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The collar is uncomfortable, but it’s not nearly as bad as the chastity belt.
Sasha flushes and reminds himself why he bears the humiliation of walking around campus like this. With everything he’s up to these days, it’s best to keep a low profile. And for an omega at Ordine, this is what a low profile means.
If only he hadn’t been so careless that night a few months ago—but, then again, it wasn’t really Sasha’s carelessness that was the issue. It was the ridiculous “rule” he’d broken: no omegas allowed out alone past eight PM. At least, no omegas like himself—uncollared, unmated, unmarried. The university argued there was no reason to be out, unless you were up to trouble.
So what if Sasha was up to trouble?
—
Sasha grew up on the peninsula. Hippie central, some of the alphas and betas call it. But the chance to study chemistry at the University of Ordine—even as old-school traditionalist as it is—was too good to pass up. Never mind that most omegas that attend would end up dropping out, expelled for misconduct, mated or pregnant or both by the time they’d be expected to graduate.
As a freshman, Sasha was one of about seven hundred omegas in the class. As a senior, he’s only one of about seventy—and that number is sure to dwindle by May.
Part of that is due to the University’s strict ban on heat suppressants. They disrupt omegas’ fragile natural rhythms, so the official communication goes. In Sasha’s opinion, it’s all a load of horseshit. What’s disruptive is spending a week writhing in bed, desperate for a knot, unable to think of anything past your own hole—let alone do any homework.
But Sasha wouldn’t really know. Suppressants are legal on the peninsula, but he learned pretty early on that he needed a higher dose than could be legally prescribed. He’s been brewing his own since high school.
Grant figured out his secret four months into college.
Grant was an asshole when Sasha first met him. The kind that would say things like be a good little omega when he’d ask Sasha to fetch something they needed for an experiment, even though they were supposed to be equal lab partners.
He could’ve been a poster boy for Ordine, with all the hallmarks of a perfect alpha: A wealthy, traditionalist upbringing, the kind of stern, no-nonsense demeanor that makes omegas melt, big shoulders that scream alpha but not jock.
And he’d always been damn smart, to boot.
By the end of his first semester, Sasha had gotten too comfortable with his routine. Every month, he’d take his suppressants, get a motel for a few days, pretend to be in the care of some random alpha—when really, he was just holing up and doing all the work he’d be expected to turn in upon his return to class.
His planned “heat” for December, however, was smack-dab in the middle of finals. He’d promised Grant that it wouldn’t affect his ability to contribute to their final lab project, and he stuck to that promise.
That was his mistake, but he didn’t know it at the time. It was only months later that Grant admitted the biggest tip-off was the quality and timeliness of Sasha’s work. No one has time for organic chemistry while they’re getting their brains fucked out, he’d said, making Sasha blush.
But all Grant had done then, when Sasha had shown back up to class to take the final, was sniff the air suspiciously and say “You don’t smell like you were just with an alpha.”
Sasha almost got on his knees right there to beg to not be taken to the OCC.
If the horror stories weren’t enough, the Omega Care Center also happens to be right in the middle of the sciences complex. Sasha walks past it to class every day. Sometimes the scent alone is enough to make him wet, his body feeling the pull to sync cycles with the needy, aching omegas riding out their heats inside.
Just a few heats spent in the care of the OCC are usually enough to have omegas scrambling for a mate—or making sloppy mistakes, like getting themselves knotted by someone that they’re not mated to, where expulsion is the best-case scenario and expulsion-plus-pregnancy is the worst.
Sasha knew he wouldn’t survive the OCC, especially after not having a heat in years.
Just as he was about to beg, though, Grant had shrugged it off. “Good luck on the test.”
He’s kept Sasha’s secret ever since then.
The friendship they'd developed afterwards would probably best be described as unlikely. Sure, it’s been rocky sometimes. To this day Grant still says horrible, traditionalist things—things like it’s just where omegas belong or you’re pretty smart for an omega. But Sasha knows his heart must be in the right place. It must just be how he was raised. Because if Grant really believed all those things, Sasha would’ve been expelled a long time ago.
And he was even gracious, the couple of times he’d tried asking Sasha out and been politely rejected. Sasha told him he didn’t have time for romance. It wasn’t even a lie, and Grant knew it, too—chem was kicking both of their asses.
Aside from all that, it was great to have an alpha lab partner to escort Sasha back to his room after they’d both stayed a bit too late doing titrations. And Grant, despite the old beliefs he’d sometimes spout, would nod his head in agreement when Sasha ranted about how stupid the curfew rule was.
So when Sasha was caught outside at half past ten on a Thursday, he’d told the campus enforcers that he was on his way to meet his Alpha and marched them straight to Grant’s door.
The first thing Sasha registered when Grant had answered the door was his frown. The second was his smell. Grant had always smelled nice to him, sure, but Sasha had never been in his home, with everything so completely bathed in his smell. Powerful—musky, spicy, masculine. Distinctly and undeniably alpha.
Sasha had to hold his breath.
“Do you know why this omega was out after hours?” The enforcer had asked.
Grant caught on quickly. “He was visiting me, sir.”
The enforcer sighed. “Well, if you’re not going to collar him, then at least keep track of time, would you?”
