thank you. For—erm—taking care of him.”

Simon is quiet for a long time. He holds your gaze and it burns, red hot coals shoved into the pits of your stomach, poking at your navel, urging you forward. Instead, you stay still as he pulls your wrist up to his mouth just as his tongue lulls out to lick your gland. It sends a spark through your nervous system. It sizzles along each neuron until something hums to life in the long forgotten slice of your brain and you’re left staring at him with wide eyes. 

“Anythin’ for you, little ‘mega.” 

When the water shuts off and you’re met with the bite of brisk air, Simon dries you off with one of the largest towels you’ve ever seen. It dances over your skin, down your back and in the crux of your arse. He doesn’t bother to grab himself a fresh one before he dries himself off, then lazily wraps it around his waist. Enervation tugs at your eyelids as you lean down, fingers reaching for your old clothes on the floor, but your movements cease the moment Simon’s hand is on the back of your neck, scruffing you like a mangy cat. 

“Nuh uh,” he warns. You yelp as he pulls you back and you spin around to face him with a huff. “You’re not wearin’ those. They reek of Marco, and I just washed you up.”

As if wounded, you wrap your arms around yourself, skin puckering into gooseflesh as you shiver. “What am I supposed to wear, then?” 

Instead of giving you any proper clothes to change into, Simon retrieves a spare quilt from the hallway closet, wrapping it tight around your shoulders before dressing himself. Half naked, you sit on the edge of his bed with glassy eyes and scenes swirling in your skull as you’re forced to confront the day's events. 

Sharp teeth in tender throat. Fresh ichor spilling like pomegranate juice. The pretty corpse of a pretty man. A pink collar next to pallid fingers. 

“Hey.” Simon stands before you, fingers pressing beneath your jaw, prompting you to look up at him instead of your lap. “I’m gonna get you new clothes. Gonna be okay by yourself for a bit?” 

Your blink comes slow as you stare at him, nose flaring as his scent pierces through you like a bullet through ripe flesh. “Yeah. You can take the key to my flat, it should be in my pants.” 

“No baby, I’m buyin’ you new ones.” 

“What?” you breathe. “But I’ve got perfectly fine clothes at home!” 

The look he gives you turns your tongue into stone as umber eyes darken into onyx. Lips squeezing tight, you stare at him, hips readjusting on the edge of the bed as you wait for him to speak. 

“You’re not safe right now. Goin’ back to your flat is a bad idea while things are too hot, ‘n you’re safer ‘ere with me.” Pausing, Simon’s fingers wander away from your chin and down along your neck, ghosting over that sensitive nook that makes you quiver. “I asked you if you needed an alpha to take care of this for you ‘n you said yes, so you’re gonna be a good pet ‘n let me do this, yeah? Gonna let me take care of ya?” 

All fight and urge to argue is siphoned from your marrow, forced into dormancy too deep for you to reach. Everything goes fuzzy as mirth seeps from your brainstem and into your blood. It pumps throughout your body. Everything tingles. You’re warm in his touch. Content. Happy. 

“I’ll be good.” 

Simon makes quick work of his trip. After gathering your old clothes and throwing them into the bin, he spends his time meticulously gathering everything he expects you to need. Trousers, panties, shirts and pyjamas—he forgoes getting you any sort of bra entirely, not even attempting to eyeball your size. He doesn’t intend on letting you leave the house, anyway. Not until things cool down. 

He returns with his arms full of stacked bags that he haphazardly places on the kitchen counter before meandering back into the bedroom. Numbra cloaks the room, nearly obscuring his vision, but he’s still able to make out your form on the bed. As he stalks closer, feet silent on the floor, he notes you’ve slightly rearranged his bedding. Pillows strewn around your body, duvet bunched up in supporting places like you’re in the midst of a bowl. 

Eyes closed tight with the quilt pulled just under your chin, you’re fast asleep. He can hear the air in your lungs and how it expels through your nose, soft against the sheets, eyelids fluttering in the midst of a dream. Something stirs within him. A primordial growl that doesn’t quite bubble up in his chest—a content beast purring. 

He’s compelled forward, knees dipping into the mattress, movement gently jostling your form but not stirring you into consciousness. This feels right. His body next to yours, back pulled close to his chest, arm caging around you as he digs his nose into the back of your neck. You smell pure. A natural redolence like jasmine. With Marco’s scent expunged, he falls asleep within mere minutes. 

A few hours later, he wakes to the feeling of your nose pressed to his flank. 

His shirt is rolled up slightly, exposing the soft padding of his stomach during his slumber, but something sears through him. Your skin. Without the quilt to guard your body, you’re leaning against him without a barrier and he swears he can feel the quiver of your pulse. Your sniffs are soft and delicate, near pathetic little things—secretive and tense. 

Breathing in, Simon’s legs go rigid as he stretches and you freeze the moment he moves, retracting back into yourself as if you can’t afford to be caught. It’s impossible to hold back the simper on his lips as he sits up, movements slow and careful so as to not spook you. Still, you pull the quilt up under your chin again as his body twists, hands planting on either side of your head. His pupils swallow his irises. Black holes ready to consume you. 

“Why’d you stop?” he asks. 

Your lips curl inward before you press them against the corner of the blanket. “Stop what?” Simon doesn’t expand on his question, but the rise of his brows gets you to spill. “S-Sorry, you just… smell really nice.” 

