Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Unexpected Intervention
Riot
The intruder was a threat.
That was all Riot registered: someone had thrown something at his head, someone was making noise, someone was standing near him and his Omega. Someone who needed to be eliminated.
He turned with a snarl, keeping Cass pressed against the wall behind him. His body shifted into a combat stance, his hands curling into fists that made his split knuckles stretch. The pain barely registered. Nothing registered except the threat.
But something was wrong.
There was no scent. No pheromone signature at all. Just a void where a person should be—a blank space in the air that made him hesitate, confused by an enemy he couldn’t categorize, like trying to track something that cast no shadow.
What is she?
Behind him, Cass made a sound—not fear. Frustration. A soft, desperate whine that went straight to Riot’s hindbrain and made his spine stiffen with the urge to turn around, to give his Omega whatever that sound was begging for.
“He’s fine,” Riot snarled. “We’re fine. Go away.”
“I wasn’t asking you, güey.” The woman’s eyes fixed on Cass. “I’m asking him. And from where I’m standing, this looks a whole lot like a Berserker taking advantage of an Omega in heat.”
“It happened?” Cass’s voice was small and wondering. “I’m really in heat? All the way?”
Something about the innocent confusion in those words—the genuine bewilderment of someone who didn’t even know what was happening to his own body—cut through the golden haze.
The woman lowered the thermos slightly, staring at Cass like he’d said something impossible.
“Dios mío,” she muttered. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
The tone hit Riot like a slap. That mix of horror and pity and resigned familiarity—he’d heard it before. He had used it himself, talking about Protocol Endeavor survivors. Talking about people whose minds and bodies had been fucked with by corporations that didn’t see them as human.
“Lilac?”
Her eyes snapped to his face, sharp and assessing. “You back with us, Riot? Or do I need to keep throwing things at your head?”
The golden haze retreated further. Lilac. Fellow survivor. Not the same as the other survivors exactly, but close enough. The only person from the Endeavor experiment who could walk into any situation and not trigger anyone’s instincts, because she had no scent to trigger them with anymore.
Gensyn stole that from her.
“I’m—” He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. “Mostly.”
“Good enough.” Lilac descended the rest of the stairs, her scentless presence creating a strange pocket of calm in the pheromone-thick air.
Her gaze swept over the scene—Riot barely controlled, Cass pressed against the wall in nothing but soaked underwear, the obvious evidence of what they’d been doing glistening on both of them.
“We need to move. Now. Before someone walks in on this.”
“I know.”
“Can you walk, golden boy?” Lilac asked Cass, her voice gentling.
Cass nodded, though his legs were visibly trembling.
He peeled himself off the wall and immediately shifted his weight, pressing his thighs together, his face flushing darker.
The movement sent a fresh wave of his scent through the stairwell—sweet and desperate and frustrated—and Riot’s hands clenched so hard his knuckles cracked.
Lilac shrugged off her oversized flannel, revealing muscular arms covered in faded scars that Riot recognized. “Put this on,” she said, holding it out to Cass.
Cass took it with shaking hands, wrapping it around himself. It hung past his knees, swallowing his smaller frame, but at least it covered the worst of the evidence.
“What floor?” Lilac asked.
“Second.”
“You walk in front of me, Freckles.” She glanced at Cass. “I’ve got him.”
The walk back was torture.
Riot led the way, hyperaware of every sound behind him. Cass’s unsteady footsteps on the worn carpet. The soft, uncomfortable sounds he kept making, whimpers and catches of breath that Riot felt in his spine. The wet, sweet scent that filled the hallway and made his mouth water.
The suppressants in his jacket pocket pressed against his chest with every step. I should take a dose now. I should dose before I do something I can’t take back.
But the thought of dulling his senses when Cass was in heat, when Cass needed him, when they still didn’t know what Brother Matthias might do next—
By the time they reached the room, Riot’s nails had carved bloody crescents into both palms, deep enough that blood was dripping slowly onto the carpet.
Riot handed him the spare keycard from his pocket and Cass fumbled with it, his hands shaking too badly to line it up properly.
Lilac took it and opened the door, ushering him inside with a hand that didn’t touch his back.
“Why don’t you get cleaned up and dressed?” she said. “Take your time. We’ll be right here.”
Cass nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. The lock clicked.
