Chapter Text
Chay is tied up in the south end when everything goes to shit.
In terms of execution, it’s an unremarkable job. There is one crime syndicate in the city with power roughly equal to the Theerapanyakuls: the Felun Shad, or desert lions in their ancestors’ language, originally a group of mercenaries from the far north who had swept into the city during the campaigns. Where most alpha lineage families who avoided mass graves went into hiding, the lions became guerrilla fighters, striking back against officials and civilians alike who attempted to exact vengeance against alphas for what were ultimately just crimes of birth.
And for a while, they were heroes for it. But once the above-ground battle was won—once murdering an alpha in cold blood became a hate crime, at least on paper—they’d been left no better off than the rest, and they’d reorganized as a syndicate to run the city’s underground only to find someone else had beaten them to it.
And tonight is a drug run. Powdered versions of the sedative sex workers in most clubs are given to make them docile but alert during appointments. Chay strongly suspects it’s laced with something, because Kim had recognized the smell of a hallucinogenic plant the Theerapanyakuls trade in to make suppressants for alphas when they’d entered the warehouse. And because of the bond, Chay had smelled it too.
Yompari, Kim had said through the bond.
How did they get it?! You’re—we’re the only ones who have it??
Aside from the deliberate glance that had made Chay correct himself, Kim hadn’t answered. By this point, though, they’ve existed in each other’s bodies and minds long enough that Chay knows what it sounds like when Kim is thinking something through, so he’d left the chemistry of the problem to Kim, focusing instead on making sure the lions’ warehouse was unoccupied while he scanned around for a good spot to turn himself into bait.
Which is how they’d gotten here: Chay in his knee-high combat boots, a sleeveless, racerback black hoodie, and his sluttiest black dance shorts, the ones that are a little bit metallic and ride halfway up his ass anytime his knee gets higher than his hips. His makeup is running, and his hands are pulled over his head via a suspended chain in a figure eight bind, almost high enough that he can’t unbend his elbows.
It'd be nice if Pol had given him more slack in the chain. His wrists are going to bruise like this. But whatever, it’s not like he hasn’t had practice holding his arms upright for a squillion years.
Chay whips his head to the side when he hears of low, male voices trail in from the warehouse entry, followed a beat or two later by footsteps. A group of them, from what it sounds like—a big group, too. At least eight or nine.
Eleven, Chay hears through the bond. But good instinct. Nine coming from your way, two in the back guarding the truck.
Chay doesn’t actually know where Kim is in the warehouse. The bond doesn’t work like audible sound that way, and Kim is shielding his location from him. Probably because Chay would otherwise be glancing at him every few seconds to make sure he was still there. Which would, of course, completely throw off the act, and if there’s one thing Chay will never do if he can help it, it’s break character before his cue.
Are you worried? Chay asks.
Something like the whole-body feeling of an eye roll comes through the bond. They have no idea we’re here. And I don’t think you understand how distracting you are.
Another thing Chay has learned about the Theerapanyakuls in his time with them: it’s not just Kim who can mask his scent and pheromones to complete undetectability. He’s probably the best in the family at it, but all of the Theerapanyakul alphas learn how from the time they present at puberty. But Kim didn’t answer the question, and he knows that Chay noticed.
Before Chay can press, though, Kim speaks through the bond again.
Are you? Kim voice through the bond sounds urgent now, and Chay feels his adrenaline spike. Just say the word and I’ll drop the chains—
Don’t, Chay interjects, then turns his awareness back forward.
As the footsteps get closer, Chay whines, a pure omega sound of distress that has several of the people stopping in their tracks. A few others continue in—probably the betas, Chay thinks, since that sound doesn’t mean anything special to them—and a few beats after that, Chay rattles the chains around his wrists and releases a veritable flood of pheromones into the warehouse floor, the scent of sweet orange blossom and ripe coconut mixing in as Chay clenches around the plug in his ass and lets a little bit of his slick run out into the open air.