“You’ve never been this close to an alpha before, have you?” he hums curiously. When your only response is to shake your head, his simper grows into a smirk. Before you know it, he’s lowering himself onto his elbows, body blanketing yours until his neck is presented to you. “Go ahead. You don’t even have’ta ask, baby.” 

The speed at which you give in is laughable. Nose against the underside of his jaw, diaphragm forcing your lungs to suck in mouthfuls of him—you dive into him. Arms curling around his neck, you pull him closer and he relents. You nuzzle into him as if you’re trying to dig through his throat with your nose. The longer he lets you explore, the more brave you become with your movements—reeling him closer, tugging on his shirt, legs squirming beneath him. 

Then, there’s the pinch. 

Dull teeth nip at his collarbone, forcing Simon to pull back with a growl. Teary eyed, you stare up at him, apology already slipping from your mouth. 

“I-I don’t know what came over me, I’m sorry,” you spew. 

He doesn’t say anything in response—he simply allows silence to shroud the two of you as he reverses the dynamic. His own crooked nose knocks against the side of your neck and you keen so prettily his hips roll forward instinctively as his lips hover over your scent gland. There are times in the past when he’s messed around with omegas like this before, toying with their most vulnerable parts just to feel them melt, but there’s something that’s weaving through his brain that muddles his thoughts. 

Jasmine. Ichor on flowers. Fur warmed by the sun. 

It lulls his teeth out from between his lips. They’re dry. Thirsty. Screaming for something to wet them, to put them out of their misery. Simon nearly gives in. Tender flesh on full display for him, quivering pulse within his grasp—he pauses. The scent flees just as quickly as it appeared. 

Humming, his lips quietly press against your scent gland and—for now—he ignores the tickle in the back of his brain that demands more. 

Weeks pass like this. You laze around on any surface you deem soft enough as you flip through the dusty books that lie on forgotten shelves throughout Simon’s home or solve sudoku puzzles in the paper. He tells you this is to keep you safe—just until Marco’s corpse has fully rotted—but by the time the weather warms into spring you’ve already carved your own spot into this house. 

Curled up into his side on the couch, nose suctioning to his side, digging into his ribs, wandering up to the pit, nesting in his bed, snoozing whenever you please, smiling more and apologizing less—you’re not sure you want to leave anymore. It’s safe here in the secluded den Simon has built. You tread past windows without the worry of camera flashes burning your sight, you don’t flinch when he touches you—and his smell. 

It sows something inside of you. An infinitesimal seed that’s burrowed deep into your gut and has germinated for so long it’s ready to bear fruit. Delicious, ripe with juice and skin so full it shears with the faintest pressure of teeth. The roots burrow so deep that they affect not only you, but Simon, too. He feels it churn through his offals, spearing through all things unnecessary; intestines, liver, spleen. 

The feeling haunts him worse when he’s not at home. Far in the depths of Terminus’s maw where a sickening concoction of scents assaults his nose. Even here in the VIP room it’s overstimulating. Sour musk, faux pheromones, greed and bitter lust; it all coalesces until his eyes are watering at the stench. There’s a twitch in his fingers that beg for a cigarette, but he bites the sensation back as the sillage of rosewater pierces through the wall of odor around him. 

“There he is. My husband’s favorite delinquent,” Aelin chirps. Simon’s growling chuckle sounds like blended metal when compared with the soft music playing in the room. Aelin grins as she leans against the wall next to him, heels tapping against the lacquered floor. “I do hope he’s taking things easier on you now after that whole mess.” 

Mess. He nearly scoffs.

“Marco was a sod. It was a pleasure to get rid of ‘im,” he hums. 

“Even without permission?” she questions, inflection curling around each word. 

His reply dances on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back. Of course it was worth it. He’d do it a million times over. Without permission, by himself, with a crowd, with his bare hands—the trouble he caused was worth it. Snuffing out the filth. Freeing you from your bonds. The sweet omega sleeping in his bed is just a secondary treat. 

“Chip didn’t come with you tonight?” Aelin reroutes when he doesn’t reply. 

He shakes his head. “Said she wasn’t feelin’ well.” 

“Ah.” An elbow brushes against his side; playful. “She seems to be staying with you an awful lot these days. Hardly even answers the phone when I text. Care to explain how that came about?” 

Truth is, he doesn’t. He thinks about your debt, and the secrets you’ve whispered to him about it, and he knows you couldn’t handle bearing your sins to Aelin. Not now, at least. Instead, Simon sighs as he rests the back of his head against the wall, looking at the crowd over the angled curve of his nose. 

“She likes the way I smell.” 

At that, Aelin smirks. 

The rest of the night moves at a snail's pace. Musk is tainted with liquor and hoppy beer, burning his nostrils until they feel void of hair. Simon remains at the edge of the crowd, eyes narrowing at each face that passes him by while something writhes beneath his skin. He thinks of you. Your skin on his. Nose on his neck. Gland in his mouth. It’s as if he has hives on his skin, they itch and burn, setting him ablaze, making him wish he could take his claws and rake it over himself until it stops. 

On the ride home he lights a cigarette to cleanse his palette of the filth he’s had to endure through the night. It swirls on his tongue and when he exhales he pushes it through his nose until the only thing he can note is tobacco and the buzz of nicotine. His dash reads 01:33 by the time he pulls into the garage and he’s groaning as he enters through the door, achy feet finally nettling too deep. 

The moment he steps foot into the living room, Simon knows something’s wrong. 

