The last few blocks felt like miles, the walk up the stairs interminable. Fancy had remembered to lock the door, at least. Von fumbled with her key until the lock gave.
"Fancy?" she called, rushing into the dark apartment, her stomach summersaulting. The lights shouldn't be off. She hit the switch and the overhead lights droned to life. "Fancy, where are you?"
Bathroom, empty. Kitchen, empty. Their shared bedroom was empty, too, Fancy's bed still neatly made. Where the hells was she?
Von's phone buzzed and tinkled with a notification, a text from an unknown number:
>Hey, Von. My phone died. It was just a drunk who had the wrong apartment. Stan scared him off.
Her fingers flew over the digital letter keys. > Are you okay?
>Yeah, I'm staying at Stan's tonight.
Oh, thank gods. Von swayed on her feet, coming to rest against the bedroom doorway. She rubbed her forehead. "Fancy's okay. She's with Stan."
"Who's Stan?" Damian asked from the living room.
"Some guy she just met a couple months ago." Although, a couple months was a rather lengthy romance in Fancy World. This guy must be pretty special to keep her attention this long. How Fancy formed such intense connections to guys she didn't really know had always fascinated Von.
She joined Damian in the living room as the sounds of a boisterous quarrel and breaking glass filtered up to them from downstairs, causing Von's shoulders to tense.
"Maybe you should come back with me," Damian suggested.
"Can't. If I leave the apartment empty overnight, it'll get robbed." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling the telltale throbbing of a headache coming on. "Again."
"Well, I'm sure as hells not leaving you alone, here, so if you're staying, I am, too," Damian declared, "unless you have a 'no boys allowed' rule."
They did, but it probably wouldn't matter this once. "Do you mind the couch?"
Damian shook his head.
Von noted the blood on his shirt with dismay. "Take that off. If I pretreat it now, it won't stain."
Damian stripped off his shirt almost too eagerly and handed it to Von, who was doing her best not to stare.
"Sit down at the table. We should see to that cut, too." Von set the shirt to soak, oddly grateful for the life experience that necessitated she know how to get blood out of almost any fabric, though it was usually her own. Then, she took down two cups and busied herself making tea. As the tea steeped, she added a generous helping of honey to each cup.
***
Shirtless, Damian sat patiently at the kitchen table, the extent of the tattoo on his shoulder now fully visible. It was a series of twisting and intersecting lines in a design that coalesced and fanned out down one bicep, across his collarbone, and disappeared from sight down the back that leaned against the wooden chair. He'd always liked the tattoo. The darkness of the ink contrasted with the warm bronze color of his skin and lent to a very pleasing aesthetic. He still remembered his father's blustering, almost incoherent, anger at the sight of it.
"The tea smells good." He reached up to take his cup, but before he did, Von made sure he saw her take a good-faith sip from it, the meaning behind that small gesture making him smile.
"It's just chamomile." She retrieved the well-stocked first-aid kit from its place beneath the kitchen sink and placed it on the table in front of Damian.
He sipped from the steaming mug gingerly. "How long have you lived in such a...colorful neighborhood?"
The smash of glass sounded outside followed by an almost maniacal laugh.
Von snorted. "Since I started teaching. I was low on money after I finished college, and Fancy got this place for a song. The pay for female teachers is pretty atrocious, so when she asked if I wanted to move in..."
"Then why do you teach if the pay is so bad?" Damian asked, as she wiped the drying blood from his face.
"I love it," she said, simply. "I can't imagine doing anything else. Thank you for standing up for me."
He hissed as she applied the antiseptic wipe. "Does that happen often?" he asked. "The thing downstairs?"
She averted her gaze. "More often than it probably should," Von admitted, hoarsely, clearing her bruised throat. "I am usually able to handle it myself."
"I bet you are," Damian speculated. His smile became a wince as she pressed a little too hard. "When I first saw you at the school...the black eye. Is that how you got it?"
Her hand stalled, and she swallowed hard.
Eager to calm her discomfort, he said, "My mom used to cover hers the same way, lots of makeup." He gestured to his own eyes. "The swelling kind of gave it away, though."
She worried at a spot on her lip, rolling it between her teeth. "The night before, I'd bumped into a guy downstairs, and he decided he wanted to have some fun with me. He let me go with nothing worse than a couple of bruises. I try to be home before it gets dark to avoid that kind of thing."
He had a fervent desire to find that alpha fucker and make him regret even considering putting his hands on Von.
She'd volunteered another of her rules, he thought. A disturbing epiphany struck. That night at the club really had been an act of bravery for her. That's why she'd been so standoffish, why she'd seemed so averse to his attention. Once she figured out that he was an alpha, she probably thought he'd attack her, too. He felt suddenly guilty about allowing Von's attackers to get away relatively unscathed. Perhaps if he'd done them more damage, they'd think twice before putting their hands on any other woman, let alone Von.
"You haven't considered a mate? A mate could protect you, keep that kind of thing from being such a regular occurrence."
The corners of her mouth turned down. "A mate is not something I've thought about in a long time." Von examined the now-clean cut. "It's not that deep. I don't think it'll need stitches."
"Would you, though," he questioned, vaguely, "consider a mate, I mean, if the right one came along?"
"My mate, if he ever existed, has had a lot of time to 'come along'. I have to assume at this point he's gotten lost and been consumed by the urban wilderness." He guessed she'd been going for humorous, but Damian wasn't laughing.
