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It started with an itch. Not a literal one, but a restlessness inside his chest.
Xie Lian paced back and forth across the abandoned shrine he’d set as his base while he waited to enact his revenge on Yong’an. The sword carrying a thousand angry and resentful spirits lay tossed to the side, and it crossed his mind that perhaps he was feeling the effects of their own restlessness.
Impossible.
He wasn’t so easily swayed, especially by mere spirits. He’d once been a god, after all, and the negativity of others around him took much longer to bring him down. The negativity of… these others.
He snarled at the thought. Maybe he shouldn’t be trusting them to be in his proximity after all. They were the best source for fueling his revenge, but he hadn’t thought about how they’d affect him personally.
So, he removed it from the main area, setting it in a side chamber for the time being. At least far enough that he wouldn’t be able to feel the waves of irritability off them. Not that he didn’t already hold that in himself; every rustle of leaves outside caused by the breeze made him bristle with annoyance.
How dare the world go on without him? Continuing to turn for the people that had so deeply hurt him when all he did was try to help them? He became a god and did what he thought was right and got stabbed in the back for it, figuratively and literally.
Well, if they wanted a less gentle god, their prayers would finally be answered with his more wrathful take.
Xie Lian hadn’t realized he was pacing in a solid circle until he sensed his ghost general appear in the doorway, making him halt in place. He couldn’t look so uneasy in front of a mere ghost, no matter the strength. He had to stay composed.
“Your Highness,” Wu Ming greeted. “I-“
“Enough with that address! I’m not him,” Xie Lian interrupted with an irate bark. “How many times do I have to tell you this? I’ll disperse you soon if you continue this mistake.”
The ghost immediately knelt to the ground, his head bowed. “I apologize,” he muttered. His voice did sound regretful, but something about it made Xie Lian wonder if he was even sorry at all. What face he was making underneath that almost-taunting mask.
“Take it off,” he ordered.
The ghost raised his head, confused. “Y-Sir?”
“Your mask.”
“I-…”
“Ghost. I order you to take. Off. The. Mask.”
The shaking in his body was subtle as the ghost finally relented, his hands moving up to remove it. When he did, he still faced the ground, letting his hair fall into his face.
Xie Lian couldn’t have that. He needed to see the expression he was making, after all. “Look at me.”
With only a moment’s hesitation, the ghost looked up, and a single eye locked with the ones hidden behind the banished god’s own mask. The other eye was hidden behind his bangs, but Xie Lian couldn’t care less about that.
Wu Ming did look remorseful at least. Remorseful and… quite striking, if Xie Lian admitted it to himself. There was no telling on why the ghost wore a mask; he made quite the statement piece, and Xie Lian had half a mind to keep him around just as an accessory.
It made him pause.
He wasn’t sure where he was going with his actions. He got the ghost to unmask to see his sincerity in apology, but what was next? He was becoming far too distracted by the beauty, and the irritation still within him, though he couldn’t blame it solely on the truthful ghost.
Even though the buzzing did intensify with the mask removed… But maybe it was annoyance that such a beauty had a beloved somewhere else. Somewhere not in a broken down temple with a vengeful former god.
Xie Lian felt the sudden urge to scent him, claim him in some way. Possess him to make sure no one else who stumbled across someone so alluring would think he was unbound in his loyalty. Wu Ming had announced his allegiance to Xie Lian and him alone, right?
So, why shouldn’t he be claimed?
Xie Lian felt his mouth grow uncomfortable. His teeth, though he knew he couldn’t really feel them, seemed to itch as well. He ran his tongue along them again and again, checking his canines to make sure they hadn’t elongated in the way he felt they had.
No, everything was the same. Except… He was filled with the unbearable urge to bite.
He was surprised with himself. Faced with thousands of beauties in his lifetime, in the prosperous land with perfect faces listed as treasures and several offered to be a part of his non-existent harem, he’d never felt such an urge.
Not even the neediest omega scent could sway him, and yet, in front of him sat an obedient ghost with a scent so muted in his death that Xie Lian couldn’t tell what he was.
It didn’t matter, anyways. Why shouldn’t he be claimed? Omega, beta, or fellow alpha – the ghost was his.
“Turn around,” he ordered, his voice low and rumbly like he’d never heard it before.
Wu Ming instantly did as told, facing the opposite direction with his head facing the ground. If Xie Lian had been thinking more clearly, he would’ve noticed the ghost might’ve taken that as a rejection of his looks, but his head wasn’t clear and he was two seconds from pouncing, every instinct in him pushing to maul his prey and leave all the marks he wanted.
Xie Lian removed his mask and approached carefully, using all his willpower to hold himself steady, and lowered himself behind Wu Ming. He brushed the hair of his ponytail aside to reveal the pale nape of his neck, and Xie Lian was able to tell just from the proximity that the ghost was shaking.