“Of course, sir,” Grant had said, and the enforcer grumbled off.
The moment the door closed, Grant turned to Sasha sharply. “What were you doing out so late?”
“Lab,” Sasha said. Fuck, the smell was so much stronger inside instead of on the doorstep.
“Bullshit, Sash. We’re in the same classes. It’s all readings right now.”
Sasha had sighed. “I can’t tell you, Grant. I’m sorry.”
“Sasha,” he snapped. “I’ve already been covering for you for years about breaking one rule. Now I’m covering for another. I deserve the truth.”
Sasha had bitten his lip. Grant was right.
Sasha never meant to become some kind of… some kind of vigilante. Hell, it took him a full year before he started offering to brew suppressants for even his close friends, let alone a quarter of the omegas at Ordine.
He’d been content to keep his head down and avoid notice. It was Petra who convinced him to expand the operation, some time around the end of junior year. The omegas in their class had officially dropped into the double digits after Alan had let Marianne mate him and she’d forced him to drop out.
By then, that year’s freshman class was also down nearly two hundred omegas.
It was stupid. Really, really, stupid. But Sasha had agreed—there was something thrilling about sticking it to the university’s stupid rules while also getting to do something he was really good at. Plus, Petra was always so impressed at his chem skills, and Jon and Angie would shower him with praise, too.
It’s not like it was a ton of work, anyways. Pilfering the necessary chemicals was a breeze—he needed so little of calosuprolate, the active ingredient, that he could slip a bag or vial of the powder into his jacket pocket during labs with no one the wiser. Plus, ever since he’d moved off-campus, he could brew it in the comfort of his own apartment.
The riskiest part was deliveries. In the beginning, he’d just carry around a few vials to drop off with friends when he saw them. But once the operation grew to one, two, three hundred omegas, that became untenable. So Sasha had taken to running deliveries under the cover of night, dropping bags of vials off with his network of secondary helpers to distribute to omegas in dorms or off-campus apartments.
That had been alright for a while. Sasha would keep his brown hair cropped shorter than is typical for omegas, wear baggy clothes to hide his small frame. When he'd add a scarf to the ensemble to obscure his scent glands, he could even pass as a beta from afar.
But the more the operation had expanded, the more noticeable it became that fewer and fewer omegas on campus were having their regular heat cycle. The most obvious tell had been enrollment. The year’s freshman class started at 713 omegas. A couple of months in, it had only dwindled to 698. Unheard of.
Campus had started beefing up security, including hiring more enforcers to prowl at night. That’s when Sasha had been caught. His only saving grace was that it happened after he’d dropped his last delivery off for the night, not before.
To his credit, Grant took the news shockingly well.
It had made Sasha proud to call him a friend. The one lone alpha he considered an ally in a sea of sharks. Grant had cursed a little bit, paced around the room, asked Sasha what the hell he was thinking. But he didn’t tell Sasha to stop.
In fact, he immediately started strategizing.
“That enforcer brought up a good point,” Grant said. “A collar would mean they wouldn’t give you such a hard time if they caught you out after hours again. They’d direct their questions to your Alpha.”
Collaring has always been a weird in-between. A collared omega isn’t totally free, but they aren’t tied down by a mating or a marriage, either. Voluntary collarings, like the one Grant had proposed, could be undone as easily as unlocking the collar. They happened all the time, common in a lot of government jobs and old-school companies, with omegas employees collared by their bosses.
But if the school had caught him sneaking around again, they might give him the choice between expulsion and a mandatory collaring—which would give Sasha no choice of Alpha and be a lot harder to undo.
Getting ahead of that was definitely his best bet. That didn’t mean Sasha found the idea any less humiliating.
A collar tells the world that an alpha is responsible for the collared omega. What it implies is that the omega can’t be responsible for themselves. In other words, a collar would feed into all the stupid, traditionalist bullshit that Sasha had been fighting against.
But he had to admit that Grant had a point.
When he met up with Petra in the library the next afternoon, a thin, black leather collar sitting starkly against his throat, that was the logic he’d parroted to her. He’d still blushed when he said it, though, feeling the judgment in her eyes.
“Please don’t tell me I’m losing you too, Sash.”
“You’re not. It’s just practical. And besides, Grant is—I trust him.”
She’d eyed him suspiciously, but turned back to her laptop without another word.
The most humiliating reaction to the collar wasn’t from omegas, though. Any omega that wasn’t already collared or mated themselves probably knew who Sasha was by that point, and understood the need for cover.
No, the most humiliating reaction came from the school’s alphas.
Sasha had never felt more popular than he did walking into his usual Orgo II lecture to every single eye on him.
Then came the questions—Who’s your Alpha? Finally settling down, huh, baby?—and the comments—Gotta ask your Alpha if I can use you. Hey, I’m taking bets on how long til he drops out.
The classes he shared with Grant were even worse.
“Get me some goggles, would you, sweetheart?”
Grant, of course, was long past all of that bullshit. But under the watchful eyes of their classmates, eager to see the only remaining omega in the chem department brought down a peg, Sasha had to play the part of dutiful collared omega.
“Yes, Alpha,” he’d have to answer, cheeks hot for some incomprehensible reason.
