Chapter Text
Shepherd
Suddenly, the smoke and flames around him are gone. Heat no longer radiates from his skin. He’s lying prone on a smooth stone floor made of some dark glossy rock. He groans softly and with great effort, pushes himself up into a sitting position, getting a better look at the room around him. The first thing he notices is a raised dais made of the same rock as the floor. There’s something on top of it that he can’t see. Everything else around him is hazy and gray, like smoke handing in the air. But he can still breathe.
After a few moments, he finds the strength to stand, to walk himself over to the platform. As he approaches, the figure lying there becomes more and more clear.
“Sarnax…” he says softly, the whispered name echoing for a moment in the silence. He reaches out to touch the prone figure before something else registers in his mind. There’s no scent. Sarnax’s familiar scent of licorice root tea, moss, and fire is entirely absent from this scene… In fact, he can’t smell anything here. It has him wary, withdrawing his hand, afraid it could be some sort of trick.
“Do not despair, Silas Morgan,” the words reverberate around him, and Shepherd whips around to find the source of the voice. He comes face-to-eye with the giant draconic head of a god he’s met once before.
“Gherix,” he breathes out, his voice catching in the back of his throat and making him cough. That ignites a scratchy pain, as if—well, as if he’d been inhaling smoke.
“Guardian. Friend. Protector. You knew your duty, and you knew his. Yet you chose to follow my Chosen into the flames. Why?”
Shepherd closes his eyes, feeling the weight of the god’s judgement upon him. It’s nearly enough to send him crumpling to his knees. “I couldn’t leave him,” he confesses in a wavering, weak voice. "I—I couldn’t lose another pack member. Not again.”
The dragon god rumbles lowly, moving his great head up and to the side, as if to look upon both him and Sarnax at the same time. “Ardia,” he says with a touch of understanding. As much understanding as Shepherd thinks a god can have of mortal experiences. Even just the name from the god’s mouth makes Shepherd’s heard clench.
He nods. “I… I couldn’t leave him behind. Not when there was a chance I could save him.” He takes a deep, fortifying breath and looks the god in the eye. “Bring him back. You’ve done it before, do it again. Please.”
There’s a low rumbling laugh from the god. “And what of you? Your body too was consumed in the flames. Would you bring him back and not yourself?”
Shepherd swallows, opening his mouth to speak again, to try to find an answer, before Gherix cuts him off. “I could bring you both back, but it would come at great cost. Your body, your bloodline as you know it would not be the same.”
The consequences can be damned, for all he cares right now. As long as he has Sarnax with him. He can’t—he can’t lose Sarnax. Everything within him protests the thought. “Please, Gherix… Fire Lord…”
“Even at the cost of never visiting your daughter’s grave again? Of leaving behind the father who chose you?”
The question catches him off-guard, and tears begin to burn behind Shepherd’s eyes at the questions. They give him pause, make him hesitate, before he looks Gherix in the face and nods. “They would understand.” His voice breaks on the last word, but he holds his ground.
The Doc would want him to find happiness, a partner to live out his life with. And Shepherd… Silas sees that in Sarnax. Knows that for all his quirks and oddities, for all of both of their past struggles, Sarnax would be a kind partner. And Ardia… he puts his hand to his chest and feels her locket against his skin. As long as he has this part of her with him, he’ll be okay with never again seeing her final resting place.
A loud pleased noise, nearly a bellow, comes from the massive deity. “SILAS MORGAN. Guardian of the Fire Wyrmling. Chosen of Argynvost. MY CHOSEN. You will watch over Sarnax of the Edelwood. In a place beyond Avantris, you will find new allies, and new threats. I am offering you a second chance. I will not come to your aid directly. Do you accept this trade?”
Silas takes the last few steps towards the dais Sarnax’s body—cold, now, far too cold—is laying on, taking Sarnax’s hand in his. His hands are shaking, he realizes. He bows his head and presses a kiss to the alpha’s knuckles before straightening up and turning to face the god. “Fire Lord Gherix, I accept your trade.”