Thin fabric and glistening springs greet him as he stares at his barren sofa. Each cushion has been stolen away, leaving behind not so much as a throw pillow in its wake. Hackles raised, he carefully steps around the couch, eyeing it warily, as he enters the kitchen. The light is still on—you always keep it this way when you know he’ll be home late—but the island is a mess. Seven half empty water glasses are strewn about the countertop with no method to the madness, and he nearly slips right on his arse as he splashes through a puddle just by the sink. 

A piercing dither strikes his chest when he calls your name and he gets no response, sending him spiraling through the house until he’s bursting through the bedroom door. When he flicks the light on he freezes.

You’ve nested—properly. Damn near burrowed. A true hibernaculum. Sofa cushions line the wall and are held together by tucked sheets, and you’ve seem to have raided his spare blankets from the closet. His hamper is overturned, and he sees various articles of his clothing poking out from the medley of fabrics that you’ve buried yourself in. Even from the doorway he can hear your whimpering. Pathetic pules. The squeaking of a mouse or cries of a kitten.

Simon opens his mouth to grab your attention, but just as he does something hits him—a wall of thick air, something hardly permeable, yet strong enough to nearly bring him to his knees. He clasps a hand over his mouth as he stumbles toward you, but it’s not enough to smother the scent. 

Your scent. 

Jasmine and blood, fresh red oozing out of weeping meat, warm honey dripping onto a waiting tongue, the brine of needy tears spilling from a desperate cunt—

Your eyes flutter open as Simon seats himself next to your nest and the moment your gaze locks onto him, he knows he’s doomed. The sudden onset of your scent leaves his brain devolving until a demanding mantra plays on repeat—take. Take you. Take everything, all your pain and strife, and give, give, give. 

“Simon?” 

The crack in your voice sends his heart quivering as he leans forward, hands cupping your face. You’re febrile. It seeps through his skin and into his bones demanding that he purges it. “I’m right here, baby.” 

“S-Something’s wrong like- like, I feel really weird,” you whine. You reach up to wipe the sweat from your brow only for it to be instantaneously replaced by more perspiration and he has to fight back the urge to lick your fingers clean. “Everything’s so warm and I just- I can’t think straight… I-I’m sorry about your clothes, you just- it’s the only thing that seems to c-calm me and-and oh… Simon you… you smell so nice.” 

Each word you speak has his heart thudding in his chest, violent and raging like a storm. Your eyes are so heavy you can hardly keep them open, just peering up at him through heavy lids as you deliquesce in his grasp. He’s leaning forward, lips parting, tongue wishing to taste the delicate scent that teases his nose. 

“Did somethin’ happen?” Even his own voice sounds as if he’s under water—too far beneath your current to be saved. 

“N-No it just- I felt odd this morning but it just- it came out of nowhere sometime after you left.” You stutter as he breathes in against your scent gland. “Am I sick?” 

“You have a scent now,” he admits as the world seems to sway around him. It’s potent. So strong yet pleasant, smothering him in a way he wouldn’t mind asphyxiating. 

“I do?”

He hums in confirmation as he begins to traverse down your body. You’re wearing nothing but a dress shirt and a pair of panties, leaving your bare legs to spread wide for him as he slots himself between them. You listen to his touch, chest rising against his face as he trails down to your stomach. Then, he’s pushing at your thighs, giving himself enough room to shove his face against your clothed sex. 

Instead of exclaiming, you moan, hips rolling up as he inhales. There’s an intoxicating aroma that overwhelms him, sending all his blood straight to his cock where it aches against his jeans. You watch his eyes squeeze shut before he’s weaning himself off of you, and when he looks up at you, his eyes are warmer. There’s a new fire lit behind them and the sparks are jutting out to meet you—to know you, your skin, the softest parts of you, everything that makes you tick. 

“Poor little ‘mega,” he coos as he sits back on his haunches. “Can’t even tell when she’s in heat.” 

“What?” Everything you know crumbles around you as Simon’s words attempt to untangle themselves in your mind. “But I- no- I’ve never been in- they said I couldn’t!” 

“Might’ve been from the stress,” Simon offers, though it’s hard to think rationally when your scent muddles his thoughts. He attempts to recall any other omega who’s scent had this effect on him, yet nothing comes to mind. Something jovial purs in his chest at that revelation; that you’re special—his. “Owing Marco, workin’ yourself half to death the way you did, might’ve thrown your body into survival mode. Prioritized other functions besides scent and hormones.” 

There are tears in your eyes now. Frustration and fear clash head on in your chest, and you’re pawing at your eyes to will them away. “Fuck. No, no, I can’t—this cant—no!” 

Simon melts over you, elbows crashing into the mattress as he covers your body with his, sticking close to you despite the heat. “Shh, it’s okay baby.” 

“I dunno what to do! I’ve never… I can’t think, I just, it’s like there’s a hole inside of me, and it burns, and I just need it—I dunno what I need! I’m so-”

“Shh,” he coos again. He knocks your hands away from your face with his jaw before he’s presenting the side of his neck to you. Your sniffling slowly fades until you’re breathing deep, nose against his throat, drowning in his scent. “Poor thing. Need me to take care of you, yeah? Need your alpha to help you through your heat?” 

You hum, lips reaching up to grace against his Adam’s apple. “You smell… that’s not too much trouble? Helping me? Simon you—my alpha?—you smell so nice…” 

The keen in your tone has his fingers curling into your nest while the straining in his pants gets worse. He’s throbbing with want. It rattles inside of him so fiercely he fears you might hear the growling in his stomach. 

