Chapter 3: The Weight of a Dream
The world returned as a deep, persistent ache. Cole floated up from the black water of sleep feeling anchored, pinned to the bed by a profound fullness. Nash’s arm was a heavy bar across his stomach, his chest a solid wall against Cole’s back. And inside him, buried to the hilt, was the thick, unyielding presence of Nash’s cock, still semi-hard even in sleep.It wasn’t moving. It was simply there, a claim that hadn’t been relinquished for hours, stretching him so completely he felt reshaped around it.
He let out a soft, shuddering breath. The stretch was a sweet, familiar pain, a constant reminder.He loved this part.The possessed stillness of it. His own body was a soft sheath for Nash’s hardness, a perfect, sleepy fit.
Nash stirred behind him, a low rumble vibrating through both of them. Cole felt the cock inside him twitch, then begin a slow, inevitable swell, thickening and lengthening against his sensitized walls. It pressed into places that made his toes curl.“Mmm. Good morning, my pretty boy,” Nash’s sleep-rough voice mumbled into his shoulder.His arm tightened.“Feel that? That’s all for you.”
Cole could only nod, a small gasp escaping as Nash gave a slight, experimental thrust, not pulling out but pushing impossibly deeper.The fullness bloomed into a sharper, more urgent pressure.
“Time to ride,” Nash said, his hand sliding down to grip Cole’s hip. He helped roll Cole onto his back, never slipping out, the angle shifting until Cole was looking up at him, pinned beneath his weight. The morning light through the lace curtains dappled Nash’s silver-streaked chest.And Cole rode. It was a slow, grinding, deep-welled rhythm, Nash holding his hips steady as Cole moved on him, taking him in with each sink downward, his head thrown back. There were no words, just the sound of skin, of their ragged breath, of the bedframe’s soft protest. Nash watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, a sculptor observing his work in motion.It wasn’t about climax; it was about affirmation. A daily recommitment. When Nash finally spilled into him with a choked-off groan, it felt less like a finish and more like a seal, hot and final. He stayed there, inside, for a long minute, his weight a comfort, his breath hot on Cole’s neck.
“Big day today,” Nash murmured later, over eggs scrambled too hard.He tapped his fork on the plate. “Your little… science thing.”
Cole’s heart stuttered.He kept his eyes on his own plate. “Yeah.It’s this afternoon.”
“Hmph. And the ball tonight.” Nash sipped his coffee.“Don’t be late getting back. You need time to get pretty.”
“I won’t be late.”
“See that you aren’t.” Nash’s gaze was like a physical touch.“The auction’s over in Creekside. I’ll be gone ‘til four. Be back here, ready, by five-thirty.”
After Nash left, the silence in the cabin was deafening.It felt different today.Charged. Cole stood in the kitchen, his hands flat on the cold linoleum of the table where, just hours ago, his secret light had danced.He went to the mudroom. Moving Nash’s stiff, worn coveralls, he pulled out the blanket-wrapped bundle.
He unwrapped it on the living room floor, the weak winter sun doing little to illuminate his work. He plugged the solar panel into the battery pack and flipped the switch.Nothing happened.Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He fumbled with the wires, his soldered joints crude and clumsy.A connection was loose. He swore, a rare, desperate sound in the quiet room, and re-soldered it, burning his finger in the process. He sucked the scorched skin, tears of pain and frustration in his eyes.He flipped the switch again.
This time, the light glowed from within the frame, steady and pure. It hit the layers of glass stones—the marbles from the craft store, a few pieces of clear quartz he’d found by the creek.The light bent, split, and scattered. A hundred tiny rainbows flickered across the faded floral wallpaper, across the worn leather of Nash’s chair, across Cole’s own trembling hands.It was alive.It was his.
He watched, mesmerized, for ten minutes. Then, with a resolve that felt foreign in his bones, he turned it off, wrapped it back up, and carried it to the truck.
The Harmony County Community College gymnasium was a chaos of teenage ambition and parental pride. Tables lined the walls, bristling with volcanoes, robotic arms, and meticulously researched posters on mycology. The air smelled of hot glue, ozone from electrical experiments, and lemon-scented disinfectant.
