Chapter Text
Vox staggered back several paces, shoes scraping against the alley’s slick pavement as he created distance between them.
The spiderwebbing across his screen flickered violently before beginning to mend, pixels knitting together beneath Alastor’s steady gaze. The Alpha straightened slowly, rolling his shoulders as though shaking off an inconvenience rather than a blow meant to shatter him.
“Clever bitch.”
There was no explosion of rage. Instead, he laughed.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Who would’ve thought the hypnosis broke?” He clicked his tongue.
Alastor rose fully to his feet, posture sharp and deliberate. Shadows curled at his heels as his staff manifested in his grasp with a familiar, comforting weight. Vox’s eyes flicked to it immediately.
“Ohhh, there it is,” Vox drawled, tone almost fond. “You know, Alastor… this whole little delusion of grandeur you’ve been indulging in?”
He tilted his head.
“It’s gonna end real ugly for you.”
“Is it?” Alastor replied, coolly.
“’Fraid so, baby. I mean - let’s be honest for once.”
Vox gestured lazily toward Angel Dust, who had retreated a few steps back, extra eyes narrowed.
“All you’ve got is the whore,” Vox continued, voice dripping disdain, “a washed-up cat and yourself. That - and…”
His gaze slid back to the staff.
“That pretty little toy in your hands.”
He clasped his hands behind his back, posture straightening into something unmistakably smug.
“Strip all that away and you’re still just an Omega,” Vox said. “Playing dress-up. Pretending you’re something you were never meant to be.”
He paused, studying Alastor’s face.
“So tell me,” Vox continued. “What did you trade for that staff?”
Alastor’s ear flicked.
Just once.
It was minuscule. Yet it betrayed him.
Vox’s smile widened instantly.
“Ohhh,” he crooned. “There it is. God, I do know you.”
He paced a slow circle, eyes never leaving Alastor.
“Your body, maybe? That’d explain the marks. Maybe Angel Dust rubbed off on you more than I thought.”
He stopped in front of him, screen tilting as if in contemplation.
“Or… maybe it was something bigger.”
A beat.
“Did you sell your… soul?”
Alastor’s eyes widened.
Vox burst out laughing.
“Holy shit,” he barked. “You did! You actually did!”
He dragged a claw down his face in mock disbelief.
“Were you really that fucking desperate, sweetheart?”
He shook his head, still laughing.
“Of course you didn’t earn that power on your own. I mean - look at you.”
He gestured broadly at Alastor.
“Drop-dead gorgeous, sure. But still an Omega.”
Vox sneered.
“Of course you needed a sugar daddy.”
Alastor’s grip tightened around his staff.
“You’re pathetic,” Vox continued, smoothly. “Really fucking pathetic. Everything I built, I built with my own two hands. I didn’t beg for it. I didn’t barter myself away. I took everything I wanted.”
He stepped closer.
“Including you.”
“I don’t belong - ”
“Oh, cut the bullshit,” Vox snapped, the humor evaporating.
Alastor’s ears flattened fully now, pupils blown wide, lips trembling despite himself.
“You will always belong to someone,” Vox hissed. “And not in some pretty, romantic fairytale way.”
His screen warped for a moment, his face distorting into something monstrous beneath the polish.
“Your body is property,” Vox said, coldly. “It was property the second you were born and came screaming into the world with a cunt.”
He spread his arms wide.
“So tell me, Alastor - do you honestly think you compare to me?”
A beat.
“To me?”
Vox watched closely - and there it was.
Just for a fraction of a second, something slipped through the cracks of Alastor’s immaculate composure. Something wounded. A flicker of doubt Vox had spent decades cultivating and pressing into place whenever his wife dared to look beyond the cage built for him.
He smiled.
“I think you need to accept reality, baby,” Vox continued, his voice smoothing into something almost gentle. “You’re delusional. You always have been. This world doesn’t give a single, solitary shit about your feelings - and deep down?”
He leaned closer.
“You know that.”
He took another step forward, closing the distance with confidence.
“Hell isn’t built for dreams like yours,” Vox drawled. “It chews them up. It rewards people like me. People who understand how things actually work.”
His gaze dragged slowly over Alastor’s form.
“You weren’t supposed to escape. You were supposed to stay pretty and quiet.”
A pause.
“But you decided to throw a tantrum instead.”
Vox exhaled a faint laugh, shaking his head as if disappointed.
“You had your fun,” he went on. “But fantasies don’t last, sweetheart.”
He stopped just short of Alastor’s reach.
“So do yourself a favor,” Vox murmured, his voice low and intimate. “Give up. Before this gets uglier than it has to.”
He leaned in, close enough that the glow of his screen washed over Alastor’s face. Close enough that there was no room to retreat without conceding ground. Vox wanted him to feel that - wanted him to remember what it was like to have nowhere to go.
“I don’t have any qualms about beating you into submission,” he continued, calmly. “I can. And I will. Over and over and over again - until whatever this little rebellion is gets knocked clean outta your head.”
His mouth curved, sharp and humorless.
“Because it’s obvious that’s exactly what you need.”
His eyes narrowed, the light behind the screen sharpening into slits.
“I played the gentle spouse,” Vox said. “The patient husband. Decades of restraint. Decades of indulging you - your moods, your pride and your delusions.”
His voice hardened.
“And it still wasn’t fucking good enough for you.”
He scoffed softly.
“That wasn’t what you needed. Not really.”
Without warning, his hand shot out and seized Alastor’s jaw, claws biting in hard enough to bruise. The pressure forced his face up, angled just so. The tips of Vox’s claws pierced skin, drawing thin lines of red that smeared beneath his grip.
Vox leaned in until his screen was inches from Alastor’s face.