Even his glycobiology professor had nodded approvingly when he saw the collar. “Always such a smart one in everything but your own nature. I’m glad you’ve figured it out now—and that your Alpha is letting you stay in my class.”
Sasha had taken great pleasure stealing a vial of calosuprolate from right under his nose, that day.
His pleasure didn’t last very long, because soon afterwards, the university began implementing even stricter measures, including the mandatory monitoring of omega cycles in order to figure out what was happening with the missing omega heats. Uncollared omegas were to report to the OCC. Since Sasha was collared, it was up to Grant.
“Can’t you just—lie?” Sasha asked, clutching the worksheet in front of him like a shield. On it was Sasha’s name, Grant’s name, and several empty spaces for Grant to take down measurements: Sasha’s temperature, blood pressure… slick production and semen production. The thought of Grant taking those measurements made his head spin.
“Sash, I really don’t know. I collared you. If I’m caught lying for you, I’ll be the one who gets in trouble.”
Sasha had smiled shakily, trying to lighten the mood. “Come on. Not like a little college shenanigans are going to impact your job prospects.”
He learned a few months into his strange friendship with Grant that he was Grant Steinway—as in the heir to Steinway Pharmaceuticals, the country’s biggest supplier of omega healthcare drugs. Heat inducers, fertility drugs, and the like—but notably, not suppressants. In fact, Steinway was famous for lobbying Councillors to make suppressants illegal.
Sure, the whole family were all devout traditionalists, opposed to suppressants on principle. It also just so happened that the regulations they were lobbying for would also severely undercut their competition.
Master manipulators, the whole lot of ‘em, if you asked Sasha.
But Grant was different. Maybe he’d turn the company around.
Grant didn’t find Sasha’s joke funny. He’d pinched his nose with two fingers, sounding weary. “It’s not just up to my dad, you know. There’s a whole board of big traditionalist types that would make my life hell if I got caught doing any of the stuff I’m doing for you, Sash.”
Sasha had bitten his lip. “I know. But I just—come on, Grant. It’ll be fine. How would they even know?”
To this day, Sasha still doesn’t know how the school found out. Grant’s theory was that the falsified measurements they’d provided were off-base somehow—even though Sasha had triple-checked them to make sure they made sense. Sasha was of the mind that some traditionalist omega had gotten wind of the underground suppressant operation and called in a tip.
No matter how it happened, though, the result was that Grant and Sasha were called up in front of the University Conduct Board the following month. Just like Grant had said, it was him who faced the brunt of the dressing-down.
“This is a stain on your record, young man,” the dean had said, frowning sharply down at the two of them.
“I know, ma’am,” Grant said, head bowed.
“You have such a bright, promising future. Do not ruin it with your inability to provide your omega with the firm hand that he needs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sasha felt horrible. The dean hadn’t said a word to him—only to Grant.
She’d sighed and straightened her papers. “Alright. Since you apparently can’t be trusted with his health for now, I’m going to send you both the OCC to take a reading.”
Even though Sasha had been reluctant to go to the OCC, at least it meant Grant didn’t have to take his measurements, in the end. He didn’t think he could have handled looking Grant in the face in class if he’d had Grant’s steady, capable fingers inside him, checking for wetness—Grant’s broad hand wrapped around him, milking his cock, to see how much semen he produced…
Sasha had shivered at the thought of it. Yeah, much better that it was some random beta nurse.
The nurse frowned when he read over the results, Sasha and Grant sitting nervously in the waiting room. “Do you know how often your omega masturbates?”
“No,” Grant said.
“Hmm. He’s not making nearly as much slick as he should be at this point in his cycle. Sometimes we see this. Omegas that engage in too much self-pleasure can throw off their hormonal balance.”
Sasha flushed. That was definitely not the case. He masturbated a very healthy amount, thank you very much. Well, maybe he had been doing it a bit more since he’d started spending more time at Grant’s house, but definitely not enough to “throw off his balance.” Still, it was best to shut his mouth and let them believe that instead of the real reason—years of illegal suppressant use.
“Right, thank you,” Grant said. “I’ll make sure to monitor his masturbation habits from now on.”
Hearing Grant talk so bluntly about his masturbation habits had brought fresh color to Sasha’s cheeks.
“Yeah, about that,” the nurse said, scribbling onto a pad. “According to Dean Windsor, you’re on watch, too. I’m not supposed to let you go without prescribing something to make sure you’re monitoring him.”
“I’m not putting that on,” Sasha said, red as a firetruck, staring at the small, school-issued package on Grant’s coffee table.
“You have to,” Grant said.
“You cannot be serious,” Sasha said.
“I’m dead serious, Sash. You wanna go out there and play activist, fine. I support you, you know that. But you’re not risking my future.” It was the first time Grant had used that voice on Sasha—textbook alpha, stern and hard.
Sasha had gulped and lifted the chastity belt from its box. It was deceptively simple—a t-shaped piece of metal with a lock on the back and a small hole on the front to screw in the included cock cage.
Just looking at it was so humiliating that Sasha had to squeeze his eyes shut. But Grant was right. Sasha hadn’t just brought consequences upon himself. He’d gotten Grant perilously close to expulsion, too. Grant, who had been nothing but helpful to him for the past four years.
