Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Akhtar
A khtar pushed himself until he reached the edge of the sprawling Village of Stardew Creek, within temporarily empire-controlled territory, before giving up for the night. The stalker had not given chase, and as the sun set, he convinced himself it had all been an illusion—a bad dream, like his nightmares that somehow walked in the light of day.
His ankle throbbed on his damaged leg, his stomach groaned with hunger, and he could feel a migraine-like pressure building in his skull. If his hunger or the cold didn’t kill him first, the omega’s injured leg surely would.
Akhtar felt like he was dragging along a dead body by the time the moon rose high in the sky. Then, finally, he shifted back to his natural state after removing his clothes and folding them neatly near the base of an enormous tree. His wings were just as tiny as his horns, pathetic and embarrassing as wing and horn size were a dragon’s pride.
His shimmering white tail was equally unimpressive, narrow, and thin with weak barbs. He appeared more like an impish albino demon of human lore than a mighty dragon.
But the last thing Akhtar wanted to do was rip apart his last change of clothes and arrive at the gates naked and alone, even if being naked depressed him. And though Akhtar washed in the river before settling in for the night, he felt too hot to keep them on even in the breezy weather. Plus, the illness was making his shifts more erratic than usual.
Getting naked was better than remaining naked if Akhtar would most likely rip through his worn clothing. So, he got naked.
The luminous full moon illuminated the dark forest he found himself in. Just out of sight, tiny torch-lit homes and businesses flickered and faded out down a hillside. Akhtar curled into a tight ball under the tree and attempted to rest, but sleep eluded him as the pain intensified. Only, it wasn’t just his ankle, leg, and head anymore.
A gnawing ache spread from his stomach to every inch of his body, concentrated right underneath his navel near his womb. But what he thought it was for a fleeting second was impossible, so he brushed that thought away.
Akhtar wondered if some small wound had become infected or inflamed. Then, through the haze of pain engulfing him, the dragonkin realized that was impossible. There was no way he’d have missed an infection in his gut until today.
“Unless these are new symptoms?” he moaned in pain, wet and sweaty, bordering on delirious.
Pus, darkened skin, and leaking fluids would be the telltale signs, Akhtar surmised, not the overwhelming feeling of emptiness and the need to be filled, the hallmark of his sudden affliction.
“Damn it all!” Unable to keep himself centered, his beast retreated, and his human body remained, panting, burning scarlet hot with fever.
Akhtar opened his icy blue eyes that were flicking gray, gaze drifting downward, amazed to find his cock rock hard and slick with pre-cum. It made no sense, and yet, his senses guided his actions.
He wrapped his hand around the base, slowly sliding to the tip and back again until he found a rhythm that kept his arousal building. Akhtar pumped his penis until the motion itself was painful, yet he found no release. Far from it, he felt even hornier than before.
Akhtar got to his knees and fell forward, whimpering all the while.
Something is missing, he thought, as he knelt and clasped his left cheek in his calloused hand. But what?
He continued to fondle himself, shocking himself to his very core as Akhtar toyed with his bum and then his nipples.
The naive omega had never felt the urge to touch himself down there, but now he did, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt what he was craving. It was like the scenes in all the history books thrust upon him, though his body remained untouched by that demon’s men. And that tonic, even though they forced it on him, created a false desperation mimicking normal, full-blooded omegas’ monthly cycles.
“I need my… Alpha! ” his voice was but a whisper, but Akhtar felt as though he screamed for the unknown pureblood lurking outside his field of vision.
Now it all fell into place, the persistent scent of pureblood pheromones on the wind, the way he’d found it hard to keep his proper form, and the hallmark signs of an omega’s heat. None of it was a coincidence; a pureblood alpha had blown his sense of self wide open! But Akhtar had never had a natural heat as a half-breed. So why now? Why was he so desperate and horny for a shadow?
“There you are, not-so-little omega,” an unknown voice gritted out from above, then rumbled with laughter. “You hobble faster than expected but not quick enough to run from me, even with your prism magic.”
Akhtar flinched. Then, he came so hard, and for so long, he thought he’d lose the ability to produce semen ever again.
He slumped forward, eyes rolling back, nipples hardening as he came down from an explosive high, throbbing hole soaked with slick. Akhtar’s eyes shifted; now, they were a shimmering gray fleck with steel blue. He tried to prepare himself to attack. He’d be dead before he allowed himself to be raped.
But he went limp as the alpha materialized beside him and lifted the omega into his arms as if he weighed nothing. He carried him like a bridegroom, Akhtar’s naked body plastered to the stranger’s equally naked chest.
His face was turned from the ice dragon, looking at something in the distance. Akhtar traced the shape of the alpha’s sharp jawline, marveling at his chestnut brown skin, naturally four or five shades darker than his now seemingly light tan.
The alpha’s hair was ash red rather than fiery red up close; a strange mixture of color at the roots resembled soot. The alpha styled his hair like a warrior, shaved sides with the rest left long in the center of his head, reaching the tip of the hump where his tail would be if transformed.
He was much older than Akhtar, fit, and, if his aura was any clue to his personality, a cocky bastard.
Even in his relaxed state, through the fog of his heat-stricken mind, Akhtar could feel the alpha trying to suppress him, subdue him, and bend his will to his “superior” power.
Akhtar wasn’t having any of it, panting, and his face flushed as he struggled out of the stranger’s arms. He hit the ground and crawled away but was dragged back by his ankles. He wailed, the pain of the alpha’s tight grip excruciating.
“Who?” Akhtar whimpered. “Who are you?”
The question lingered in the air as the alpha got down on all fours, embracing Akhtar from behind, one hand wrapped around Akhtar’s neck and the other balancing his body just above his.
