Chapter Twelve #2
I try to roll over, and a cramp seizes my gut, twisting my insides like a wet towel. I curl into a ball, gasping, my teeth chattering. I’m burning up. My skin feels paper-thin and sensitive, like every nerve ending has been stripped bare and exposed to the air.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, the buzzing sound drilling into my skull.
Seungchan.
I stare at the name, my vision swimming.
If I don’t answer, he’ll come over. He’s loyal like a dog and just as incapable of understanding personal boundaries.
If he comes over and smells this—smells the rancid, concentrated stench of distressed Alpha rut leaking out of my pores—I’ll never live it down.
I fumble for the phone, my fingers clumsy and slick with sweat. I swipe answer and shove it against my ear.
"Yo, Sihwan! You alive, bro? You weren't at the gym and—"
"Sick," I croak. My voice sounds wrecked, like I’ve been gargling gravel.
Seungchan pauses. "Whoa. You sound like shit."
"Flu," I lie, squeezing my eyes shut as another wave of heat rolls over me. "Bad one. Fever. Puking."
"Damn. That sucks. Want me to bring you some porridge? Or soup? My mom makes this—"
"No," I snap, too quickly. I force myself to dial it back. "No. Contagious. Don't come here. Tell coach I’m out. Tell the guys... just tell them I’m dying."
"Okay, okay. I got you. Rest up, King. Don't die on us."
I hang up and let the phone drop to the floor. The effort of the thirty-second conversation leaves me panting, my chest heaving.
I need to fix this. That's what I do. I fix things. I have resources.
I drag myself out of bed, my legs trembling like a newborn deer, and stumble to the bathroom.
I rip the medicine cabinet open, knocking bottles into the sink in my haste until I find the emergency stash.
Alpha-X Suppressants. The military-grade stuff my dad imports.
These things could stop a rut in a charging bull.
I dry swallow two of them. Then, because I’m desperate, I take a third.
"Work," I hiss at my reflection. I look deranged. My eyes are bloodshot, my hair sticking up in sweaty clumps, my face flushed a blotchy, unhealthy red.
I stumble back to bed and wait.
Ten minutes. Twenty.
Nothing happens. If anything, it gets worse. The chemical suppressants hit my stomach and just... burn. My body rejects them. It’s like throwing a cup of water on a grease fire. The biological imperative roaring through my blood just laughs at the pills and ramps up the heat.
The pressure in my groin is becoming unbearable. It’s a physical weight, a heavy, aching need to be inside something. To fill. To knot.
"Fuck it," I whimper.
I shove my hand down my boxers. I don’t even use lube; I’m too far gone for logic. I just grip myself and start to stroke, fast and rough. It doesn't feel good. It feels like scratching an itch that’s under the skin, frustrating and frantic.
I pump my hand, hips bucking off the mattress involuntarily. I’m chasing a release that feels miles away. My head falls back, a low, broken sound tearing out of my throat.
"Come on, come on, fuck..."
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to fantasize. I try to picture the Omegas from the karaoke bar. Nothing. My brain rejects them. I try to picture generic faceless bodies. Static.
Then, unbidden, a flash of memory hits me.
Black hair. Sharp eyes. A smirk that makes me want to punch him and kiss him at the same time. The feeling of strong hands pinning my wrists. The weight of a body heavier than mine pressing me down.
Donghwa.
The name hits my system like a lightning strike.
I shout, my hips snapping up, and I come.
It’s violent. It’s messy. I spill hot fluid over my stomach and the sheets, my body seizing up, toes curling. I pant, waiting for the post-nut clarity. Waiting for the fog to lift.
It doesn't.
The orgasm fades in seconds, leaving me hollow. The pressure in my balls recedes for maybe a minute before surging back, twice as painful. My cock stays rock hard, twitching, leaking slick, demanding more.
"No," I gasp, staring at the ceiling. "It didn't work. Why didn't it work?"
Because my hand isn't him.
The realization makes me want to scream. My body doesn't just want friction. It wants a specific temperature. A specific texture. It wants the bite of winter air and ink. It wants the weight of the Alpha who claimed me.
I roll over, burying my face in the mattress, groaning into the fabric. The ache is consuming me now. It’s not just in my groin; it’s in my teeth, my chest, my fingers. I need to bite. I need to hold.
I drag a pillow under my hips, grinding down into it. It’s pathetic. I know it’s pathetic. I am the heir to a hotel empire, and I am currently dry-humping a memory foam pillow like a dog in heat. But the friction is the only thing keeping me from clawing my own skin off.
