Chapter Text
The yearly Summit was always held in the grand castle atop the lone mountain overlooking the enchanted valley below. This tradition has been ongoing for centuries, ever since all the creatures of the night came to settle on the blessed land for peace. The head of each Family, along with their chosen delegates, arrived a week before the full moon, each day spent mingling with the other species in talks of trade and information as the preparations for the Hunt were made. Some negotiations were lighthearted, while others were tense with old grudges.
For Yuuji, the talks from his people and the people of his unofficial mate were murky with unfinished business and bloody history.
It’s just his luck to imprint on the one creature that is so taboo for his kind. Lycans and Vampyrs have been sworn enemies since the beginning of time, each eager to rip each other to shreds at the mere sight and smell of the other for all the past grievances that no one actually cares about anymore.
Instinctual hate is what his grandpa would have harrumph when asked. Yuuji thinks that Lycans and Vampyrs are too similar in attitudes, and both creatures absolutely hate it; each of them wants to be the top dog of their millennias-long pissing contest.
“You’re gonna get your cute little puppy fangs ripped out if Jinichi hears you saying that,” Gojo warns him when Yuuji snuck over to the Fae Halls of the castle to sigh about his woes, shimmering blue eyes full of laughter as he gently plays with Yuuji’s soft Lycan ears.
It’s totally true; Jinichi, the eldest nephew of the current head of the Lycan Pack, is brutal in his punishments and discipline for any disobedience sniffed out from the Pack, apathetic and cold with his heavy fists and merciless teeth. Sneaking past curfew isn’t that serious, but saying all that blasphemous shit about Lycans and Vampyrs being the same? Imprinting on one? Forget getting his fangs ripped out, Jinichi would break him and toss him to get eaten alive by a ghoul!
Like hell Yuuji is going to let Jinichi pass him over to Mahito for something he can’t control. With those stakes in mind, he always makes room in his busy delegate schedule at the Summit to sneak past the gloomy walls of the Lycan Halls and run to any of his friends he can meet in secret.
Nobara won’t be available until the final nights of the Summit; her Coven is part of the chosen group helping prepare this year’s 999th Hunt. Megumi was too busy avoiding the Lycan heir’s attention, the Shadow Mage exhausted from Naoya’s panting perverted questions about whether he takes after his father Toji in having an Omegan pussy and how eager he must be to get seeded by his purebred knot. Fighting is prohibited at the Summit, so all Megumi can really do is hide in his shadows and stay clear of the arrogant knot-headed Alpha.
Yuuji is lucky Gojo was here, the Fae powerful enough to hide his presence from the determined Lycan heir sniffing for Megumi throughout the castle grounds.
“I can’t avoid him again this year. I’ll have to join the Hunt,” Yuuji says to his Fae friend with a sad sigh and his pink fluffy tail curled up between his legs in defeat, sitting across from the Beta on the massive monstrosity Gojo calls a bed.
He honestly can’t. Yuuji’s Omegan instincts are barely contained now after so many years of pining from afar. The Lycan Head is already growing suspicious as to why he hasn’t joined a Hunt. It’ll only be a matter of time before Naobito uses his rights as the leading Alpha of the Pack to demand Yuuji tell him why.
He looks up at the glowing Beta with a mulish frown. “This would be so simple if I imprinted on you instead, Gojo-san.”
Gojo smirks and flutters his full lashes down at him, pale lavender sparkles floating off his skin with every movement like soft little fireflies. His six iridescent wings unfurled from his back and showed themselves off to Yuuji with a hypnotic shiver, their markings appearing like wide blue eyes glowing from Gojo’s magic.
“I’d eat you up in a heartbeat, Yuuji-kun,” Gojo coos at him with a smug wiggle of his perfect eyebrows, laughing when Yuuji rolls his eyes at him in response.
“Not you that I want eating me,” Yuuji mutters with a pout, his pink ears pressed down against his head.
Wanting a Vampyr’s poisonous fangs deep in his neck to drink his blood shouldn’t make Yuuji squeeze his thighs tightly together in need. He shouldn’t be fantasizing about his mate pushing him down on all fours and yanking his pink tail up to expose his eager wet cunt.
