Chapter 37: The Scent of Need
The tavern door was locked, a solid plank of darkened oak that didn’t budge when Yamato shoved his shoulder against it. The silence from within was worse than any noise. No clatter of tankards, no low hum of conversation, not even Sora’s sharp voice cursing at a dropped potato. Just the wind whistling through the eaves of the empty stable.
He ran around back, his boots slipping on the frost-slicked cobbles of the alley. The kitchen door swung outward, banging against the stone wall as Sora emptied a bucket of grey water into the gutter. She straightened, wiping her hands on her stained apron, and fixed him with a look that could curdle milk.
“He’s closed us. Go away.”
“Where is he?” Yamato’s voice was tighter than he intended. The absence of Taichi’s usual scent—hops, sharp citrus, and warm omega—was a physical wrongness in the air. It had been replaced by something else, something faint that clung to the steam from the kitchen. Something sweet.
Sora’s jaw worked. She looked him up and down, taking in his travel-stained cloak and the fresh cut on his cheek from a bandit’s glancing blow. “Patrol over early, is it?”
“The captain recalled us. The threat’s moved south. Where is he, Sora?”
She didn’t answer immediately, turning to go back inside. He caught the door before it could shut. The scent hit him then, rolling out in a wave from the darkened stairwell behind her. Cloying honey, spiced amber, and beneath it, the unmistakable salt-musk of an omega in full, raging heat. It punched the air from Yamato’s lungs. His cock hardened instantly, a painful, demanding throb against his breeches, and his alpha instincts roared, a primal drumbeat in his veins: Mine. Need. Now.
“You smell it,” Sora said flatly. “He’s upstairs. Has been since last night. He told me to bolt the front door and not let anyone up, especially you. Said he’d skin me alive.”
“He’s alone?” The thought was a blade twisting in Yamato’s gut. Taichi, proud and stubborn and hurting, writhing alone in his bed. The image was unbearable.
“What part of ‘not let anyone up’ was unclear?” Sora snapped, but her eyes tracked the way Yamato’s fists clenched, the corded tension in his neck. She sighed, the fight leaving her shoulders. “He’s… it’s bad this time. Worse than I’ve seen. He won’t take water. Just curses and throws things.”
Yamato was already moving, pushing past her into the warmth of the kitchen. “I have to see him.”
She grabbed his arm. Her alpha strength was considerable, but his was a warrior’s, honed and desperate. “He’ll hate you for it. He’ll hate me more.”
“Then let him hate me.” Yamato met her gaze, letting her see the raw, unchecked worry there, the alpha drive that had nothing to do with conquest and everything to do with the man upstairs. “But I am not leaving him to suffer in that room alone. Not when I’m here.”
Sora held on for a second longer, then released him. She nodded once, a sharp, defeated motion. “Stairs are in the pantry. Don’t make me regret this, knight. Or I’ll gut you with a boning knife.”
He didn’t reply. He was already through the pantry door, taking the narrow, creaking stairs two at a time. The scent intensified with every step, thickening the air until he could taste it on his tongue—sweet decay and desperate need. It was everywhere, soaked into the very wood of the building. His knot was a full, aching press against his clothes, his mind clouding with a single imperative.
The door at the top was ajar.
He pushed it open.
The room was a shadowy mess of scattered ledgers and discarded clothes. The lone lantern guttered on a bedside table, casting frantic, jumping shadows. And on the bed, Taichi was a vision of beautiful ruin.
He was naked, skin sheened with sweat, his messy brown hair plastered to his forehead. He’d torn the sheets from the mattress; they were tangled around his legs like pale ghosts. His body was arched, back bowed as he fisted his own cock, strokes frantic and unrhythmic. Slick gleamed on his inner thighs, a copious, pearlescent flow that dripped onto the ruined bedding. The sound he made was a broken, continuous whimper, punctuated by ragged gasps.
“Fuck… fuck, no, just… come on…”
“Taichi.”
The omega’s head snapped around. His warm brown eyes were blown black with need, glassy and unfocused. For a moment, there was no recognition, only a feral, heat-mad hunger. Then it cleared, a slice of sharp, painful consciousness.
“You.” The word was a venomous slice. “Get out.” He tried to sit up, to glare, but a fresh cramp seized him and he cried out, falling back, his hand returning to his weeping cock. “I said get the fuck out, Yamato! I don’t want you here!”
“You’re lying.” Yamato kicked the door shut behind him. He stripped his cloak, then his tunic, letting them fall to the floor. The cool air on his skin did nothing to quell the fire. “Your scent is begging. It’s screaming for an alpha. For me.”
“It’s a biological fucking glitch!” Taichi snarled, but his body betrayed him, hips rolling up into his own hand, a fresh gush of slick wetting the sheets. The smell of it, Taichi’s unique essence amplified a thousandfold, wrapped around Yamato’s brain and pulled tight.
Yamato approached the bed, each step deliberate. “Let me help.”
“I don’t need your help! I need… I need…” Taichi’s protest dissolved into a sob of frustration. His defiance was crumbling under the physiological torment. “It won’t stop. It hurts.”
“I know.” Yamato sat on the edge of the mattress. The heat radiating from Taichi’s body was immense. He reached out, not for Taichi’s cock, but to gently prise his hand away. Taichi’s fingers were sticky with his own spend and slick. “Let me.”
