He grips onto the dagger so hard his knuckles have turned white. He needs to hide how much his body is trembling, how his hands shake with each press against the colonel’s throat. Noah needs to hide how fragile and vulnerable he is right now – full-body flushed, glistened with sweat, warm blood still seeping out of his wound.
Crashing heat, his constitution tormenting him so much he can’t function. He’s dizzy, parched, excruciatingly pained. Yang Rong looks at him with inscrutable eyes and Noah becomes even more aggressive, grabbing him by the throat, fangs bared to kill. It is disgust, panic and fear all in one – the colonel, a dominant alpha, is all too capable of subduing him.
But Noah would never submit. His omega genes are begging to be satiated but he still retains his sanity. He wants to sink his claws into the man’s chest, dig into his throat, tear him into pieces. He doesn’t know if he can, however, when Yang Rong can take him so easily.
“Noah,” the man murmurs – and Noah hadn’t calculated for the voice to affect him so much it sends waves of pleasure, craving, disgust crashing into his system. He almost recoils.
“Don’t you dare,” he spits out. “Don’t you dare command me.”
Yang Rong didn’t command him to do anything. Yet, Noah is so aware that he could if he wanted to. It is exactly this powerlessness that makes him more feral to compensate. The colonel’s pheromones are mixing with his – the mere thought makes him convulse.
Another crash of heat and he topples downward, loosening his hold on the dagger. It pricks the man’s throat before dropping pathetically onto the floor. Yang Rong does not take it from him – he only watches Noah’s state of collapse, those same green eyes trailing over him, trailing through him in omniscience.
He thinks he’s pressing the colonel’s neck hard enough to cut off his breathing. Yang Rong’s expression is preternaturally calm despite the obvious warmth radiating from his frame – he’s trying to suppress himself, Noah can tell, but slightest flicker of desire gives him away. The man’s eyes are more hooded than usual and by the pupils is an eerie speck of red, a light ring around the cornea.
Noah is breathing raspingly, his abdomen quivering in pain, his headache splitting him apart. His knees are buckling on either side of the colonel’s hips, closing the distance between them and Noah despises that his body craves for more. He shudders uncontrollably as the heat threatens to engulf him whole.
A crawling flush makes its way from his cheeks to his ears, a striking glow on his delicate features, offset only by the wildness of his eyes.
In a state of delirium, he leans down and bites hard on the colonel’s lips. It counts less as a kiss than it does an assault, his teeth tugging on the lower junction and harshly drawing blood. He angles himself for better access, licking and sucking with crazed abandon.
Yang Rong, still stupefied, doesn’t react immediately. Noah locks the colonel down more forcefully, squeezing his neck – there will be marks left for days – and continues to ravage, all his sanity thrown in lieu of hunger. The scent of pheromones is getting more pungent, honey-caramel mixed with musk, sweet and metallic.
Noah’s heart races as erratically as his flung-out thoughts. His body is unbearably hot as he grinds downward, his abdomen smearing blood onto the colonel’s half-unbuttoned shirt. Finally, Yang Rong reciprocates, one hand sliding to the back of his head and another sliding down his slender waist, bare skin on skin.
The man lets out a low, appreciative noise – a growl that sends more pangs of desire down his spine – and picks up pace. The make-out session is utterly feral – Colonel Yang tilts him closer, sliding a tongue into his mouth, brushing against his sharpened canine teeth. Noah reciprocates all too needily, letting out stuttered gasps and soft moans.
Rough callouses stroke a bruise on his hips, and Noah preens into it as much as it hurts him. The movement sends stabbing pain through his stomach.
“A-Ah—” An intermingle of tongues that drowns out his soft cries. Colonel Yang, led astray, catches up to alacrity only for Noah to lean in more heatedly. Noah is gone in lust, in the need to drink up the alpha pheromones – but still, the one sliver of rationale refuses to let him loosen his grip on the colonel’s neck.
Colonel Yang grinds up, his clothed erection digging into Noah’s upper thigh, sending him more deliriously in overdrive. A low grunt and the man bites his lip in turn, trailing rough kisses down his jawline and neck. He handles Noah so skillfully, maneuvering a hand to slide down the waistband of his jeans. Noah jolts and lets out a needy whine.