Cole stood at Station Fourteen, his blanket-wrapped project in his arms, feeling like an imposter. Everyone else had tri-fold posters, laptops running simulations, partners.He had a blanket and a knot in his stomach.
“Need a hand?”
He turned. A girl with bright blue hair and a tool belt slung low on her hips was smiling at him. Her nametag read “Maya – Volunteer.”
“I… I guess.Setting up.”
“Cool. What’s your category?” she asked, helping him clear the table.“Physics.Light refraction.”
“Awesome. No poster?”
“It’s… more of a demonstration.”
He unwrapped the box. In the harsh gym lights, it looked even more humble—an old picture frame, a jumble of wires, a small solar panel. Maya, however, didn’t scoff.She leaned in.“Whoa. Is that a Rasberry Pi?”
“No,” Cole admitted quietly.“Just an LED and a battery. And the solar panel for show. It’s… simple.”
“Sometimes simple is elegant,” she said, and her tone wasn’t patronizing.“You need an outlet? For the battery?”
He nodded, and she helped him find an extension cord. He plugged it in, took a deep breath, and flipped the switch.The light bloomed. The rainbows danced across his table, across Maya’s smiling face, across the floor.A few people at neighboring tables turned to look.
“That’s beautiful,” Maya said, genuinely.“You made the light chamber yourself? The stone arrangement is really organic. It creates such complex patterning.”
Her words were like a key turning in a lock he didn’t know he had.He started explaining, his voice gaining strength. He told her about the angles, about the density of the different glass, about how he’d calculated the focal point for the LED.He didn’t mention the cabin window.Or Nash.
A man in a tweed jacket with a judge’s badge stopped by later. “Refraction demonstration?” he asked, peering at the box.“Yes, sir,” Cole said, his throat tight.
“Explain the principle.”
Cole did.He talked about Snell’s Law. He described how the layered, irregular stones simulated atmospheric particulates, creating a more dynamic scatter pattern than a simple prism. The judge listened, asked a few technical questions about the light source efficiency, then nodded.“Interesting approach. Personal, almost artistic.Thank you.”
The judging moved on. Cole stood by his table, a strange feeling blossoming in his chest. It was pride, but it was clean, sharp, and entirely his own.It had nothing to do with being full, or being good, or being pretty. It was about making something that worked.
He saw Nash’s truck in the lot at 3:58. His heart, which had been floating somewhere near the gym’s rafters, sank back into his body with a thud. He quickly unplugged his project, wrapped it in the blanket, and carried it out.Nash watched him load it silently into the bed of the truck. He didn’t ask about it.He didn’t even look at it. His eyes were on Cole.“Get in,” he said.The drive home was quiet. Nash broke the silence only once. “Have fun playing with your lights?”
“It was okay,” Cole said, staring out the window.“Good.Got it out of your system.” Nash reached over and squeezed his knee. “Now for the real world.”
At home, the routine was a ritual. A shower so hot it turned his skin pink.Shaving everyplace Nash liked him smooth. The feeling of the green velvet dress slipping over his head was like being encased in a new skin—a prettier, more fragile one.He stood before the bedroom mirror.
Nash came up behind him, the moonstone necklace in his hand.He fastened it around Cole’s throat. The stone lay cool against his flushed skin. Nash’s hands rested on his shoulders, their reflection a portrait in the dim light: the weathered, powerful alpha behind the slender, velvet-clad omega.
“Look at you,” Nash said, his voice a low hum of satisfaction.“My creation.Every part of you. They’ll look at you tonight.They’ll want you. But they’ll never know what you are.” His hands slid down Cole’s arms, possessive and final. “They’ll never know how you’re made.”
Cole watched their reflection. The boy who had explained Snell’s Law to a judge was gone, folded up and put away like the science project in the utility closet. In the mirror was only the pretty boy, the good boy, bathed in the ghostly moonlight of a dead woman’s jewel.
He leaned back into Nash’s solid chest, the last piece of the armor locking into place.“I know, Grandpa,” he whispered.