Taichi shuddered, a full-body convulsion. “If you… if you fucking knot me, I swear to all the gods…”
“I’ll give you what you need,” Yamato murmured, his voice gravel. He leaned down, capturing Taichi’s mouth in a searing kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was all teeth and desperate tongue, a claiming of its own. Taichi fought it for half a second before surrendering, a broken, hungry sound vibrating in his throat as he kissed back, his hands flying up to tangle in Yamato’s hair, pulling him closer.
Yamato kissed his way down Taichi’s throat, over his collarbone, lapping at the salt on his skin. He took a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard until Taichi yelped, back arching. He moved lower, through the trail of dark hair, past the omega’s twitching, dripping cock, and down to the source of that intoxicating scent.
Taichi’s legs fell open, a wordless invitation. Yamato didn’t hesitate. He buried his face between Taichi’s thighs, his tongue delving into the slick, hot cleft. The taste was overwhelming—musky, sweet, purely Taichi. He ate at him with ruthless focus, lapping up the slick that flowed freely, circling the clenched, fluttering hole that pulsed with Taichi’s heartbeat.
“Oh, fuck… Yamato… right there, please…” Taichi babbled, his hands fisting in the sheets. His hips pumped helplessly against Yamato’s mouth, his cock leaking onto his stomach. “Don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop…”
Yamato pushed his tongue inside, as deep as he could, fucking him with it, rough and messy. He added a finger, then two, curling them, searching. When he brushed that bundle of nerves inside, Taichi screamed, his body seizing, a jet of come striping his own chest as he convulsed in a dry, shuddering peak. But the heat didn’t break. It pulsed around Yamato’s fingers, demanding more.
“Need you,” Taichi sobbed, past pride, past pretense. “Need your cock, need your knot, please, alpha, please…”
It was the ‘alpha’ that undid Yamato’s last thread of control. He rose up on his knees, fumbling with the laces of his breeches. He freed his cock, thick and ruddy, the head already wet with pre-come, his knot a swollen, heavy base. He positioned himself, the broad tip nudging against Taichi’s soaked entrance.
He looked down. Taichi’s eyes were locked on his, wide and dark, filled with terror and want in equal measure. Yamato leaned forward, bracing one hand beside Taichi’s head, and captured his mouth again in a slow, deep kiss. “Look at me,” he breathed against Taichi’s lips. “Look at me the whole time.”
He pushed in.
The fit was obscenely perfect. Taichi was molten heat and velvet tightness, his body sucking Yamato in, devouring him inch by inch. Taichi threw his head back, a raw, guttural cry tearing from his throat as he was filled, stretched. Yamato bottomed out, their hips flush, his balls pressed against Taichi’s slick-soaked skin. He stayed there, shaking with the effort of holding still, letting Taichi’s body adjust, letting the omega feel the full, brutal thickness of him.
“Move,” Taichi begged, raking his nails down Yamato’s scarred back. “Fucking move, you bastard.”
Yamato pulled back almost all the way and slammed home.
The rhythm was brutal from the start. There was no gentle lovemaking, no careful pace. This was fucking, pure and simple—a biological fire being quenched with raw, piston-driven force. The bed slammed against the wall with each drive. Taichi’s cries were constant, a stream of filth and pleading.
“Yes! Right there, fuck, your cock is so deep—breed me, knot me, fill me up you fucking alpha, I need it, I need your come in my worthless omega hole…”
Yamato’s vision spotted at the edges. The slap of skin on skin, the wet, squelching sounds of Taichi’s slick, the scent—it was a feedback loop of pure sensation. He pounded into the clenching, desperate heat, each thrust aiming for that spot inside that made Taichi see stars. He could feel his knot expanding further, a throbbing bulge at the base of his cock, catching on Taichi’s rim with every inward stroke.
Taichi came again, his passage clamping down in rhythmic, milking pulses, his scream muffled against Yamato’s shoulder. The intense pressure was the final trigger. Yamato grunted, a animal sound, and drove in one last, devastating time, forcing his swollen knot past the tight ring of muscle.
It lodged inside, locking them together.
Yamato’s orgasm ripped through him, wracking his powerful frame. He came in deep, pulsing jets, flooding Taichi’s depths with his seed. He collapsed forward, catching his weight on his elbows, his forehead pressed to Taichi’s, their breaths mingling in ragged, sobbing gasps. The knot held them fast, a deep, primal connection, as Yamato’s cock continued to twitch, pumping every last drop into the omega beneath him.
Slowly, the feverish tension bled from Taichi’s body. The frantic clawing turned into limp hands resting on Yamato’s back. The desperate keening softened into exhausted, hitching breaths. The sweet-sharp stink of heat began to subtly shift, mellowing, intertwined now with Yamato’s own alpine-storm alpha scent.
They were stuck together, a mess of sweat, spend, and slick. In the silent, lantern-lit room, the only sounds were the pop of the dying fire and their slowing heartbeats.
Taichi’s eyes were closed. A single tear traced a clean path through the grime on his temple. Yamato saw it, and something in his chest, something far deeper than instinct, clenched tighter than his knot ever could.
He didn’t move. He just stayed there, locked inside the man he craved, watching him, and knowing with a knight’s certainty that this battle was over, but the war for Taichi’s heart had just entered a new, more dangerous terrain. The bite on his neck, the permanent claim, throbbed as a phantom temptation. He wanted to lay his teeth there now, more than he wanted his next breath.
But he didn’t.
He just waited, feeling Taichi’s pulse around him, and wondered what the stubborn, beautiful omega would say when the heat cleared and the world came back.