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Chapter Text

Mark could feel his heart beating in his chest like a ticking clock, anticipation of an anxious and impatient flavour. The banquet was bustling and loud around him, turning the air thick with chatter. Dignitaries kept approaching with persistent attempts to engage him in conversation, to corner the heir of the West and monopolise his time. But nothing could thaw Mark’s frigid attention away from the entrance hall, where he glanced every other minute in the vain hope he might witness Donghyuck finally arriving back in his life.

It had been a year, and Mark had never felt so desperate for Donghyuck. Part of him had assumed that with mutual commitment to their ambiguous relationship, he would feel more settled in Donghyuck’s absence – more able to bear the time without him. But in reality, their acknowledgment of their desire to be together had only made the long months of separation worse. As if, now that Mark had been gifted a taste, he could lust only more intensely after Donghyuck’s attention.

Mark could feel his patience fading as the night dragged on, gnawing like acid into his capacity for amicable conversation. He knew it was his role to be good at this, to be good at talking and chatting and making people he didn’t care about feel heard. He knew he owed it to his family to try. But how could he possibly care about politics and trade and duty when Donghyuck was supposed to be there… would be there… would have to be there any second now… any moment…

Mark felt the instant Donghyuck and Johnny entered the room, such was his attunement to the omega’s presence. After so long, Mark was unbearably sensitive to the flavour of him. He noticed Donghyuck's scent before he’d even heard the doors open, recognised the effervescence of his pheromones in the air before anyone else had even seen him.

Mark could feel the heat on his face, could taste his own excitement and anxiety, but he didn’t let it show. As he watched Donghyuck enter the ballroom, he used every last ounce of his strength to bury his reflexes and focus his attention on maintaining an aura of calm.

Donghyuck looked tall, handsome, masculine, so pretty Mark thought he'd struggle to find beauty in anything else again. His hair was unruly from the wind outside, his skin flushed from the warm evening. His dark eyes were bright with watching as he sought Mark out in the crowd. Their gazes met and Mark had to swallow his instinct to lurch forward, to run straight to Donghyuck and devour him whole. 

The brief interruption of the Easterners’ arrival subsided and chatter returned before Mark could extricate himself from his devastatingly mundane conversation. Glancing away from the dignitaries around him, he noticed Donghyuck being ambushed into a circle of elderly omegas on the other side of the room, Johnny quickly elucidating his charms from beside him, and Mark knew they wouldn't be able to speak until the festivities were done. 

It felt like hours that he had to play at this game of inattention, ignoring the only thing he actually cared about. There were speeches to be had, people to entertain, and Donghyuck was just as much a target of the doldrum niceties as Mark. Mark allowed himself to catch glimpses, noticed the shape of Donghyuck’s shoulders, the cut of his trousers, listened for his voice and felt the timbre of his polite laughter dust over him like gold. But he didn't let himself stare at him for long. He knew that once he gazed so openly into this sun, he'd be blinded by him for hours. 

Mark's father finished his speech and the hall became louder, the guests more drunken than before. Mark glanced up from another menial conversation about military funding and flinched as he noticed Donghyuck standing by a small door on the opposite side of the grand ballroom. 

Their eyes met and Mark felt a fizz of satisfaction flicker down his spine. The rest of the world eased out of focus. 

Donghyuck's features were handsome in the glowing candlelight. His expression was soft with patronage, but his eyes were shadowed with familiar daring. He met Mark's gaze and returned it, pointed and intentional. His lips flickered into a devilish smirk, beckoning Mark to follow, before he quietly slipped through the door into the darkness beyond. 

Mark swallowed and felt his breath catch in his throat. Longing churned in his gut, acidic and consuming.

He could wait no longer.

He kept his chipped façade over his desperation as he quickly made his way to his mother, tucked toward the windows by the back of the hall where she was chatting animatedly with a group of similarly-aged omegas.

He touched her elbow gently to borrow her attention and leaned close to her. “I’m just going to freshen up for a moment,” he said, his voice quiet in the din of music and laughter. 

She nodded to him, a glimmer of maternal concern dancing in her eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” he assured her sincerely, helplessly truthful. He hadn't felt this good in months. "Just want to breathe for a sec.”

“Alright,” she answered, turning to him with intent, “but come back soon, Mark. I have people to introduce to you,” she grinned as she glanced to her friends, many of whom Mark knew had children his age.

He smiled at them politely, feigning amenable curiosity before quickly removing himself from their cluster.

His heart was racing as he stepped out of the ballroom and into the candlelit passage beyond. The glimmering chandelier-light and bustling chatter faded like an exhale as he ventured into the quiet of the rest of the shadowed castle. A few househands stepped smoothly around him as they carried trays of food and drinks toward the ballroom, clearly surprised to see the prince walking away from the festivities. He kept his pace even and unremarkable until he had rounded a few corners towards the private wing, where no one would follow him – servant or otherwise. Once the bustle had faded into the hallways behind him, it took everything in him not to start to run.

Desperation was thick in his blood; anticipation, excitement. He knew exactly where Donghyuck would be.

He took the stairs two at a time. He was starting to pant, his pupils growing wide in the dark. He wanted to yell out into the shadowed halls in front of him, to shout Donghyuck’s name, to draw him out so that he could possess him without delay; hold him, scent him, devour him like he’d wanted to do since the very moment he’d left his grasp the previous year.

He reached the landing and bounded down the hall toward the library, his heartbeat thudding in his ears.

As soon as he stepped inside, Donghyuck was in his arms.

Mark grunted, stumbling back as Donghyuck landed against him. The door crashed shut behind him with their combined weight, their mouths already together.

Mark immediately surged forward. With nothing to guide him in the darkness but the tactile sensation of Donghyuck’s presence, Mark held him like he might disappear. He beckoned Donghyuck’s tongue into his mouth, bowing to the insistence of his kiss in the same way Donghyuck submitted to the desperation of his hold. He walked them toward the mantle in a graceless stumble, sacrificing his coordination to keep all his attention on Donghyuck’s taste.

Donghyuck grunted, his breath catching, as Mark pushed him against the wall, their bodies flush and warm. “Fuck you,” he panted against Mark's lips, the words merging into another kiss, messy and deep. “Fuck you, Mark…” he groaned, kissing him again before pulling back to speak. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you… all year…” his tongue licked over Mark’s teeth as he scratched his nails across his scalp. “All year…”

Mark could only bring himself to growl. Now that Donghyuck was in his arms again, he had no idea how he had managed to live without him for so long. For twelve months his life had been a shadow of what it could be with Donghyuck against him, his taste on his tongue. He felt possessive and dangerous and protective and so wholly devoted that he was reminded once again, beyond any doubt, that he would do anything for this man.

He slipped his hands beneath Donghyuck’s shirt and raked his fingers across his bare skin, along his spine, his waist, his ass. He kept Donghyuck pinned against the wall, pressed down with the weight of his own body and the relentless pressure of their kiss.

He wanted to ask Donghyuck how he was, how his year had been. He wanted to figure out what had changed – because something always would. He wanted to hear every story, to devour every word. But he couldn't voice any of it. Coming before all of that was a more primal need – something darker and deeper and much more pressing.

“Hyuck…" he panted against Donghyuck's lips, struggling to keep his rationality long enough to articulate his desires, "I need to taste you…”

Donghyuck groaned and kissed him harder in helpless reciprocation. Mark pressed his weight against him again, pinning his shoulders to the wall. He pushed his hands down from Donghyuck’s back, slipping his fingers beneath his pants to grab at his bare ass again. He earned a husky hiss in response, a whine that made desire coil in Mark’s body like fire.

“I want you to fuck me so bad,” Donghyuck moaned as Mark kissed along his neck, down beneath his jaw. “All the stuff I imagined in my last heat… Mark… fuck, I need you so bad.”

Mark couldn’t help rutting against him then. He kneaded Donghyuck’s ass, anchoring him close as he thrust against his body. His scent was turning thick and heady, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a damn about it. He kissed lower, against Donghyuck’s shoulder, then his collarbone, as far as he could reach through the wide collar of his formal shirt. Then he kissed lower still, over the dark cotton, tracing the curve of Donghyuck’s pectoral through his shirt, the plateau of his sternum, the rise of his ribs.

“Mark,” Donghyuck grunted, annoyed, and tugged on Mark’s hair to try and bring him back to his mouth, “kiss me.”

Mark didn’t acquiesce. Instead, he pushed Donghyuck back against the wall again and sank to his knees.

“Mark-”

“Wanna taste you,” Mark panted, entranced.

He tugged Donghyuck’s shirt out of the way and licked the skin over his hip bone, pressing the pad of his warm tongue into the slight, sensitive divot of musculature that dipped beneath his trousers. Mark followed the line of it over his clothes to nose Donghyuck’s crotch, his breath heavy as the musty sweetness of Donghyuck’s body began to colour his lungs. He could feel that Donghyuck was getting hard, he could smell it in the air.

“Can I taste you, Hyuck?” he spoke into the cloth over the firm ridge of Donghyuck's cock, purposefully dragging his lips against the curve of him.

Donghyuck’s fingers were in his hair. “Yeah?” he groaned, tightening his hand against Mark’s scalp.

Mark clumsily undid Donghyuck’s belt and tugged down his pants just enough to expose him. Donghyuck hissed in surprise at the sudden assault, but Mark ignored it. He licked along the base of his cock and heard Donghyuck’s head thump back back against the wall behind him, accompanied by a gentle groan of yearning.

“You smell so good,” Mark spoke against his naked, hardening cock. He licked the underside of him, earning a drunken sigh from Donghyuck in response, and then pulled back. He lifted Donghyuck’s shirt and handed him the hem. “Hold this,” he instructed, lips brushing against Donghyuck’s skin as he spoke.

He glanced up to see Donghyuck looking dark with pleasure. His eyes were glassy, intense and unyielding, obedient and drunken, as he silently took hold of the crumpled shirt Mark had passed to him.  

With the shirt out of the way, Mark turned his attention back to his task. He parted his lips around Donghyuck, licked the underside of him and then traced the vein all the way to the tip. He felt Donghyuck begin to shudder as he breathed over the head, teasing contact that didn't come. He waited there until Donghyuck tightened his fingers in his hair again, taking in his earthy musk, and then slowly sank his mouth onto him.

“Mmng…” Donghyuck moaned. The back of his head hit the wall again as he scrunched his eyes shut. “Mark…”

Mark imagined Donghyuck biting his lip, his brow furrowing with pleasure. He went deeper, testing the back of his throat, and felt Donghyuck grow even harder in his mouth. He pushed gently against Donghyuck’s ass with his hands, encouraging him to push himself deeper. He wanted Donghyuck to take what he wanted, to let go of everything and let Mark make him feel good.

“Mark…” a wry laugh escaped Donghyuck’s chest, drunken and breathless, “this is… amazing hospitality.”

Mark released him and licked his tongue against him. “Just for you, baby,” he smiled against him, pleased.

“Suck me more,” Donghyuck threaded his fingers into Mark’s fringe and tugged him back enough for his lips to meet the tip of him again. “Mark…”

“You want more?” Mark teased him. He glanced up to Donghyuck’s face, his expression haughty and pleased. His eyes had adjusted enough to see by the moonlight. Donghyuck from this angle looked so powerful, so flushed and sexy. “I’ll do whatever you want,” he said honestly.