I stroke myself again, harder this time, angry tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
"Stupid," I grit out, my breath coming in short, sharp pants. "Stupid... fucking... bond."
I come again. And again.
It solves nothing. The fever burns hotter. The cramps twist tighter. I’m trapped in a loop of biological torture, my body screaming for a mate who is probably sitting in class right now, completely fine, while I slowly lose my mind in a puddle of my own sweat.
By the time the afternoon sun starts slanting through the blinds, painting orange stripes across the disaster zone that is my bedroom, a new, fresh hell decides to introduce itself.
It starts as a heaviness. A weird, dragging weight in my pelvis that I try to ignore by burying my face in the pillow and screaming silently. But it doesn't go away. It sharpens. It turns into a pulse, a hot, rhythmic throb that isn't coming from my cock.
It’s coming from my ass.
I squeeze my eyes shut, grinding my teeth so hard I think a molar might crack. "No," I whisper into the damp mattress. "Absolutely fucking not."
I am a Dominant Alpha. I top. That is what I do. That is my biological function. I do not crave... insertion.
But my body apparently didn't get the memo.
The ache intensifies, transforming from a dull throb into a sharp, demanding hunger.
It feels like a phantom limb, except the limb is inside me.
My muscles clench and spasm, trying to grip onto something that isn't there. It’s a hollowness that burns, a desperate, gaping need to be filled, stretched, and plugged.
It’s the knot. My body remembers the knot. It remembers being locked down and bred, and now that the fever is boiling my brain, it thinks that’s the only way to fix this.
I endure it for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of sweating and shaking and trying to think about baseball, or the stock market, or literally anything other than the feeling of my own entrance weeping for attention.
Then a cramp twists my gut so hard I gag, and I break.
"Fine!" I shout at the empty room, my voice cracking. "Fine, you piece of shit body, you win!"
I scramble up, my limbs heavy and uncoordinated, and crawl toward the nightstand. I knock over a glass of water, sending it shattering across the hardwood, but I don't care. I tear open the drawer, digging past the condoms and the loose change until my fingers close around a bottle of lube.
I don't even bother trying to be dignified about it. Dignity left the building about six orgasms ago.
I collapse onto the rug, pushing myself up onto my hands and knees. The position feels humiliatingly natural. My hips automatically tilt up, my back arching, presenting myself to the ghost of the Alpha who did this to me. I hate it. I hate how right it feels.
I squeeze a glob of lube onto my hand, the cold gel making me flinch, and reach back.
My hand is shaking so bad I miss at first, smearing slick over my cheek, but then I find the spot. I push one finger in.
A whine rips out of my throat, high and pathetic. It’s tight—too tight—but the friction sends a jolt of relief straight up my spine that makes my toes curl into the carpet.
"Fuck," I pant, pushing deeper. "Fuck, fuck..."
I add a second finger, scissoring them, trying to hit the spot that’s screaming the loudest. I pump my hand, my hips bucking back to meet the thrusts, desperate to chase the sensation. It feels good, in a sharp, stinging way, but it’s... wrong.
It’s all wrong.
My fingers are too thin. They’re too short. They don't carry any weight. They slide in and out without resistance, without that heavy, tearing stretch that my body is screaming for. I’m just poking at the hunger, not feeding it.
I dig deeper, twisting my wrist, trying to reach that deep, internal itch that feels like it’s buried in my soul. I hit my prostate and a white-hot spark of pleasure explodes behind my eyes, making me drool onto the rug, but it fades instantly, leaving the ache twice as bad as before.
"Not enough," I sob, the words wet and broken. "It’s not... it’s not enough."
I rock my hips frantically, fucking my own hand, but it’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol. I need mass. I need heat. I need something that hurts. I need that terrifying, suffocating pressure of a knot locking me down and holding me still.
I need him.
The realization makes me want to vomit. I pull my fingers out, frustration spiking into rage, and slam my fist against the floor.
"Why isn't it working?" I scream, my voice raw.
My hole throbs, empty and slick and unsatisfied, mocking me.
The fever spikes again, hotter this time, a delirious haze that blurs the edges of the room.
I collapse onto my forearms, panting, sweat dripping from my nose, my ass in the air like a billboard advertising my own ruin.
I’m empty. I’m so fucking empty it hurts.
A sound cuts through the haze like a drill to the temple.
Ding-dong.