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

“No baby, it’s no trouble,” he assures. “Do you trust me?” 

You’re beginning to calm now, muscles no longer tense on the bed, yet still burning just as hot as you were before. But it’s better now. It’ll be enough—until it isn’t. 

But he’ll be right here to take care of his omega through it all.

“I trust you,” you eventually sigh. 

“Good. Now lay back and let me take care of my mate.”

A blessing and a curse—it’s a good tool but it always leaves him feeling nauseous at work. Here, in the midst of bodies pulsing to wicked bass beneath inadequate lighting that leaves his eyes straining through the numbra that cloaks Terminus like a sack placed over his head before a hanging. 

Pheromones waft through the air like spoiled food. Thick and unheeded, burrowing through his nostrils, overloading his senses until his scleras are red with spiderwebbed veins. There’s the thick musk of alphas, puffing their chests and flaunting the strengths of their genes. Sharp teeth, canines that—back in the day—were used for gutting; for protecting fawning omegas who trail behind them with wide eyes and unabashed smiles. Clubs like these replace the hunt. The primal urge to capture prey and nourish them. 

It’s why Simon isn’t surprised when he can smell a fight coming. 

Ancient rust spills across his nose as he stands with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on a growing crowd near the bar. It clashes with baneberry, tart on his tongue, saliva glands constricting until his mouth is dry—he watches a man bear his teeth. Hand on his omega’s shoulder, sneering at a too-comfortable intruder, he barks. They’re too close to their ruts. Musk thick on their throats, lips dry and waiting for the rainwater of delicious ichor to coat them—Simon steps in before the first punch is ever thrown. 

Hand on the alpha’s shoulder, fingers curling in his flesh to pull him back, he snarls a quiet, “Calm down.” 

The man turns, eyes wild and pupils dilated, teeth still on display, digits twitching as if ready to sink his claws into Simon. But he’s bigger, broader—a pristine and prime example of the wildness of animals. 

“I know you wanna fight, but you can’t do that shit ‘ere,” Simon murmurs, voice cutting through the dull thrum of the music. His attention flickers over to the omega, standing dazed with glassy eyes and a flushed face as she stares at her alpha. The want rolling off of her is palpable. That sweet redolence—that concupiscence bundled up nice and pretty—curls around his spine, and he hums. “Take your girl home.”

“You’re kicking us out?” the alpha growls, bewildered. 

“I don’t need some pillock too close to his rut startin’ fights,” Simon retorts, looming over him. “Look at you. Poor fuckin’ excuse for an alpha. Can’t you see how badly your omega needs you right now?” 

As if suddenly splashed with cold water, the man looks over his shoulder, eyes locking onto his dazed partner as her body sways to the music. She’s liquid beneath his touch when he takes her hand into his and begins to lead her out of the club, neglecting to say a word to Simon edgewise. 

The world is a jungle, and the city is a dangerous mix of too-close hibernaculums and territorial creatures.

He leaves for a smoke after the situation is diffused. A tenebrous alley swallows him whole as he shrugs off the winter cold to light his cigarette and chew on the filter as he breathes in the nicotine. It’s a reset. Something to temporarily numb his senses as thick swathes of tobacco rolls over his tongue to mute the memory of sillage, of too many conflicting flavors in the air.

Simon tries not to cringe at the memory of how he used to be like that—an unruly alpha driven by wretched hormones and unbridled rage. He used to be dangerous. He still is, but he’s predictable now. In control. Not only does he have the power physically—beast-like strength coursing through his muscles, sharp teeth meant to gouge and swallow flesh in a single bite—but he retains the mental fortitude. It’s why John Price keeps him around. 

A very good, well behaved dog on a very tight, very short leash. 

To reward him for his good comportment, Simon is tasked with being a chaperone. Trustworthy. Impeccable restraint. He trails behind Mrs. Price every time she decides to come to Terminus. An omega with claws of her own, he’s not sure why he’s given this job. She’s not a helpless woman. Flaunting the teeth marks on the side of her neck, very few are foolish enough to toy with the woman who smells of lingering musk. 

Though, he is worried about the near-pitiful creature trailing behind her. 

Well guarded with shifting eyes, you keep yourself properly protected with a turtleneck collared shirt and your palms rubbing flat over your biceps. You are the perfect fantasy, he thinks. The little fawn every alpha yearns for when they’re plagued with wet dreams of sweet omegas who don’t know any better falling right into their open, begging maws. 

Scapulas rolling, Simon inhales slow and steady, senses weaving through the medley of scents produced by the crowd. Usually, he’s a bloodhound. Nose sharp enough to slice out anything unwanted, whittling the gristle off of meat until it’s edible, but when he tries to get the vaguest taste of you, there’s nothing. 

Curiosity piqued, he licks his lips. 

“There’s our little shadow,” Aelin Price beams, half drunk and with her drink sloshing in hand the moment her eyes find Simon. She says it as if he were hiding, but he’s not anymore. Not when he’s needing to profile you—to familiarize the scent that can’t quite reach him. “Or, I guess little isn’t the right term, is it? Tall bastard.” 

Your tense giggling is stifled by the tips of your fingers as you warily watch Aelin take another sip of her drink—perhaps one too many. The bite of vodka assaults his nose and he huffs as she pulls you closer to him, readying a clean palette to breathe you in. 