Nash turned him around, kissed him, deep and slow, a stamp of ownership. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling away, his eyes dark. “Time to show you off.”
And Cole followed, the rainbows from his box of light extinguished, replaced by the singular, unwavering beam of Nash’s focus. The truck door closed with a solid, final sound, echoing in the cold, dark yard.
The truck’s headlights carved a tunnel through the pitch-black country roads, the only world beyond the glass a void of skeletal trees and frosted fields. Cole sat perfectly still, the velvet of his dress clinging to his thighs, the moonstone a cold, heavy teardrop against his pounding pulse. Nash drove in silence, one rough hand on the wheel, the other resting possessively on Cole’s knee. The radio was off. The only sounds were the engine’s growl and the wind rushing past.
They crested a hill, and the world below suddenly glittered. The Orion Falls Hotel was an absurdly grand Victorian manor, lit up like a jeweled wedding cake against the dark forest. Music, a thumping, modern bassline, pulsed faintly through the truck’s walls as they approached. Cole’s stomach clenched. It sounded nothing like the quiet hum of the cabin or the echoing gymnasium.
Nash pulled the truck into the long, gravelled driveway, a line of newer, sleeker cars ahead of them. He parked under a massive oak, its branches naked and claw-like against the hotel’s golden light. He turned off the engine. The sudden silence was deafening.
“Look at me,” Nash said, his voice low.
Cole turned. Nash’s face was in shadow, but his eyes caught the gleam from the hotel. He reached over, his calloused thumb rough against Cole’s cheekbone. He smoothed a nonexistent strand of hair, his touch meticulously adjusting the collar of Cole’s coat. It was a grandfatherly gesture, slow and deliberate, performed for anyone who might be watching from the valet stand.
He leaned closer, his scent of leather and spiced cologne filling the cab. He pressed a dry, chaste kiss to Cole’s forehead. It was the perfect picture of familial affection.
Then his lips brushed Cole’s ear, and his whisper was a hot, private violation of the public scene. “My pretty little boy,” he breathed, the words a secret, stark contrast to the paternal kiss. “Knock them dead tonight.”
He pulled back, his expression shifting seamlessly to a warm, avuncular smile. He gave Cole’s shoulder a firm, encouraging squeeze. “Go on now. Have fun with the other young folks. I’ll be back at eleven sharp.”
The performance was flawless. Cole felt split in two. One part was the cherished grandson, sent off with a blessing. The other was the owned omega, carrying a command in his ear and a dead woman’s stone on his throat. He managed a brittle nod.
He fumbled with the door handle, the cold night air rushing in to slap his face. He slid out, the velvet dress offering no protection against the chill. He didn’t look back. He walked toward the blazing hotel, the gravel crunching loudly under his thin dress shoes, each step taking him farther from the truck’s dark, familiar cage.
The heat and noise of the lobby hit him like a wall. A crush of bodies in silks and suit jackets, laughter shrieking over the music, the cloying smell of perfume and expensive liquor. He stood frozen just inside the doors, a stag in headlights. People streamed around him, a blur of color and motion. He gripped his own elbows, trying to make himself small.
“Ticket?” A bored-looking beta in a black vest held out a hand.
Cole stared blankly before remembering the paper Nash had tucked into his coat pocket. He pulled it out, crumpled and damp from his palm. The man scanned it, nodded, and waved him through toward the grand ballroom doors.
He pushed one open. The light was dizzying—a spinning disco ball fracturing rainbow shards over a sea of gyrating bodies. The bass was a physical thing, punching his chest. He saw clusters of alphas near the bar, loud and confident, their eyes scanning the crowd. Packs of omegas and betas danced together, a whirl of sparkling dresses and flushed smiles. Everyone seemed to know a dance he had never learned, to understand a language he’d never spoken.
He felt the moonstone, a spot of icy fire on his skin. Knock them dead. The command echoed, meaningless here. How did one even begin?
A tall alpha with a sharp jawline and overly-gelled hair caught his eye from across the room. The alpha’s gaze traveled down Cole’s body, lingering, before giving a slow, appreciative smile. It wasn’t Nash’s look of deep, knowing possession. This was something else—hungry, casual, acquisitive. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold outside crept up Cole’s spine. He took a step backward, directly into someone.