He's in pre-heat. This wouldn’t have worked if he weren’t, and it’s why the timing of this mission is so delicate. The power vacuum within the Felun Shad’s leadership that opened in the wake of Sade’s death won’t last forever, and tonight is the Theerapanyakuls’ last chance to sabotage a deal between them and the powerful Trumorn family that would solidify their combined hold over the entire south end of the city.
The part that includes Hum, among other things.
Chay whines again and pants, huffing for breath as though in panic and tugging again on the chains around his wrists. One foot is propped up on the metal pillar behind him. He feels a wave of arousal wash through him instantly and has to fight a smile, knowing it’s not his.
“Please, you have to let me go,” Chay says, voice desperate and ragged. “If I don’t get my suppressant I’m going to—”
“What do we have here?”
Chay cuts himself off at the sound of the gravelly voice beside him, head whipping around to face whoever spoke. There are three of them, all big, burly betas like the ones who had been with Sade when she’d attacked Chay, all of them with the Felun Shad emblem of the hooked blade branded into their skin under their right eyes.
“Why the fuck is a whore like you chained up in the—?”
If the man’s question extended beyond that, Chay can’t hear it. Kim’s growl in his head just now was a full-on snarl.
Down, boy, Chay shoots back. He feels a sudden flash of irritation in response.
“It’s not my fault,” he brays.
Chay’s voice is a panicked whisper, high-pitched and nearly inaudible to anyone without the right acuity to hear it. Which is the point. Alphas, Chay has learned, have something akin to enhanced senses where omegas are concerned—an omega in distress or danger triggers a protect instinct in them, no questions asked. A fact that Chay has learned to exploit during his tenure with the Theerapanyakuls, though this is the first time he’s putting his face to the act.
And it’s not just that. He and Kim had had really rough sex last night, Kim pinning Chay over the dresser by his forearms hard enough to bruise as he pounded into Chay like an animal, mauling his neck and shoulders and bruising the backs of his legs before hauling Chay up onto the hard surface, his grip halfway between Chay’s waist and hips and brutal enough that Chay is still sore there. And he’d continued his assault on Chay’s hole until Chay was boneless in his arms, slick dripping down the wood and onto Kim’s legs as Kim licked and sucked at his neck, his collarbone, any available skin he could find.
The result, of course, was that Chay is bruised enough now to look like he’s been beaten, at least to anyone who doesn’t know better.
Another surge of arousal floods down the bond. This time, Chay shivers, eyes fluttering and gooseflesh erupting all over his exposed skin at the feel of Kim’s scrutiny. And when another trickle of slick spills into his dance shorts, Chay feels the moment the four alphas in the group suddenly turn to Chay in unison, senses already heightened.
Chay locks eyes with the first alpha he senses, letting out another wave of supplicating pheromones. He can tell his eyes are glassy based on how heavy they feel and the fact it takes him a second to focus on the alpha he’s looking at.
Chay, Kim rasps through the bond, so raw and breathless he can almost hear it with his ears.
“Please help me,” Chay begs.
At this, Chay feels four sets of alpha eyes lock on his body, and it takes every modicum of Chay’s self-control not to look up into the direction of the warehouse rafters he now knows Kim is watching him from based on the view he catches of the four alphas’ backs. They’re all to Chay’s left—all nine of the Felun Shad lions who’d come in together are, in fact. That’s probably their first mistake.
One of the other alphas holds a hand up to the others and makes his way to Chay. He’s holding a gun that he holsters at his hip as he closes the distance to investigate.
The alpha in front of him is probably in his mid 40s, prematurely grey, handsome in a silver fox kind of way despite a deep scar through one eyebrow and another through the side of his lip and down his chin. He’s about Chay’s height but bulkier, built like Kinn, and the way he carries himself makes Chay think this alpha could kill him with his bare hands in less than a second.