Donghyuck seemed to notice the slight flavour of submission in Mark’s husky voice. His eyes swam with satisfaction. “I want more,” he parsed back, his tone breathy with a cautious step into the changing dynamic. He moved his hand to cup Mark’s face. He stroked over his cheek with the back of his fingers, like he was caressing something beautiful and fragile. It was almost condescending, but not quite, and it stirred something greedy in Mark’s blood.

Slowly, holding Donghyuck’s daring gaze, Mark let the omega tug his face closer, until his lips met the head of his cock again. Mark licked him and then slowly eased his mouth around him again, drawing him deep. Obedient, obliging. Mark moved only because Donghyuck wanted him to. 

“Mmng…” Donghyuck moaned, Mark’s favourite sound. He tightened his fingers in Mark’s hair for a moment before he slowly closed his eyes, rapturous. “Good boy.”

Mark almost flinched at the jolt of pleasure the praise ignited in him. He managed an uneasy breath through his nose and took Donghyuck deeper in reaction. He squeezed Donghyuck’s ass and tried not to moan, knowing he would take anything Donghyuck deigned to give.

He kept his pace slow and intentional, savouring every hiss and huff of the omega’s beautiful voice, and had to stifle his own grunt of satisfaction as Donghyuck began to buck his hips into him.

“Mark…” Donghyuck groaned as Mark sucked him gradually harder, "just like that,” he panted, tightening his fingers in Mark’s hair again. “Just… just like that…” 

Mark closed his eyes. Donghyuck wasn’t watching him anymore. He could feel the omega’s pheromones had become clouded with exultant pleasure. The timbre of the scent soaking beneath his skin made his own cock throb with wanting, as if his deepest experience of pleasure wasn’t even his own. 

“Melt…” Donghyuck groaned, his honey-voice tight. His hips were starting to stutter, losing rhythm. It hadn't been long, but Mark could read the signals in Donghyuck’s body – the cascading disorientation that was becoming him.

Mark hummed around Donghyuck’s cock, intending only to indicate that he’d heard his name, but Donghyuck shuddered as the sensation of his voice elevated the pleasure.

“Markie… stop… I’m close…”

Mark wasn’t going to stop now. He knew Donghyuck didn’t really want him to. Just the way Donghyuck was asking made him reticent to give in. He wanted to see this through to the end, to bring Donghyuck to orgasm as fast as he could. Mark wanted to taste him and swallow him and witness his shuddering attempts not to moan as he came. He wanted to possess him again, to have Donghyuck even while an entire banquet of nobles and dignitaries lusted after his company. He had missed this so much, missed every aspect of him, every base and carnal pleasure, every spiritual and transcendent element of their strange and glorious connection.

He used his hand to help pump him harder and faster. He kept the pressure of his mouth against his head, sucking on him insistently as he felt the omega begin to coil.

“Mark… Ma…”

Mark wanted to respond to him, to tell Donghyuck that he was being so sexy right now, that he didn’t have to hold himself back, that Mark wanted to taste him, that he had wanted to taste him all year. But his mouth was so filled with cock that he couldn’t get a word out, and the feeling of it was so gratifying that he didn’t want to. Instead, Mark closed his eyes and focused on his pace. Goosebumps flared up the back of his neck as he heard Donghyuck hiss, his fingernails clawing against Mark’s scalp, both hands holding him down now, forcing him close as Donghyuck rutted into his mouth. The omega’s shirt fell over Mark’s head, but Mark didn’t care. He wanted to make Donghyuck come, he needed to.

“Mark… I… I…”

Mark gave another suck, humming in response, hoping to make it clear that he wanted this just as much as Donghyuck did. He pressed his free hand against Donghyuck’s ass again, over his clothes, his fingers curling into the cleft of him as he sucked him deeper.

Donghyuck shuddered, his posture caving inward as he came suddenly into Mark’s mouth. He hugged himself around Mark, helplessly rutting into his mouth as Mark milked his orgasm dry. His ass went rigid beneath Mark’s hand as he tensed, his breath turning constricted and husky. Mark clenched his eyes shut at the bitter taste, but he took it willingly, savouring everything.

As Donghyuck began to breathe again, Mark gradually relieved his pressure. He lifted up Donghyuck’s shirt, just enough to free his face, and then gently eased his mouth from Donghyuck’s already-softening cock. He licked the underside again, gathering the cum that lingered there, and then slowly pumped him from base to tip to lick away the last of his orgasm.

Donghyuck shuddered as Mark let him go. He stayed bowed over him slightly, cradling his head with both hands, heaving breath, blinking and dazed.

“Fuck,” he murmured. His hold on Mark was now delicate and affectionate. “I blacked out for a sec.”

Mark smirked, so pleased and happy he thought he might be glowing, and gently tugged Donghyuck’s pants up over him again. He was still being held gently against Donghyuck’s abdomen, the omega cradling him in a weak embrace. He kissed Donghyuck’s hipbone, open-mouthed, tonguing, and earned a slight grunt of fatigued overstimulation in response.

“You good?” he murmured to Donghyuck, protective. He shifted and winced as his knee ached where it had been pressed against the wooden floor. 

“Yeah…” Donghyuck sighed, and Mark could hear the flavour of a smile in his voice.  

Donghyuck eased his hold on Mark and leaned himself back against the wall. His fingers caressed like a whisper over Mark’s face. He admired him for a moment before pushing his hair back from his forehead. Donghyuck’s eyes were dark, his lips full and parted. “Good to see you, Markie.”

Mark rocked back. Still kneeling at Donghyuck’s feet, he smiled up at him like some kind of enchanted child. It felt like the first sincere smile he’d managed in the past year – effortless and unthinking and gloriously happy. “You too.” He kissed Donghyuck’s palm, then his wrist.

“You’re definitely doing that to me again before I go.”

Mark huffed a breath of laughter against Donghyuck’s forearm, stubborn desire roiling in him like firelight. “Sure.”

Mark heard his door open the next night like a murmur in a dream. Donghyuck’s passive scent entered his bedroom like starlight. At first Mark had thought he was still asleep, dozing through lonely winters and imagining a man a world away. He turned as he felt weight settle on his bed, and instinctively curled toward the source for the comforting scent he coveted and protected like an extension of himself.

“Hyuck?” He murmured huskily without opening his eyes as Donghyuck nestled beneath his blankets. The omega smelled clean. His skin was cool from the night air. It can’t have been more than a few hours before dawn.

“I couldn’t sleep. Can I stay here?”

Mark nodded immediately and tightened his hold on him. Donghyuck’s back was against his chest, his skin smooth and golden. He was shirtless, his breath calm and constant as he settled into the bedding. Mark was euphoric as he lay there, on the precipice of dream and reality, holding the omega he loved in his own bed, where he could feel his heartbeat and keep him warm and safe and close.

“I want to hear everything about your year,” he murmured sleepily as he buried his face in Donghyuck’s hair. He felt like he was already dreaming. Was he thinking or speaking? “… I wanna know everything.”

“Me too,” Donghyuck murmured back to him patiently, “sleep now though, yeah?”

“What if we sleep past dawn?”

“We won’t…”

“Hyuck?”

“Hmm…” Donghyuck sounded sleepy.

Mark’s chest ached with contentment. He kissed Donghyuck’s shoulder, squeezed him tighter, and nestled as closely as he could.

Sleep was barely a shift. For all Mark knew, he might have been conscious all night, floating in the transient delirium of his own happiness, of the instinctive euphoria of protecting that which he cared about most, of having Donghyuck in his hold through the darkness of the night. His comfort was so profound that time didn’t matter. All he could perceive was the serenity of sharing his bed with Donghyuck’s warmth, and the perfection of having his scent click into his own, as if they were made for each other, as if this moment – like every other – was destined.

Perhaps love had made Mark stupid, but he couldn’t find any shame in it. He had stopped paying attention in meetings. He stopped listening when other people talked. He would manage to put up some front of presence when he had to – a fragile façade of attention when others expected it of him – but during that summer, Mark was able to think about nothing else but Donghyuck. He was consumed with the idea of him, of when they could next meet, when they could next touch, when he could mess himself with Donghyuck’s scent once more and pretend their love affair could be a permanent fixture in the barren constraints of his royal life.

The moments were few, but Donghyuck always managed to find them. They would meet under the secrecy of darkness in Mark’s bedroom – more secluded than the rooms in the guest wing – and would talk for hours in the quiet. Mark heard about Donghyuck’s year, including his mother’s attempts at finding compatible matches for him. He heard about all the dinners and all the meetings, about Donghyuck’s friends as well as his enemies. He learned about Donghyuck’s heats, and took particular interest in the fantasies that had compelled him through long days of hallucinogenic isolation.

“I had one dream where you were just inside me… like, for hours,” Donghyuck had whispered to him in bed, quiet against the lateness of the hour.

Mark had smirked against Donghyuck’s cheek, entranced with the idea, obsessed and enchanted. His hands roamed Donghyuck’s skin like he were studying the topology of marble landscapes.

“You were just filling me up so I wouldn’t feel empty.” Donghyuck nuzzled closer and Mark had felt the tentative, hopeful spike of lustful pheromones waft from beneath the blankets. “Can we try it one day? Can I sit on your cock while you work? I can keep you warm.”

Mark had smirked against him, trying not to whine as he nuzzled Donghyuck’s throat like a pet seeking affection, utterly beyond words.

They still had their moments of irritation too. They had always clashed as children, and Mark had learned that this dynamic was reticent to fade. Donghyuck was more risk-taking than Mark, he always had been. More goading, more brave, more stubborn, more loud.

In equal and opposite reaction to their tenderness together alone, Donghyuck would tease Mark in public, bait reaction that the alpha was begrudging to concede. Donghyuck would hang around new recruits and fold over their sides in laughter, casual and friendly, but enough to make the soldiers flush and Mark’s jaw go tight. He would hold Mark’s gaze from the audience when the alpha gave his speeches, daring Mark to look away, to keep his voice even, not to stutter while Donghyuck slowly licked the edge of his lip with the tip of his tongue and knew without doubt that Mark was imagining his mouth parting around his straining cock like he’d done the night before.  

It had taken Mark more time than was fair to realise that this kind of taunting wasn’t to make Donghyuck feel more in control, or even to make Mark feel less so. Mark’s defensive irritation had begun to abate when he finally realised it was all only an attempt from Donghyuck to garner a reaction; an endless game for which Mark was only just beginning to decipher the rules. But he knew the end goal now, that Donghyuck craved the intimacy of Mark’s hidden frustrations in public if only for the intensity of his reaction when they were alone – all a kind of dangerous foreplay Donghyuck seemed to covet like air, an intimacy only the two of them could perceive and that only Donghyuck could incite.

“Do you like making me jealous, Hyuck?” Mark had grunted into Donghyuck’s ear as he pushed him chest-first against the wall of his chamber that evening. Even fully clothed, the pressure of his cock against Donghyuck’s ass made him want to rut forward and knot him. “Do you like making me want to hide you away forever?” He had one of Donghyuck’s hands pinned against the wall above his head, the other locked behind his back.

“You like to watch me,” Donghyuck panted back to him, turning his gaze over his shoulder and fixing Mark with a daring look. “You can’t take your eyes off me when I touch other alphas.”

Mark hadn’t expected the growl that came ripping through his chest, but the dark, husky sound spurred from him without conscious effort. He had always tried – even if in vain – to keep such possessive impulses under control, but it was clearly what Donghyuck had been searching for. Donghyuck shuddered in reaction, his eyes reflexively closing as Mark’s pheromones turned dark and possessive.