Yuuji would whine for his mate to bite his neck and drink his fill while he’s knot-deep inside him, breeding his Omegan womb full and pup Yuuji with his offspring. He’d beg for more until his mate marked him with bleeding bite marks all over his skin and left his pussy leaking from his fertile cum, a complete and utter shaking mess of euphoric lust and happiness.
Yuuji wants his mate so much, but there is no way Ryoumen Sukuna, the reigning King of the Vampyrs for two thousand years, would ever want a young mongrel Lycan with no important bloodlines as his bride.
“Damn, you’re really pent up, huh? Save them pheromones for the big guy,” Gojo teases him as he eats a sugared grape from a floating crystal bowl.
Yuuji flops onto the bed with a loud groan, cheeks red with desire and embarrassment as he buries his face into the giant cloud-soft pillows.
“Not like he’ll even notice,” the Omega mutters with a sad whine, remembering the first time he attended the Summit years ago, where he foolishly imprinted on the Vampyr King. The thick intoxicating scent of the Alpha—burning sandalwood and the delicious taste of blood on his tongue—had left Yuuji panting and whimpering with shaking knees from the sudden rise of lust.
The Vampyr King had been scenting the maze in boredom before Yuuji arrived, an Alphan instinct when in unclaimed territory. Yuuji had spied the taller being from behind the marble pillars, wide-eyed and awed at seeing a Vampyr so close for the first time.
Sukuna had appeared so handsome, towering over the maze walls with his great height and powerful body, blood-red eyes glaring at the world with deserved arrogance. Yuuji doubted he could see past his chest, his head reaching barely below the Vampyr’s collarbones. Sukuna could grab Yuuji in his hands and have his fingertips touch so easily when wrapped around his waist…
The Lycan boy had unknowingly desired the Vampyr even before his Omegan instincts roared into existence.
He had stood shaken and desperate in the middle of that empty garden maze after he imprinted on the Alpha, surrounded only by the intoxicating scent of Sukuna, who had left it behind in boredom.
The years since have been difficult, Yuuji’s mind constantly at war to run from the Pack and towards the unknown lands of the Vampyr King. He had alienated himself from the others, their scents all offensive to his nose now that his heart and soul were tied solely to the ancient King of the race anathema to his own.
A doomed love, never to be. Yuuji made his peace with that ever since the first year he appeared at the Summit, young and eager to see the different species of the land, leaving with teary eyes and a needy yearning deep in his gut. He’s accepted that he’ll die unfulfilled and empty of pups and a Bond.
“Just once is enough,” Gojo whispers as he runs a calming hand through Yuuji’s hair and fluffy ears, his other softly glowing hand gently wiping his tears away. “Join this Hunt, and you can live with the fact that you at least tried. I’ll protect you after everything is said and done.”
Yuuji nuzzles the Fae’s hand, starving for any affection and comfort. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart. Needle in my eyes, the whole nine yards!”
“ Please don’t stuff needles in your eyes, Gojo-san!”
The Hunt is a simple affair all the creatures of the night had created to promote unity across the land. At every gathering at the Summit during the peak of the full moon, a mythical creature is let loose into the enchanted valley below and hunted down for sport. Only the unmated may participate, the urge to chase triggering their dynamic nature to their fullest to hunt, kill, and mate. Many prosperous Bonds have been made under the full moon of the Hunt, most of them between species that would have never occurred millennia’s ago.
However, in the nine hundred ninety-nine years since the first Hunt was created, there has never been a Bond between a Vampyr and a Lycan.
As if any of our kind would mate with those walking corpses , Naoya would sneer whenever the fact was brought up, his disgust tearing wounds into Yuuji’s heart.
The early years after he first imprinted on Sukuna were filled with Yuuji wondering if there was something irrevocably wrong with himself. Since he was a pup, Yuuji had dreamed of being in a loving Bond surrounded by pups, to never be lonely again in his den and nest. He had been excited to see which of the species of the land would be his destined mate when Naobito finally approved him joining the delegates to the Summit. He had brushed and fluffed his tail and wore all the inherited jewelry his grandpa saved for him before passing to impress any unmated prospects he might run into.
Then, out of shy curiosity, he secretly followed Sukuna to the gardens. Now Yuuji will never have a family again.
He will pine after a mate who will never give him a glance, smile and kiss him, or breathe in his scent with a pleased rumble. His den will be silent of pups, his nest empty of the mixture of scents from him and his mate. His neck will be untouched and barren until the end of his days.