“I’ll help you put it on,” Grant said.
“That’s—not what I’m worried about!” Sasha had squeaked, cheeks heating at the thought of Grant’s hands around his waist, buckling him in, or—god forbid—going to put the cock cage on and finding out just how inexplicably hard Sasha was.
Grant had frowned, and Sasha felt a pang of guilt. He was only trying to help. “Okay. You can use the bathroom. But I’ll have to check you afterwards once it’s on.”
The belt had the intended effect—Sasha was dripping wet all the time from then on.
The first few days, over the weekend, weren’t so bad. It was when he had to go to lab that things really started to spiral out of control. Just walking past the OCC on his way to class, smelling all the desperate omegas inside, would turn Sasha’s brain to mush for at least half an hour.
When Sasha could preempt that feeling in the comfort of his own home, it hadn’t been so bad. But with the belt, it meant sitting in class wet and hardly able to pay attention, too busy trying not to think about how badly he wanted to run to the nearest bathroom and stuff a toy into his hole.
He started losing focus in labs. Making stupid mistakes. His grades had even started to slip.
Worse, with Sasha having faced campus enforcement twice by that point, he’d landed himself squarely on their shit list. It was like they were targeting him specifically, which would be insane on a campus of thousands. Sasha went to Petra, afraid they were close to uncovering the entire operation, but she’d just rolled her eyes and told him he was being paranoid.
Still, it didn’t feel normal to be stopped three times a day to confirm he was wearing the belt. He was late to class more than once because of it, having to shed multiple layers of clothing to provide the proof, standing embarrassed on the sidewalk as other students walked by and stared. Plus, it would be the end of him and Grant if he was ever stopped when he was carrying any suppressant supplies.
“Why don’t you just wear something more appropriate for omegas?” Grant had said.
Sasha flushed with annoyance. “Appropriate for omegas?”
Grant only shrugged, like he hadn’t just said something wildly and rudely typist. “Kill two birds with one stone. They won’t need to stop you if they can see it plainly, and maybe you’ll also get them off your case if you show them you’re being an upstanding omegan student.”
Sasha opened his mouth to protest, but—like he usually did—Grant did have a point.
Grant had been right about everything so far, hadn’t he?
He’d also, infuriatingly, been right that Sasha needed help putting the belt on and taking it off.
The keyhole was located in the back, and it was tiny, and the key needed to go in at such a specific angle—Sasha had struggled alone in the bathroom that first day for almost ten minutes. It was like whoever designed it made it difficult to use alone—which was probably true.
It meant Sasha had to go to Grant’s every few days for cleanings.
Sasha didn’t know why it made him so furiously embarrassed. He tried to reason with himself that everyone around him already thought that’s what was going on between them anyways, ever since Grant collared him months ago, since they’d started walking around campus with Grant’s hand resting possessively on his shoulder or around his waist. Hell, everyone definitely thought a lot more was going on.
But somehow, Sasha found himself suddenly shy around Grant, when the only thing that was happening was Grant seeing his bare ass and cock for a couples minutes a week.
The moment Grant would unlock him, Sasha would grab a towel and wrap it hastily around himself. Grant’s eyes would sometimes linger on Sasha’s waist, and Sasha was sure he could tell how hard he was underneath the towel, sure he was able to infer all the viciously shameful places Sasha’s brain was taking him. But then he’d turn his back to wash the belt in the sink, giving Sasha a bit of privacy to rinse off in the shower.
Several times, Sasha considered asking Grant for five minutes, just five minutes alone during the cleanings. He was only tasked with monitoring Sasha’s masturbation, not preventing it—he wouldn’t get in trouble if he just gave Sasha a few quick moments to himself.
And yet—the thought of asking Grant to leave the room at all was unbearably humiliating. He especially didn’t want to have to admit that being around Grant was partially the reason he needed the time alone at all.
So Sasha would just have to scrub miserably at his achingly hard cock in the shower, entertaining the thought of skipping suppressants for just one month so he’d have a reason to be out of the belt. Grant would keep his back dutifully turned, and Sasha would think of what he’d say if he knew what Sasha was thinking—he’d probably shake his head and say something like can’t trust a horny omega to make rational decisions. Instead of making him angry, it would only make Sasha more desperate. He wanted to make the irrational decision. He wanted to bust down the shower door and drop to the floor in presenting position and beg to be knotted. He wanted to touch himself, damn it.
It was getting harder and harder, but Sasha did manage to stop himself every time. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if even Grant started seeing him as just another ditzy, slutty omega in need of a firm, controlling hand—no, not another, because not all omegas were like that—!
Except—Sasha had begun to think that maybe, just maybe, he was like that.
Definitely not all omegas.
But maybe Sasha.
It was after one of these cleaning sessions that Grant had suggested Sasha change his wardrobe. Maybe Sasha was just eager to say something to please Grant so he could flee as soon as possible. Maybe it was just the knowledge that, however much he didn’t like it, Grant was probably right. Or maybe it was the tiny spark of mortifying arousal, buried somewhere deep beneath the annoyance, that had shot through him when Grant had so flippantly said appropriate for omegas. Like it was the most natural, obvious thing in the world.
In any case—Sasha had nodded yes.
“We’ll go shopping tonight,” Grant said.