This time, Gherix does bellow before opening his mouth wide with a draconic roar. Silas sees the flame coming and closes his eyes to embrace it, even as the searing pain makes him scream. He can feel himself being made anew under the might and magic of Gherix, feel his own destruction and renewal. The world around him goes black, and the last thing he registers is the hand clasped in his own twitching—just the smallest bit of movement. But it’s a reassurance as his consciousness plummets into nothingness.
//-//
Silas wakes slowly, registering first the pain in his body and his head. He aches from the inside out, feeling even his shoulders and face protest with the pain. His head throbs, dissuading him from even opening his eyes as information about the area around him filters in. First comes scent. Stale air, metal and some sort of oil—like what saturated the Doc’s workshop. Sarnax’s scent, the moss and licorice root tea intermingling well with the scent of fire’s smoke. Then comes what he can hear. Some sort of steady, rhythmic rumbling, somewhat reminiscent of the beating of hooves and heavy breathing of a horse. But louder, more encompassing. As if he was in the horse. The thought startles him, his eyes flying open with a spike of adrenaline. He’s not within a great beast, but a dark room of sorts. An odd, metal room, based on the feeling and appearance of the floor beneath him. He looks to the left, where Sarnax’s scent is the strongest, and is comforted by the sight of him.
He scoots his body over to Sarnax, getting a better look at him. Thankfully, he can see his chest rising and falling with every breath, so he appears to be asleep, curled up around his lantern, an arm partially outstretched in Silas’s direction. It makes him smile softly, despite the unfamiliarity of their situation. The sight reminds him that he’s wanted by his chosen alpha, that he didn’t sacrifice what he had left for nothing. He sits up fully, the motion thankfully not making his head spin, and feels sweat bead down the back of his neck. The room is warm—or maybe just he is. He pulls off his poncho, laying it carefully over Sarnax’s sleeping form. He braces himself on the floor and pushes himself to his feet, intent on walking the length of the room and figuring out what he can about where they are.
On unsteady feet, he steps further into the room, now seeing what look like shelves packed full of boxes and odd objects. It’s silent, nearly deafeningly so, until he hears a loud thump and hiss that nearly sends him crashing into the nearest shelf. He looks around wildly, tail rattling as he tries to find the source of the noise. Finally, his gaze lands on the ceiling and the many different, twisting pipes that seem to cover it. He fixes his eyes on the pipes, waiting until… sure enough, he hears that hissing sound again, coming from above.
Satisfied that he knows now where the sound comes from, he continues forward through the room, his tail now keeping up a steady background rattle. It’s slow going, even though Silas stays within range of smelling Sarnax. He’s already getting tired, but his instincts refuse to let him rest. He needs to get a layout of this room. Sarnax is out cold, he needs to be alert and aware in order to protect his alpha while he’s in a vulnerable state. He has no idea where they are, but Gherix’s words echo in his mind. “A place beyond Avantris,” the god had said. They could be anywhere—he doesn’t know anything about the places beyond Avantris, just that this is surely too calm to be the hells.
He's about to turn and go back towards Sarnax when he hears another, different hissing sound. He turns towards it, only to be hit in the face with a bright, blinding light. He cries out sharply as the pain nearly burns his eyes, lifting his arm to shield his face.
“The fuck?” He hears a voice say. Still blinded, he crouches, growling lowly as he smells the scent of heat and tobacco smoke. He needs to protect his alpha, vulnerable and unconscious. He blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden light when he feens something collide with him and send him to the ground. Someone, then.
His head hits the metal floor, but he doesn’t let it stun him, thrashing and snarling at his attacker. He uses his tail to lash at the person trying to pin him down, uses his sharpened nails to scratch at the hands on his wrists. This close, he can smell alpha, and an instinctive fear spikes through his veins. He growls lowly, his fear warring with his need to protect Sarnax, to defend the both of them. He feels the alpha try to separate and pin his legs by kneeling on his thighs, and familiar with the movement, he bucks up against it, twisting his hips to make it harder to be pinned down.