The alpha rubbed his erection against the omega’s backside, the sensitive apex of where his tail was, and in between the omega’s bottom. A strangled moan escaped Akhtar’s lips as his alpha stroked himself against the length of the omega’s dripping erection, sliding between his slick legs.
“Omega mine,” the flame dragon grumbled the endearment.
His voice was deep, deeper than Akhtar expected it to be. Everything about him screamed experienced, perfect…
Mine! Akhtar jerked at the silent proclamation of ownership in shock.
He whined as the alpha’s long tongue raced up the nape of his neck, biting the center as if he were a wolf and not a descendant of primordial sky serpents, “And who are you, if I may ask?”
“None of your business! Release me! Ah!” Akhtar gasped as two thick, calloused fingers slid inside his tight, wet, clenching ring, moaning all the while.
The alpha worked his throbbing ass for some time, panting and cursing under his breath as Akhtar got wetter and harder until he was on the verge of tears. Then the bastard pulled out and flipped him to his back, conscious of his ankle, as he laid the omega down with care.
A thick, hard, pulsating knot pressed against Akhtar’s stomach as the dragonkin alpha stroked his dick on his stomach, and Akhtar’s rational mind reawakened. Only when the stranger grasped his cock, working it with his, was Akhtar made keenly aware of his status.
An alpha, a pureblood at that, was using his body as he pleased like a plaything. The wave of pheromones was undeniable, and something intrinsic within Akhtar let him know the truth even if his mind couldn’t wrap around it.
This alpha isn’t just any alpha. He’s my alpha. My fated.
Akhtar wouldn’t have attracted the alpha in the first place if he weren’t. As a lowborn omega, even half of a rare race, a pureblood alpha wouldn’t have tracked him for days, potentially weeks, craving his total submission, haunting his dreams with visions.
His alpha’s hand sped up, working their dripping need to the cusp of a shared orgasm. Akhtar had never felt so hot in his entire life and so willing to give himself entirely over to another.
Akhtar vaguely wondered whether he was going into heat because he was in the arms of his fated mate, or, if he had a delayed awakening from years of abuse.
The notion seemed childish, at best, that fate had ignited his nature. But it was the only thing that could explain what was happening to him, the way he was soaking wet in a place that was unnatural a mere day ago, allowing himself to be fondled by some rogue alpha while loving every moment of it.
The Gods’ natural lubricant. Hah! He can go to hell. I didn’t run to submit now.
The omega reeled back and slammed his forehead against the alpha’s nose. The alpha, in turn, sprung up and stumbled backward, obviously shocked, as Akhtar partially shifted and took off.
Unfortunately, Akhtar didn’t get very far. Within minutes, his form was unstable. Then, seconds later, he was human once more. He cowered deep within the evergreen forest, delirious from his spiking hormones and drunk on adrenaline.
“Come back!” he heard the alpha roar, though Akhtar couldn’t tell which direction his voice was coming from anymore in the darkness. “The traitorous wolves are near. It is not safe. I have protected you as best I could, but now you will submit. Now you will come home.”
Akhtar refused to give in to his desire to run back into the stranger’s arms and allow him to do whatever he pleased. Akhtar told himself that was his beast, the false desire his omega blood conjured up to deceive him.
He wouldn’t debase himself just because his blood said he was predestined to. Not for the alpha chasing him. Not for any man or kindred. He hadn’t sacrificed so much to become some alpha’s bitch!
But, before the omega could take off and run again, he found himself trapped in a tight embrace from behind once more by the infuriated alpha. The alpha spun him around, and he fought back, kicking, hitting, and nipping at whatever he could get claws on. Then, Akhtar attacked with his human feet, nails, and teeth until the alpha’s body was littered with shallow marks.
The stranger met his loud and relentless struggle for freedom with stony silence and a hardening grip until, finally, the alpha forced him back into his human skin entirely before suddenly letting his omega go.
Akhtar tumbled to the forest floor and spun around, jumping to his feet, before collapsing on his hands and knees as his ankle gave out.
He glanced up, kneeling before the stranger as if praying to Solara as he had done to Lulana that morning. Shards of moonlight illuminated the alpha in an otherworldly glow. He huffed, and sparks filled the air, his eyes melting into golden pools.
A proud alpha flame dragon? I’ve attracted something far, far worse than hunters and apostates on this hellish road!
“Where do you think you’re going, omega? My need is great, and your heat is strong. Submit! You’re injured already. My rut will be unbearable if you persist with your futile struggle,” the alpha barked, the vibration of his voice rumbling through Akhtar’s chest.
He forced himself back onto his feet, biting his lips so he could suppress his pain.
“What?” the alpha growled, stepping closer to Akhtar, “Do you still insist on playing alpha to me, you, an omega? "
He steeled himself to look the stranger in the eye and deny his birthright over him just because he was born an alpha and Akhtar an omega, a half breed to his pureblood.
However, Akhtar’s resolve crumbled as he locked eyes with his simmering coal-black gaze flecked with gold like sunlight, as the alpha’s temper cooled. He longed to be subdued by the domineering, majestic figure before him, glistening with sweat, staring at him like he was the only thing that mattered in all of Lunaria.
“You will be mine,” the alpha growled, and he chuckled, “No. You are already mine.”
“Wh-wh-what do you want from me?” Akhtar demanded, stammering, even though he already knew, even as he stepped closer, intoxicated by his alpha’s scent, pulled together by an invisible force of nature.
“ Everything. I will mark you; you’ll take my seed and bear my heir. Submit to me, sweet omega. You are my fate as much as I am yours. Forever…”