It only spurred the hunger, and without any intervening sensible thought, the former god bit into Wu Ming’s nape, making sure to break the skin of his mating glands. The act of it, the taste of blood that shouldn’t have been there, the loud and drawn-out moan the ghost let out at the claim…
“Remove your clothes,” Xie Lian ordered once he pulled away, licking the blood off his fangs and lips.
Wu Ming turned around, looking at him with surprised wide eyes. Eyes. The hidden one was now revealed with the swing of his hair, showing off a beautiful red colouring that made Xie Lian feel even more impatient.
“Never mind, I’ll just do it myself,” he warned, beginning to tug at the ghost’s clothing.
“I-it’s alright, I can do it,” Wu Ming protested mildly, his hands rushing to de-robe.
Instead of getting upset the ghost had argued, Xie Lian began working on his own clothes, too eager to lose them. The fabrics were too heavy, too stifling, too suffocating. They had to be off.
Once the air hit his skin, he felt only mild relief, but knew he would be even more relieved to be feeling the ghost’s skin under his, to be touching what was his as thoroughly as the word could define.
Wu Ming finished undressing as well, and Xie Lian took only a moment to look him over, registering the reserved yet desiring expression on his face, mismatched eyes hazy with want. His cock was rather large, making Xie Lian wonder if he was an alpha after all, but upon pushing the ghost down to the ground and letting his hands wander, a slick and sticky mess on his thighs revealed a surprise; an omega!
Not that it mattered; Xie Lian was determined to knot him either way, but at least this would require much less waiting. The odd part was the still-dull scent, even with being freshly claimed and with slick gushing down his thighs.
Xie Lian leaned in to sniff at his neck, determined to find something notable. And he did.
A burst of a faint yet enticing scent of metallic sweetness hit his nose when he easily slipped a finger into Wu Ming, the aroused omega’s walls spongey and pliant and strangely warm considering his ghostly status.
The former god couldn’t help but bite down on his neck again, not enough to break the skin but enough to imagine devouring him. If he’d known Wu Ming in his ghost fire stage, he very well might’ve eaten him if he’d been able to smell him.
His patience soon ran out. Without any warning other than a quick shuffling to position himself, Xie Lian placed the head of his cock against the ghost’s entrance and sank into him, making Wu Ming cry out, his voice ringing against the open walls of the shrine.
No matter. It wasn’t like anyone was nearby.
Xie Lian gave him only a moment to adjust before rutting into him desperately, eager to seek the relief of his itching, his irritation, the restlessness within him, and he knew it could all go away once he finished with his beautiful ghost.
With no further technical knowledge, he ran purely on instinct, holding the ghost firmly on the ground by his shoulders and looking down at him, thrusting at a fast pace that would’ve left him breathless had he not been training all his life to peak physical fitness.
He could hear himself panting and growling from heightened feelings of possessiveness, but the rest of his focus was on the sensation of his cock buried in the wet heat.
Small needy moans began to slip from the omega’s lips, and Xie Lian took them in greedily, inching closer and closer until he was swallowing them in an inexperienced kiss that heightened the pleasurable joining of their bodies.
When he pulled away again, his heart nearly stopped at the expression he left on his ghost. Wu Ming’s face was twisted in clear euphoria, his eyes lidded but looking right at him, and his mouth open and panting.
As he continued to take in the ghost’s appearance, he felt his knot beginning to grow and hit against Wu Ming’s entrance, and a particularly firm push buried him inside. On feeling the walls squeezing down around it, pleasure washed over him like nothing he’d ever experienced before. His hips stuttered as he filled the ghost with seemingly endless hot cum that stayed sealed in with his knot.
It made Wu Ming writhe and sob out, his eyes rolling back and closing as spurts of white streaked out from his untouched cock, coating his own chest and stomach so forcefully some of it splattered onto Xie Lian’s torso as well.
He wanted to do it again immediately, but couldn’t remove himself quite yet. With a small scoff at biology, he resigned to flipping them to their sides to wait.
“You’re all mine now, ghost,” he announced with a cocky tone, giving a smile that felt wicked. “Forever attached to me until I disperse you. What do you have to say about that?”
Wu Ming’s eyes slowly closed again and he curled into him with a purr, and Xie Lian felt his smile drop into a puzzled frown. Why was he purring after being claimed and used, stolen away so thoroughly?
His confusion must’ve flooded through his scent, and Wu Ming looked up at him blearily, looking on the verge of sleep. “Thank you, Beloved.”
Xie Lian’s heart dropped, and then floated, and then made a couple of confused loops in his chest. Part of him thought the ghost was lying, though rationality told him Wu Ming should’ve been more upset on being claimed by someone who wasn’t his beloved. His mind wasn’t clouded by heat, either…
… Well, at least it was another thing to call him rather than Your Highness.