Finally starting to blink the light out of his eyes, he sees a figure above him, haloed in a glowing, colorful light. It startles him for a moment, but he quickly recovers. Used to fighting dirty, he spits in the face of his attacker, only barely missing his eye. It gets the man on top of him to rear back, though, and he takes the opportunity to try and gain leverage against his attacker. The man quickly recovers though, and Silas’s head hits metal once more when the man strikes out, hitting him in the head. He follows through, pinning Silas down again.
The next thing he knows, he feels a flash of pain, deep pain, before a haze rolls over his mind. He whines plaintively, tilting his head back and to the side to appeal the alpha above him. Be good. Good for alpha. Still. Quiet. Wait. Good omega.
//-//
Pyke
Pyke sighs, taking a swig from his water bottle as he walks towards the storage room. Sweat is dripping down the back of his neck, and he’d much rather be rinsing off the grime from his workout right now, but if he leaves that busted-open punching bag as is in their training room, Rett is going to kick his ass. It’s the second one he’s broken in as many weeks out of prison, trying to get back into bounty-hunting shape as soon as possible after six months of trying to lay low and avoid fights. Trying being the operative word.
He inputs the code to the storage room, sighing again as he runs through what he needs. A sandbag and the leather stitching kit in the back right corner. The door slides open with a familiar hiss, and Pyke nearly freezes at the sight of what looks like a skinny red raizo turning and covering his eyes with a cry.
“What the fuck?” He says to himself before his other senses kick in. The smell of something undeniably alpha has his hackles raising, and he drops his bottle to lunge at the stunned intruder.
He knocks him to the ground and quickly pins the man’s wrists with one hand, lifting the other to his ear to call for Rett. The man underneath him is fighting and thrashing like a cornered wild animal, desperate to get away. He snarls, unwilling to let that happen. Not when this man can pose a threat to his omega and the “not-a-pup” on their ship, in his territory. He ignores the scratching at his hands and the—is that a fucking tail? Since when do raizos have tails?—apparent tail whipping against his side and thigh as he wedges a knee into the alpha’s hip.
He hears Rett say something in his ear, but is stopped from replying by the intruder spitting at his face just as he’s about to get his other knee in place to stop the man’s bucking hips. He reels back on instinct—stupidly— and wipes at his face. He sees the man fighting him lunge up at an angle that would give him access to Pyke’s head and chest. To his unprotected neck. He reacts quickly, striking his palm against the man’s head and following through as the hit slams the man’s head against the side of a metal shelving unit. He goes for the neck, for making the other submit and neutralizing the threat of this unknown alpha that’s stowed away in his territory. He bites down deep and hard, keeping his teeth clenched in this man’s neck until he feels him go limp and whine in submission. He lets go, leaning back with a sigh and wiping his mouth just as Rett comes barreling in behind him.
Pyke makes sure not to swallow, spitting some blood out of his mouth. He turns around, snatching a spare bottle of hydrogen peroxide and opens it, rinsing his mouth out with the chemical twice and spitting it out onto the floor. He sees Rett scan the scene, taking stock of him and the alpha on the floor, practically unconscious.
“Y’know that’s not how you clean your mouth out after biting someone,” Rett says with a sigh, kneeling down to examine their stowaway. Pyke waves him off with a grin, picking up his water bottle up off the floor and rinsing his mouth with it a few more times until the sharp taste has left.
“Works, don’t it?” He asks, watching as his partner checks over the man he put into submission. Looks like the guy is still breathing, the back of his head might be a little bloody from the backhand, but Pyke can’t bring himself to feel any sympathy about it. Who know what the man could have done if he hadn’t caught him.
“Debatable,” Rett mutters, preparing to haul the man up before he stills. “Pyke. Please, for the love of all the gods, tell me you checked the rest of the room.”