It took a long time until Yuuji accepted that he’d die lonely and unmated. Years attending the Summit and staying away from the garden mazes, avoiding the Vampyr delegates and their handsome King who had no idea he’d sentenced Yuuji to a slow heartbreak. His Omegan instincts roared and clawed at him whenever he avoided the Hunt, screaming in agony whenever Sukuna would join and head into the enchanted valley surrounded by people who weren’t Yuuji .
He can’t ignore it anymore. This will be his last tenure as a delegate of the Lycan Family, his last chance to run in the Hunt with the other species of the night and claim himself a mate. If not, he’ll be paired with whoever the Alpha of the Pack deemed most convenient.
Standing before the massive doors to the ballroom, Yuuji forces down the urge to weep.
“Want me to make you invisible?” Nobara offers with a dark frown. Her witch hat is decorated with glowing roses she enchanted to glimmer like rubies in the pale blue firelights of the castle’s crystal chandeliers, the sheer black wrap dress glittering with red sparkles hiding nothing of her nude form. Like Yuuji, she will be joining this Hunt as an unmated Omega, her work assisting with preparing the Hunt finishing just in time for her to appear in the celebrations.
“Nah, I’m good,” Yuuji rasps with a strained smile, wincing at his friend’s sharp glare. “Well, I’ll live. Just gotta avoid him til the actual Hunt, right? Easy peas—”
“You are
not
going to be a coward tonight!”
“Coward!?”
“Coward,” Nobara sneers, pointing a black fingernail between Yuuji’s offended eyes. “If you’re not going in invisible, then you are going in with style! Make that bastard regret ever not noticing you!”
“Dude, shut up!” Yuuji frantically checks around them for any mischievous ghosts that may be listening, cheeks red and pink ears pointed firmly up to hear for any hidden eavesdroppers. “It’s not like he knows I even exist! It’s not his fault!”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s your fault.”
Ouch.
Yuuji bites his lip and turns away from her piercing gaze, his clawed hands nervously playing with the inherited jewelry he’s finally wearing again after many years.
Holding up the thin see-through harem pants clinging to his hips was a gold chain belt decorated with diamonds. Thinner chains with small bells dangled from the belt and chimed with his every movement; their sound will ring sweetly in the air when he runs in the enchanted valley. He was barefoot with gold toe rings and ankle bracelets, his tight black stirrups and a black thong being the only thing maintaining his modesty underneath the thin cotton fabric of his pants. His chest and wrists were bare, as were his neck, fluffy ears, and pink Lycan tail, all of which were sensitive areas where his scent was the strongest for the unmated to smell during the Hunt.
He had lined his eyes with coal and painted his lips red, barely avoiding painting the Vampyr King’s black markings onto his skin. Before he left to find Nobara, Yuuji had looked into the grand mirror of his room and found himself beautiful and tempting, a gorgeous Omega that any unmated prospect would be happy to claim as their own.
A glittering fool , Yuuji had thought at the time with a mirthless smile. Here he was, dolling himself up for a Hunt that will end with him untouched by an Alpha who would never desire him. Were it not for Gojo’s promise, a Fae’s promise, that he will be there to help with the broken pieces after tonight, Yuuji would have already left the Summit and wandered on his own back to the empty den he calls home.
He hears Nobara sigh before a small hand gently touches his arm, her magic tickling his skin in apology. “I don’t want you to go in there and wallow in a corner until the feast is done.”
Yuuji reluctantly turns to face her firm gaze, Nobara’s lined brown eyes glowing under the pale blue firelight.
“This is our chance to show off what we got and make all of them notice us before the Hunt,” she says encouragingly, her painted burgundy lips set in an earnest smile. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
The yearning he’s tried so hard to ignore all these years chokes him where he stands, a hot ball in his throat that brings frustrated tears to his eyes.
A den full of pups. A nest where the scent of him and his mate were entwined together as one. Sukuna’s red gaze solely on him and no one else…
Yuuji shakily breathes in, keeping his yearning wishes firmly in his mind’s eye, and nods. “Okay…fuck it, let’s do this.”
The massive ballroom doors groan slowly open at the end of his sentence, his determination sealing his fate.