“If I could, I’d drown you in my scent right now, Donghyuck,” he shoved him forward a little, making him grunt into the stonework, “I'd suffocate you with it.” He closed in further, nipping against Donghyuck’s ear as he rutted against his ass. His jealousy was white-hot and aching. He hated that anyone else could even perceive Donghyuck, hated that he knew how much they all wanted him. “I’d bite you everywhere, so that no matter where any of those alphas looked, all they’d find is me.”

Donghyuck was starting to try and reciprocate now, pressing himself back against Mark’s clothed erection, his breath tight. With his arms pinned and limiting his movement, he could only curve his spine to try and increase the contact between them.

“What if they touched me?” he murmured this with his eyes shut. His chest was pressed against the wall, and Mark knew his nipples would be hard as the touch of the icy stone seeped into his clothes. “What if I let them touch me?”

Mark growled again. Donghyuck’s baiting made him step into this strange, possessive violence even further. He let go of Donghyuck’s hand against the wall, and moved his own hand down to hold Donghyuck’s throat. The resulting flare of excitable vulnerability was a blistering, contagious jolt in the tapestry of Donghyuck’s scent. Mark squeezed his neck gently, tender despite the tension dancing in their pheromones, affectionate despite the inherent dominance he was being baited to exude.

“You wanna know what I’d do?” Mark leaned close, pressing his chest against Donghyuck’s back until he was crushed against the wall, his breath restricted by the weight of him. “If they touched you, I’d bring them here, right into this room,” he spoke against Donghyuck’s ear. The new angle buckled Donghyuck’s legs a little, but Mark didn’t ease off. He could feel him gasping for breath beneath his fingers, but his scent stayed rich with desire. “I’d put them right over there,” he nudged Donghyuck’s face to the side with his nose, so that his cheek was against the stone and he could see peer over at the opposite side of the room. “I’d make them watch as I fuck you against this wall, just like this,” he tightened his hold on Donghyuck’s throat and rutted against his ass again, a dim echo of the pleasures to come. He had never wanted them to be naked more desperately. He could smell the musk of slick in the air, the unmistakable coil of anticipation and wanting. “I’d fuck you hard and slow,” he rolled his hips forward again, and Donghyuck’s weight buckled back on him, needy. “I’d make you beg for me – make you forget they’re even there. They’d be trying so hard not to let themselves come from watching me fuck you, but they wouldn’t be able to stop themselves. You’d smell too good, you’d look too good… all naked and begging for it. Your voice would sound so pretty, moaning my name over and over. They wouldn’t stand a chance.”  

“Mmng…” Donghyuck shuddered drunkenly. “Mark…” His voice was husky beneath Mark’s hold.

“Do you want that, Hyuck?” Mark didn’t know what was happening in his body, in his mind. He tightened his grip on Donghyuck’s neck again and flared with pleasure as he felt the rasp of his constricted breath beneath his fingers. “Do you want me to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to remember anyone else that’s ever touched you? Is that what you want?”

Donghyuck could only move a little, but he still managed to nod. “Yes…” he grunted, his voice coarse and raspy.  

“I want you to beg for it, Hyuck.”  Mark released his hand from Donghyuck’s throat and heard the omega rake in a shaky breath. He ran his fingers from Donghyuck’s neck across his chest, down along the shirt over his stomach to his crotch, where his cock was straining against his pants. He palmed him, slow and patient, and curled himself around Donghyuck, drunk with the possessive rapture of having him in his grasp, giving air to the thunderous wildfire of his own jealousy. “I wanna hear you beg for me,” he took a deep breath against his neck. “After teasing me so bad… eye-fucking me in front of all those people,” his voice was dark, indulgent. “If you want this, you’re gonna have to beg me for it.”

Donghyuck shuddered again. Still constrained with his arm held tight behind him, he couldn’t move far. He had to brace himself against the wall with his free hand so that he wouldn’t collapse. His body was Mark’s for the taking.

He let his head bow forward as Mark toyed with him through his pants, the pressure never hard or fast enough to become satisfying. Mark continued bucking softly against his ass from behind, teasing him with pressure he was desperate yet unable to reciprocate.

“You want me to beg?” Donghyuck huffed, drunken around his own baiting, pushing himself to resist Mark’s temper if only to make the alpha even more forceful.

“I won’t ask again,” Mark murmured, sounding so calm that Donghyuck began to squirm with slight concern that he wasn’t going to win this.

He swallowed, panting as Mark continued palming him.

“Donghyuck?” Mark murmured into his ear, making the omega shudder. “I’m waiting.”

Donghyuck tried to laugh, but it sounded breathless and weak. “You’re so jealous tonight, Markie-”

Mark ran his hand along Donghyuck’s spine, beneath his shirt, and then grabbed the hair at the base of his neck with enough force to send a shudder of ghastly arousal through Donghyuck’s body. It was right where his scruff would have been, puppy-like and submissive.

“Beg me.”

Dominance stuttered through the air like thunder, tangible and warping. Donghyuck shuddered, his throat constricting into a subtle whine, as his thoughts melted. Mark’s dominance pulsed into the room on the back of the heavy timbre of his pheromones.

“Fuck,” he groaned, broken and obedient. His resolve faded, splintered into pieces through which Mark could wade like water, seamless and passive. He had never heard Mark’s dominant voice before, and he hadn’t realised how insatiably submissive it would instantly make him feel, deliriously and deliciously vulnerable. “Mark…” he whined, jittery with adrenaline. He tried to roll his hips forward, seeking more contact with Mark’s hand, but Mark didn’t let it happen. “Fuck…”

Mark was delirious too. His own voice, unfamiliar with dominance, rang in his ears like an echo without origin, but all he could attend to was the way Donghyuck had begun to tremble against him, bowing on an instinctive, animalistic level to the novel power dynamic between them.

He held him tighter, squeezing his hands into Donghyuck’s golden flesh just to test that he wouldn’t break. He brought himself close, angling his lips to Donghyuck’s ear. The dominance subsided, but the tension between them didn’t shift.

“Donghyuck, what do you want?” 

“Please…” Donghyuck groaned, sinking into his abandon like a moth into a slow death of honey. He scrunched his eyes shut, scraping his fingernails against the stone wall as if he might find purchase or relief in the texture of it. “Please…”

Mark swallowed, almost unsettled with awe. This was Donghyuck – the endlessly baiting, coy, stubborn, teasing, irritating teenager with whom Mark had fallen in love – finally submitting to him. And he sounded like he loved it. “Please what?”

Donghyuck must have felt the shift, the carnal satisfaction of Mark hearing how powerful he was, because he resumed his articulations with greater earnestness. He didn't have the strength to feel self-conscious any longer. “Please, Mark… Minhyung,” he shuddered again as the supplication poured out of him without his conscious consent. The remnants of the dominance in the air fractured the last of his resolve. “Lee Minhyung… alpha… m-my alpha… please…”

“Please what, Donghyuck?” Mark grunted, aggressive and impatient. He reached between them far enough to push Donghyuck’s trousers down, just enough to bare his ass. Mark clenched his jaw and then slapped the flat of his hand against him.

Donghyuck whined, shuddering as the sting of it dissipated back into his skin. “Fucking… hell…”

Mark freed himself from his pants too and let his hard cock fall against the cleft of Donghyuck’s ass. He rutted against him, everything smooth and warm without the resistance of their clothes, and he could feel that Donghyuck was equally enlivened by the sudden nakedness they shared.

“Mmng…” Donghyuck groaned, his lip clamped between his teeth, his brows furrowed.

“Words, baby.”

“Please,” Donghyuck sounded genuinely like he was on the verge of tears now, not scared or sad, but desperate – so desperate it made Mark’s blood coil with power and devotion and wanting. “Please,” he said again. His voice broke, angry and fragile at once. “Please, Mark,” he took a wracking breath, trying in vain to push his weight back onto Mark’s own body. “I need you inside me… I want you inside me. Please do it. Do it now…” he whined again, and the sound twisted into an irritated growl as he tried in vain to get more pressure on his body than Mark was deigning to give. “Fuck. Fuck me like you said you would," he was impatient, annoyed, "please, Mark. I want to forget them all. Please…”

“That’s what you want?”

“Yeah…”

“For me to fuck you?”

Donghyuck nodded, breaths erratic and heavy. His hand fisted against the wall. 

“Want me to make you forget everyone else?”

“Yes…”

“Can you take me now, Hyuck?” Mark wrapped his arm around Donghyuck’s shivering body, panting with breath. He slipped his hand beneath his shirt, raking his nails over his nipple before holding his waist like a vice. He hadn’t even fingered him yet. He hadn’t even tried.  “Can you take me right now? You're sure?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck’s hands clawed at the wall, his nails slipping over the rough stone, unable to find a hold. “I’m sure. Please. I’m begging for it, aren't I? Just like you told me to.”

Mark, in other circumstances, wouldn’t have listened. He still would have checked, still ensured that Donghyuck wasn’t being swept away by his own desires to the detriment of his wellbeing. But the stench of slick was too strong, his own possessiveness was too blinding, his desires too rich. So instead of checking, Mark held Donghyuck’s hips, dug his fingers into his pillowy flesh, and changed the angle on which they met.

The head of his cock messed almost immediately in slick. He clenched his jaw, his eyes closing, and bucked hesitantly forward against the pressure of Donghyuck's opening, searing hot and desperately tight.

“Mmng,” Donghyuck’s arms were shaking as he held himself against the wall. Mark could feel the murmur of adrenaline in the body he held. “Mark…”

Mark grunted as he pushed past the rim of Donghyuck’s hole and into the wet, slick swallow of his searing heat. “Fuck…” he moaned. “You’re so fucking tight," he panted, lightheaded, feeling harder than he’d ever been before.  

Donghyuck shuddered as he was filled. He faltered forward, his arms caving in his rapture, but Mark caught his weight with an arm wrapped around his chest. He cradled him for a moment, the touch unexpectedly affectionate in the midst of so much blinding, possessive lust.

“I’m gonna move now.” He kissed Donghyuck’s back, over his shirt, as he cradled him. “You ready? Tell me you’re ready, baby.”

“I’m ready,” Donghyuck sounded disoriented, breathy and distracted. “Mark… please… I'm ready...” he continued his begging, as if driven by some carnal instinct he couldn’t control. 

Mark shifted his weight, just in case Donghyuck was unable to hold himself upright again, and then thrust into him just like he’d promised, hard and sudden.

Donghyuck bared his throat and moaned, his breath constricting to nothing as Mark stilled there, just waiting as Donghyuck shuddered around him, adjusting to being so suddenly and completely filled.

He waited until the aftershocks had settled, until the very moment Donghyuck’s breath began to even and he began to agitate for more, and then pulled out to the very tip. He lingered there too, feeling the sting of cool air on the slick that covered him, imagining Donghyuck’s body feeling empty again, closing back up in his absence, before finally bucking back in as deep as he could get.

“Mmph,” Donghyuck grunted, catching himself on the wall again. His spine was bowed, seeking everything he could find. “Fuck.”

“Is this what my omega wants?” Mark murmured against Donghyuck’s clothed back. 

“Mmnph…”

“What?”

“God,” Donghyuck sounded irritated, "yes, Mark. Yeah. It’s what I want.” He panted around his words, trying not to shudder at the feeling of Mark so big and so still inside him. “Just keep moving already.”

Mark smirked. He ran his tongue along his canine and moved his hands to squeeze Donghyuck’s waist. Part of him wanted to make him beg for it all over again, just because he thought Donghyuck actually might do it, but the other part of him couldn't wait.