He tilts his head at his partner. “No. You got here just as I was ending the fight. Why? Do you see something?” His relaxed posture is gone now, and he’s fully straightened up, ready for another fight. Just in case.
Rett nods, jerking his chin back towards a corner of the storage room. “Infrared’s picking up on something in that back corner. Looks bigger. C’mere an’ take this guy to the med area to monitor. An’ draw blood too, who know what he coulda given’ you.”
Pyke frowns and almost protests, but a glare from his omega has him closing his mouth again and nodding. “Alright,” he says, going over and slinging the first intruder over his shoulder fireman-style. He doesn’t leave the room though, following Rett back toward where the second person is. They seem to be out cold and some kind of frill-less saurian that Rett picks up easily, weird lantern and all. Pyke scents the air, but only smells the alpha scent of the guy across his shoulders.
Speaking of, the man whines plaintively, his scent gaining some sort of sweeter edge as he leans his body weight into Pyke a bit more. It’s odd behavior, but everyone reacts to submission bites differently, so he doesn’t give it much more thought as he leads the way to the med room. Besides, it was just a single bite, the guy will be fine in a couple hours.
They take the two stowaways to the med bay, dropping them both into beds and cuffing them there. Rett takes blood from the raizo, grumbling about Pyke giving himself some sort of blood-born illness.
“C’mon, big guy,” Pyke complains, leaning over Rett’s shoulder as the aetheron puts the sample into their little machine. “You know I run hot enough to kill most of that shit before it can give me anything.”
Rett turns his head up and towards Pyke, pressing a fleeting kiss to the underside of his jaw. “I know, but it don’t stop me from worrying. ‘Sides, we don’t know where this guy had been… and he’s a weird-lookin’ raizo. Maybe he’s got some sorta mutation.”
Pyke huffs but ultimately agrees—the red guy is a weird-looking raizo. He’s never seen one with scaly patches or a tail.
“Wouldya go grab those holsters offa the raizo? He’s got some sorta weapons on him.” Rett’s voice is distracted as he runs the analysis program on the machine. Pyke hums an agreement and walks across the room towards the restrained, out-of-it man.
He makes quick work of removing the holsters, looking over the weird blasters as he does. The sweeter scent is a bit stronger now, and there’s a burnt undertone to it that has Pyke wrinkling his nose. He quickly raises them to his nose, sniffing them. They don’t have as much of the alpha scent as the raizo does, but they have the same tangy iron undertones, like tasting a bloody nose. They also smell like ozone and something he can’t put his finger on. Even in the holsters, the weapons almost hum in his hands, they’re almost uncomfortable to hold. Rett turns in his chair catches him as he goes in for another smell, and he freezes at the raised eyebrow his partner gives him.
“What?” He asks, lowering the weapons before handing them over into Rett’s outstretched hand.
“Pyke, we have no idea what those do. Don’ be shovin’ yer nose into them.” Rett sets them down on the table next to him, hands careful as he does.
He isn’t sure how long it takes for the raizo to start moving again, but it’s long enough that they both start to get concerned.
“You go back and check over the storage room for me—I’m gonna look over the guy and see if he’s got some injury we missed.” Pyke frowns at the suggestion—he still doesn’t like being separated from Rett for long, even within the Rhapsody. The presence of two unknown individuals who stowed away on their ship for who knows how long definitely doesn’t help with that.
“I’ll be fine,” Rett insists with an affectionate eye roll and a small chuff. “They’re restrained, the aggressive one is sedated, we’ve got his weapons, and I’ve got my grav canon if anything goes south.”
“Fine,” Pyke mutters with a huff, tucking Rett’s head under his chin and scenting him. Rett reaches up and rubs his wrist against the side of Pyke’s neck, scenting him in turn. The action helps settle him some, and he practically jogs out of the medical room, back down to the storage.
