Chapter Text
The night is dark. Expertly trimmed hedges surround him, their oppressive height intrusive and ominous as tombstones. Oliver doesn't know his way. Wasn’t raised in Saltburn’s splendor from an early age like Felix was, knowing its secrets. Unfamiliar with it even in the daylight hours when the sun is golden and high in the sky. Obscured even after spending afternoons running his fingers down the wooden ridges of the model maze in the long room, feeling the metal pebbles under the pad of his thumb, memorizing it like a child reciting their favorite lines from a book.
No, he had no such luxury. But Felix and India are loud. He can follow the sound of their laughter. Lilting, echoing.
It’s nauseating, though Oliver has his own poison tucked behind him.
“Try harder next time, baby.”
Farleigh’s words are wicked things. They burrow themselves in his ears, he can not get them out. It had been almost too much to bear. He could have gutted him right then, gored his eye out with his antlers. The alpha’s scent had spiked when he’d said it, grabbing Oliver by the scruff of his neck, fingers carding through his curls, the implication clear and awful. He thinks he’s won. Perhaps he feels some ownership of him in that way. An omega to use and abuse, but even Oliver wouldn’t stoop so low. No. He has claws of his own. If he was going to do this, he’d do it right.
His first mistake had been putting this off for so long.
Too long, a voice inside his head hisses. You damn nearly fucked it all up.
A part of him hadn't known how he’d do it. Following Felix out of the party with that wretched beta on his arm had been spurious. He’s usually much more methodical than this, his actions more elegant. This is nothing like the bike or the fifty quid. More an act of need than anything else.
Oliver grips the neck of the champagne.
Desperate times, as they say.
The center of the maze comes into view before long. Blue and pale. There’s a statue in the middle. It’s a minotaur, ugly and stylized despite the money that lies beneath the soil, rotting in its roots. Lit up by the moon. It’s an alien sight, something from a dream, hard to verbalize.
And yet, Oliver only ever focuses on him.
Felix is pumping away like an animal. Their moans carry in the thickened air like taunts. For a moment, all he can do is watch. The young alpha has this effect on him. Transfixes Oliver with his beauty, his lovely body and resplendent skin—his sins are forgiven because of it. A blameless entity, good down to his bones because he simply does not know better.
He outshines even the otherworldly.
A part of him isn’t aware when he calls his name. His voice breaks a little. Comes out like a plea. He can feel his flesh prickle, sweat beginning to bead at his temple. The drug must be taking effect. Soon, he’ll be a mess. A mindless creature ripe for the plucking.
“Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?”
Quick movements, children shielding their actions from God. A flurry of limbs that Oliver can’t keep track of, his vision already blurring. He swallows. “I needed to talk to you.”
“Fuck, Oliver,” Felix says, zipping up his jeans but not bothering with the top button. He has the nerve to look upset.
“Were you spying on us?” India asks, voice shrill, like metal breaking.
It makes him wince. “No I wasn’t,” Oliver says, doing his best to walk toward them, toward Felix.
He can smell him even from here. He’s juniper berries and cedar, something sweet and unnamable underneath. It’s all comfort, the only kind Oliver has ever known. The beta makes a fuss as she leaves. “Fucking gross,” she calls them. If she only knew. He doesn’t even spare her a glance, eyes and attention so single-mindedly focused on the man before him.
“Oh, god—Oliver, what are you doing? Leave me the fuck alone!”
“No,” he says. Honest. He takes another step forward, stumbling into Felix’s resistant arms. He could throw Oliver off. Push him away. Send him off and yell and scream.
‘But he’s holding you anyway,’ his mind supplies. The first victory.
The strong arms around him tighten. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”
Oliver’s throat is dry. He can feel himself dampening in his trousers. If this wasn’t on purpose, he’d have the decency to act embarrassed. A filthy omega who shouldn’t have been allowed at Oxford, proving all those prejudices correct. But he can see Felix’s nostrils flaring. Can feel his muscles tense and wire under his shirt.
So, instead of answering his question, he whimpers, brows furrowed. “Felix,” he calls again, palms open, bottle dropping from his hands and rolling away in the grass. “I think something is wrong with me.” Gathers the fabric of Felix’s front in his fists. “Something feels funny.”
“You’re going into heat.” Felix’s throat bobs. His mouth opens, as though he wants to taste the air around him.
“It must be the stress from today,” Oliver says weakly, can’t help himself but try to inject some guilt where there would otherwise be anger, betrayal. “Seeing my parents and all.”
“Fuck, why didn’t you tell me, Ollie?”
And that’s laughable. Makes Oliver break character a little, smirking while he asks, “Tell you that I was an omega? So that you’d treat me like the rest of them? Like your cousin treats me?”
“Farleigh knows?” And it comes out almost angry. Possessive.
Oliver nods, serious as death. Victory number two. “Oh, he knows.” Whispers in his ear, “Threatened to bite me earlier.” He tells himself it’s not a lie. Merely an exaggeration. But it does the job. Felix’s dark eyes flash, upper lip curling.
“You must be fucking joking.”
“I’m not.”
For a blistering moment, Oliver wonders if he’s made an error. Maybe this won’t trigger Felix’s rut, and it was all for nothing. He wonders if the alpha will throw him off. Abandon him. Let him writhe in his pain alone, left vulnerable for any to take, a slave to his instincts in untrustworthy hands.
“But you’re mine,” the alpha whispers, sweet relief. “He can’t have you.”
”Funny, coming from a man who was balls deep into another mere moments before.”