God was it humiliating for those first few days, when Sasha would walk past a mirror and catch the outline of the belt visible through the skintight “omega-appropriate” jeans that Grant bought him—or worse, sticking up over the top of the miniskirts that Grant had tossed in the cart, too.
The lacy little panties that Grant also insisted on had seemed like massive overkill, until the first time Sasha was stopped by campus enforcement and they’d lifted his skirt to find boxers. They gave his bag a good, thorough search after that. The next time it happened, Sasha was wearing a tiny pink pair that didn’t even cover half of the chastity belt. When enforcement had flipped up his skirt then, all they’d done was snort and go on their merry way.
Sasha wore them every day from then on.
Petra and Jon and Angie had all started looking at him like he was just a little crazy, but Sasha was adamant that the logic checked out. He was the one taking the biggest risks—brewing the suppressants, making the deliveries—and so he needed to deflect as much suspicion from him as possible, especially with the University growing more and more suspicious. So what if Grant’s lingering, appreciative looks also had him soaking through his panties?
In any case, his friends had to begrudgingly agree, because just a week and a half later, the president announced the University’s newest measure: locking up all supplies of calosuprolate and anything else that could be used in the illicit brewing of suppressants.
If they wanted to make the next month’s delivery, they would need to stage a heist.
Sasha went back and forth a long, long time on telling Grant about it. If he were to get caught, it’d be expulsion for both of them. And as much as Sasha wanted to help himself and the other omegas at Ordine, he couldn’t let Grant down again.
When the first words out of Grant’s mouth were how can I help? Sasha knew he’d made the right decision.
Grant helped him set up a plan. He’d procure a copied key to the storage rooms in the chem basement—Sasha didn’t ask how, and didn’t need to know. Sasha’s job was the more dangerous one. He would “forget” something in class, and Grant would escort him back to the lab at night under the guise of retrieving it, keeping watch outside. Sasha would sneak into the basement, get the calosuprolate, and get the hell out.
It went off without a hitch.
The moment he and Grant had made it back to his apartment safe and sound, Sasha had been so drunk on adrenaline and triumph that he nearly rose up onto the balls of his feet and kissed Grant.
But Sasha had bravely resisted—there was work to do. He’d spent all night brewing and making deliveries.
—
The heist had been last night. So, yes, in short—Sasha has been up to trouble, and a lot of it.
When he zooms out and looks at himself—collared, caged, and in the sluttiest clothes he can think of, slick already threatening to drip down his thighs—he can see why alphas leer at him, why betas look down their nose at him like he’s a whore.
But the omegas he delivered to last night… they’d looked at him like he was their savior. Petra and Jon and Angie had looked so awed. Even Grant had looked at him so proudly when Sasha dumped the bag of calosuprolate vials onto the table last night. It all makes the humiliation worth it. For their praise, he can handle anything.
He can’t handle heat.
It comes on so slowly that at first he doesn’t even notice it. At first, he thinks he just pushed himself staying up too late. Then he thinks he might be coming down with the flu.
It’s not until Petra calls him, breathing heavy through the phone, that it finally clicks.
“Something was wrong with the batch, Sash. Everyone’s going into heat. Everyone.”
Sasha’s stomach sinks like a rock.
In a daze, he makes his way over to Grant’s apartment.
The moment Grant opens the door, he sniffs the air, and his eyebrows raise so high they practically disappear into his hair. “You’re going into heat.”
Sasha nods. Fuck, Grant smells amazing. Has he always smelled so amazing?
“I’ll bring you to the OCC,” he says.
“No, wait, Grant. I need—” Fuck, terrible way to start a sentence. Sasha can’t think about what he needs right now. “Can you take off the belt?” he tries instead.
“Sasha, you need medical care.”
“Please, no. Just take it off. I can… I can handle myself.” Even though he hasn’t needed to use it in so long, Sasha still keeps a heat dildo deep in the bottom of his underwear drawer, complete with an inflatable knot.
“Then what? You get yourself knotted by some rogue alpha? No way. I’ve collared you. The university expects me to take care of you. I can’t let that happen.”
“I’ll go straight home,” Sasha all but begs. “You can walk me home. You can even lock me inside.”
Grant is shaking his head. “Sure, then you jump out the window the second I leave for class.”
Sasha wants to tear out his hair. “Is that really what you think? That omegas are so desperate? That I’d be so desperate?”
“Of course I do, Sasha, smell yourself. You’re begging for me. Begging for me to fill you up and breed you.”
He wants to protest—the stereotypical, typist things Grant is saying, the obscene, humiliating way he’s saying them—but they’re true. Sasha can smell himself, and Grant’s words are as accurate a description as they get.
“It’s just my body,” he grits out. “It’s not me. Trust me.”
His first heat in six years—and after a month and a half of chastity to boot. There is no way Sasha survives this without at least the ability to get a toy knot inside him. But now that Grant says it, he’s doubting his own ability to get by with just that.
Especially because Grant smells so, so good.
“Am I supposed to trust your words, or your body? Because your body is telling me you’re ready to jump on the first knot you see.”
“Please,” Sasha says, stupidly aroused and growing even more so now that Grant has got him thinking about knots. About Grant’s knot, in particular, only a few short feet and two layers of fabric away from him. “Just take off the chastity belt. Please, please.”