He slows his pace once he gets there, and closes his eyes as he enters. He takes a deep breath in, trying to identify all of the scents. He quickly discards his and Rett’s, focusing on the unfamiliar. The first thing that hits him is the sour, spiked scent of instinctive, bone-deep fear. It gives him pause, because why would the alpha he was fighting be afraid? The scent couldn’t come from the saurian, he was out cold.
He opens his eyes just enough to see in front of him as he goes to where the fight took place. He crouches down and breathes in deeper, mouth parted slightly. There’s a familiar tang that hits him in the back of the throat. It takes a moment to place it, soured and bittered with fear and desperation, but once he identifies it, he feels his stomach churn. Just to double-check, he goes over to where the saurian was, and after a moment, picks up on the underlying scent of alpha, confirming his new fear.
He high-tails it back to the infirmary, nearly running through the halls of the Rhapsody as he feels his heartbeat begin to race in his ears. “Rett-!” He calls out as he enters, eyes wild. “Rett, the raizo is—.”
“He’s an omega,” his mate finishes from the bedside of the now-awake raizo.
The man’s head snaps to Pyke and he makes a startled, instinctively fearful sound that has Pyke’s stomach twisting and sinking. The raizo presses himself against the back of his bed as much as possible, curling up in a defensive position. His shoulders are raised practically to his ears, and his chin is lowered down to his chest, protecting his neck. Protecting himself from Pyke.
“Fuck,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “I didn’t know—I never would’ve—.” Guilt crawls up his esophagus, choking him. It’s one thing to bite another alpha and make them submit. That doesn’t last too long, it’s just a mild sedative. For an alpha to bite an omega and force them to submit the way he did? With the depth he bit and the length of time he held down for? That’s someone’s worst nightmare waiting to happen. It’s forcing the omega’s body to shut down, to become completely submissive, like prey.
“I know,” Rett says, his tone low and even. “You made a mistake, Pyke. Y’ didn’t know.” He steps away from the omega’s bedside and towards Pyke, hands raised in what’s supposed to be a calming gesture, an attempt to get Pyke to focus on him. He can’t.
All he can focus on is the raizo cowering on the bed as things slip into place. Why didn’t the man use his weapons on him earlier? Because he was operating purely on fear instinct, cornered by an alpha and trying to escape. Pyke swallows down the bile threatening to rise back up. The raizo is clearly afraid of him, but if he leaves, it’ll set the man’s instincts off more. He can’t do that to someone else. He can’t.
He remembers the first time he felt teeth in his neck. Over and over and over. He remembers what happened when they left, the way his whole body would shake and tremble. The way he could only whine pitifully and keen and beg for them to come back. The little rational part of him left wanted to be alone, didn’t want them to come back, but the rest of him was so desperate for it. He remembers the way he cried with relief when they came back, the way he practically threw himself into their lap, eager for their touch, their reassurance, their scent. The rational part of him wanted to scream, wanted to get away from them. But the rest of him was too busy being a slave to the submission hormones.
“Pyke?”
Rett’s voice snaps him out of his memories, and he blinks the tears out from his eyes. “Sorry, big guy,” he says, offering his mate a weak smile.
Rett frowns and takes him by the elbow, walking with him to a chair in the room. When his partner pushes him toward the chair, he sits down easily, wrapping his arms around Rett and burying his face in his neck. Rett threads a hand through his hair and starts to purr softly. Pyke sinks into the comfort until he’s able to rumble in reply.
It feels like a herculean task, but he manages to lift his head up and give Rett a more genuine wry half-smile. “I’m okay,” he reassures. “Thanks.”
Rett kisses him, a chaste peck, but it’s another small gesture that does wonders to reassure them both. He’s rubbing Pyke’s head behind his ear with his thumb, even as he looks over his shoulder to check on the omega. He’s still watching them with wide eyes, but the man’s fearful posture has lessened a little.
“I didn’t know,” he whispers, eyes locked on the raizo, but speaking to Rett. He still feels a little numb.
“I know,” Rett reassures him. “And I know you wouldn’a done that if you did. I know it was a mistake, Pyke.”