“Whoa, easy there.”
TwHe spun. A girl with a silver nose ring and a kind, amused face steadied him. She held a plastic cup of something fizzy and purple. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. First time?”
Cole just nodded, his throat too tight for words.
“It’s a lot,” she shouted over the music. “I’m Leah. That dance floor is a predator pit. Want to hide by the punch bowl with the other introverts?” She jerked her head toward a long table where a few people stood, looking similarly overwhelmed.
It was an offering, a simple kindness. A path that didn’t involve the gelled alpha’s smile or the center of the roaring room. He looked at her open face, then back at the swirling crowd where the alpha was now watching him, still smiling.“Okay,” Cole breathed, the word lost in the music, but Leah saw it on his lips. She grinned and led the way, and he followed, the ghost of Nash’s whisper still clinging to him like frost in the overwhelming heat.
The punch was sickly sweet and neon, dissolving into a chemical aftertaste. Cole sipped it, the cold a shock against his dry throat. Leah leaned against the table, surveying the chaos. “So, you come with anyone? Or flying solo into the hurricane?”
“My… grandfather brought me,” Cole said, the word tasting strange here, in this electric air. “He’s picking me up later.”
“Ah, the classic drop-and-run. Smart man.” Leah’s eyes drifted past him, and her amused expression faded. “Heads up. Incoming.”
Before Cole could turn, a voice cut through the music’s thump, sharp and annoyed. “Hey. You.”
A hand clamped on his shoulder, not Nash’s possessive grip, but impersonal and firm. Cole flinched, spilling purple punch on his wrist. A security guard, an omega male with a tired face and a tight black uniform, stood there. His nametag read ‘Evan’.
“You’re in the wrong section,” Evan said, his voice bored but firm. He nodded toward the roped-off area where Leah and the others stood. “This is for female-presenting guests only. Omega males are with the others, over by the east pillars. Come on.”
Cole stared, his brain struggling to process. The velvet dress felt suddenly absurd, a costume everyone could see through. “I… I just walked in. Nobody said…”
“Well, I’m saying.” Evan’s grip tightened, starting to steer him. “Let’s go.”
“Whoa, hang on,” Leah said, stepping forward. “He just got here. It’s a dumb rule anyway. He’s not bothering anyone.”
Evan sighed, the sound of a man profoundly done with his shift. “Look, I don’t make the hotel rules. The alphas over there flagged it. Said it was a mistake letting you in here.” He jerked his chin across the room.
Cole followed his gaze. Near a massive stone pillar, two alpha men stood watching. They were identical, broad-shouldered in matching dark suits, their blond hair cut with militant precision. Their faces were set in identical expressions of cold, disapproving amusement. One of them gave a slight, mocking wave.
The twins had been confused why the staff just let a male omega into the girls only roped off section instead of putting him in with the omega males. So they’d caught one of the omega male guards making rounds on the omega male side and asked him to fix it since it was a mistake.
Humiliation, hot and liquid, poured down Cole’s spine. It was different from Nash’s ownership, which lived in the dark and called itself love. This was public, clinical, a correction. He was a misplaced object being returned to the proper shelf.
“It’s fine,” Cole mumbled, pulling his arm from Evan’s grasp. His voice sounded thin, drowned by the music. “I’ll go.”
Leah shot a glare toward the twins. “This is bullshit.”
But Cole was already moving, head down, following the guard’s pointing hand. The walk across the edge of the dance floor felt miles long. He felt every glance, real or imagined, like a pinprick on his skin. The safe, shadowy corner by the punch bowl vanished behind him.
The omega male section was quieter, a gilded cage with plush benches lining the wall. A dozen or so young men sat or stood in small groups, their clothing ranging from elegant suits to more formal, traditional robes. Their conversation was a low murmur. They all looked up as he entered, their eyes taking in the green velvet dress, the moonstone, his flushed face. Some looks were curious, others held a subtle, understanding pity. He was a spectacle, but a familiar kind in here.
