"That won't fix—"
"I know it won't fix it." He stands, pressing me against the wall, his hands already reaching for my thighs to lift me. "But it'll make it bearable for a few minutes.Please."
The please breaks me. Dorian doesn't beg, doesn't ask, commands and takes and expects obedience. But here he is, falling apart, needing what only I can give him—this familiar surrender, this dance we've done so many times.
He lifts me easily despite his weakened state, my legs wrapping around his waist as he presses me against the marble. This is how it's always been—him taking control, me letting him, both of us finding something we need in the familiar dynamic.
I grab the bottle of lube we keep in here—because this isn't the first time, isn't even the hundredth—and work myself open despite his impatience. I know what's coming, and my body wants it as much as he does.
"I've been thinking about the lake house," he says as he watches me prep, his voice steadier with something to focus on. His cock is already showing the swelling at the base that means his knot will form. "It's perfect. Isolated, private, fully stocked. We could keep her there until she accepts the bond."
"That's kidnapping." I gasp as he bats my hand away and lines himself up, pushing into me hard. The stretch burns good, my body trained over five years to take him.
"It's reclamation." His hips snap forward, bottoming out. "She belongs with us. Her body knows it even if her mind refuses. Two weeks there, the bonds reinforcing, and she'll break."
"Or she'll die trying to resist." But I'm already pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts. His knot is starting to swell with each drive forward, catching on my rim.
"Then we keep her alive," he groans, gripping my thighs harder, changing the angle. "You can watch her, make sure she's safe."
"This is insane." But I'm lost in it, in the way he knows exactly how to fuck me apart. His knot catches and pulls with each thrust now, growing, and my body clenches around it on instinct. "We can't just take her."
"We can and we will." His voice is stronger now, more like the Dorian I know, even as he pounds into me against the shower wall. "I need her, Oak. We need her. The pack doesn't work without her. You know that."
I do. I've watched him deteriorate for three weeks, watched Corvus go colder, felt my own body screaming for the omega we claimed and lost. The pack is dying without her.
"Tell me you'll help," he demands, driving deeper, nailing me like the Alpha he is. "Tell me you won't let me lose her."
"I'll help," I gasp out, even as part of me screams this is wrong. "I won't let you lose her."
"Good." He shifts angle, fucking up into me harder, and I can feel it building. His knot is massive now, catching and pulling with each thrust, that stretch that's almost too much. "Because if I can't have her, I'll die, Oak. I'll literally die without her."
The raw honesty of it, combined with the brutal angle and the pressure of his swelling knot, pushes me over. I come hardbetween our bodies, untouched, her name ripping from my throat even as he's buried inside me.
"Fuck, Oak—" He slams home one final time, his knot swelling to full size, locking us together as he comes. The stretch is brutal, overwhelming, his knot pulsing as he fills me. We're locked now, will be for at least twenty minutes, his biology trying to breed me even though I'm not an omega, can't carry his kids, can't be what his body really wants.
But for now, with his knot buried inside me and his body pressed against mine, the rejection sickness eases. His breathing slows, his desperate edge softening into something almost like peace.
We stay locked together for twenty minutes, his knot keeping us connected while the water runs over us. He holds me against the wall, my weight nothing to his Alpha strength even weakened as he is. Occasionally his hips twitch, grinding his knot deeper, making me gasp at the fullness.
"She would have taken it so perfectly," he murmurs against my neck. "During her heat, she was so tight, so perfect around my knot. But she fought it, even then. Even when her body needed it."
I don't respond, just let him talk, let him work through his obsession while his knot keeps us joined. This is part of it too—the afterward, when his mind clears enough to process.
Finally his knot starts to soften, and he pulls out carefully. The emptiness after being so full always makes me shudder, and today is no different. Come leaks down my thighs, washed away immediately by the shower spray.
"Fourteen days," he says as I wash his back, checking for injuries I might have missed. "Until we go to Columbus and bring her home."
"She might never forgive us," I point out, even though I've already agreed to help. "Taking her by force, keeping her captive—it might destroy any chance of her accepting the bond."
"She already won't forgive us." He turns to face me, and his eyes are clearer now, the desperate edge temporarily satisfied. "We spent months tormenting her. We claimed her against her will during her heat. We're already past forgiveness, Oak. Now it's just about survival."
I rinse the soap from his hair, the familiar gesture grounding us both. We've been doing this dance for so long—him leading, me following, both of us pretending it doesn't mean more than physical release.
For a moment I want to say it—those three words that would change everything. But we don't do that. We don't acknowledge the deeper currents between us. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"Help me get her back, Oak. Help me fix this."
"I will." The promise feels like signing my own destruction, but I make it anyway. Because that's what I do—I heal, I help, I hold things together even when they're falling apart.