He rolled his hips back and then thrust into Donghyuck again, making him moan even louder than before.  

The fact they were almost fully clothed made everything feel rushed and scandalous, like they couldn’t have waited a moment more, like Donghyuck wouldn’t have let him. Mark wanted to tear the clothes off, to rip every barrier between them to shreds, but the one thing he wanted more than any of that was to keep himself buried inside Donghyuck’s body, deep in the heat of the omega after whom he lusted. Each time they were able to be together, each time Mark was allowed beneath his surface, losing Donghyuck hurt even more.

Mark built a pace that was slow and deep. Now and again he would feel Donghyuck press for more, notice him seeking something harder or faster, but Mark wouldn’t let it happen. He let his touch roam across Donghyuck’s body, touching and pinching and scratching, but every time he would settle back with his broad hands clasped around Donghyuck’s narrow hips, massaging the dimples at the base of his spine as he thrust into him hard and deep and slow. Again and again and again.

Donghyuck sank onto his elbows against the wall, heaving breath as Mark’s weight satisfied his deepest urges. His shoulder blades shifted like wings beneath his clothes as he tensed and writhed, coiling as Mark took him deeper, the angle becoming more and more severe.

“Mark… Mark…” Donghyuck’s voice was wretched and husky. “I can’t… my legs…”

Donghyuck’s arms were buckling, but Mark couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy seeing it. Something gently sadistic rose in him at the sight of Donghyuck so helpless, satisfied with the intent destruction he was wreaking.

“You can’t take it?” he shifted his hands from his waist to Donghyuck’s spine and experimentally pushed on the bow of his back to flex the angle of his hips further. “My omega can’t take it, even after begging me?”

“Mark…” Donghyuck sounded weak, supplicatory but unafraid. He shuddered as Mark thrust in again on the deeper angle. His legs buckled, his arms slipped without strength or grip, and Mark caught him just before his face hit the wall, as Donghyuck knew he would.

“Let’s go to the bed then, Hyuck. Yeah?” he kissed the back of Donghyuck’s neck as he lifted him up against him with his arm braced across his chest. “Do you want that?” Still buried in his ass, Mark turned them around.

The omega had to teeter in Mark's hold to make it to the bed while staying so connected. It was only a few paces though, and Mark quickly set him against the mattress so that his knees were spread on the soft blankets. 

Donghyuck groaned with relief at the shift, his hands fisting in the sheets as he settled into the pillowy bedding.

“Better?” Mark murmured from behind him. He was still standing by the bed, still with his cock deep in Donghyuck’s ass. He helped to ease Donghyuck down onto the bed further, bending him over so that he was bared to Mark’s inspection. Mark grabbed his ass with one hand, squeezing a cheek tight and pushing it aside so that he could see where his cock was buried in the sweltering body.

Donghyuck nodded, his back arching again with the attention. His legs ached with the relief of the position. His arms throbbed with the feeling of the plush mattress beneath them rather than the pressure of the stone wall. “Much better.”

“Want me to keep going?” Mark asked him. He tensed, and his cock shifted in Donghyuck’s body just enough to send a spark of pleasure through them both.

“Yeah…” Donghyuck’s voice was muffled by the sheets, where he’d quickly buried his face. “Mark… please…”

“I’ve got you, baby,” Mark hummed, his voice mixed with a growl as he slowly rolled his hips back. “Let me take care of you, yeah?”

He bucked into Donghyuck hard, and Donghyuck’s weight faltered forward in surprise, his spine a perfect slope of muscle and bone beneath his shirt with his head down and his ass in the air. Mark flicked the hem of the shirt away from him and swallowed his own groan of satisfaction as Donghyuck’s body was bared to him, from his ass all the way down along his spine to the narrow slope of his waist and the edge of his shoulder blades. He watched himself rut into his ass a few times before closing his eyes and letting his head loll back toward the ceiling, exultant at the pleasures Donghyuck was gifting him. His pheromones were like smoke in the room, Donghyuck’s slick musky around them both. He could feel himself coiling, his body preparing to knot, always seeking to claim.

“There's a knot coming, Hyuck," he breathed, eyes still closed. He could feel it in the base of his cock. Soon it would be pressing against Donghyuck’s rim, climbing inexorably higher and higher, deeper and deeper.

After Donghyuck had complained about the lack of warning the previous year, Mark had attended more closely to his own biology during the long seasons alone. These days, he could tell when a knot was coming well before he even felt it in his hand as he touched himself – always when he thought about Donghyuck… only when he thought about Donghyuck.

Donghyuck made a muffled sound of longing and desire, a moan coloured with a whine. “Please…” he panted. He parted his legs further, beckoning Mark deeper. It was different now that he wasn’t standing; Mark was able to feel so much more of him, to have so much more. “Please… let me have it, Mark.”

“You want it?” Mark was almost awed. He’d expected Donghyuck to be teasing, yet all he could hear in his familiar voice was lust – longing for the knot.

“Yeah…”

He smiled, drunken and satisfied. “You’re so fucking sexy, baby,” he groaned. “You’re being so good letting me fuck you like this... asking for my knot.”

“Mark… faster…” Donghyuck squirmed against the blankets. 

He was searching for release now, Mark could feel it in the tension of the omega's body. His hands were fisting in the sheets, his shoulders and triceps swelling as he writhed, trying to find the leverage to fuck himself back onto Mark but failing to wrangle the strength.

“Faster… please…”

“No, Hyuck,” Mark grinned, entranced, and reached for Donghyuck’s waist. He pushed the shirt along Donghyuck’s back, until it was bunched at his shoulders, and held his naked waist tight, witnessing the limits of his surface. He leaned over him, far enough to kiss his naked shoulder blade and continued the deep, patient thrusts. “Just like this,” he panted, rutting harder. He leaned a hand against the bed next to Donghyuck's bowed head, fisting it in the sheets. “Just hard… and slow…”

Donghyuck shuddered again, and Mark could have sworn his waist shrunk beneath his hand. “The… the knot…” he stammered around each thrust.

“Is my knot stretching you out, Hyuck?” Mark tightened his hold on Donghyuck’s waist. He slowed as he felt the pressure of it sear against Donghyuck’s entrance. He lingered there, just teasing the tightness of it until it finally, slowly, slipped along Mark’s cock and into him on the back of another thrust.

“F-Fuck…” Donghyuck moaned, tensing as he adjusted to the size of the knot being fucked into him. “Mark-”

“Can you handle it?” Mark asked, but he already knew the answer.

Donghyuck moaned, his voice aching with satisfaction.

“You’re such a good boy. Can you keep being good for me and take all of it?”

“I can take it,” Donghyuck said quickly, nodding into the blankets, heaving breath. “Let me have it, please.” He moaned as Mark continued moving inside him. “Mark… please…”

With the knot climbing, Mark aligned their backs, shifting the angle so that could rut into Donghyuck deeper. His movement now was smaller but the effect was twice as deep. Their hips stayed locked, but he kept rolling down into Donghyuck, like a coil winding tighter and tighter. The knot was so big it was keeping them together already, making Mark reticent to remove himself completely as he buried himself deeper with each thrust forward. The knot was climbing… climbing… climbing…

“Fuck…” he grunted, blinded by the pleasure as Donghyuck’s body drew him in.

“Harder, Mark…” Donghyuck’s voice was muffled by a pillow, husky. He was grunting with each thrust, perfect moans ringing around panting breaths, a timbre Mark wanted to drink like honey. “Mark…”

Mark kissed the back of Donghyuck's neck and touched the flat of his hand to his spine. He felt Donghyuck tighten around him as he pressed carefully on the curve of his back, bowing him to the bed and jutting his hips even higher.

“Mmng…”

“You like that, baby?” He sounded husky to his own ears. He licked his lips slowly and shifted so that both his hands were on Donghyuck's back again, pressing more of his weight onto Donghyuck’s waist as he thrust harder. “You like the feeling of me holding you down?”

Donghyuck moaned loudly. Pinned to the bed, unable to move, he could only spread his knees further to seek more of Mark’s weight, to let him know it was okay, that he wanted every ounce of him. “Mngh,” he groaned. 

“You’re so sexy, Hyuck…” Mark couldn’t even hear himself now. All he could think about was the way Donghyuck was tightening around his cock, the sound of their bodies meeting – slapping together again and again – the perfect melody of Donghyuck’s husky moans, the feeling of his body beneath Mark’s hands, tensing, tensing. All of Mark’s weight was on him now, his hands tight around his waist, his biceps swelling with the force of his grip, bowing the omega’s spine into the bed as he took everything. Harder, faster, deeper.

“Come here,” Mark was desperate now. He grabbed Donghyuck's hair with one hand and looped his other arm beneath his chest. He pulled him upright so that Donghyuck's weight shifted to his knees on the edge of the bed as Mark continued to thrust into him from behind. “I want to touch you,” he panted, still thrusting. “Let me touch you.”

Donghyuck’s weight fell helplessly against Mark’s chest, his head lolled back onto his shoulder. His eyes were closed, his brows knitted tight. His mouth was open, his lips red, his chest coursing with panting breath.

This was the first time Mark had properly seen his face since this had started, and the flush of affection that ignited in him was deep and profound. Donghyuck was so beautiful, so masculine, so fragile and formidable at once. Every element of structure and balance he’d possessed since their childhood had only crystallised and blossomed in his maturity. Donghyuck was the most perfect man Mark had ever seen, and now it was more true than ever – sex drunk, eyes glazed, cheeks flushed, lips parted and dark, golden skin glistening with sweat.

Donghyuck blinked and slowly turned his head to gaze back at him, dazed.

Still moving inside him, Mark reached beneath Donghyuck’s shirt, over his abdomen and sternum and pectorals, up out the loose neck of the garment to his throat, and then up onto his jaw. Gently, with supreme affection to juxtapose the relentless, carnal pace of their fucking, he angled Donghyuck’s head further to the side and kissed him.

Tenderness was a cool balm to the burn of his violent possessiveness. Mark tasted Donghyuck like he was dipping his tongue into gold. He eased him open, no force at all lurking in the kiss. By this point, he needed no pressure whatsoever for Donghyuck to submit to him. All he wanted was Donghyuck’s taste, and the feeling of Donghyuck giving it to him, so completely without barrier or thought, made Mark’s chest burn with gratification.

Donghyuck’s scent went straight to Mark’s head. He felt it burn in his blood, bind them together, surround them until there was nothing left. He kissed Donghyuck deeper, thrust harder, held his neck as he kept him close, kissing him deep and messy and patient. Donghyuck was moaning into his mouth now, grunting in time with each thrust. His body was shaking, a shuddering husk in the vice of Mark’s hold. If Mark were to let him go, he’d fall instantly, no strength left. Mark had taken everything, could take everything – whatever he wanted – and Donghyuck would like it.

It was with this thought ricocheting in Mark’s mind that his knot finally spurred into Donghyuck’s body, deep and sudden. Mark groaned loudly, his eyes closing, his hand tightening against Donghyuck’s throat as he felt their bodies lock. In the blinding vestige of his pleasure, his consuming instinct to growl wasn’t subject to any control.

The dark, violent claim cracked through his chest and into the kiss like a drug fed straight into Donghyuck's lungs. The omega shuddered in Mark's arms, his body tightening at the sudden arrest of the knot and the dominant growl at once, but Mark could barely feel it over the cacophony of his own rapture. 

