Chapter 8: Heat

Unfortunately, his discomfort from the day before was not the first signs of a cold.

329 realizes this the evening of the next day. The old injury on his abdomen is beginning to ache dully. The pheromones in the air clamor much more than before. His skin grows sensitive, heralding impending heat.

For him, heats, normally quarterly for omegas, come chaotically. Sometimes he gets two in one season; once, they arrived barely a month apart. His last heat was two months ago. He’d locked himself in his room for three days, and lost his previous job over it. This time, he has enough time to ask for time off. His boss looks at him suspiciously and refuses his request to leave early.

“You don’t smell much different,” he says, with the air of someone rebuffing a clever freeloader. “Don’t think you can get special treatment just because you’re an omega. Get back to work!”

329 still smells the same, unlike other omegas, who can drive alphas berserk with their heats. Exiled omegas receive extra surgery; they still go into heat, but that becomes their problem and their problem alone. Their scent change is no longer enough to cause disruption—for the sake of public safety, of course.

Good suppressants are too expensive for 329, and the ones from the black market brothels have serious side effects. He doesn’t dare take the risk. But he also can’t afford to lose his job twice in one quarter.

It’s late at night when he leaves work. The flame in his belly grows harder and harder to ignore. The alphas in the subway car keep looking at him. His scent is finally changing, thickening. It’s quite attractive to alphas, not so attractive as to make someone lose all reason, but enough to make an excellent excuse and an “I’m here” signal flare. 329 hurriedly leaves, so that he doesn’t become a coworker or passerby’s nighttime amusement.

Fluid continues to flood out of him, turning his trousers into a sticky mess. As he walks quickly, his nipples grow erect from the friction from his clothes. The sensations of hunger and cold are gradually disappearing, leaving only his body’s cravings. Towards the end, he starts to run, hoping the cold wind can snatch the heat from his skin. His room grows closer and closer. He’s only half a street away, cutting through the last alley, when someone pins him against a wall.

“Look what I found!” she chortles. “An omega in heat!”

The alpha smells of alcohol. A drunkard, but not so drunk she can’t get hard. Her nose shoves at his neck, sniffing back and forth, like a feral dog rooting through a dumpster. 329 can feel something prodding against his ass. His legs are wobbly; subconsciously, they part. 329 shuts his eyes and says, “The condoms are in my pocket.”

The alpha guffaws, and slurs that he’s a slut gone out looking for a fucking. And then she says no, she’s fucking straight into his guts, she’ll knock him up with her spunk. She tears at 329’s trousers. It’s hard going. She pulls out a switchblade, preparing to cut the fabric loose.

329 abruptly shoves her aside, dodging the knife. The drunkard falls over. Cursing, she grabs 329’s ankle and yanks him to the ground. In a rage, she pounces, slapping him about the head. “What are you playing at?” she roars. “Wandering outside late at night. Don’t tell me you weren’t looking for a fucking! When your kind goes into heat you’d climb on a dog!”

Give it a while longer, and maybe 329 would be seeking anyone’s help, as long as they don’t hurt him too much. Give it a while longer, and maybe he’d no longer be able to tell what’s capable of hurting him. Hormones will turn him into an animal. But he’s not there yet. 329 pushes her aside, climbing to his feet. Taking care of a drunkard isn’t hard, but…

“You wanna take another step?” The drunkard raises the switchblade, aiming it at her own arm. “You run, Exile, and I’ll report you tomorrow for assault. They’ll send you straight to the Welfare Center! I don’t have an omega. When the time comes, I’ll be able to fuck your ass for ten credits!”

329 stills.

See, there’s the problem, she can. She doesn’t even need to provide particularly sound evidence; the Enforcers who hate the new Exile Laws will take care of things for her. This kind of thing isn’t rare. Sometimes 329 can’t fight back. Sometimes he doesn’t dare fight back.

The alpha gets up, cursing. She grabs 329 and slams him against the wall. It looks like she’s still angry at being shoved aside by an omega. Before she takes off her pants, she lifts her hand to slap him again.

“Please don’t.”

A bright beam of light pierces the darkness, shining straight onto the alpha’s face. The drunkard startles, hurriedly shielding her face with a hand.

The bearer of the light walks into the alleyway. The beam continues to sway across the drunkard’s face, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut. When they’re finally close enough for the drunkard to see, her embarrassment instantly turns to anger.

“Keep your nose out of my business!” the drunkard harangues. “Little brat, don’t even have hair in all your places—”

She doesn’t bother with manners, because there’s only one person, a petite girl. She’s well-dressed, and well-dressed people often fear to get dirty. The girl fiddles with her wristcom as she draws closer, the picture of someone afraid of trouble. Wave a knife around, and she’ll run off.

So the drunkard continues to cuss at her. She topples over mid-sentence.