“Chip, this is Simon, he works with John for security. Simon, this is Chip, my best friend,” Aelin introduces. 

You begin to flounder, hands in front of you, toying with your cuticles as you attempt to get your gaze to rise from your feet. Timid. A lamb on wobbling legs. You swallow as you give him a sheepish smile, but his eyes only narrow when he realizes he can’t pin your scent. Not even synthetic suppressants cloak the natural order of things as well as this. You’re an empty slate, with a hint of something macabre—

“It’s nice to meet you,” you eventually choke out. 

—a hint of danger that’s all too familiar. 

For the rest of the night, Simon doesn’t let you leave his sight. Lurking the way he always does, shady eyes raking over every inch of your body as he attempts to sift through the catalogue of scents in his brain, willing himself to recall what you’ve bathed yourself in. Saccharine like cherry pie with a hint of nightshade lurking beneath the crust, waiting to spring forth and trap him. An enigma hidden behind a kind facade. He doesn’t trust you nearly as far as he can throw you—lifeless corpse bobbing in still water, mistaken for a log, never to be missed or seen again. 

Eventually, you stray from the flock. Sweet little wannabe omega stumbling away from Aelin, lubbering legs dragging you to the crowded water closet. Simon loiters outside the door. Inside he can hear giggling, the popping of lips, smell the silage of synthetic pheromones pressing against necks and wrists—then, it’s the danger again. 

You again. 

Before you can wander back to where Aelin sits at a table for two, glassy eyes staring at her phone as she titters to herself, Simon’s fingers find their home wrapped around your arm. Your squeak is smothered by the pulsing music as he carefully drags you closer to him. 

“O-Oh, hi Simon,” you greet, muscles tensing beneath his touch. You’re next to him now, back against the wall while his eyes survey the crowd before the two of you like he’s waiting for something. A distraction. “Erm… is there something I…”

Your question is smothered in the back of your throat as Simon curls over you, attention now brought to your stunned face as he places his hands on either side of your head, palm against the sticky brick behind you. Tobacco fills your nose, but it’s all you can smell—you’ve never had a very good sense of smell. But you don’t need pheromones to read the blunt warning in his gaze as his nostrils flare. 

It’s hard not to flinch when he leans closer, nose brushing your cheek like butterfly kisses before his head dips down. Wide eyes stare up at the ceiling as he prods at your neck. It’s painted black. You can see where the uneven coating thickens in patches, pooling with paint, glistening bright beneath black lights and neon purples. Then, you turn away when he inhales, deep and slow. The grunt he exhales is difficult to read, but he doesn’t sound satisfied. 

“You keep interestin’ company,” Simon notes. He leans back just far enough to look you in the eye but not enough to let you free. Hands still planted firmly around you, arms curling like a cage to keep you close, you see the purposeful flash of his teeth as he snarls. “I’ll be watchin’ you, little ‘mega.” 

With that, he sends you on your way, and he does well to keep his promise. It would be stupid of him not to—especially now that he’s recognized that scent clinging to you like a second skin as Marco’s. 

That night, after Terminus is emptied and he’s laying in bed, Simon contemplates warning John and Aelin of your elicit friend. Truly, he’s impressed the overly protective alpha hasn’t noticed it off of you himself. You reek of him. Of Marco and his twisted greed for all things good and pure. His lighter flickers to life as he burns through half a pack staring at the ceiling, smoke curling upwards like greedy fingers.

No—maybe for once he can indulge. Maybe he can allow himself to enact the revenge he’s so desperately coveted for longer than he can remember. 

Come morning, the other half of his pack is absorbed by his lungs as he sits in his car across from your apartment. It was a little challenging finding the address without ousting himself from the shadows, but he managed. He has a keen nose, after all. You sleep in late. Either that or you like the dark. Curtains drawn tightly closed, not a single morsel of light to bleed through the fabric; you don’t exit your apartment until 11:30.

You’re not wearing enough clothes—fighting off the bite of winter with a simple jumper, another turtleneck shirt, and a thin pair of jeans, he watches you shiver down the pavement with a folded envelope clutched in your trembling hands. He waits for you to round the corner before his engine is quietly sputtering to life and he’s following you along the street. 

Too easy of a target, you don’t notice him at all. Never once do you lift your head to check your surroundings, you keep your gaze down to your feet, counting each crack in the cement before you stumble into a laundromat. Simon pulls into a car park across the street and lights another cigarette just in time to watch someone strut in after you. 

Marco. 

The man who nearly got his brother killed. The man who got him involved in this life of crime in the first place. 

Your rendezvous is relatively short. Just long enough for a lingering conversation before Marco’s skipping through the door again, hands occupied with something in his pocket. There’s a pull to his lips—a faint simper—that makes Simon’s fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into his flesh, claws begging for blood; for the chance to let loose. Countless dreams have come to him in the dark of night, each playing out ways in which he’d like to bring about Marco’s demise. A knife straight through the liver, internal bleeding overwhelming him in an instant. Hands crushing his windpipe. Knuckles cracking across his face until it caves in—an unrecognizable corse. 

After five minutes, Simon cuts across the street and bursts through the laundromat door to find you sitting on a bench, string wrapped around your fingers, and head hanging low as if you’re caught at the gallows. You jump when he enters. All broad shoulders and furrowed brow, you can smell the rage rolling off of him in thick, suffocating waves. The bobbing of your throat is hidden beneath your turtleneck, and you quickly stow away your string with a sniffle. 