The kiss broke as Donghyuck panted for air, pleasure flickering beneath his skin like electricity. Mark, desperate for as much contact as he could get, quickly buried his face against Donghyuck's neck instead. His scent was thick here, suffocating. He licked along his sweaty skin and groaned as he opened his jaw to graze his teeth against his throat. The gentle resistance of Donghyuck’s flesh against his canines was tantalising and addictive, so sexy Mark thought he might die. 

How far could he toy with the pressure of this skin before it broke? He wanted to bite down into him so badly. So badly. He wanted to carve his bite into Donghyuck over and over and over. A knot, a bite, a mateship written and unable to be erased.

He sucked on his skin for a moment, and then growled again as he pulled himself back from the familiar cliff-edge. He couldn't do this yet. Not yet... 

Using the last of his resolve, Mark forced himself to channel the intense aftershock of his own orgasm into completing Dongnhyuck’s own. He let his instincts buck himself forward, pushing the knot higher and deeper. It was big, bigger than they’d ever had before, but he knew Donghyuck could take it. He wanted him to take it. He wanted him to know what belonging to an alpha felt like, what belonging to him felt like, that Mark would always be part of him.  

Mark thrust into him roughly, the knot lodging deep, and Donghyuck huffed a loud, broken moan into the darkened room. Mark covered Donghyuck’s mouth with his hand, clamping it shut, stifling the grunting whines of abandon as Donghyuck approached his own ecstasy. Mark felt the omega claw at him, his fingernails digging into his wrist and forearm as he struggled against the muzzling, but his pheromones were thick and deafening with the pleasure of rapture.

The surge of Mark’s possessiveness, the pressure of the knot, the titillating weight of the bite Mark was teasing, the constriction of his breath beneath Mark’s firm hands, it all coalesced to send Donghyuck helplessly into the disorientation of his own pleasure. He came with a breathless moan – broken and husky and perfectly stifled by Mark’s tight hold over his face. He was seeing stars, unable to rake the breath into a body that so desperately needed it. He tightened around Mark to the point of pain, his body spasming over his cock and knot to draw him deeper, binding them even closer. He clawed at Mark’s hand, eking every ounce of the constriction he was giving before fracturing into his orgasm.

Mark faltered forward, a second wave of intense, blinding satisfaction muting him as he rutted Donghyuck into the bed. He kept his mouth on Donghyuck’s shoulder, salivating around the imprint of his teeth, where the integrity of the omega's flesh was just barely preserved beneath the pressure of his canines. He let go of Donghyuck’s face just in time to catch them on the bed, chasing his pleasure if only because he knew he was also giving Donghyuck his own, riding him through the blinding satisfaction of his orgasm and into the silence of the room.

Donghyuck’s wracking breaths were coarse and fast in the stillness that followed, loud groans diluted to husky whines that settled gradually to panting breath as he reassembled from the destruction that had befallen him and slipped helplessly into rest.

Mark?

Mark grunted in his sleep. His head felt viscous, his thoughts loose and slow. He swallowed and tried to fight through the mist of his confusion to open his eyes. His breath was heavy as it cracked through his lungs.

“Markie?”

Mark hummed a note of reflexive acknowledgement as Donghyuck’s voice eased him toward wakefulness. He hugged his arms into the darkness, seeking to tighten his hold around an omega that wasn't there. He twitched and cleared his throat, his sight swimming as he struggled to find focus in the dim, pre-dawn light.

It took him a moment to realise that Donghyuck wasn’t in front of him. His arms were empty. Unlike so many mornings when Mark would find himself awaking with Donghyuck captive in his protective grip, today it was Donghyuck that was draped across him from behind, cradling him, his arm crossed protectively over his chest with their legs bent together.

The omega was stroking his thumb against Mark’s sternum. His breath was gentle on Mark’s shoulder, his scent thick and calm. The heat of his chest on Mark's back was soothing and glowing.

"You awake?”

“Yeah…” Mark’s voice was husky. He reached up to touch his hand to Donghyuck’s arm, where it braced his chest. The position felt strange. “What time is it?”

“Almost dawn,” he kissed Mark’s shoulder and nuzzled his spine. “I’ve got to go back.”

Mark winced. A palpable tug of denial stung the musculature beneath his ribs. The reflex to keep Donghyuck close was so much more intense than normal. It was always there in the mornings, bubbling beneath the surface of his consciousness, but nothing like this. The thought of them parting inflicted physical pain. “Not yet,” he grunted as the initial sting of the pending separation slowly dulled. "Just wait a sec."

"Mmhmm." 

Mark cleared his throat and struggled to rouse himself from his own instincts. He swallowed and then turned his head back, trying to see Donghyuck without moving too far from their intimate position. He glanced down at where the omega was hugging into him from behind, his body warm and protective, and then rolled over just enough to look at his face. “This is nice...”

Donghyuck smiled back at him. Their faces were so close that Mark could only infer the expression by the crinkle of his eyes, but it was enough. “I thought you might want a hug,” he whispered in return, not quite loud enough to feel condescending.

Mark swallowed again and gradually eased himself onto his back, moving slow so that Donghyuck could release him enough to let him roll over.

He settled there with a gentle breath of effort. Everything felt heavy. His chest was thudding with a mess of instincts that he couldn’t describe. He had a instinctive urge to protect Donghyuck, but no danger was looming. The night was still dark, the room quiet and safe.

“Maybe I did want one…” he brushed his fingers through his hair and then gazed at Donghyuck, where he lay on his side watching him.

Mark let his gaze trail slowly from Donghyuck’s enchanting eyes to his jaw and down along his neck. He felt the strange, emotional weight in his chest darken as he recognised the evidence of their passions in the hours before.

He reached up and then slowly traced his hand along Donghyuck’s jaw. He edged his fingers over his chin, across the slope of his neck to his collarbone, where a dark graze of bruising had begun to stain his flesh. They were blemishes from the insistent scraping of Mark’s teeth, a bite so close to being made that it filled Mark with shame. He trailed his fingertip over the darkened surface like a whisper, and then gently eased slight pressure against the bone.

He could tell from Donghyuck’s flinch of discomfort that the injury was still the cause of pain. One of a hundred wounds Mark had unknowingly unleashed upon his surface.

“Ow,” Donghyuck murmured, deadpan, as Mark let his arm fall back to the bed.

“Are you okay?”

To Mark’s surprise, when Donghyuck smiled at him, his expression was completely free of judgement or defensiveness. “I’m good,” he said, his dark eyes feline and incisive. “Are you?”

Mark went to say yes, but the word stuck in his throat. He breathed around the unvoiced syllable instead, his eyes darting away. The heaviness in his chest didn’t move. “I mean,” he managed a half-smile as he motioned weakly to his own body, free of any of the bruising and scratches that adorned Donghyuck’s, “there’s nothing on me.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Mark went still. He watched as Donghyuck leaned closer and positioned himself over Mark, anchoring his hands against the bed either side of his face. He leaned himself down and touched their lips together softly. He had arranged himself with his knees tucked beneath Mark’s legs, so reminiscent of the way Mark usually leaned over him. Mark tried to shirk the slight discomfort that burgeoned from the submissiveness of the position. 

“I’m alright,” Donghyuck murmured into Mark’s cheek. “I enjoyed myself.”

He sank onto his elbows, bringing their chests together, and used his hand to brush Mark’s dark hair away from his eyes. As he kissed Mark again, Mark brought his hands up to gently hold Donghyuck’s waist, feeling his fingers against the angle of his spine like a whisper.

“I can look after you now.”

“Yeah?” Mark smirked, but a flicker of panic had arisen in his chest, an anxious flurry at being accurately perceived before even he could make sense of the broiling instincts and emotions in his blood.

“You’re so pretty, Markie,” Donghyuck smiled down at him, sincere, and then kissed him again.

Mark gave over to the temperate kiss, but he was guarded. Something about the position felt strange. His mind was racing, and he felt like he was shackled to the heaviness in his chest. Even as Donghyuck kissed him, usually the only thing in the world that could get him to feel calm, he could only think about what harm he'd caused. His hold on Donghyuck’s waist beneath the sheets was whisper-like, afraid that he might cause more pain, yet also terrified that he might lose him if he let go.

But Donghyuck had set the pace, and he didn’t let Mark’s reservations dictate his persistence. He eased his weight down further, using his tongue to guide Mark’s mouth to open to him, tasted him like he might nuzzle into his scent at night, coaxed him into mindless reciprocation.

And it was in this daze of physical satisfaction that Mark felt that knot of tension slowly begin to unstitch. Kissing Donghyuck, lying beneath him, being held subject to his lead, Mark slowly felt his mind quieten, his body loosen, his thoughts begin to soften into something less loud or predatory. Only now that his emotions had begun to recede could he perceive their colour and nature; shame, guilt, insecurity, all broiling beneath a surface of protectiveness.

“You made me feel really good,” Donghyuck murmured into the kiss before sinking his tongue between Mark’s lips once more. He kissed the speech into the alpha's body, letting the words inter in his lungs like warmth. Mark felt them fizz into his blood, easing the guilt that prickled upon whatever pain he may have caused. “I like you so much.”

Mark sighed into the kiss, his last vestiges of self-conscious anxiety fading beneath the sincerity of Donghyuck’s words, the safety of his honesty.

“I can take care of you too,” he kissed along Mark’s jaw, their bodies tight. The omega seemed strong poised above him like this, and Mark felt safe surrounded by him. “Whenever you need.”

Mark closed his eyes as Donghyuck sucked softly along his jaw and down to his throat, not strong enough to leave any shadows, but firm enough that it made intimate pleasure tingle beneath his skin. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was aching with the scent of Donghyuck’s pheromones, and his affections were so deep that he thought he might drown in them. He reached up and felt along Donghyuck's chest, marvelling at how muscular he was, how strong, how capable.

“You’re mine, right Mark?” Donghyuck kissed back up onto his jaw again. 

Mark’s head swam with relief and satisfaction. “Yeah?”

“Good.”

Mark felt Donghyuck begin to lift his face away, but he wasn’t ready to let go of the omega yet. He shifted and wrapped his arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer so that he could nuzzle his face into his neck. He let himself linger there, unashamed, nestling against the omega's skin like a puppy seeking every flicker of scent he could find. He tightened his knees around Donghyuck’s hips, caging him gently, not letting him leave.

“You okay?” Donghyuck murmured.

"Just a sec," Mark spoke against him, still clinging. He swallowed as Donghyuck obediently relaxed back over him. He felt Donghyuck stroke his hair, his breaths calm and deep.

“Okay.” 

Mark took a deep breath and let his mind fill with Donghyuck’s presence and reassurance. He could feel the gnawing shame biting at the back of his throat, and only in the safety of the omega's support could he find the courage to articulate it. "I didn't hurt you?" Mark made himself ask before the fear of the answer could stop him. His voice was thin, muffled by Donghyuck’s skin.

"No," Donghyuck answered, his voice gentle and patient, "you didn't hurt me." 

"You'd tell me, right? If I went too far?" 

"I'd tell you," he reassured. Mark felt Donghyuck press his lips against his collarbone and squeezed him closer. 

Mark nodded into his neck. He took another breath and swallowed as he eased his hold into something gentler, finally allowing Donghyuck to raise his head. With just a little distance now between them, Mark was able to look at Donghyuck all over again. 

Just like when they had been kids in the fury of adolescence, Donghyuck had effortlessly perceived his anxiety and calmed him. A strange maleficence of observation, of knowing, that confused Mark as much as it enraptured him.  

“I really…” he gazed up at Donghyuck and felt his heart melt into his chest.