Grant shakes his head. “Sash, I’m sorry. You know the rules. Omegas can’t have unmated sex in heat. And since I’ve collared you, I’d be expelled for it, too.”
“Omegas can’t have an unmated knotting in heat,” Sasha corrects, a bit desperately. “What if you…”
“Are you propositioning me?” The low, deep tone of Grant’s voice shocks Sasha back to some semblance of reality.
“I—” Sasha’s brain is so heat-addled, he’s not thinking straight. “Never mind. Fuck. Never mind.”
“Okay,” Grant says.
“What?”
“I said—okay.” Grant steps aside to let Sasha step inside the house, one searing hot hand to the back of Sasha’s neck guiding him inside. “I collared you. I’m responsible for your well-being. And you’re clearly in no state to be alone right now.”
It’s more of the same dumb “omegas can’t take care of themselves” crap, but honestly, Sasha did ask for it, and Grant is giving him what he wants, and Sasha can’t find it in himself to complain. He follows dumbly as Grant steers him into his bedroom.
Sasha’s never been inside of it before. It’s just a normal room, with a normal bed and a normal dresser and a normal amount of clothes littering the floor. Normal except that it smells unbelievably divine. It’s like being wrapped up completely in Grant.
As Grant roots around in a drawer for the key to Sasha’s belt, he lies dazedly on the bed, clutching Grant’s bedsheets, eyes shut tight. Fuck, coming here was a huge mistake. He’d still been levelheaded when he arrived on Grant’s doorstep, but being around him—his scent, his voice—has made Sasha tumble so deep into arousal that he couldn’t claw himself out of it if his life depended on it.
And in a practical sense, it does. He can’t let himself get knotted or else they’ll both be expelled, even though that’s what his body is begging for. He doesn’t know if he has the willpower to resist right now. He just hopes that Grant does.
Grant is amazingly levelheaded for an alpha who’s around an in-heat omega. It makes Sasha’s cunt clench to think about how cool, composed, capable his Alpha is. No—just an alpha, not his Alpha.
And why not? his brain unhelpfully asks. Why isn’t the strong, steadfast man in front of him, who’s lightly but firmly pressing Sasha’s thighs apart, whispering sweet comforting words to him as he clicks the belt off, Sasha’s Alpha yet? He could take such good care of him.
“God, Sash, look at you. Dripping wet for me already. I had a feeling that if you were going to such lengths to stop your heats, they must be bad. Fuck, baby, I was right.”
He is right. About all of it: Sasha’s terrible heats. His unbearable wetness. His desperate hole, clenching around a knot that isn’t there. His cock, already hard and desperate, too. Grant has always been right about everything, this whole year.
“Please,” Sasha nearly sobs, pushing his ass up into presenting position. “Fill me up already.”
“Patience, sweetheart,” Grant says, taking his sweet time unzipping his pants before grabbing him by the waist and flipping him around. “Wanna see that pretty face of yours,” he murmurs.
The repositioning means that Sasha also gets to see Grant’s cock, glistening with pre-come, resting mouthwateringly against Sasha’s cunt. Sasha rolls his hips down, purely on instinct. Grant stays maddeningly still.
“You ever been fucked by an alpha, Sash?”
“No,” Sasha says.
“We’ll go slow,” he says reassuringly, which is not what Sasha wants to hear. Every moment Grant’s cock is not inside him drives him crazier and crazier.
True to his word, Grant pushes in slowly, so slowly that Sasha feels every terrible, powerful inch of it. Oh, god. How could Sasha ever have thought a toy would suffice? This is—irresistible. No toy could possibly compare to this: Grant’s huge, strong hands gripping his thighs, steadying him as he picks up speed. Grant’s scent, spicy and warm and all around him, making him dizzy. The feeling of being used like a toy, instead of the other way around.
Sasha’s cock, hard and dripping and ignored, twitches against his stomach.
Grant smiles and gives it a tug. “That’s it, baby. I knew you’d love this.”
Another thing Sasha failed to account for—the part where he’s doing it with someone else. Someone who he’s been fantasizing about doing exactly this with for the past few—he doesn’t even know. Months? Years? Someone who can work his body and his mind in entirely unexpected ways. Grant pulls all the way out and pushes back in, achingly slow. Yes, god, it’s so much better than Sasha had imagined—and yet—
Even if Sasha didn’t account for any of the rest of it, he’d always thought he’d at least know what this part would feel like—the feeling of a cock inside him. Sasha’s dildo with the inflatable knot would always leave him feeling uncomfortably full, almost painfully so. He always figured that’s what a real cock would feel like.
Except Grant’s cock is even bigger than his dildo, and yet, and yet—even when he bottoms out, Sasha still somehow feels empty.
Sasha knows what his body is craving.
“Grant,” he says waveringly, achingly. “I need you to knot me.”
Grant repeats his earlier movement: pulling almost all the way out, then inching back in again. Like he’s teasing him. His voice is teasing, too. “Come on, Sash, you’re the one who said it. No unmated knottings.”
Sasha shuts his eyes, tears springing up in the corners.