“S-Simon? What’re you doing here?” you question cautiously. 

His eyes darken before they flicker across the room. It’s a small building. A simple 24 hour laundromat with countless machines, rundown tile flooring, a rusty drain that looks half clogged, and cheap detergent being sold for way too much in coin slots on the far wall. An old box television drones on in the center of the room, but besides the default news station, it’s quiet. 

“Could ask the same to you,” Simon quips, attention narrowing in on you as he steps closer. 

“I’m just… doing laundry,” you say, but your gaze adverts before you can finish your sentence. 

“Yeah?” he challenges. “Where’s your basket then, love? Which machine are you using?” 

Mendacities being torn apart limb from limb, your attention falls to your lap, fingers twisting together as if attempting to recall something. Muscle memory. A gentle motion to soothe. Simon stops in front of you, toes nearly touching yours as he curls forward, towering over you. The rage he feels now is similar to what he feels when he’s about to go into rut—uncontrollable and all consuming—but he knows he’s months away from it. This is pure virulent desire. This is the urge to make Marco pay. 

“Who was the man in here with you?” he questions. 

“I-I dunno, he was just, coming to check on-”

“Bullshit.” His interjection silences you, but he can smell the fear emanating from you now. Still, it’s faint. Quiet and dainty, but robust like the churning of soil during a storm; a wicked desire to be free, to flee, to fall back on human’s most basic nature. “Told you I was keepin’ an eye on you, pretty ‘mega, now cut the shit, yeah?” 

Tongue darting out to wet your lips, you raise your head just enough to look at his stomach, but you go no further. “Simon, look, I don’t- I don’t know what you think is going on, b-but-” 

“What I think?” Simon repeats with poorly concealed acrimony. Despite the edge to his words, his hand is gentle against your chin as he tilts your head up, forcing you to look at him. “What I know is that you came into Terminus reeking of Marco. One of the most dangerous bastards in this city. I don’t take that shit lightly.” 

Your eyes widen. “I… I smell like him?” 

“I dunno what you’re playin’ at love, but I don’t want you stepping anywhere near Terminus or…”

His warning dies on his tongue and rots the moment he catches sight of your neck. Faux pink leather stares up at him, playing peek-a-boo through the top of your turtleneck like a blinding beacon. Hand lowering, he pulls at the fabric until your neck is exposed, and his stomach churns at the sight. 

You’re collared. Like a dog. An animal. Something less than human. It’s held together with silver buckles and a small lock pad without a key, keeping it secured tight enough to hide your scent gland from sight—to keep it safe from biting teeth. He’s heard about people who do this. Degrading them to that of an animal, holding the false sanctity of virginity over the rights to one’s body, it is a disgusting act of possession to do such a thing. To deny someone the very thing that makes you human. 

Your bottom lip begins to tremble when his fingertips brush against the synthetic leather, tracing along the edge until he’s reached the tag. Having dulled over time, it doesn’t shine nearly as bright as the rest of the collar, but Simon has no issue making out the engraving in the metal. 

Marco’s Girl ♡ 

Clutching the fabric of your shirt, you yank your turtleneck up over the collar, forcing Simon’s fingers to fall from the tag as you cast your gaze downwards. He smells the brine—the stinging salt that plagues the tears in your eyes as you sniffle. When you stand to your feet, he relents by stepping back while you wipe your face on the edge of your sleeve. 

“I-I really have to get to work now. Have… have a good day, Simon,” you mumble. 

He lets you leave. Vanishing out on the streets, swallowed up by the pavement—a dull cement jungle gym caught in the throes of two crime syndicates. You’re in the crossfire. Directly in the center. Threatened by Marco’s ever hungry maw. 

After that, Simon gathers as much information about you as he can, and it’s a pitifully easy feat to accomplish. You work at a restaurant—some fancy Italian place he’d never be caught dead in outside of going for a date—and you always take the late bus back to your apartment. Sometimes he’ll catch you perched at your window, in that building that looks like it’s rotting from the inside out, scribbling away at a journal. 

You are a sweet thing. Something his instincts urge him to scoop up and hide with. There’s a spot in his den that he knows you’d look perfect in—swaddled with blankets, nesting like you should be doing instead of living in fear. You behave unlike any omega he’s ever seen. He wonders if it’s because of your anxiety—how it slithers through your ribcage, weaving between too-tight bones. 

An alpha would fix that, he thinks. 

“Why? Are you interested in her?” 

Simon’s made the mistake of approaching Aelin for information about you, prompting questions in what he thought was casual conversation but seems to be something the woman is all too good at sniffing out. She looks up at him while making herself comfortable in John’s office chair, hands on the arm rests, legs crossed, and a proud smirk on her lips. 

“Really, I introduced the two of you because I was hoping you’d get together. Or at least hook up,” Aelin concedes. Rosewater washes over his nose as she taps her fingers against the chair, but it’s not enough to cover the bitter musk of regret. “Chip is… well, I get a little worried about her, I guess. She’s a little stunted, if that makes sense. I’m sure you’ve picked up on her near lack of scent. I think it makes it hard to have anyone pursue her and… well, it makes me sad. Thinking of her all alone. Without someone to take care of her.” 

Aelin doesn’t know it, but she’s planted a seed in his chest—one that germinates all too quickly. Rooting through him, he thinks of you in what he tells himself is a slow workup to a bloody revenge on Marco, but he can’t deny the swelling. The primal urge to care for you, to stick his nose against your scent gland until he catches something worth savoring. He needs to know you. You, the only creature who seems to evade his sharpened senses, an enigma he needs to learn; to study. 