Rett’s words register, but they still feel a little distant. “I was too busy thinkin’ about you and the kid,” he says, like it justifies anything. “Worried that, after those two fucks, they could hurt you guys. But in the storage room… gods, Rett it reeks of fear in there. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before—.”
“It was the adrenaline, Starshine,” Rett cuts in. Pyke barely notices, running over the fight in his mind again.
“—but gods, he was fightin’ like a cornered animal because he was cornered. No one plannin’ on attacking us would’ve reacted like that. I don’t know how they got in there, it doesn’t make sense, but…”
Rett hums. “I had Hank start scanning the security footage for any outages, loops, or signs of these two. Nothing. No clue how they got on here, but they’ve got some weird residual radiation—closest thing I could find to it was the hypergrid, but even that’s not completely right.” He sighs, shifting and looking back over to the tightly-curled omega and the unconscious alpha. “We’ll have to wait for the saurian to wake up. Maybe he’ll know how the hell they got here.”
Pyke nods, his eyes drifting back from Rett to the raizo. It still makes his stomach churn, seeing the familiar fear reflected on the man’s face, in his body. He knows what he can do to help the man feel safer, he just has to fight through the horrors of his own memory to do it. He pushes himself to his feet, absently surprised for a second that his knees don’t give out on him. He feels his hands start to shake as he approaches the gurney, he feels the bile jump to the back of his throat as he lowers himself to his knees.
He fights back his panic as he tilts his head to the side, exposing the unmarked side of his neck to the omega above him. He makes a quiet, apologetic noise in the back of his throat, making sure not to look the omega directly in the face as he does. Even though it makes his heartbeat quicken in his chest. He focuses on pushing out an apology in his scent, trying to make sure the other can smell his remorse. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I was scared too.
He isn’t sure how long he kneels there, long enough to feel Rett’s eyes on him protectively, just in case. Long enough that his knees start to hurt. Long enough that he has to fight the urge to look when he hears rustling and slow movement above him. He flinches back a little when the shadow of the raizo looms over him, his breath catching in his throat. He closes his eyes and prepares to feel teeth in his neck, forcing him into a submission in turn. Instead, he just feels a sharp, shallow, bite to his neck, and the squeaking of the gurney as the omega quickly pushes himself away from Pyke again.
He stays there, stunned for a couple of moments before slowly getting back to his feet and turning to Rett. His hand comes up to touch the bitten side of his neck, and his fingers come away without blood.
“He just… accepted the apology…” he murmurs, nearly in a daze as the adrenaline starts to leave him for the second time that day. “No retribution, no submission…”
He lets Rett pull him into a hug, and he closes his eyes, burying his nose in Rett’s hair and inhaling the scent of his partner. He feels Rett breathe a big, shuddering sigh of relief.
“You had me on the edge of my fucking seat, Starshine,” the aetheron murmurs. “But he saw an’ smelled the way you panicked, an’ yer guilt’s strong enough that I can smell it. Even with his head deep in submission hormones, I think it’s pretty fuckin’ clear how genuinely sorry you are.”
“Is it normal to just… take that kind of apology?” Pyke asks, hating how skewed his perspective can be. It isn’t his fault, he’s had enough therapy to know that, but it doesn’t mean that he’s not frustrated every time he feels like he’s been dropped in the deep end with no idea how to swim.
“Pyke, it ain’t normal to offer that kinda apology,” Rett tells him, slowly starting to rub his back. It’s a grounding, soothing feeling. “But I’m willin’ t’ bet that yeah, just a little nip is the common courtesy answer.”
“I think I need to lay down,” he mutters lightly, getting a low chuckle from his omega.
“Yeah? Take a nap in yer sunroom—.”
A low, angry growl cuts off whatever else Rett was going to say, or Pyke would say in reply. The two of them are quick to separate and look to the beds, where they’re met with the sight of open red-gold eyes and a bared maw of sharp teeth. The saurian alpha has woken up.