Right. That’s right. Mating would be a terrible, horrible, inadvisable mistake. He knows this. He’s always known this.
If collaring made him Grant’s responsibility, mating would make him Grant’s property. Sasha wears the stupid clothes and the stupid collar and even the stupid belt, ultimately, in order to keep suspicion off of him. He could decide to stop the whole operation at any time. Put on his normal clothes, take off the collar, entrust the keys to his chastity belt to the OCC. Sure, it’d be hell to ride out his heats at the Center, but he could slog through it for one semester if he really tried.
But if Grant mated him—Grant would have total control over him. Grant could make him keep the collar and the clothes and the belt.
Sasha doesn’t even know why he’s thinking like this, though. Grant has always been good to him, and he’s always been right. Maybe it’d be fine, actually, to give up control to him.
He opens his eyes. Grant is still thrusting into him, slow enough to be utter torment, hard enough to be utter bliss, but he’s looking down questioningly at Sasha now.
“You okay, baby?”
“Then—then—then mate me,” Sasha says, quickly, before he can stop himself.
Grant pauses for a moment before he shakes his head, a little pityingly. “You know me, Sash. I’m a traditional guy. I come from a traditional family. I have to keep up a good public image if I want to follow in my father’s footsteps. And you…”
Sasha’s heart twists in his chest. He—? He’s not a good omega. His Alpha doesn’t think he’s a good omega.
Grant’s brow furrows as he scents the air, catching Sasha’s distress. “All I meant is that if you were my omega, you’d be expected to play a role you would hate to play. You’d have to be my obedient little wife, kneeling silently and dutifully by my feet. Is that really what you want?”
Sasha knows the answer Grant expects is a loud, resounding, hell no. That is not the answer that he’s screaming in his mind.
“Yes,” Sasha whispers.
Grant smiles sadly, and it’s the worst thing in the world. “Say I believe you. At the end of the day, you’re an activist. You’re a criminal, Sash. You don’t know how cutthroat my father’s rivals are. It’d all come to light eventually.”
“I’ll stop,” Sasha begs. “I’ll renounce it, all of it.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I will,” Sasha insists. He’s desperate now, sick with need, and Grant is starting to slow his strokes, and the prospect of Grant leaving him here like this without knotting him is making him more than a little frantic. “I will. Please, Grant, please.”
“Prove it,” Grant says, voice suddenly stern. “Tell me right now who else is working with you.”
Sasha opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it. “Petra,” he says. “Petra Markova. Jon Melendez-Carpenter. Angie Douglass.” It all tumbles out, Sasha powerless to stop it.
Grant is quiet for so long that Sasha is terrified he’s going to pull out. But finally his face breaks into a soft smile, and he leans down to scoop Sasha into his arms, pulling him up so that Sasha is sitting on his lap. “I knew it, baby. I just knew it.” Sasha hardly understands what’s going on, but he’s pressed against Grant’s big, wide chest, and Grant smells so alpha, so comforting, that Sasha lets it happen.
“Knew…?”
Grant’s hands come up to pet his hair. “I knew you’d grow out of that stupid omega rights crap.”
“Wh—“ Sasha’s stomach swoops in some mix of dread and delicious arousal. He should probably be trying to pull away, but instead he wraps his arms around Grant’s neck, holding on tightly. “What? Grant?”
Grant hmms and adjusts Sasha’s position on his lap. The new angle makes his cock hit Sasha just right, making him see stars. “I just knew you needed to be shown how your body really worked. Your body has always needed me, Sash. Needed me to show it what’s right.”
“Grant,” Sasha whines. What he needs is for Grant to stop saying these horrible, true things. What he needs is Grant’s knot.
“You just needed me to show you your place. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll show you. I’m going to breed you full. You’re going to forget about all of your silly activist stuff. You’re going to forget your silly little chemistry labs. You’ll be my perfect, submissive, pregnant little omega.”
Grant thrusts up into Sasha again, and Sasha moans, bucking his hips. Grant has some crazy, fucked up ideas of what dirty talk should be—but god damn it if it isn’t working on Sasha. It should feel so, so wrong, the thought of everything Sasha has worked so hard for slipping from his grasp right in front of him. But his body hasn’t gotten the memo. His body is reacting like Grant has promised to lasso the moon for him.
His body is reacting like it wants everything Grant just promised him and more, and there is a part of Sasha that’s terrified his mind is reacting the same way, too. He just can’t tell anymore, everything blurring together in a haze of need.
“I don’t want…” he protests anyways, weakly, even though he’s hardly sure what he’s saying anymore.
“Which part don’t you want? You don’t want to be perfect for me?”
“I—I do—”
“You don’t want to be submissive to me?”
“I do, I do.” He does. He wants it now and, fuck, has wanted it for the past few months. He’s wanted it since Grant locked the collar around his neck, hands sure and strong. Since he first noticed that calling Grant Alpha in public had stopped making him simmer with rage and instead started making him dizzy with need. Since he’d begun feeling a shiver of desire looking at himself in the mirror, all done up in a tight top and tiny skirt like a good little omega, thinking about how Grant would look him up and down in silent praise and admiration.
Grant kisses his cheek. “You don’t want to be my omega?”
“I do,” Sasha sobs. He aches, aches, aches for it. “Grant, please.”