So then it is surely intentional when Aelin drags you out to Terminus on the next weekend he works. You smell different—wrong. Bathed in synthetic pheromones, slathered with glitter across your eyes and too much alcohol in your system. You’re being paraded around. Put on display. A flaunting show all for his approval. 

Dazed, you seem ignorant to his watchful gaze, and a squeak erupts from you when his hand finds the small of your back. Standing behind you, neck curling forward, he whispers to you: “Follow me, sweetheart.” 

You trail behind him like a kid following behind a Judas Goat, ignorant to your impending fate as he seals you into one of the VIP rooms. The door locks with a click and you’re left stunned, staring at the opulent decor before you. A conversation pit sits below a thin, gossamer chandelier, and large windows give a near birds-eye view of the bottom floor. Simon’s feet fall heavy against the stone floor, and he catches the way you shiver as he gently guides you to sit. 

“I-I’m sorry.” Your apology spills past your lips as you keep your gaze straight, following his direction as you sink into the pit, body bouncing on the sofa. “I know you told me not to come here again, but Aelin insisted, a-and I couldn’t say no to her-” 

“I’m not mad at you,” Simon interjects before you can spiral too far. He sits next to you, weight causing the cushions to dip, nearly getting you to fall into his gravity. Blinking, you look up at him, eyes shining with unfallen tears. “I just wanna know more ‘bout this.” 

He gestures to your throat, and instinct forces you to grab it—to feel the leather that skulks beneath the thin fabric of your turtleneck—but your hand quickly drops as if realizing your mistake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Leaning closer, Simon solemnly searches through your eyes and counts every little fracture that forms in your facade. “You don’t need to lie, sweetheart. I already know you owe Marco money.”

You lick your lips, and he can smell the alcohol. Absinthe—anise. Your mind visibly swims as your head bobs, gaze cast down into your lap, fingers picking at the dry skin around your knuckles. “No, that’s… I’m not supposed to talk about this. I shouldn’t.” 

“Yeah? That why he gave you that?” he questions. 

An ant beneath a magnifying glass, you shift under the heat. The searing sun that lies behind Simon’s eyes—powerful and unyielding. “It’s insurance.” 

“Insurance?” he repeats. 

You nod. “I-If I ever make late payments or… try to run… it keeps anyone else from claiming me. It keeps me—like—pure, I guess, for Marco.” As if realizing the words spilling from your drunken mouth, your eyes widen as you look up at him, feet pushing against the floor as if ready to run. “I shouldn’t have- I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” 

Soft and demulcent, Simon shushes you. Every thought in your mind quiets until your eyes are empty, and he attempts to bring back the light as he leans forward, cupping your cheek in the palm of his hand. Though you might not smell like it, you’re still an omega at heart. Fluttering lashes, the desperate desire to be taken care of, to have a silly alpha under your thumb to do your bidding—it ignites somewhere within you. 

“Please don’t tell Aelin,” you beg, voice hardly above a whisper. 

“I won’t. This’ll just be between us,” Simon swears. His other hand is on your knee now, fingers gently curling around behind the back of your thigh, pressing into the soft tissue there until you’re whimpering. “How long has this been goin’ on, sweetheart?”

Your bottom lip is quivering again. “Too long.” 

“Poor girl,” he coos. His voice is thick—so much so it nearly gets caught in his throat, but you let yourself drown in it anyway. “Need an alpha to take care of it for you? Huh, little ‘mega?” 

You’re leaning into him now. Knees knocking against his, basking in his warmth as he lures you in closer. He notes the way your nostrils flare, taking long drags of him as if he’s your favorite brand of cigarettes.

“Take care of…? Take care of what?” Caught in the depths of ecstasy, you’re hardly coherent, but you’re right where he wants you. Where he needs you. 

“Marco,” Simon explains, thumb rubbing over the apple of your cheek. “He won’t bother you again.” 

“You’d do that? But why?” you question. 

“Not a fan of him, sweetheart. Besides, look at what he did to you.”

“So you’ll talk to him for me?” 

Simon nods. “Yeah. I’ll talk to ‘im.” 

After that, you spill. Everything spews out of you like blood from a wound. You drunkenly explain everything he’s ever done to you—the touching, the kisses, the threats—each meant to break you down, to render you nothing but a pliant dog just for him. Something roars to life within Simon; an all-too-familiar rage that nips at his heels, urging him into action. You’re so sweet in the palm of his hands. How anyone could ever want to do anything other than cherish you is beyond him. 

When your rambling dies, Simon leads you out of the VIP room and retrieves a cup of water for you. As he holds it to your lips you let one last thing slip. 

“I have to meet him tomorrow.” 

Simon pauses. He almost can’t hear you over the music, but he reads the shine on your lips well enough. “At the laundromat again?” 

You shake your head. “Usually we meet there, but he wants to meet at the pawn shop this time…” For a moment, you distract yourself with a sip of water before coughing. “Tsar Trading… I hate it there.” 

“You’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he assures. “I’ll take care of it.”

Once he’s satisfied with the amount of water you’ve consumed, Simon returns you to Aelin, who doesn’t at all seem too worried about where you had vanished off to. A knowing smile pulls at her lips when you stumble back into her arms. Her nose brushes against your shoulder, and her eyes only narrow. She throws a disappointed look to Simon, who only shakes his head before he vanishes off into the crowd; a shadow blending into darkness, a prowling animal off to hunt. 