How could he ever articulate the things he was feeling? He had never felt as safe or as seen as when Donghyuck was the one touching him. He would die for Donghyuck, he would do anything for him. That was clearer to Mark now than it had ever been before, just as it became clearer in every moment that passed. 

“Thank you.”

Donghyuck smiled and kissed him again, like somehow he’d heard everything Mark hadn’t been able to say. "You're welcome." 

Mark couldn't describe what exactly had shifted after that night, but something in the winds had changed. He felt closer to Donghyuck now, more understood by him. Donghyuck still annoyed him and laughed at him and at times confused him, but beneath the maelstrom of his influence, Mark had become even more secure. Donghyuck was no longer just the person who knew him best, he was also the person who protected him the most. What was given had been taken and returned in kind. These days when Donghyuck perceived him, Mark knew in his soul that there was nothing left for him to hide.

Mark entered the dining room that night with anticipation in his lungs. Excitement was singing in his thoughts like sweet incense. It had been a long day devoid of Donghyuck, and he was eager to share a room with the omega again, even if just at dinner with Johnny and his parents. The last time he’d seen Donghyuck was the day before, when they’d shared a hurried kiss in the private library prior to being shepherded to their respective commitments. Mark knew that even just being able to see Donghyuck's face again now would salve the burn of his absence. 

So, when Mark entered the grand dining room that evening and witnessed the decadent table set only for his parents, Johnny and himself, he quickly lost what little buoyancy that had momentarily lifted in him. His disposition immediately soured. His mind became thick with irritation, as if the omega were a drug he’d been promised yet unable to take.

“Where’s Donghyuck tonight?” he had asked as the entrée was cleared.

Mark’s mother hummed thoughtfully as she swallowed a sip of her wine. “He’s meeting with another suitor I believe.” She set the glass down and dabbed her lip clear with her napkin, unaware of the way Mark’s hand had clenched beneath the table. “I don’t know who it is though. Do you have any insights for us, Johnny?”

“He’s the son of a northern trading partner,” Johnny replied calmly. He adjusted the serviette over his lap and smiled across the table to her, his aura effortlessly charming. “Just between us, I think our parents felt obliged to arrange it. I doubt Haechan will like him.”

“Why is that-” Mark asked at the same time that his mother leaned back.

“He seems picky to me,” his mother commented dryly, drowning Mark’s comment back to silence.

“Very,” Johnny agreed with her, “it drives our parents mad.”

Mark’s father shifted. “He’ll have to select a mate next year, correct?” he asked, his voice deep.

Johnny nodded to him. “I think they’re considering letting him choose the year after, just because he’s dragging his feet. But he won’t be able to put it off for any longer than that.”

Mark tried not to look too invested in the conversation, but he could feel his emotions playing out on his face despite himself. He picked at the edge of his napkin as he noticed Johnny glance at him. Knowing he was the target of attention, he shrugged and made what he hoped might come off as a casual, impartial hum of thoughtfulness. “That’s soon, isn’t it?” He commented, hollow. He glanced at his parents, hoping to appeal to their agreement. “He’s only twenty. I mean, I’m twenty as well.” He returned Johnny's gaze. “You’re already twenty-four and you’re still unbound.”

“We’re alphas, Mark,” Johnny smiled at him, nudging their shoulders together for a moment. “It’s different for us.”

The topic closed quickly, and Mark was thankful for it. He knew that despite his presentation gifting slightly more flexibility regarding his own bounding, his parents were nonetheless eager for progress on the matter.

After all, Mark was an heir, the only heir, and an heir without a mate was a dynasty without a future.

It was barely half an hour later that Mark heard the entrance doors from the reception chamber slam shut – a dull clunk that echoed through the hall beyond the closed doors of the dining room. He straightened, and quickly noticed Johnny do the same.

Mark’s father beckoned a househand closer and directed her to check on the disturbance, but there was no need. Before she could even reach the door, it had flown open.

Donghyuck – furious and frustrated – took one step into the room before recognising the formal dinner still in progress. Taeil jogged up from behind him a moment later, panting in his efforts to avoid the disruption. “Haechan, don’t – they’re probably…” His voice petered to silence as he stopped behind Donghyuck.

Mark swallowed, his jaw clenching as he observed the visceral emotions playing out across Donghyuck’s handsome face; anger, hurt, impatience. Their eyes met and Mark felt something in him break. “Hyuck…” he murmured, but the gentle name was lost to the clamour of the room.

Johnny stood as Donghyuck took a step back. His chair scraped loudly against the stone floor. 

“Sorry, everyone,” Donghyuck said quickly. He ducked his head down in a slight bow to Mark’s parents, and then focused his eyes to looked straight past Mark to Johnny. “John, can I talk to you?”

Johnny walked forward immediately. “Of course,” he said as he lay his napkin over his chair. He approached Donghyuck without looking back, instantly the perfect picture of a concerned, elder brother. “Are you alright?”

Donghyuck stepped away from the doors and back out into the hall. Mark watched, helpless, as Johnny slipped through behind him. Just before the doors closed behind them, Donghyuck’s golden voice sounded again, irate: “I’m not doing this anymore-”

The doors closed with a thud. Silence settled in the chamber.

“Gosh,” Mark’s mother muttered with concern as she looked across the empty room, through the stillness the commotion had left behind. “That looked serious.”

“I’m just going to…” Mark didn’t bother trying to finish his sentence as he stood. He couldn’t think of an excuse to follow them, and he didn’t care enough to find one. He left his parents sitting in silence to follow Johnny into the hall. His heart was racing, dread in his fingertips.

The hallway was empty when he poked his head out, but he could hear Johny’s voice resonating from the reception atrium. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from speaking as paced anxiously towards them.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“I’m not going to any more of these stupid meetings, John.”

Mark rounded the corner and hesitated as he saw the three wolves huddled by the edge of the grand staircase leading up to the residential wings. Haechan as facing the opposite way, but Taeil immediately noticed Mark hovering beyond them. Johnny noticed him too, but just raised his hand to keep him from interrupting. “What happened, Haechan?”

“The bastard scented me!”

Mark swallowed. He felt his hands clench into fists. The world seemed to turn backward, keeling on the wrong axis. He noticed Taeil glance around the atrium, watching for any other onlookers, always the responsible hand.

“He what?” Johnny’s voice was dark.

“He scented me. He blocked my way when I was trying to leave so that he could pull down my shirt and lick my neck. It was disgusting.”

Mark’s breath caught in his throat. He coughed and blinked his eyes to try and keep himself focused – to keep himself grounded while burning anger and possessiveness boiled in his blood.

Donghyuck heard the sound and turned to glance back at him, looking as if he hadn’t known he was there. Something in his expression told Mark he hadn’t meant for the words to be shared like this, but it was too late. He shook his head, ignoring Mark for the sake of his sanity, and turned back to Johnny.

“It’s the same every time,” he continued, a little quieter now, “and it’s fucking gross.” He raked his hands through his hair. Mark noticed that his black, button-up shirt was undone to his sternum, the cloth mussed where he’d tried to rid himself of the scenting with the warm, summer wind. “Fuck this. I’m not doing it again. Ever. Tell mum and dad that all their stupid courtship bullshit can get fucked.”

“Haechan,” Johnny had lost his patience, “you need to calm down. We need to talk about this-”

“No, we don’t!” Haechan shouted back. His voice echoed in the darkened chamber, ricocheting with his honesty. “I’ve already decided. It’s over. I’ve had enough.”

Mark instinctively took a step closer as Donghyuck began to walk away.

“I should have ripped his fucking throat open when he tried that shit.” He turned toward the staircase and wrenched the last buttons of his shirt open, the cloth billowing around him as he ascended the stairs two at a time. Mark heard one of the buttons slide across the tiled floor, but he didn’t look away.

“Where are you going?” Johnny called up at him.

“To get his stench off me!” Haechan yelled back, irate, as he reached the top of the staircase and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

Silence was a bell tolling.

Mark watched Taeil sigh and look around them again. Any witness to this kind of tantrum would have consequences, any knowledge of the prince being publicly scented would be a scandal, but the hall was quiet, the househands in this castle were loyal, and – in Mark’s opinion – Donghyuck’s rage was utterly justified.

“Fuck,” Johnny groaned as he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “How bad was it?” he asked Taeil.

Taeil shook his head, his expression was serious. “The guy was a real creep.” He shifted, uneasy. “I didn’t leave them alone once, I didn’t want to. I could tell Haechan was uncomfortable. It happened right when we were leaving. Like Haechan said… he just leant in before we could do anything about it.”

Mark could barely breathe now. He was so angry his heart felt like it might burn a hole through his ribs and out of his skin. He swallowed and paced intently toward Johnny and Taeil. He noticed them turn to him, but he didn’t stop, continuing past them and toward the staircase. “I’ll check on him,” he said as he stepped between them.  

“Wait, Mark. He doesn’t want to talk to us right now,” Johnny called after him, but Mark didn’t look back.

He took the stairs two at a time, his hand tight on the wooden railing, and tried to control his breathing. As soon as he got to the top and stepped into the darkness of the enclosed hallway, out of sight, he hesitated. He glanced down toward the guest wing, but then decided to turn back toward his own rooms. Instinct, fresh and protective, fizzed in his blood. He knew where Donghyuck would be.

The door to the private library was open. A scattering of small candles had been lit there earlier in the night, and now they were almost down to the quick. Mark didn’t see Donghyuck at first, enveloped in darkness on the other side of the room, but he quickly smelled him. His scent was a conflagration of emotion – anger, frustration, and an undercurrent of grief that felt icy in Mark’s chest.

He shut the door behind him and took a few uneasy steps forward.

Donghyuck was standing by the window. Mark watched as he stripped off his shirt and scrunched it into a tight ball. He threw it onto the ground with a growl that cracked in his chest like wood breaking.

Mark winced at the sound. He took a step closer, but hesitated. He didn’t know what to say. He was tense with indecision – desperately fighting the mirror urges to attack the alpha that had done this and to claim Donghyuck again himself.  

Donghyuck leaned on the windowsill and sighed. His naked chest inflated with breath. Mark noticed his hands were white against the wooden frame.

“Are you okay?” Mark broached hesitantly.

Donghyuck grunted and shook his head. He rocked back, his musculature rippling as he tensed and growled again. “I’m so fucking angry.”

“You should be,” Mark’s response was instinctive. He stepped closer, now only a few paces away. Donghyuck was still facing the window, his hair lifting with the gentle breeze outside. The slope of his spine was subtle and lithe, dusted with moonlight and the warm touch of the dying candles behind them. “He'll never come near you again.”

“I’m angry at myself, Mark.” Donghyuck looked over his shoulder. His expression was vexed, but his dark eyes were distant. “I didn’t even do anything. I was too fucking… surprised.”  

“It’s not your fault,” Mark had spoken before he could think about it.

Donghyuck’s expression hardened, obviously irritated. “I know.”

Mark nodded and took the reprimand in stride.

“And I’m angry that my family make me go out and do this shit even though I don’t want to.” Donghyuck turned around and leaned his weight against the window, crossing his bare arms over his chest. He looked guarded, self-conscious, angry. Handsome and beautiful. Ethereal and untouchable. “Even though I’ve been saying for years that I don’t want to do it.” He closed his eyes and growled again, his shoulders tensing like hackles raised. “There’s no fucking point.”

Mark swallowed. He so desperately wanted to touch Donghyuck that he almost wasn’t listening to what he was saying. He wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to scent him and bite him. But he didn’t know what in his reaction was rational and what wasn’t anymore. When Donghyuck was involved, he couldn't trust himself to make balanced decisions about anything.