“Who brought you here?” The man asks.
He’s releasing a wave of alpha pheromones intended to calm Chay, and Chay feels the way they’re interacting with his own. Already, his body wants to submit.
“I don’t know,” Chay says, still in that same scared, supplicating tone. “All I know is I was walking home after a shift and everything went dark, and next thing I know I’m here for some reason and chained up—”
“Huh. He’s unmarked,” Chay hears one of the other alphas say, his tone barely masking a laugh. “No surprise, I guess. No self-respecting alpha would let him out looking like that.”
Another part of the act: Chay’s mating mark has been thoroughly hidden. Earlier that day, Chay had Tay conceal his mating mark when he’d been at the compound for a visit—Tay’s hands behind a palate are several orders of magnitude better than anyone else’s at the compound, so Chay had taken advantage.
Chay feels a growl through the bond. He sends a wave of reassurance through before locking eyes with the alpha who’d just spoken, who has his arms crossed over his chest and is looking at Chay defiantly, daring him to present a challenge.
“That is secondary, Vassem,” the silver fox alpha says to the alpha Chay is looking at before turning back to Chay himself. “Do you know where you are?”
Chay shakes his head furiously, letting fear into his eyes as he turns his face. “No. No, I have no idea how I got here. Can you please let me go—?”
The alpha in front of him is scrutinizing Chay, now, his brows tilting down in a way that pulls at the scar through one of them. Chay has no idea what he’s thinking—whatever his intentions are, the calming pheromones he’s emitting are masking them. That’s an interesting trick.
Chay does know what two of the other alphas are thinking, though. Both the one Chay had been in a staredown with just now and the one who’d called him a whore are reacting now to Chay’s pre-heat, their scents and pheromones spiking with the need to claim. Chay feels his body tense as his flight instinct flares, souring his scent.
“If you’re not going to have him, Khun Silva, can I? He looks delectable. And that neck—”
Chay isn’t sure which of them has spoken, but the alpha’s words are cut off as he looks down to find a long blade protruding out of his stomach.
With Kim at the other end of it, snarling like his revved motorcycle.
“Fuck, it’s a trap—!”
The beta who’d shouted falls where he stands as a bullet pierces his skull and Chay’s head whips around to find Vegas staring the man down, a whisp of smoke curling out of the barrel of his gun.
“Gentlemen,” he says.
And that’s all it takes. The melee breaks out instantly, the silver fox alpha quickly abandoning Chay and making straight for Vegas, only to be felled by a series of three shots, two from Big and one from Pete.
Chay feels their pheromones before he smells them, Big, Pete, and Porsche all throwing them out in huge waves, strong enough to confuse the alphas—even the betas a little bit, at least long enough to stun and strike. He sees Macau and Pete turn back-to-back and fire at two betas simultaneously, one through the temple and one through the heart.
It’s only been a blink, it seems. A few bodies are on the ground already. Chay can’t tell immediately if any of them are important to him.
And then the two who had been outside come in. Big and Pol rush for them, felling one before anyone can blink—the other, wielding a machete in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other, swings the blade at Pol, catching him in the side, but not before Pol can put a bullet through his neck, sending a spray of blood up behind him as he falls when the bullet severs his carotid artery.
There are more. Quickly, Chay undoes his restraints and pulls the chain free, feeling a sudden surge of rage through the bond so strong Chay turns immediately toward Kim, just in time to see him slash through the rope on a weighted pulley with the knife he carries at his hip, sending one of the alphas up so sharply his arm is ripped from his body when it hits the ceiling, the rest of his body hitting the floor with a sickening crack.
Kim is heaving his breath by the time the body falls. But that’s all Chay has time to notice as he undoes the fastenings on his wrist, making for a beta with his blade up and ready to strike at Porsche. Chay throws the chain around the man’s waist and yanks him back, then drops the chain, grabs the man’s wrist, and throws him over his own shoulder, knocking the breath out of the man’s lungs just in time to stomp down hard with the heel of his boot on the man’s airways, constricting his neck until he suffocates.