“I’ve never used it on a person before. The effect is a little tricky to control.” Yasha shows 329 her wristcom, smiling apologetically. “But now she won’t be able to report you.”

The fallen woman is foaming at the mouth, her face turning blue. 329 stares at the ground numbly. Yasha walks over and looks down. “So many people die of alcohol poisoning each year,” she sighs. “Alcoholism really is a menace.” Then she smiles at 329. “Don’t worry, I’ve hacked the surveillance.”

“There’s surveillance here?” 329 looks up at the dilapidated alley.

“Where isn’t there surveillance?” Yasha says, matter-of-fact. She takes 329’s arm warmly. “You don’t look so good. Allow me to take you back!”

She holds onto 329’s arm, letting him nearly collapse on top of her. After this mess, his knees are already struggling to support his weight. With Yasha drawing close, her pheromones draw close too. He can finally confirm that the grass scent was probably just perfume. Yasha’s actual pheromones smell like milk.

A milk-scented alpha.

It’s pretty funny, but there’s no room in his head for laughing, just like there’s no room to wonder whether the person on the ground is dead or alive, or how dangerous the person beside him is, how badly she can hurt him. Yasha helps him back to his room. He barely manages to hold on long enough; he starts kissing her the moment the door is shut. Yasha’s eyes widen, as if startled, and then she responds immediately. She kisses back and takes off 329’s pants at the same time, pulling his jeans to his knees. Inside, his underwear is already soaked.

His underwear is trouble to remove, like it’s coated in glue. With some yanking and pulling, the saturated fabric ends up around his ankles along with his jeans, caught on his shoes. 329 can’t kick them off straight away, and he’s past caring. He strips off his shirt, lies down on the bed, and says, “Fuck me.”

Yasha complies. 329 moans as she enters him, jerking back toward her cock. The empty void inside him is filled at last. Milk-scented pheromones envelop him, soothing the heat of passion, yet making him want more. His thighs are wobbling, his lower body too weak and boneless to carry his weight. Yasha flips him over, making him lie on his back on the bed.

“So you can get hard,” the alpha pants, gripping his cock.

329 is sopping wet at the same time he’s hopelessly hard. His rigid cock juts, pressing against his belly. Now that she’s discovered this, there’s probably trouble waiting for him in the future. But that’s a matter for later. 329 doesn’t want to think about it.

Honestly, Yasha can’t spare the attention either.

The man’s nothing like his usual state. He’s flushed all over, panting rapidly, expelling white fog and moans. He’s wet with sweat from head to toe, the lines of his muscles rising and falling on his glistening skin, like a powerfully built fish. It’s dazzling. Her omega is squirming under her, begging for more, deeper, harder. His pheromones smell of dark chocolate. They must be liqueur chocolates, she thinks, to be so intoxicating.

He was always so meek and distant. Yasha, an inexperienced connoisseur, had thought that “strong and silent” was the most delectable flavor. Now, with his legs clamped around her waist, his ass gyrating of his own volition, Yasha’s discovering that “wanton” also makes her salivate. The way he looked biting his lip evoked tenderness, yet his cries and continuous pleas also makes her blood heat and surge. The way he looked enduring pain was gorgeous, the way he looks as pleasure steals his self-control is incomparably adorable—truly, he sets the standard for perfection. He is the standard.

329’s voice can’t be called sweet. Its raspiness always carries a sense of repressed emotion, or the roughness of a sob. Yasha thinks it’s sexy as hell. His body sucks at Yasha’s organ. Her thrusts punch out nasal sounds of endurance, and when she withdraws he makes needy moans. Yasha bends down and licks his nipple; he jumps as if touching a live wire, thrusting his chest forward to greet her licks and bites. The engorged nub of flesh is as stiff as a little piece of cartilage, lightly salty to the taste. His omega’s pheromones envelop her. It drives her mad.

She’s once again in the vicinity of his reproductive cavity. This time, the aperture isn’t tightly shut; it sucks at her, half rejecting and half inviting. Yasha’s heart itches. She asks, “Want me to go in?” 329 nods frantically, saying yes, please, do it, fuck me.

She puts her back into it, ramming into that opening. The sphincter inside is looser than last time. Fucking into it feels amazing as hell. Yasha’s head spins; she knots immediately.

And under her, the omega spasms all over at the powerful shock of sensation, like a stuck cassette, swallowing down all his sounds. She sees his mouth gaping, the pink tongue trembling inside, saliva trickling out uncontrollably, the Adam’s apple bobbing. She worries if he can still breathe.

Yasha pushes him gently. “Breathe, don’t choke.” 329 still doesn’t respond, as if he hadn’t heard. Yasha gives him another push. “Say something!” she pants.