“Then tell me what else you want, baby.”
In the back of his mind, Sasha knows there are other things he should address first—other things that Grant said, things Sasha definitely shouldn’t want, things that he should protest, things that make his cock jerk and his cunt pulse even though he should hate them, especially the part about being pregnant—
But when Sasha thinks about that part, all he can think about is what Grant would need to do in order to breed him—all he can think about is Grant’s come filling him to bursting, his cock plugging him up so he can’t move, can’t get away, can do nothing but take it—
“I want you to knot me,” Sasha wails. “Please, please, please knot me, Grant.”
“Please…?”
“Please, Alpha.”
Grant grins. He brings his mouth to rest over Sasha’s neck, lingering right over his scent gland for one long, nerve-skittering moment. Then he thrusts once more into Sasha’s cunt, teeth sinking into Sasha’s scent gland at the same time.
The mating bond feels just like Grant’s cock did, entering him for the first time: utterly and entirely correct. Sasha comes right then and there, harder than he’s ever come in his life—and then just keeps coming, over and over again, when he feels Grant’s knot blow wide inside him.
He must come for a straight minute. When it’s over, he just lies slumped against Grant’s shoulder, slowly milking Grant’s knot, so full at last.
As his heartbeat slows, the fog of lust starts to fade. It’s been six years, but Sasha still remembers what it’s like, coming down from the first wave of his heat. He knows from experience that there will be many, many more. An orgasm will reset the cycle, and he’ll be clearheaded for about an hour as his libido recharges—though being knotted with a real knot might keep him sane for an extra hour or two.
But total clarity doesn’t come. Even after what feels like ten minutes, there’s still a thin, fuzzy sheen of desire clouding his mind, like a plastic filter over a camera lens.
It’s not normal.
“Grant,” Sasha says blearily.
“Hmm?” Grant is rubbing small, soothing circles on Sasha’s back.
“I… I’m… I don’t feel right.”
“How so?”
“I still feel like I’m in heat. I should be feeling clear by now.”
“Mm,” Grant hums. “Maybe it’s because of all those years of unnatural suppressants, baby.”
Sasha shakes his head. “You know it doesn’t work like that. This shouldn’t… I’ve only heard of this happening for induced heats. I—”
Sasha stops in his tracks. Even now, brain foggy as it is, he’s slotting the pieces together.
“Grant,” he says slowly. “Where did you get that copied key from, again?”
Grant is silent for a long moment. Then he sighs, pressing a kiss to Sasha’s forehead. “Oh, Sash. You always were so smart for an omega.”
His stomach drops.
“Maybe I’ll let you graduate after all,” Grant says absentmindedly. “You’ve earned it after being such a good little omega for me these past few months.”
“Fuck—fuck you,” Sasha says, shaking with anger and fear and the beginnings of another wave of desperate lust. He tries pushing himself up from his spot on Grant’s lap, but it’s no use—he’s still locked tight around Grant’s knot. It only reminds him that Grant’s knot is inside him, and he clenches around it involuntarily, gasping at how good it feels.
Grant just keeps rubbing his back, continuing as if he didn’t even notice Sasha’s pitiful attempt at resistance. “Especially if you’re already showing by then. It would be nice to see you walk across the stage, hold up your diploma right above your pregnant belly. Because believe me, you will be pregnant by the time I’m done with you.”
He can’t tell if Grant is just that confident, or if he replaced the calosuprolate with fertility drugs in addition to heat inducers. It makes a whine rise in Sasha’s throat. That whine should be one of anger, of betrayal—but try as he might, the only thing he can feel in response to Grant’s words is a bone-deep arousal.
Maybe it’s the hazy heat he’s already slipping right back into, or the fresh, raw mating bond, or the knot inside him making him feel so whole, or Grant’s scent all around him, comforting and dizzying all at once, smelling like home. Or maybe it’s that deep down, Sasha wants it. That deep down, he’s always been exactly the kind of omega Grant’s old-school traditionalist beliefs would make him out to be. One who just wants a strong alpha to show him his place.
Maybe he’s always wanted it.
Sasha stops trying to push himself away, whimpering and sinking back down onto Grant’s knot. They both gasp.
“That’s it, Sash, good omega,” Grant says. “You like that?”
“Mmm,” Sasha says, closed-mouthed against Grant’s shoulder. It’s not a yes and it’s not a no.
Grant sees through him immediately, chuckling lightly. “I’m so happy you’ve finally come around, baby. First thing when your heat breaks, we’re going straight to the Conduct Board to make your confession. They’ve agreed to let you off the hook if you tell them all the names you just told me. Then we’ll go upgrade this collar to something more permanent.”
Sasha moans in delirious desire, hot tears of humiliation finally spilling over. Grant kisses one of the trails away from his cheek.
“We’ll go down to the courthouse after that. My family is traditional, after all. Can’t have your belly starting to grow without us married.” At that, he slowly and deliberately rolls his hips up, fucking Sasha on his knot.
Fuck. Fuck. Sasha pushes his hips down to meet him. There’s no way he could say no to Grant, not about anything, not right now.
Grant smiles. “What do you say, baby?”
“Yes,” Sasha moans. “Yes, Alpha.”