Chapter 3 Oakley
three
Oakley
Three in the morning, and another crash echoes from Dorian's room.
Outside his door, I listen to the sounds of destruction within. Probably the remains of his bookshelf joining the pile of splinters that used to be furniture. Three weeks since Vespera's rejection, and he's systematically destroying everything he can reach.
Including himself.
"Dorian?" I keep my voice calm, forcing down the panic clawing at my chest. "I'm coming in."
"Fuck off, Oak."
The nickname makes something twist in my chest. Even in his deterioration, even consumed by rejection sickness, he still uses the name only he's ever called me. The name that started at prep school, when we were fourteen and discovering that pack bonds could mean more than just shared strength.
I enter anyway, my enhanced vision adjusting quickly to the darkness. The destruction is worse than yesterday. The mirror is shattered, blood on the glass. His desk is kindling. And there, in the corner by his closet, a shrine that makes my stomach drop.
Vespera's things. A sweater. Hair ties. A water bottle from rehearsal. And—hell—underwear that could only have been stolen from her room. All arranged with the careful precision of someone trying to preserve a scent that's fading, trying to hold onto something that's already gone.
"You need to eat," I say, setting down the tray I've brought. Protein shake, supplements, bandages for whatever damage he's done to himself tonight.
"I need her." His voice is raw, desperate. He's standing by the window, shirtless, and even in the moonlight I can see how much weight he's lost. Twenty pounds, maybe more. His body is eating itself alive, the Alpha biology demanding its omega and destroying him in her absence.
"She's gone, Dorian."
He turns on me, and his eyes are more wolf than human, that eerie gold that means his control is completely shot. "She's in Columbus. Corvus found her. Two weeks and she'll be there, thinking she's safe, thinking she's escaped."
"Maybe she has." The words escape before I can stop them.
He's across the room before I can blink, slamming me against the wall with his forearm across my throat. Not enough pressure to actually hurt—even feral, he wouldn't truly harm me—but enough to establish dominance.
"She's ours," he growls. "Mine. The bond is still there, I can feel it. She's suffering just like we are."
"We made her suffer for months before this," I point out, even though challenging him in this state is dangerous. "We hunted her, terrorized her, broke her down systematically. Maybe she's better off—"
His mouth crashes into mine, cutting off my words. It's not a kiss—it's possession, desperation, the same claiming intensity he used on her but directed at me. His teeth catch my lower lip, drawing blood, and the copper taste mixes with his familiar scent of sandalwood and rain.
"Don't," he says against my mouth, "suggest she's better without us. Without me."
This is us—has always been us. Since that night in the boathouse when we were eighteen, when he cornered me after crew practice and asked if I wanted to know what it felt like.
Since years of sharing beds on pack trips, of touches that went beyond friendship but never quite reached relationship.
We fuck when the tension gets too high. We find comfort in each other's bodies when the world gets too complicated.
But we never talk about it, never name it, never let it interfere with the pack dynamics or our carefully maintained public personas.
"You're destroying yourself," I say when he finally pulls back. "Look at yourself, Dorian. When's the last time you ate? Slept? Your body is going into rejection psychosis."
"Then fix me." It's half command, half plea. "You're the healer. Make it stop hurting."
"I can't fix this." But I'm already moving toward him, my hands checking his temperature (dangerously high), his pulse (erratic), the new cuts on his knuckles from whatever he destroyed tonight. "The only thing that fixes rejection sickness is proximity to the bonded omega."
"Then we get her back."
"Dorian?"
"I need her, Oak." His voice breaks on my nickname, and suddenly he's not the commanding pack Alpha anymore.
He's just broken, desperate, falling apart in ways I've never seen.
"I can't—I can't breathe without her scent.
I can't think without knowing she's ours.
I close my eyes and all I see is her walking away, choosing death over us. "
"Come on," I say gently, guiding him toward his bathroom. "You need to get cleaned up."
The bathroom is the only part of his suite that's still intact, probably because it's marble and harder to destroy. I start the shower, adjusting the temperature—hot enough to relax his muscles but not so hot it'll spike his already dangerous fever.