His eyes were transfixed on her face, not in the same way they'd been when he challenged the other alphas outside the bar. She was like a text in some dead ancient language and the translation eluded him. She wanted him. Of that, he was almost positive. That night in the dining room, he'd gotten a tantalizing whiff of her arousal, decadent and rich, but she'd pulled away, like her reaction to him had shamed her.
"Damian..."
Would she refuse him, again? Only one way to know for sure. His free hand moved to the back of her neck, drawing her face down, closer to his. He took in a deep breath through his nose as she dipped closer, trying to detect that change in her scent that would tell him he had a green light.
Warm lips, sharp teeth, a sweet tongue sliding against his touched off a cascade effect. He grunted against her mouth and pulled her closer until she straddled his lap, his length growing solid against her ass. Her scent wafted between them, so different, as unique as the unicorn of a woman in his arms. He inhaled deeply.
"Fuck, you smell amazing," he murmured, eyes closed.
She pulled back. "What did you say?"
"You," he kissed her neck, "smell," he kissed her chin, "amazing." He let loose a low, rumbling growl, an earthquake under water. Her body responded the way he'd known it would, the way millennia of biological programming had coded it to, sending a flood of slick to overflow her panties and saturate his pants.
The effect was electric. His hands scrabbled at her back, working to free her shirt. She helped, breaking the kiss just long enough to get the garment off over her head. Breasts as plump and round as he'd imagined pressed against his chest, restrained only by the plain bra she wore. Would her nipples be as petal pink as he'd pictured? His fingers twisted and pranced at the four-hook closure, his frustration growing as he couldn't get the damn thing undone.
She giggled - giggled – high and innocent. The sound went straight to his unruly member, making it so hard he was concerned it might snap right off. She eased off his lap, and, walking backward toward the bedroom, her bottom lip trapped beneath her teeth, she reached behind her and effortlessly unhooked her bra before dropping it on the floor.
Holy gods, she was going to be the end of him. He was going to die right there on that questionable kitchen floor. Oh, what a way to go! But, wait..."I don't have protection." Not long ago, he'd habitually carried it, but lately...
"It's not a problem." Her shorts and panties flew through the air to land in a heap at his feet. "Are you coming?"
Not yet, he thought, but I'm going to, several times. He charged down the hallway with a playful growl, hoisting a giggling Von off her feet and launching them both onto her too-small bed, the mattress protesting their combined weight.
***
(This scene is still under active revision)
When he'd made that sound that tingled through her flesh to make her bones vibrate in perfect resonance, she'd melted inside, chocolate on a summer sidewalk. An alpha call.
Her alpha's call.
She'd fallen back on that conviction she'd formed shortly after they'd met, that Damian would never hurt her, and she badly wanted to believe it, but a part of her cringed, regardless, convinced that, any moment now, he'd shove her to the floor, maybe even beat her for presenting herself as anything other than defective. But that hadn't happened.
Von was in disbelief. He knew her to be wrong, but he wanted her anyway. Her mind, for the first time in a long time, was blank of everything but the scent of the alpha before her and the limpid opaline pools of his eyes. Her omega rejoiced, showing her the picture of what they could be, what this could become. A mate. Her alpha, at last!
Her mother's rules for navigating the knotting process came back to her as Damian landed on top of her. The alpha controlled the process completely. If he wanted her to nest, then she should nest. If not, then she shouldn't. Lie back, spread as wide as possible, and await further instructions. Her alpha would tell her what he needed her to do, and when he did, she was to comply without delay. Taking a knot for the first time would be uncomfortable, but she was not to cry or complain. If he was a competent lover, he'd know how to reduce the pain. If not, she was to keep her mouth shut and bear it. No alpha wanted to listen to a complaining omega while in the throes of pleasure.
Rule #1: Be Omega
In fact, she was concentrating so hard on Being Omega, that she'd missed the question he'd asked. Opening her eyes, she found him poised on his knees between her spread thighs, the smooth, rounded head of his cock a hair's breadth from her sopping entrance.
"Do you want to nest?" he repeated.
Shouldn't he be telling, not asking? Even in estrous, she'd stopped bothering with nests twenty years ago. There was no point in building one when she'd never have anyone to share it with. "Do you want me to?" she asked, confused by the very existence of the query.
Now, he looked confused. "Not if you don't want to."
"Not if you don't want me to," she responded, almost automatically.
His brows knit together. "Is it me, or is this a strange conversation? Just so we're clear, you do not need to nest?"
The anxious twisting in her stomach dissipated. She felt herself smile. "I guess not."
Damian nodded, then ducked his head and kissed her, his agile tongue dancing on hers, daring her to keep up. She squeezed his sides with her knees to keep him in place.
"Ready?" he asked. Something he saw in her face compelled him to ask, "You haven't changed your mind, have you?"
Von hesitated. "I've just, I...I've never done this before. With an alpha, I mean." There had been a handful of betas over the preceding years, but...
She took in the expression that momentarily seized his features. Here it comes, she thought. The rejection. A defective, 32-year-old, inexperienced omega was a bridge too far.
He settled on top of her, the impressive thickness of his cock evident against her thigh. "A pretty girl like you? I find that difficult to believe." His lips grazed her ear, and in a growl, said, "I'll have to make sure you enjoy yourself, then."