He found an empty space at the end of a bench and sat, folding his hands in his lap, trying to become invisible. The music from the main floor was muted here, a dull throb. He focused on the cold weight of the moonstone, on the memory of Nash’s kiss on his forehead and the whisper that followed. Knock them dead. He was failing, utterly.
“Rough start.”
Cole looked up. A young man with gentle brown eyes and a soft sweater had sat down beside him, leaving a careful foot of space. “The twins are assholes,” the guy said, offering a small, sympathetic smile. “They get off on that. Ordering people around. I’m Kai.”
“Cole.”
“First time at one of these, Cole in the dress?”
Cole just nodded, his throat too tight for trust.
“It’s a lot. The dress is nice, though. Brave.” Kai’s smile was genuine, without mockery. He didn’t ask about the grandfather or the science fair. He just sat in the quiet, offering a silent solidarity that felt like a lifeline.
It lasted three minutes.
The twin alphas had finished their drinks. They moved with a synchronized, predatory grace around the dance floor’s edge, their destination clear. They stopped directly in front of the roped-off omega section, their presence casting a long shadow over the seated men. The chatter died.
The one on the right, a faint scar through his eyebrow the only way to tell him apart, spoke. His voice was a smooth baritone that carried without needing to shout. “You. The one in green. Come here.”
Every eye in the section turned to Cole. He felt pinned, his blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t move.
“We’re talking to you,” the other twin said, his voice identical. “We got you sorted into the right spot. Least you can do is come say thank you.”
A sick game. This was their idea of fun. Cole’s legs felt like wood. He glanced at Kai, whose face had gone carefully blank, a practiced mask of non-confrontation.
“I… I’m fine here,” Cole managed, the words barely audible.
Scar-brow’s smile was ice. “We insist.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a demonstration, for them and for everyone watching. The guard, Evan, was nowhere to be seen. The other omegas looked away, studying the floor or their hands. The unspoken rules of this world were clear: the twins had the power, and Cole was the evening’s entertainment.
He stood. The velvet felt like a lead apron. He moved through the opening in the rope, each step a tiny surrender. The twins didn’t move aside to let him fully out. They crowded him, a wall of expensive cologne and alpha intensity, right at the threshold.
“There,” said the one without the scar, his eyes raking down Cole’s body. “That’s better. You looked ridiculous over there with the girls. This is where you belong.” He reached out and flicked the moonstone with a fingernail. It made a tiny, cold ping. “Pretty trinket. A gift?”
Cole’s hand flew to the stone, covering it. A reflex. The twin’s eyes narrowed, amused by the show of protectiveness.
“Shy,” Scar-brow murmured. He leaned in, his breath hot on Cole’s ear, mimicking Nash’s intimacy but twisting it into something vile and public. “Or just someone’s well-kept secret? You smell… practiced.”
The other twin chuckled, a low, unpleasant sound. “Needs a proper introduction to how things work at a real gathering. All that potential, just sitting on a bench.” His hand came up, not to touch Cole, but to gesture toward the pulsating heart of the dance floor. “Why don’t we show you?”
They didn’t wait for an answer. Each twin took one of his arms, their grips impersonal and steel-fingered. They turned him, not back to the safety of the omega section, but toward the swirling, dark center of the room where the music was loudest and the lights were most blinding.
Cole dug his heels in, a panic as pure and sharp as any he’d ever known slicing through him. This wasn’t the quiet, shadowed possession of the cabin. This was exposure. This was being consumed by a crowd. “No,” he said, the word tearing from him. “Let me go.”
They only tightened their hold, their synchronized smiles widening. They began to walk, forcing him forward with them into the sea of bodies. The noise swallowed his protest. The lights strobed, disorienting him. He looked back, a desperate, searching glance toward the bench, toward Kai, toward any semblance of refuge.
But he was already gone, swallowed by the crowd, dragged deeper into the beat by the two identical, smiling men. The moonstone burned cold against his skin, a worthless charm. Nash’s world, the only world he knew, was miles away in the dark, and here, under these blazing lights, he was utterly, terrifyingly alone.