He's the last one. By the time Chay is done, there are eleven bodies on the floor with eight Theerapanyakul wolves standing over the bodies, most splattered in blood and all of them breathing hard, Pol now with his shirt off as he holds it to his side to staunch the bleeding.
And then Vegas starts speaking, and Chay can’t hear what he’s saying.
It takes him a beat to realize why. Kim’s growling through the bond has not stopped for the last several minutes, but it’s loud enough in his head now that it sounds like a thunderstorm, overwhelming and blocking his senses. And it takes him another beat to realize that it’s not his own senses that are blocked—it’s Kim’s, his hearing and sense of touch practically turned off in favor of his senses of smell and taste.
As soon as Chay realizes, he starts to feel sick. The blood and viscera of the bodies around them has a potent enough smell to turn Chay’s stomach. He wheels around and covers his mouth.
Then he looks up.
Kim had been standing behind Chay. Apart from the rest of the group. In front of him, now, Chay sees his eyes are wide and bloodshot, and Chay makes straight for him instinctively, already throwing pheromones to calm him.
There’s noise. So much noise, like the sound of blood racing in his ears, of animals screeching and growling, of standing right next to a roaring waterfall, all of it a thundering cacophony loud enough in Chay’s head that he can’t even hear Kim’s voice through it. The look of wild bloodlust is still there. All Chay can clearly hear is Kim’s low growl aloud.
“P’Kim,” Chay says, just for Kim.
Kim ignores him. Chay flinches.
An image flashes through the bond. It looks like a ripped up photo, almost too distorted by the red haze around it for Chay to tell who is in the image until there’s a pulse from within Kim’s mind and it clears for a second, then floats back in like scarlet fog.
It’s the alpha Kim just dismembered.
Chay blinks.
This must have been from the exact moment Kim attacked. It has to be, Chay thinks, because there’s something like time residue around the image before and after that moment, and in the moment right before Kim attacked, he’d had a flash of recognition.
Chay stays there. He doesn’t know this man from Adam, but Kim apparently did.
A voice that sounds like it’s straight from the mouth of a thousand angry ghosts floods into Chay’s mind like storm surge, Kim’s voice nearly lost in the morass.
HE BOUGHT YOU.
And that’s all that makes it through before the hurricane of noise in Kim’s head washes his voice away.
It takes a few beats before Chay figures out what Kim meant. The last time Chay was bought for anything had been at his old job, the one it had taken him three years to escape from before he’d finally made it out and gone to Hum for refuge. And there’s no way Kim could have known who any of those people were—it was before they met, and it’s not like Chay just sifts through the face cards of former Elysium patrons of his own accord.
When Kim’s meaning dawns on him, Chay focuses on the man’s face again.
His face actually isn’t that helpful. Not to Chay, anyway. Alphas who book back room appointments at Hum are restrained and muzzled to keep them from biting the omegas who service them, and a lot of the time the omegas never even see the alpha’s whole face.
But Kim didn’t meet them in the back room. More often than not back then, Kim had been the one who administered the drug that kept their knot from swelling during the appointment, a drug derived from yompari,an illegal hallucinogenic plant the Theerapanyakuls trade in. The very one Kim had smelled in this warehouse tonight, and the one that meant Kim saw the face of just about every alpha who ever walked into the back room at Hum.
Chay is pulled out of his reasoning when a sudden torrent of possessive alpha pheromones floods around Chay. The sound and fury in his head booms so hard Chay feels shock waves through his head and body, and a beat later he feels Kim’s clawed hands at his waist, then looks up to find Kim’s eyes redder at the outside than he’s ever seen them. His fangs are descended, his mouth watering so much his saliva is practically dripping off them.
“P’Kim…?”