The moment he was gone, Riot let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His whole body was shaking with the effort of keeping himself contained. Kick her out. Lock the door. Wait for him to come out of the bathroom and—
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. His eyes were probably still glowing. He couldn’t seem to make them stop.
Lilac rounded on him the moment the bathroom door closed.
“Talk. Fast.”
“Elysian.” Riot kept his voice low, fighting to focus on her face—on the void of her scent—instead of the bathroom door. “Born Elysian. Some kind of missionary. They had him on industrial-grade suppressants. He didn’t even know what they were.”
“And?”
“And they stopped working. His heat hit.” Riot’s jaw tightened. “I was trying to help.”
“In a stairwell.” Lilac’s voice was flat. “With your finger inside him.”
“He ran. I chased.” The words came out flat, controlled. “You know what that triggers.”
Lilac studied him for a long moment, her dark eyes missing nothing. “Your suppressants?”
“Syndicate’s been fucking with my supply.” He didn’t mention the vials in his pocket.
“So you’re both running hot and neither of you has any working chemical help.” She shook her head. “Perfecto. What else?”
Riot hesitated. How much to tell her? How much did she need to know?
“The bandages?”
Riot’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. “One of their handlers does it…he calls it a negative energy release.”
Lilac’s expression went flat and dangerous—the look she got when she was thinking about hurting someone. “How long?”
“Eight years. Since he was sixteen.” Riot’s voice came out rough.
Something flickered across Lilac’s face—recognition, maybe.
“And you care about him,” she said quietly.
Riot didn’t answer. He couldn’t, really.
Because “care” felt too small for whatever was clawing at his chest—this ball of want and protectiveness and guilt that he couldn’t seem to untangle no matter how hard he tried.
He shouldn’t want Cass this badly. The kid was so naive it hurt.
He didn’t know anything about his own body, didn’t understand what his responses meant, and didn’t have the first clue what Riot wanted to do to him.
Every touch had been Cass’s first, every sensation brand new, and Riot had been the one introducing him to all of it while Cass cried and trembled and asked innocent questions that made Riot’s brain short-circuit.
He should feel worse about that than he did.
But the way he looked at me. The way he said “please.” The way his body opened up and took my finger like he was made for it—
The bathroom door opened, and Riot’s train of thought derailed completely.
Cass emerged in his Elysian robes, moving carefully, and he kept shifting his weight like he couldn’t get comfortable. But his scent had calmed somewhat—still that rich heat-sweetness, but not the overwhelming spike of active arousal.
“Better?” Lilac asked.
Cass nodded, but his face told a different story. He was hovering near the bathroom door, arms wrapped around himself, and even from across the room Riot could see the way his thighs were pressed together. The way he kept shifting his weight. The flush that hadn’t faded at all.
Riot’s cock throbbed. He was still hard—he had been hard since the stairwell, since before that, since the moment Cass had run and every predator instinct in his body had screamed chase.
His balls ached with the need for release, heavy and tight, and every breath he took filled his lungs with Omega in heat and made the pressure worse.
Cass’s eyes found Riot’s, and something in them made Riot’s chest tighten—confusion and want and a wounded quality that said why did you stop?
He thinks I rejected him, Riot realized. He thinks stopping was a bad thing.
Cass took a step toward him. Then another. His movements were dreamy, unfocused—like he wasn’t entirely aware he was doing it. His eyes had gone slightly glassy, fixed on Riot with single-minded intensity.
Every step closer made Riot’s skin prickle and the wanting louder, harder to ignore— yes, come here, come to me, let me finish what I started—
“Ah-ah.” Lilac moved between them, one hand coming up to catch Cass’s shoulder. “That’s close enough, mijo. Come sit down over here.”
Cass blinked, seeming to come back to himself. He looked down at his feet like he wasn’t sure how they’d carried him halfway across the room.
“I didn’t mean to—” His voice was confused, distant. “I just...”
“I know.” Lilac’s voice was gentle but firm. She guided him toward the bed on the far side of the room—away from Riot, away from the door. “Your body’s running the show right now. That’s normal. But we need to keep some distance, okay?”
She pointed at Riot without looking at him. “You. Chair by the door.”
“Lilac—”
“Did I stutter?”
Riot sat. The chair wasn’t far enough. Nothing would be far enough short of leaving the building entirely, and even then Riot wasn’t sure he could make himself go.