“No point?” he murmured because he could feel the lull, could feel Donghyuck watching him.

Donghyuck sighed and rubbed his face. His hair was mussed. “I just need a minute, Mark. Okay?”

There was no way Mark was leaving. Instead of heeding the request, he walked closer.

“Mark,” Donghyuck warned, “I’m serious.”

“No,” Mark said back, resolute. He felt like Donghyuck was making some strange attempt at a joke. Confusion danced beneath his skin. “I’m not leaving, Hyuck.”

“I’m asking you to.”

Mark frowned, honestly becoming a little angry. “Why?”

“Because this is hard enough!”

Mark stilled as Donghyuck raised his head to look at him. His expression was serious and irritated. His smooth skin was pale in the moonlight. Only the barest hints of bruising were still visible in the darkness, just the faintest suggestion of the touch of Mark’s hands on his torso in the nights before. “What do you mean?”

“You’re the only reason that going out and doing this is so fucking difficult! I wouldn’t have even cared about that idiot if it wasn’t for you. I’d shrug it off and call the guy a creep and an asshole, punch him in the balls and forget about it.” He shook his head, his voice climbing. “But instead of that, I fucking felt it in my bones. It was vile. It made me feel sick, not because it was him, but… but because it wasn’t you.” He turned back to the window, his gaze impenetrable and his expression acidic with anger. “And I hate that you have to keep going out with all those stupid little pretty Western omegas when I’m the only one you should be scenting.” He bowed over as he growled again, irreparable and insistent. The sound was instinctive, carnal and invasive. “Fuck. Just… fucking… Just leave me alone, Mark. This is all so much fucking easier when I haven’t seen you in months.”

Mark surged forward before he could even entertain another thought. He hugged Donghyuck from behind, his hold tight and insistent.

“No,” Donghyuck grunted, wrenching against his grasp. “Let me go,” he growled at him again, but Mark was too strong.

He stumbled backward but Mark held them close, the balance shifting from Donghyuck’s own centre-of-gravity to one they shared.

“Fucking asshole,” Donghyuck growled as he jostled them.  

Mark held him tighter, messed his face into Donghyuck’s neck, forced himself into his vulnerable scent. He was strong enough to do it too. Donghyuck had no choice, and Mark wasn’t about to give him one when the alternative was leaving. He let his scent spread, let it flow into the room and coat over Donghyuck's body like a shroud. 

“Mark!”

“I’m glad he made you feel sick.” Mark licked his tongue along Donghyuck’s throat, erasing any hint of the other alpha. He could feel Donghyuck fighting against him, but he was strong enough that it made no difference. He clasped his teeth on the slope of his neck before speaking again. “I’m so fucking glad that it has to be me right now." He felt Donghyuck shudder beneath the weight of his claim, "I could kill anyone that touches you, Hyuck. I’m not joking.”

He felt Donghyuck weaken, just a little – just enough. Mark used the moment of submission to turn him around, their faces level. Donghyuck was panting now, flushed with exertion, his eyes dark and intense.

“You’ll never be more angry because of this than I am.” Mark stared at him, dared him to look away, to question whether he was telling the truth.

Donghyuck was still angry, but the heat of his vexation was turning to passion of a different kind. His lips were parted around panting breath. His eyes were dark as he glanced down to Mark's mouth. His cheeks were flushed. 

They were so close Mark could almost taste him. He wanted him so badly his body hurt with it, but he'd already forced his scent on Donghyuck and he wouldn't let himself force a kiss on him too. He waited, gazing helplessly at Donghyuck's face, until the omega closed the distance himself. 

They met heavily. Donghyuck wasted no time. He pushed into Mark, daring him to be as aggressive as his scent had made him look. Mark shied away from him at first, instinctively trying to ease back from the forceful kiss, but the reluctance didn’t last long. Mark's hands braced across Donghyuck’s back as he let the omega's tongue slip between his lips and share the heady sweetness of his mouth.

Donghyuck slid his fingers into Mark’s hair and raked his fingernails over his scalp, grunting as Mark pulled them tight. The kiss was deep, messy, and tinged with violence. Donghyuck was rough as he nipped Mark’s lip between his teeth, his breath course and ragged as he let Mark hold him closer, squeezing the breath out of him.

Mark couldn’t help himself. Keeping one hand on Donghyuck’s back, bracing him tight, he slipped the other onto his neck. He moulded his fingers to the shape of the omega’s throat, then ran his fingertips up into the back of his hair, where he fisted his locks tightly and pulled him away.

Donghyuck grunted, the kiss separating with a wet clack as he let Mark angle his head back. He stared at Mark from half-closed eyes, his lips swollen, glistening with saliva, and his chest heaving with breath. 

They stared at each other for a moment. Donghyuck licked his tongue over the edge of his lip, catching his canine slowly as he went. Mark watched him do it, and he knew Donghyuck savoured the attention.

“Keep kissing me, Markie,” Donghyuck panted to him, still not resisting the greedy hand in his hair. "I want your taste in my mouth." 

Longing was a blistering heat in Mark’s blood. He immediately brought them back together with even more fervour than before, more lust and desperation. As Donghyuck beckoned his tongue into his mouth again, opening to him with submission that was anything but weak, Mark felt his chest ache with dizzying possessiveness. His hand tightened in Donghyuck's hair, and the omega's unconscious whine tasted like gold as it coloured their kiss.

Donghyuck didn’t want to meet with other alphas anymore? Great. Mark didn’t want him to either. Donghyuck was his. Only his. Mark had scented him and fucked him and knotted him. No other alphas from here on should ever have the privilege of being inside Donghyuck, of knowing what the hot slick of his body feels like, what his pretty mouth tastes like, of making him moan, of making him beg. It was just Mark. Just him and Donghyuck, forever.

But then, suddenly, they were no longer alone.

The library door swung open in a destined arc. Mark felt the floor of the world fall out from beneath him. Candlelight from the hallway flooded the clandestine darkness of the library and lurched Mark’s attention into panic. He flinched against the interruption, adrenaline flooding his mind. His instinct was to shield Donghyuck, to hold him closer and ward off the intrusion that threatened to come between them, and the strength of this impulse was so strong that it took him a moment to recognise the feeling of Donghyuck desperately pushing him away.

With Mark’s delayed reaction, they managed to part too late. Mark stumbled back a few steps, wiping his kiss-reddened mouth with the back of his hand as he watched Donghyuck – messy-haired, shirtless and flushed – belatedly do the same.

By the time he had looked up to identify their intruder, Johnny had already kicked the library door shut with his heel, his dark eyes sharp with impatient perception.

Mark went cold.

He glanced anxiously from Johnny’s imposing frame back to Donghyuck, and noticed the anxious set to the omega’s shoulders. He looked guarded, defensive. His lithe biceps swelled as he tensed against the judgement they both knew was coming. “God…” he muttered as he angled his naked chest away from Johnny’s ire.

“Um…” Mark cleared his throat. He thought he owed it to himself to see whether this was something Johnny would let them talk themselves out of. He stepped forward, between Donghyuck and his elder brother, and tried to keep his voice even. “I was just checking that Hyuck was okay-”

“I saw him with his tongue down your throat, Mark. Cut the bullshit.”

Mark went instantly silent. Uncomfortable, he clenched his jaw as Johnny walked straight past him and toward his brother.

Donghyuck didn’t yield to the elder alpha like Mark had. He snubbed Johnny’s attention and moved instead to the armchairs arranged by the fireplace. He sighed loudly as he sat, his legs outstretched, and pulled one of the cushions from beside him to cover his naked chest and stomach. He let his head roll back and closed his eyes. The light breeze from the open window tousled his hair. “Say whatever it is you have to say, Johnny," he sounded detached, but Mark could read the anxious edge to his voice. "I’m tired.”

“Really?”

Donghyuck groaned loudly, annoyed, but Johnny spoke over him.

“Anyone could have walked in and seen you!”

“But they didn’t! It was just you,” Donghyuck opened his eyes and fixed him with an impatient glare, “aren’t I lucky,” he grunted, sarcastic, but Johnny didn’t let him rest.  

Johnny stepped closer, his aura imposing. Donghyuck's expression didn't change, but Mark noticed his hand flinch against the pillow he was holding to his chest. “I always thought if you guys had something going on that you at least wouldn't be this dumb about it!”

“Can you just leave it, John?” Donghyuck sounded angry too now. “I’m exhausted. And I'd really love just a second to pretend that not everyone in the continent has an opinion on who I should be fucking.”

Mark winced at the expletive, but Johnny didn’t hesitate. “Why didn't you just tell me about this when I asked you about it?”

“Because it's none of your business!”

“It is my business! It's my job!” Johnny stepped closer to Donghyuck and Mark felt something in him flinch to attention. His body went tight.

He could still taste Donghyuck on his lips, his body was still yearning for him, and witnessing this situation place Donghyuck under stress was making him painfully protective. He could feel the tug of it in his chest like an icy hand, edging him forward, preparing him to act without his conscious intent.

“I’m your older brother!" Johnny shouted again, his masculine voice dark. Mark focused on Donghyuck, noticing the tight set to his handsome face. "It’s my job to keep you safe from bullshit like this – to keep our family safe from you being stupid!”

Mark watched Johnny step closer again, noticed Donghyuck shy away from him, and his instincts broke. Before he could even contemplate what was happening, he’d already stepped in front of Johnny and blocked his path to Donghyuck. Without even meaning to do it, Mark was suddenly standing in front of the firstborn Prince of the East, his hand on Johnny’s chest, pushing against the bigger, older alpha to keep him away from the omega he protected.

He only recognised what was happening once Johnny was already staring him down. One moment he had been watching Donghyuck anxiously, and the next he had the rise of Johnny's chest beneath his fingers, physically stopping him from coming closer.

The weight of the posturing wasn’t lost on Mark. He was effectively challenging Johnny - an older, stronger alpha - driven by instincts he could barely understand or control. 

Logic rattled back into Mark’s brain like thunder delayed after the strike. He winced away from the angry expression on Johnny’s face and forced himself to turn around. His adrenaline-infused possessiveness seared beneath his skin as it writhed back into the depths of him, wrenched beneath his fractious self-control with a dying shriek.

“Fucking what,” Johnny murmured as he watched Mark leave him.

“Sorry,” Mark sounded weak. He cleared his throat and didn’t involve himself again. “I was… sorry.” He rubbed his knuckles over his sternum and turned toward the window, forcing himself to breathe.

“How long did you really think you could hide this?” Johnny spoke again to Donghyuck, leaving Mark to balance himself. He didn’t step closer to Donghyuck again, as if unconsciously respecting the boundary Mark had set. “He’s the heir. And clearly his control is hanging by a thread.” Mark winced, shame an icy touch on the back of his neck. “You couldn’t have screwed around with some alpha recruit that no one knows the name of?”

Mark cleared his throat. While he was so heightened, the thought of this inflicted him with a new stab of physical pain. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Donghyuck’s voice was quieter now, but no less annoyed. “I’m sorry you found out, okay?”

Johnny released a frustrated growl that made Mark flinch, but Donghyuck didn’t so much as blink.

Mark watched over his shoulder as the elder alpha ran his hand through his hair, and then sat on the seat opposite Donghyuck. He leaned his elbows on his knees, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched.

The silence was tense, but it felt somewhat like a tide turning.

Donghyuck shifted uncomfortably. He was still cradling the pillow against him, and he hugged it gently tighter as Johnny lifted his head.