Chay feels Kim’s growl through his hands. His scent and pheromones are a force field around Chay, practically solid enough to touch, blocking his sense of smell as much as the sound vortex in Kim’s brain is blocking his hearing. He flexes his fingers, digging his claws a bit into Chay’s stomach hard enough to make him flinch, then catches Chay closer as he bands one arm fully around Chay’s waist, his other hand closing around Chay’s throat.
He’s not squeezing. Chay can breathe just fine. But he feels his eyes go wide and a flare of fear-laced arousal wash through him as Kim gently drags a clawed fingertip down the sensitive skin of his neck, making him shiver. The sound vortex in Kim’s head dies down a bit as the feeling of the pride of an alpha who’s caught his prize surges through Kim’s body, then through the bond, until sounds in the warehouse float in and out of the ebbing maelstrom, though it’s hard to discern anything unless Chay focuses on a specific voice.
There’s movement behind them. Chay senses it more than hears it. Macau, Big, and Pol have apparently located the keys to the truck outside off one of the dead lions and are headed toward it. The rest are still where they were, for the most part, still behind him, though it’s hard to tell exactly where they are.
Kim’s growling is audible now, low and possessive. Vegas’ voice suddenly sounds out near him.
“Oh, shit. Porsche, Pete, go with them in the truck. Now.”
“Vegas—”
“Go,” Vegas reiterates, silencing his mate. “Let Chay and I handle this—”
“Handle what?! What the fuck is happening?!”
Porsche’s voice is loud in the warehouse. Loud enough to echo. When Chay tries to turn around, though, Kim tightens his hold hard enough to draw a gasp out of Chay, anchoring him in place.
“We don’t need any other omegas around him right now…”
Vegas is still talking, but Chay can’t discern the rest of the sentence. Porsche’s response is practically a shout.
“Well then I’m definitely not leaving Chay—”
Chay sees Pete leave to follow the others, but not without a pleading look back at Vegas before Vegas addresses Porsche again, his tone an order that slices through the sensory fog around Chay like a blade. “Then you’re driving, because I outrank you and I’m the only one who knows how to restrain him.”
Restrain him—?!
Porsche echoes Chay’s question aloud. But Chay doesn’t hear an answer before Porsche is running up to them and ripping Kim’s arm from around Chay’s neck, yanking both Chay and Kim to the side hard enough that they both almost stumble before Kim rights them.
He’s growling so loud behind Chay now that his chest against Chay’s feels like an engine. He only sees Porsche’s furious expression, which turns quickly to pain as Kim reverses the hold Porsche has on his arm faster than his brother can blink, claws digging in hard enough to draw blood—
“P’Kim, STOP!” Chay shouts.
Kim releases Porsche’s wrist like it’s a hot coal. In the next beat, then, Kim’s other arm is free from around Chay and Chay turns to see Vegas yanking both behind Kim’s back, then snapping some kind of restraint over Kim’s wrists before he can break free from Vegas’s hold.
Then he draws a loaded syringe of purple liquid and plunges it into the back of Kim’s neck, draining it entirely.
Chay’s body goes numb. The cloud of pheromones ebbs. His senses come back online slowly, but not before a deep stone of dread settles in Chay’s gut as he sees Kim go limp in Vegas’s arms, the sound vortex in his brain ebbing as Kim loses consciousness.
“Are you serious? You fucking knew this was going to happen?!”
Vegas ignores Porsche, easily picking Kim up as he turns toward the entrance of the warehouse.
“I didn’t know for sure. But he’s always been susceptible, I knew this would be a possibility. Especially with Chay in pre-heat.” Vegas looks at Chay, then, and the look in his eyes sends a trail of ice down Chay’s spine. “His body will burn this off before we get home. Chay, I’m going to need you to help me keep him calm.”
No, Chay thinks, still frozen in place. This is impossible. They had sex just last night. Why would Kim be—
“It is what you think it is,” Vegas continues. “He’s raging.”