A strained voice by his ears. “Noah, your voice…” Yang Rong is likely more conscious than he, but the man is also strung-out and aroused. “I won’t be able to control myself if you… keep…”
“Mm… ngh…” Noah only gasps in return, burrowing himself deeper into the alpha’s hold. He is a sight to behold – half-lidded eyes, saliva-slicked lips, flushed skin that seems almost incandescent in the dim, somber cottage. Colonel Yang sucks a mark on his throat and Noah buckles down instinctively, the wound on his abdomen tearing up with each shift of their bodies. “Ah—h-hurts…”
The pain flits through him and it is only then that he regains some semblance of sanity. Colonel Yang dips a hand to cup his ass, squeezing the tender skin, sliding a finger to smear the slick oozing out of his entrance. Noah shudders, moans and cranes his neck for the alpha to bite at. A scrape of teeth on skin, a lick on his scent gland and then—
Noah’s eyes constrict and he slams the colonel back onto the ground, absolutely ruthless. He gives no time to recollect before he grabs the dagger – thrown a few inches away – and lunges for Yang Rong’s face.
His wrist is caught right before impact.
The colonel’s grip is firm, but his own is shaky. The weapon wobbles a dangerous centimeter from Yang Rong’s cheek.
They come to a standstill in the middle of the rundown cottage. The deluge is endless outside, but the cold air does nothing to alleviate the heat radiating from their bodies. Noah is left breathless, the sweat on his body trickling down like raindrops, his eyelashes aquiver. Stinging warmth piles on his eyelids. Colonel Yang gazes at him. Unreadable complexity.
Noah realizes how frightening it is to be subjected to that gaze. Yang Rong, a dominant alpha, has a pair of virescent eyes that take him in hypnotically, the hue of them so alluring but so dangerous and—Noah is deathly afraid. His fingers are still wrapped around the man’s neck. Delicate hands that barely cover much surface. He squeezes harder and harder until finally – a flinch on Yang Rong’s face, a tinge of pink indicating fluster.
Colonel Yang moves his hand with the knife away. Noah wouldn’t let go.
His other hand is fixed to a chokehold, his fingernails digging deep to pierce.
“Noah,” the man croaks out, the sound strained. Noah would like to see him writhe, to suffer, to see him powerless underneath for once. Noah would not, however, like to see him with such a tender expression, his gaze softening to resignment, his lips (bitten bloody) that curl gently when he says, “Don’t be afraid.”
Yang Rong reaches to tap his hand softly, beckoning him to loosen his grip. The colonel is so calm about it too, like he’s not being strangled to death, like he’s allowing Noah all the time in the world. Noah is eased only when his hands are brushed tenderly, when the man strokes his knuckles to appease.
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmurs again, taking ahold of his wrist and guiding him away. “Rong-ge is sorry. Rong-ge won’t hurt you.”
An overwhelming emotion he can’t describe. It’s fear and insanity but mixed with a dash of uncertainty. Yang Rong whispers apologies to him – none of which he hears – and then the man plants pliant kisses on his hand, grazes his palm and then his knuckles, his fingers… Yang Rong doesn’t care at all that Noah’s tried to kill him.
“I won’t hurt you,” the colonel repeats, pressing his lips on Noah’s dirt-stained fingers. Tentative. Testing. The kisses lack any of the searing heat they shared prior. “Please don’t cry.”
There are very little tears – just the few drops that have piled up on the rims, induced by overstimulation. They bring fragile gloss to his irises, and suddenly he doesn’t look so feral anymore. Rather, Noah looks frazzled, sad and hurt.
Yang Rong hoists himself up and slowly settles Noah back to a proper position. Noah sits on his lap with both legs spread on either side of the colonel’s hips – the distance is close, but the overheat has dulled to a numbing pain. There is a viscous string of crimson where their bodies separate, the laceration on his abdomen tearing to an unsightly, gaping hole.
Noah’s face is scrunched in torment.
“Yang Rong…” he whispers shakily, “it is painful…”
He drops his hold on the dagger – he forgets he was still clenching onto it – and watches as it tumbles downward, the blade of it nearly pricking the colonel’s skin. Yang Rong lets go of his wrist and Noah, finally freed, reaches to tug on the hem of his tattered, black uniform. A part of him despises that he’s still craving for the alpha’s touch.
Yang Rong places a hand on the side of his cheek, testing his reaction before rubbing soft motions to pacify, treating him as delicately as he would a porcelain vase. “Let me tend to your wound?”