In the morning, your head pounds so fiercely you swear someone is living inside of your skull, angrily hammering away at your broken psyche in an attempt to fix it. You spare nothing but a simple slap to your phone as you turn your alarm off before rolling onto your back and staring at the ceiling. Stress fractures dance through the moulding. You have dreams that this place will cave in on you someday. You’re not quite sure if it’s a nightmare or a fantasy. 

Preparing for the day is a slog. One shoe on, and then the next. Cold water on your face. You longingly stare at the shower, yearning for the gentle soap to cleanse your body, but you’ve already overslept, and Marco doesn’t like to be kept waiting. 

He is not a patient man. 

You hate going to Tsar Trading. It’s halfway across London, and it smells acrid, like camphor left to rot in the walls for too long. The bus jitters across the streets, and you attempt to lean your head against the shuddering window, groaning to yourself at the bite of the frost growing in the corner. If you did not have so much cash tucked into your pocket, you’d allow yourself to fall asleep—to be dead to the world for a little longer. 

Instead, your mind plagues you with visions from the previous night. Of Aelin’s beaming smile and the liquor she kept shoving into your hands, of the scent of tobacco and Simon’s hand on your back, of the fuzzy memories that attempt to resurface. There’s something about deliverance. A troth whispered with your face cupped in loving hands. 

You push it out of your brain—there is nothing to save you; it’s simply a fantasy.

Marco is already waiting for you. His presence seeps from the building as you traverse across the dilapidated car park. Verdant eyes pierce through you like a mangy alley cat’s as you approach the counter—the two of you are alone, and you’re not sure if that makes you feel better or worse. Unwanted knick-knacks and heirlooms stare up at you from glass enclosures while peeling wallpaper titters at you in line with Marco’s too-perfect simper. 

“You’re late, babe,” he notes in a sickeningly cheery tone. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, fluttering eyes staring at the counter. There’s a new item added to the collection of blood goods and pawned treasures—a small fox. She’s clay, you think. Or maybe ceramic is the correct term. Glossy coat, vibrant red fur; she’s perfect for a fairy garden. “I overslept a little.” 

Marco continues to talk to you, but your fuzzy hearing doesn’t quite receive it. It’s nothing but dull sound waves bouncing off of your skin, dropping to the ground and shattering into silence as you focus your attention on the cash in your hands. You count the notes one by one, murmuring the number underneath your breath, before you push it towards him on the glass countertop. 

“There, that should be a thousand.” 

When he goes to reach for the money, he snatches up your wrist instead. Unforgiving fingers, claws digging into your skin, leaving behind indentations that you fear may never wash clean—he brings your arm up to his nose, teeth flashing as he inhales. You watch the forest green of his eyes be swallowed up by darkness, and you wince as his grip only grows tighter. 

“Where were you last night?” he demands. 

“W-What?” you stammer. “I was at Terminus. A friend brought me and we just-”

“A friend?” Marco interrupts. He yanks on your arm, virulent smile tugging on his lips as he brings you closer. “Did you let this friend fuck you?”

Bewildered, you attempt to wrench your hand free from his grasp, but you only whimper. “No, I just- I just had a couple of drinks and went home, that’s it!” 

“Are you sure? Because you smell an awful lot like Simon fucking Riley.” 

Need an alpha to take care of it for you? 

You so desperately wish to scream for Simon, but you’re not even sure why. It’s as if his name has been branded on your tongue for all eternity but you’re just now learning how to sound out the syllables. You know what his name means—safety, security, alpha. 

Your alpha. 

You feel him. It’s as if he heard your silent plea; the desperate attempt to get him to come for you. Fat palm on your shoulder, presence looming from behind you like a vengeful apparition—Simon growls. He’s always been a territorial creature. 

“Get your fuckin’ hands off ‘er.”

Marco relents, and you feel yourself stumbling backwards, feet catching on the torn carpet, rump colliding on the unforgiving floor. Tears welling in your eyes, you stare up at Simon just in time to watch him snatch Marco’s shirt into his grip, and then everything seems to go dark. You’re alone with nothing but the sound of your own breathing and the thudding of your heart in your chest. 

Something within you aches. A splinter wishing to push free from your skin. It rattles inside of you as you watch Simon pull Marco over the countertop. Marco is not a small man—always obsessed with his appearance and the tone of his muscle—and still he is tossed around like a ragdoll. Your lips part in awe as Simon’s head lowers. Marco’s pushing against his face, but there’s no force in the world that can stop the glistening canines that graze against his skin. 

You watch as the muscles in Simon’s jaw flexes, but there’s a disconnect. Though your eyes are open, it’s nothing but TV static. White noise in your vision. The overwhelming urge of your brain attempting to save itself from the gore. 

Finally, you see it—Marco, limp on the ground. 

There’s a bite-sized hole in his throat, displaying the gummy cartilage of his carotid artery that no longer contracts enough blood. It wanders to his trachea, severing his airway, leaving behind nothing but bubbles as Marco attempts to breathe in and out. He’s drenched in blood, and you can smell it—the iron. It’s the rust of violence, the same kind he wielded so flippantly at you, now blanketing him in his final moments. 

Then, there’s Simon, standing over his fallen prey, chest heaving with the thrill of the kill, and mouth painted red.