"Get in," I instruct, already pulling off my own shirt. He needs someone to make sure he doesn't pass out and crack his skull open on the marble. My cock is already half-hard from his scent and proximity, the familiar Pavlovian response to being this close to him.
He strips without hesitation, and I inspect the damage. Weight loss, muscle tension, the tremor in his hands. His cock is already hard—three weeks of constant rut without release, his body demanding an omega it can't have.
I follow him into the shower. His hands are immediately on me, shoving me against the marble wall. "I saw what you did during the claiming," he says, voice rough. "How gentle you were with her, even while helping hold her down. You felt guilty."
"We all should have." The water pounds down on us. My hands move to check the cuts on his knuckles. But his fingers are already wrapping around my cock, and fuck if my body doesn't respond the way it always has.
"She was perfect during her heat," he continues, stroking my cock.
"So responsive, so fucking sweet even while she hated us.
Did you know she'd be that perfect, Oak?
" He sighs. "I need to forget," he says, dropping to his knees, and fuck, this is such a bad idea but I'm already threading my fingers through his wet hair.
"Make me forget for just a few minutes that she's gone. "
His mouth is hot and desperate, taking me deep with no hesitation, no build-up. Just raw need to feel something other than the rejection eating him alive.
"Fuck," I groan, my hips bucking. This is wrong—he's not in his right mind, the rejection has him unstable, I should stop this. But his mouth feels too good, and I've never been able to resist him like this.
He pulls off just long enough to say, "I need to fuck you, Oak. Need to feel something other than this emptiness where she should be."
"That won't fix—"
"I know it won't fix it." He stands, pressing me against the wall, his hands already reaching for my thighs to lift me. "But it'll make it bearable for a few minutes. Please."
The please breaks me. Dorian doesn't beg, doesn't ask, commands and takes and expects obedience. But here he is, falling apart, needing what only I can give him—this familiar surrender, this dance we've done so many times.
He lifts me easily despite his weakened state, my legs wrapping around his waist as he presses me against the marble. This is how it's always been—him taking control, me letting him, both of us finding something we need in the familiar dynamic.
I grab the bottle of lube we keep in here—because this isn't the first time, isn't even the hundredth—and work myself open despite his impatience. I know what's coming, and my body wants it as much as he does.
"I've been thinking about the lake house," he says as he watches me prep, his voice steadier with something to focus on.
His cock is already showing the swelling at the base that means his knot will form.
"It's perfect. Isolated, private, fully stocked.
We could keep her there until she accepts the bond. "
"That's kidnapping." I gasp as he bats my hand away and lines himself up, pushing into me hard. The stretch burns good, my body trained over five years to take him.
"It's reclamation." His hips snap forward, bottoming out. "She belongs with us. Her body knows it even if her mind refuses. Two weeks there, the bonds reinforcing, and she'll break."
"Or she'll die trying to resist." But I'm already pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts. His knot is starting to swell with each drive forward, catching on my rim.
"Then we keep her alive," he groans, gripping my thighs harder, changing the angle. "You can watch her, make sure she's safe."
"This is insane." But I'm lost in it, in the way he knows exactly how to fuck me apart. His knot catches and pulls with each thrust now, growing, and my body clenches around it on instinct. "We can't just take her."
"We can and we will." His voice is stronger now, more like the Dorian I know, even as he pounds into me against the shower wall. "I need her, Oak. We need her. The pack doesn't work without her. You know that."
I do. I've watched him deteriorate for three weeks, watched Corvus go colder, felt my own body screaming for the omega we claimed and lost. The pack is dying without her.
"Tell me you'll help," he demands, driving deeper, nailing me like the Alpha he is. "Tell me you won't let me lose her."
"I'll help," I gasp out, even as part of me screams this is wrong. "I won't let you lose her."
"Good." He shifts angle, fucking up into me harder, and I can feel it building. His knot is massive now, catching and pulling with each thrust, that stretch that's almost too much. "Because if I can't have her, I'll die, Oak. I'll literally die without her."
The raw honesty of it, combined with the brutal angle and the pressure of his swelling knot, pushes me over. I come hard between our bodies, untouched, her name ripping from my throat even as he's buried inside me.