He doesn’t say anything in response, merely curling his fingers on Yang Rong’s chest, watching as the man works with the antiseptic, daubing cotton against raw skin. As clean and meticulous as his motions are, Yang Rong is slower than usual.
There is hesitance in his care, like he’s making sure to not touch him too closely, to not damage him. Yang Rong is obviously affected by the heat still, his erection still visible through the black trousers, poking Noah’s sensitive inner thigh. Alpha pheromones are exuded strongly in the air, but Noah is too distracted by pain, his senses already numbed to exhaustion.
A rough drag of cotton against the open surface and he hisses, clinging onto Yang Rong’s body to bear the sensation. The colonel allows him to drag his nails across his broad shoulders, leaving streaks that would remain for days. Yang Rong reaches over for the med kit and takes out a needle and thread.
“You’ll need stitches,” Yang Rong tells him. A short pause. “Is it alright?”
Noah is hit with another ripple of dizziness – blood loss and omega heat – and replies inaudibly. “Mn…”
“Noah—” the man lets out a shaky breath, “do you have suppressants?”
It takes him almost a minute to reply to the question. Yang Rong had already moved to suture, poking through thin skin, weaving and cutting the thread with expert finesse. It is the sudden pain that snaps him back to his senses. Whatever gasps Noah is letting out are slurred in aphrodisia. “…The bag… n-ngh—"
“Shh…” Yang Rong finally tells him with a low grunt, “stay still.”
Yang Rong rummages through the backpack and then, in a moment of haste, pours out the entire contents onto the floor. There are about ten bottles of white pills, all of them unlabeled and with different cap designs. Yang Rong stares at a loss.
“Which ones?” he asks Noah, who is on the verge of deep intoxication.
Noah doesn’t hear him. His ears are ringing shrilly. He’s even surprised he can hear the man at all over his own strumming heartbeat. The scent of vanilla is so pungent even he can taste it – and the colonel’s lingering musk only makes him more and more delirious.
“…Your pheromones… fuck.” Yang Rong sweeps back his raven-black hair, revealing the sweat on his temple. He holds Noah’s shoulders an arm’s length away, restraining him from coming closer – and Noah is intent on getting closer, despite it being involuntary. “They’re too strong. Little kitten, do me a favor and subdue them, hm?”
“Mn…” he slurs out, unaware of what exactly he’s replying to.
Sounds of a bottle being uncapped, the pills being shaken out. Yang Rong tells him something indistinct – Noah is too hazed to care. The colonel tilts his jaw, presses a pill against his lips and then Noah voluntarily parts to receive. He laps his tongue around the colonel’s fingers, hungrily bowing his head to take in more, sucking and licking subconsciously.
A brief flicker of scarlet on Yang Rong’s eyes, as candescent as his own, and then his digits press more insistently inside, stretching him wider, scraping against the pointed molars of his teeth. Saliva trails down the jut of his lower lip, smearing against the colonel’s knuckles. The bitterness of the pill is second to Colonel Yang’s caramel musk, so addicting he eats it up like a narcotic.
Then a low growl, Yang Rong retracting himself in a fleeting moment of clarity. Dark lashes cast shadows down his sculpted features, his eyes are heavily hooded, the same viridescent shade but with a veil of wildness. Noah is jolted back to reality at the same time, though he’s dangerously close to losing himself once more.
“—More,” he pants out heavily. “Colonel... it’s not enough…”
An unsteady sigh as Colonel Yang reaches for the pill bottle again.
Noah grabs it instead and, with one fluid movement, downs the entire bottle of twenty. He crunches them down as though they were candy, grinding his teeth until they’re turned to powder. To Yang Rong’s disbelief, he once again grabs another bottle – blindly – and prepares to empty it.
The colonel grabs his hand firmly, stopping him in his actions.
“It is enough,” Colonel Yang says, his expression hardened. “Do not take any more.”
Noah is burning up excruciatingly, tinted rosy from neck up. The suppressants are akin to vodka shots – all twenty at once, scalding his mouth, his throat and his stomach until he’s left paralyzed. Suddenly, a pulsation in his head, the feeling of being hit with another tidal sea wave and Noah wobbles forward, dropping weakly onto the colonel’s shoulder.
Vetiver cologne. Sandalwood. A heavy alpha stench that is uncomfortably addicting.
He’s still panting hard even as he falls unconscious.