“Are you at least being safe?”

“John.”

“Answer the question.”

Donghyuck looked bored as he rolled his eyes, but Mark could sense the self-conscious anxiety beneath the motion. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I track my cycles. I have elixirs.”

Mark swallowed. He could feel his face going red. How had he never thought about this...

“What about Mark? Has he bitten you?”

If Mark thought he was self-conscious before, he now felt like he was about to die.

He watched as Donghyuck sighed, but Johnny fixed him with a glare too tough to ignore. "Ask him,” he responded to his brother impatiently.

Mark didn’t appreciate the involvement. He fisted his hands at his sides in panic as Johnny looked at him again. He couldn't help but feel a sting of betrayal at Donghyuck’s deflection. The breeze was fresh on his reddened face as he tried not to avoid Johnny's eyes. 

“Have you bitten my brother?” Johnny asked him, serious.

Mark noticed Donghyuck smirk from beyond Johnny’s imposing frame, but he reticently ignored the goading. He shook his head sharply. “No,” he responded quickly, resolute. “No. Absolutely not.”

Johnny looked back at Donghyuck, who nodded to him in confirmation.

Johnny seemed tired. He rubbed at his temples. “I know doing this stuff is shit, Haechan, okay? I know. I've been through it too. But we have loyal houses we need to honour with the opportunity of courting you.”

“I know.” Donghyuck made an impatient sound, like he was feeling condescended to.

“So then you also know that can’t just choose not to do it anymore.”

Donghyuck didn’t look happy, but he also didn’t negate anything.

“This,” Johnny motioned between Donghyuck and Mark, and Mark flinched with the renewed inclusion. “This thing between you and Mark… people can't know about it.” Johnny shook his head, exasperated. “You can’t just go around scenting each other in rooms without locks.”

Mark nodded and looked down.

Johnny was right. If an affair like this became public knowledge, it would be an inditement on the integrity of all the courtships that both he and Donghyuck had been entertaining. An insult to good people, to respectable families, to political allegiances that were the currency of their power.

“Haechan, this has to stay quiet. You only have to get through a few more days, and then we can pretend this hasn't happened for another year.”

Mark frowned as Johnny's words settled across his shoulders. He wanted to protect Donghyuck's dignity, he wanted to preserve Donghyuck's reputation as well as his own, but he didn't want to pretend it hadn't happened. 

He glanced to Donghyuck, but noticed the omega looked almost pleased. 

“So you won’t tell mum and dad?” Donghyuck asked Johnny, suddenly seeming a little victorious. Mark swallowed as the new questioning distracted him from his lamentation. “We can keep on-”

Johnny sighed loudly and leaned back against the plush seat, his posture mirroring Donghyuck’s own. Mark thought that the brothers looked strikingly alike in that moment. Despite all their physical differences – their age gap, the disparity of their musculature and height – something in their aura was intimately intertwined.

“You’ve always been so obsessed with him… I should've known...” Johnny spoke like he was thinking aloud, lost in memory. He blinked and returned, and Mark flinched at the change. “Whatever. You’re horny teenagers. I get it, alright? I can’t judge. But just please, please,” he leaned forward, “don’t be dumb horny teenagers.”

“We're twenty, Johnny.”

“And you act like your fifteen!” Johnny yapped back to him in practiced retort, but it did little to stifle the gentle ambience of alliance that had settled between the brothers.

Mark saw the flicker of a smile begin to spread over Donghyuck’s lips. It was the kind of smile Mark had come to love the most on Donghyuck’s face – sincere and disinhibited, manifested without Donghyuck’s conscious control or any of the self-consciousness that could so often manifest in the corners of his idioms.

“You hear that, Markie?” Donghyuck remarked with an echo of warm affection; the kind they had previously only ever let manifest when it just the two of them were alone. “Johnny approves.”

“Nope, no. I never said that.” Johnny was quick to correct the statement. He groaned, exasperated, as he got to his feet. He glared suddenly at Mark. “If I ever walk in on you touching my brother again, I'm going to castrate you." Mark swallowed and nodded. "Hurry up and bathe, Haechan. You really stink now.” 

Donghyuck’s fatigued chuckle of laughter was like sunlight on Mark’s worry. He threw the cushion beside him and got up. He walked toward the hallway, but Johnny gently grabbed his shoulder before he could get past him, pulling him back so they could walk in step out of the library together.

“Are you okay?” he asked seriously, “after what happened with that guy, you good?”

Donghyuck nodded to him, respecting the integrity of his question enough not to pass it off with humour or dismissal. “Yeah,” he answered a beat later. He glanced back to Mark, still leaning against the windowsill with his arms crossed over his chest.

Mark knew Johnny noticed the look, but no one said anything about it.

The hall swallowed the brothers into its shadows, and Mark released a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.  

Relief was cool in his lungs, but something didn't sit right with him. Secrecy, duty, reputation... he wanted more than this. 

He bit the inside of his cheek and scuffed the ground with the edge of his boot. Donghyuck's scent was still on his lips, on the tips of his fingers, mussed into the fabric of his shirt. 

He wasn't ready to let him go again. 

The next night, deep in the pre-dawn darkness, Donghyuck entered Mark’s room, locked the door, and Mark beckoned him under the covers. He held him close, kissed his throat, scented him again just because he could – because he wanted to and because Donghyuck had wanted it too. He ran his hands along Donghyuck’s body, studied the slope of his spine, inhaled the gentle moans that passed his lips as Mark fingered him toward orgasm.

“Choose me,” he’d whispered into Donghyuck’s skin as the omega clawed at his back, drunken and sincere and helpless. “Next year, when you have to choose… just choose me.”

“Mark…”

“I don’t want to keep this a secret anymore.” He kissed the hollow beneath his ear, messing himself with his scent as he pressed further into his body, drawing out Donghyuck’s husky groans as the omega tightened around him. “I want to stop meeting with other omegas. I wanna bite you and scent you whenever you ask me to. You can live in the East, or here. Wherever you want.” He curled his fingers inside Donghyuck, bit his ear, doused himself with Donghyuck’s scent, so sweet and wanting. “I don't care. Just… choose me. I want you to choose me. That’s what I want. It’s all I want.”

Mark had let Donghyuck kiss him again after that, distracting him into oblivion with his taste, drowning him with the sweetness of his pheromones. As Mark lost himself in Donghyuck’s warm body, sensual and deep, he’d felt the subtle whispers of his silence on his skin – the reminder that a response hadn’t been articulated. But Mark had said what he had been compelled to communicate, and he was content to let the rest lie.

He trusted himself now, and he trusted Donghyuck to do whatever he needed to. Come what may, Mark was blissfully secure in his own choices.  

For him, it was Donghyuck, or it was no one.  

“Were you serious?” Donghyuck had asked him in bed at dawn a few days later.

He and Johnny were scheduled to sail back to the East just after noon later that day. The hours they had left together were slipping through Mark’s fingers.

The crepuscular, pre-dawn light made Donghyuck look like a painting of himself, some perfected reconstruction from Mark’s mind, pastel coloured and hazy with sleep. His hair was messy, his skin was glowing with the soft dew of rest. His scent was thick with Mark’s own. He had a hickey on the crest of muscle above one of his nipples. Mark could smell the intoxicating mix of his come and Donghyuck’s slick in the air. Their sex the night before had been gentle and slow, the opposite of the night that had so intimidated him with his penchant for violence. Mark knew Donghyuck had done it on purpose – led them to something tender and unified – and he had almost wanted to die there, lost in Donghyuck’s touch, grieving the coming months where he would again be without him.

“About what?” Mark had asked him, rolling onto his side.

“About my choice.” Donghyuck was doing up his pants, readying to go back to his own bedchamber, to be woken by the househands at a more reasonable hour, to look Johnny in the eye and lie about where he’d been all night despite him likely having heard his return. “About choosing you. Were you serious, Mark?”

Mark lifted himself onto his elbow, the sheets spilled around his waist. He noticed Donghyuck glance at his chest and back up to his eyes. He nodded to him intently. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing you can take back.” Donghyuck said to him, his temperament strangely guarded. He looked down. “If I’m going to do this, we have to be sure. My parents might not let us... they want me in the East, I know they do. And Johnny will have a fit. We need to be ready for people to-”

Mark surged upright, the sheets around his hips, and brought himself close to Donghyuck. He reached over to hold his face, gently dragging his gaze back up to meet his own. A smile echoed on his own features, wondrous as he stared into Donghyuck’s endless eyes. “You’re going to choose me?”

Donghyuck swallowed. Mark traced his cupid’s bow with his thumb. 

“You’re going to choose me?” He asked again, because just the idea of it made him feel like he was immortal, transcendent, like nothing would ever be able to annoy or vex or sadden him again. As Donghyuck’s alpha, he could do anything.

“You can’t take this back,” Donghyuck was serious and quiet. “Once it’s done, I won’t let you take it back.”

Mark smiled and shook his head. He glanced down to Donghyuck’s lips, his eyes closing as he brought them close. “I won’t want to take it back. I’ll never want to.” Their lips brushed as he spoke. “I love you.”

Mark felt the omega’s scent tremor with the gentle echo of the words, turning the moment sweet and quiet. Usually when Mark was earnest or emotional like this, Donghyuck would laugh at him, turn sarcastic or withdrawn, disarm the moment with levity or teasing, but none of his usual defences manifested. The depth of Mark’s words yielded Donghyuck's dismissals to silence, turned him soft and receptive.

“I love you so much,” Mark spoke on, whispering the truth into the air between them. “I’ve loved you since we were thirteen.”

“Liar,” Donghyuck murmured back with a slight, condescending smirk, fiery even in his annihilation.

Mark smiled at him. “Yeah, okay. Maybe since we were fifteen,” he acquiesced. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know when it had started, when his curiosity had turned to obsession to infatuation to love. Somehow, he had felt it forever.

“I want you to choose me,” he said again, speaking into Donghyuck’s plush lips. “Please choose me.” He could see deep colour on Donghyuck’s cheeks, on his nose and ears and chest, and Mark knew he was the same. So alive, so devoted, so helpless against the divine forces that had brought them together, again and again.

"This is a big deal, Mark. There'll be a lot of questions-"

"It'll be fine. We'll figure it out." Mark was smiling again, helplessly content, so happy he thought he might die. 

Donghyuck kissed him then, and their familiar push and pull felt to Mark like a contract being formed. Mark kissed along Donghyuck’s jaw, down his throat, to the corner of his shoulder and his neck, where he would one day brand him with his bite. He sucked on the skin there, his mind loosening as Donghyuck tightened his hand in his hair, keeping him close.  

“One more year,” Donghyuck had sighed, husky, as Mark nipped his teeth on the sensitive, vulnerable skin.

Mark pushed him over, easing him back against the bed far enough to crawl over him, between Donghyuck’s bent legs. He kept his mouth on his neck, licking and sucking, teasing a bite he had dreamed of making for so many years.  

“I’m only waiting one more year,” Donghyuck turned his head to the side, baring his throat for Mark to worship.

Mark shuddered as the assertion washed over him like sunshine. He fisted his hands in the sheets beneath them and raised his head. He gazed down at Donghyuck and Donghyuck gazed back. 

Donghyuck held his waist, tugging him closer. “After that, you’ll be mine, Mark,” he breathed against his ear. “You’ll belong to me.”

“I’m already yours,” Mark sank lower on top of him, blisteringly happy. He kissed him slowly, restrained, lingering. “You made sure, ever since we were kids. I’ve always been yours.”