His lips move, as if he’d heard. He licks his lips and raggedly begins. “Deeper, fuck me to death…ah…I’m a stretched-out whore, a bitch anyone can fuck…a dirty animal…I’m not worthy…please…please…”

He’s finally making sound, but he’s still shaking, his moans more like sobs. This time, 329 isn’t clutching at the bedsheets. At some point, he’d covered his eyes with the back of his hand. When Yasha pulls his arm aside, she finds that he’s actually crying.

He might have been crying for a while. Tears and sweat mingle together, indistinguishable. Yasha pulls his hand away. He opens his eyes, not looking at Yasha, not looking at anything, just opening his eyes. His blue-grey eyes hold desire, yes, but something else. Yasha recognizes it. These are eyes despairing to the point of surrender.

It freaks Yasha out. If an alpha’s knot were capable of receding halfway through, it might have scared her soft. “What’s wrong?” says Yasha. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Where does it feel bad?”

—The correct answer is, it feels great, your cock is too good, I’m crying it feels so good.

In fact, 329 can’t imagine what crying it feels so good is like. He’s never experienced it. Heat brings on a state of madness, but it can’t be called pleasure, just unrestraint, like leaping from a high location.

If he can’t control his heat, then he has to accept it, that’s all he can do. Green eyes, red hair, the colors are spiraling, the words are spiraling, light as thistledown, sticking to him, penetrating into the lobes of his lungs, he can’t get them off. Laughter, cold laughter, loud laughter, mocking laughter. It’s torture if we don’t fuck him, slutty bitch, raise your ass, yeah, like that, hahahaha! Look at him! They have to be crazy to let an omega lord it over them. Who knew from looking at him that he can make this kind of face? Spread your legs, if you want a fucking you need to put in more work! Lowly animal, you think you deserve it…”

He’s crying. At a time like this of course he can cry, he can moan, he can beg, because that’s what an omega does, because his dignity is already dashed to the ground, his shame entirely in the open. A few tears don’t make a difference. Moan louder, kneel, wag your ass, lie down in the mud, and they won’t keep stepping on you. If you admit you’re a dog, they won’t continue to strip away the part of you that’s a man. No one cares, they don’t care about him, and he doesn’t care about them. Part of him hovers above this preposterous farce, watching himself howl, sob, beg. He’s not revealing any weakness; it’s only a fleshly body drowning in hormones and sensation, a lowly animal. He’s nothing, no hope, no disappointment. Everything went away with the surgery. So it’s all fine. He’s not here. No one can continue to trample on his soul. You can’t harm what doesn’t exist.

But Yasha grabbed onto him.

She pulled aside his hand, looked into his eyes, and said, panicked and at a loss, are you all right, what happened , as if these physiological responses were worth caring about. He’s a beat slow to answer, missing the optimal opportunity. Now, 329 has no way of saying to her face that he was fucked too good. It’s a beautiful girl’s face; even dripping with sweat, it’s like a lily beaded with dew. She’s red in the face, her expression concerned, trying to ask, trying to comfort, trying to treat him like a person.

They’ve chatted. They’ve eaten together. She’s sat on the bed kicking her feet, she’s looked him in the eyes and talked to him, she’s taken his arm, she’s hummed along to his tune. “I modded it myself!” she said. “I have four older brothers and sisters,” she said. And then 329 told her about his parents. They practically know each other. 329’s stomach starts to violently spasm. Suddenly, he feels wrenchingly nauseous.

The senses of shame and self-respect he’d thought dead cry out mournfully. It’s like being murdered a second time. Tears flood out, and once again he covers his face with his hand. This time, no matter how Yasha pries, he won’t let go. The most comical part is, even as he sobs, he’s still in the midst of heat. His fluids seep everywhere. Below, he’s still sucking at her. As Yasha tries to figure out what’s wrong, due to her back and forth motions, the cock caught between them ejaculates.

See, whether it’s pleasure or pain, willing or unwilling, it ends this way, it’s always the same.

As he orgasms, 329 starts to laugh hysterically. It must scare the hell out of the alpha atop him. She sounds even more uncertain. “Does it hurt?” she asks. “Does it feel bad? I won’t stick it in there next time? …Do you want a drink of water?”

—No, it feels good, honestly. It’s been a long time since 329 came during sex. He curls up, covering his face, hoping she can spare him, stop asking questions, stop talking. He curls up, wishing he were alone, wishing he could disappear.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t on purpose…I won’t go in there next time, okay?” the girl says weakly, clearly not understanding why he’s crying. He can’t fault her. Even if 329 tried to explain, he wouldn’t be able to.

Afterwards, Yasha stops talking. She just puts an arm around his waist, strokes his back. In the quiet room, his sobs are as loud as whipcracks. 329 struggles to regulate his breathing. He tells himself that this too shall pass.