“That’s going to change,” he said, quietly. “I promise you that.”
The doe’s eyes flashed with something dark and feral, and the sound that tore from his throat was a low snarl.
He wrenched his face free of Vox’s grasp, claws raking across the man’s screen in the same motion. Hard enough to leave visible scratches spidering through the glass. Pain lanced up his jaw where Vox had held him, but it barely registered beneath the surge of rage roaring through his veins.
Alastor shoved him back with a force that was anything but Omega-soft, his hooves scraping against the pavement as he braced himself. The instinct to tear flooded him, threatening to drown out thought entirely.
Vox staggered only a step before regaining his balance. He straightened slowly, as though the shove had been little more than an inconvenience. The man adjusted his tie, smoothed the front of his suit and rolled his shoulders with theatrical patience.
“Well,” he said, voice buzzing with anticipation. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.”
With a mechanical hiss, thick wires burst from his back, unfurling like predatory limbs. In response, Alastor’s own shadow stretched and warped, dark tendrils blooming behind him.
Vox’s grin widened, teeth bared in something vicious and delighted.
“C’mon then, sweetheart,” he drawled, spreading his arms in invitation. “Let’s see how much fight you’ve really got in you now.”
His eyes gleamed.
“Because I’m gonna fucking enjoy this.”
❧
Angel Dust rounded the corner at a half-run, breath tearing in and out of his chest as he pressed his shoulder to the wall and leaned just far enough to see. The alley had become a cage. Alastor was slammed into brick hard enough to rattle bone, only for Vox to be forced back a second later as shadowed tendrils lashed out with lethal precision.
The air hummed with violence.
Where the fuck is Val? Or Velvette?
The thought cut through his panic. There was no way they’d simply sit this out. Not when Vox was finally getting what he’d wanted for months. Angel’s breath hitched as his extra eyes bloomed open, pupils flicking rapidly as his enhanced senses stretched outward, combing the alley and the surrounding streets.
Nothing.
A chill crept down his spine.
Did Vox overplay his hand?
Angel swallowed and forced himself to steady. Husk was close. Close enough to respond the moment he was needed. That alone eased some of the tightness in his chest.
Angel’s claws curled as he pulled his phone free, squinting down at the screen. No new notifications. No incoming messages. Nothing from Valentino. Nothing from Velvette.
He typed quickly, fingers flying despite the tremor running through them, relaying the situation to Husk in short, clipped bursts. He hit send and tucked the phone away, pressing himself flatter against the wall as another impact echoed through the alley.
He allowed himself to hope - for a moment.
And then a familiar scent reached him.
And his eyes - all of them - widened.
❧
“You’re gonna have to do better than that, baby!”
Vox’s distorted roar grated against his senses, the sound warping as it tore through the narrow confines of the alley. Alastor answered with a sharp sneer, claws digging into cracked concrete as he pivoted away from a strike.
The space was suffocating. There was no room for grand displays or careless excess. Every movement had to be precise. One misstep meant a broken bone, a severed artery or worse.
They circled one another like predators. Shadow and wire collided in violent bursts, slamming into brick and metal alike, the alley shuddering with each exchange.
Sparks hissed where Vox’s wires scraped stone; Alastor’s tendrils tore gouges through brick wall.
Vox never stopped talking.
He taunted him relentlessly, voice dripping with mockery as he struck and retreated, struck and retreated again - probing for weakness. Every jeer was calculated, meant to dig under Alastor’s skin and remind him of old roles and old power dynamics.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” Vox sneered as a wire snapped past Alastor’s cheek. “This all that fancy new power gets ya?”
Alastor didn’t rise to it. He snarled instead, baring his teeth as shadows surged in answer, lashing out with murderous intent. Vox narrowly avoided impalement, laughter crackling from his speakers as he twisted away.
And then a wire slipped through.
It happened in a blink - an opening so small Alastor barely registered it before it was too late. The filament coiled tight around his neck, biting in with brutal force and yanking him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, the impact rattling his skull as the pressure cut off his breath. His vision swam, stars bursting at the edges as he clawed instinctively at the constriction.
A tendril reacted before conscious thought could catch up.
It snapped down with savage force, cleaving the wire clean through. The tension vanished instantly and Alastor sucked in a ragged, burning gasp. He rolled to his knees, one hand braced against the ground, shadows bristling violently around him.
Vox loomed closer, posture relaxed despite the intensity of the fight.
“Not a fan of being tied up, baby?” he purred, cruelty threaded through every syllable.
Alastor lifted his head slowly, eyes blazing. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to Vox alone.
He rose.
And pain exploded across his back.
It was sudden - biting deep as though something barbed and living had been dragged across him with intent. The sensation wasn’t a clean strike but a ripping one, thorns biting and tearing as they passed, leaving fire in their wake.
Alastor arched involuntarily, a sharp, pained scream tearing free from his throat.
He staggered forward a step, claws scraping against brick as he fought to stay upright.
Vox straightened, adjusting his stance as Alastor reeled. His grin widened, screen flickering with barely contained delight.
Again.
The pain struck a second time, crossing over the first lash - deeper now, more deliberate. Alastor gasped, shoulders shaking as shadows flared erratically around him, his focus fracturing under the realization that hit harder than the blow itself.
Someone else was here.
His ears flattened as fury and disbelief tangled together in his chest. He should have noticed. He should have fucking noticed. He’d been so fixated on Vox that he’d missed the subtle change in the air.
“Oh, sweetie,” a familiar voice chimed.
Alastor froze.
A woman’s voice followed by a soft, disappointed tut. There was something maternal in it, the kind of tone reserved for wayward children.
“It’s time to come home.”