It’s rehearsed in his head. Yet, he can in fact still smell her. It’s acrid.
“Come off it. You know she meant nothing.” A deep rumble grows between them. “He can’t have you,” he repeats.
Because I’m the only one would who should, goes unspoken.
“No,” Oliver shakes his head. “He can’t, because I’m yours. Aren’t I?”
“Is this another one of your schemes?” Felix asks against his skin. “Is this a trick?” He sounds desperate. Shattered.
And Oliver doesn’t have the heart to answer. He cranes his neck to the side, exposes his binding site, pink and swollen now that he’s in full-blown heat.
“You make my blood run cold,” Felix grits. It sounds weak now, with the way he buries his face into Oliver’s neck and inhales him, groaning when he gets a lungful. “Now what the fuck will I do?”
Oliver whines. He’s feeling greedy, reaching down to palm at Felix’s rapidly hardening cock. “What you’ve done your whole life. Whatever you want.”
It does the trick.
Felix kisses his bond site first, trailing his mouth up to his chin, licking the sweat that collects there. He moans low, savoring the salt of him.
Their first kiss is all fire. All burning and curling, charred bits of organic material smoking, evaporating—never to be seen or spoken of again. The noise Oliver makes is ripped from him against his will.
Felix doesn’t fuck him right away.
He takes off his shirt, Oliver’s blazer, and uses them as a makeshift blanket on the grass. Lays him on his back, peeling his now-soaked trousers from his skin and kissing every exposed inch as he does. He’s so lost, Oliver wonders if he even remembers the afternoon they had.
And then he bites the inside of his thigh, hard and violent. “That’s for lying to me,” he grouses, kissing the spot, bruise already forming under his lips. “Never do that again, Ollie. I won’t allow my omega to lie.”
Oliver’s chest flutters. He shakes his head side to side. “I won’t,” he slurs. “Promise.”
Felix curves over him, predatory. His eyes look different. Not kind. No familiar softness. “I don’t believe you.” When he smiles, it’s crooked. “But we have forever, don’t we?”
“Forever?”
“I’m going to fuck a baby in you,” Felix says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s describing the weather, or what words he remembered from his grammar school latin classes. He grinds himself into Oliver’s center, forceful. “You’re going to take my knot tonight.”
“You musn’t,” Oliver brackets his legs around Felix’s middle, body moving before his mind could, giving him away. “I have yet to finish school.”
Felix growls lowly. He gathers both of Oliver’s wrists in his hand, positioning them above his head. “It is the least you could do after all you’ve done.”
The least he could do. Oliver almost laughs, biting his lip. “Well then,” he says breathily, his mind slowly losing itself, the moment too real and wonderful for him to stay grounded, “I suppose I will gladly take my punishment.”
They kiss a second time. It’s all teeth.
Felix’s fingers find his hole already wet and aching for him. Surprisingly, he’s clumsy. He’s never laid with a male omega before, that much is clear. Even in the haze of their respective ruts and heat, the alpha seems unsure of what to do, closely watching Oliver’s facial expressions as he plunders him.
“Does this feel good?”
“Mmn,” Oliver mewls, drawing an arched foot up Felix’s back to pull him closer. “So good.”
“You’re so gorgeous, you know that?” Felix huffs weakly. “It’s the first thing I tell people when I mention you.” With his free hand, he cups Oliver’s cheek. He rubs his thumb along the swell of his lip.
“I know.” Oliver does. Knows it like he knows how to breathe. Had seen the way Felix’s mother and father looked at him with expectant eyes. They are made for each other. All these problems, all these obstacles—“I know.”
After an unspeakable amount of time, a symphony of squelching and filthy words, Felix positions himself between Oliver’s thighs, deeming him ready to take his considerable length. His pupils are blown. He’s been salivating, spittle shining around his mouth.
“You will be the end of me,” he says. A moment of clarity in the fog.
Oliver nods. “Aye.” Will grant him this, right when he’s about to get what he wants. His ankles tighten around the small of Felix’s back. “But you wanted this all along, haven’t you? Tried to run from me, couldn’t get away.”
I got you.
“You’re a vicious, vile thing.” But he’s pressing the spongy head of his cock in, anyway.
It’s a devastating stretch.
Oliver has not laid with many before. No alphas, certainly. Some beta girls. Vapid little flings.
Nothing compares to this.
“Holy fuck!” His fingers curl into the meat of Felix’s shoulder for purchase as he bottoms out. He throws his head back into the ground, some dew catching onto his skin from the blades of grass. He could laugh, how ridiculously wonderful and right it feels. Calls his name.
“That’s right, baby,” Felix moans, “Scream for me. Let everyone at the party know who you belong to.”
He thinks of Farleigh hearing. India. He screams when his alpha hits a space inside him no one has touched before.
The night screams along with him. Crickets chirping. The bass of the music reaching them, so far away. Felix's panting breath, harsh and desperate.
A chorus of his subjugation.
“Do you think it’ll take?” The words are a garble. Punctuated by the roll of Felix’s hips, Oliver doing his best to keep up, so much less practiced than him. “Going to get me knocked up?”
Felix all but cries, the pleasure building up in him reaching its peak.
“You look like a god like this, well worshiped,” Felix says deliriously, licking a stripe from Oliver’s cheek to the base of his fake antlers. Their sentiments are like mirrors. Oliver has always felt the same.
“Pray to me, then.” Oliver’s belly flips. The coil inside him bends and breaks.
As he feels Felix’s knot grow inside him,
His fangs digging into his throat,
He calls his third and final victory.