Chapter 1: The Bite in the Alley
The bass from the club was a physical thing, a thudding pulse that vibrated up through the soles of his shoes and into his teeth. Boom shoved the heavy door open, desperate for air that didn’t smell like sweat and cheap perfume. The alley was a shock of cold and relative quiet, the only light a sickly yellow glow from a flickering fixture halfway down the wall.His head swam. Someone had bought him a drink, something sharp and electric blue. He’d downed it, wanting to be polite, wanting to feel something other than the awkward outsider at his own friend’s birthday. Now, the world had a fuzzy, tilting edge.He stumbled, his shoulder scraping against damp brick.
A shape detached itself from the deeper shadows.Boom blinked, his vision refusing to clear. The man was tall, his outline sharp against the blurred graffiti.Silver eyes caught the scant light, reflecting it like a wolf’s. They fixed on him with an intensity that cut through the fog in Boom’s brain.
“Sorry,” Boom mumbled, his tongue thick. “I’m… just need a minute.”
He tried to sidestep, but the alley seemed to narrow.The man didn’t move. He inhaled, a deep, deliberate pull of air through his nose. His stony expression fractured for a millisecond, something like shock, then a raw, blazing hunger replacing it.
“What are you?” The voice was low, graveled, and it wasn’t a friendly question.
Before Boom could form a reply—a person, you asshole—the stranger was on him. A large, impossibly strong hand clamped around the back of his neck, cold fingers biting into his skin. Boom gasped, a sound swallowed by the distant thump of the club’s music.
“Wait—” he choked out, panic rising acidic in his throat.
The man’s other hand fisted in Boom’s hair, yanking his head to the side, exposing the column of his neck. Boom struggled, but it was like fighting a stone pillar. He felt the hot puff of breath against his skin, then a sharp, piercing agony.Fangs. Actual, fucking fangs sank deep into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.Boom screamed, but the sound was lost. A searing heat, different from the alcohol, flooded from the puncture points. It was molten metal in his veins, spreading through his chest, his gut, lower. His body went rigid, then limp, held up only by the vise-like grip on his neck. The pain didn’t fade; it mutated, bloomed into something else. A cascade of sensation crashed over him: the crisp, clean scent of smoked cedar and winter air, the feel of hard muscle under his hands, a dizzying, possessive fury that wasn’t his own.He was coming apart.His thoughts scattered. A deep, instinctual part of him he never knew existed uncoiled, warm and slick and wanting.A wetness soaked through his boxers, a shocking, embarrassing betrayal of his body. He moaned, the sound filthy and desperate.
The man—Tharn, the name surfaced in his mind like a gift—groaned against his skin, a rough, hungry sound. He lapped at the wound, his tongue broad and hot, and Boom shuddered, his knees buckling completely. Tharn held him easily, pulling him tighter against a body that was all hard planes and terrifying strength.
“Mine,” Tharn rasped, the word vibrating against Boom’s ravaged neck.
His hand left Boom’s hair, sliding down his side to grip his hip, fingers digging in. The other hand still cupped the back of his neck, a dominant, controlling hold. Tharn rocked his pelvis forward, and Boom felt the thick, rigid line of his erection even through layers of clothing. It pressed against Boom’s ass, a blatant, undeniable promise.
Boom’s head lolled back.His own cock was hard, aching, trapped in his jeans. He was slick, so slick he could feel it. The scent of rain on warm earth, his scent, grew richer, mingling with the cedar and ice of Tharn.
“Please,” Boom whimpered, not knowing what he was asking for.
Tharn spun him, slamming his front against the cold, wet brick.The impact knocked the air from his lungs. Tharn’s body covered him, pinning him in place. One hand yanked Boom’s jeans and boxers down to his thighs in a single, brutal jerk. The cold air hit his exposed skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of Tharn’s palm clamping over the curve of his ass.
“You have no idea what you are,” Tharn growled, his voice thick with a lust that bordered on violence. “What you’ve done to me.”
Boom felt the blunt, wet head of Tharn’s cock pressing against him. He was stretched, but his body yielded obscenely easily, soaked and willing.There was no preparation, no gentleness. Tharn sheathed himself in one relentless, splitting thrust.Boom cried out, his fingers scrambling against the brick. It hurt, a burning, tearing fullness, but the pain was already dissolving, swamped by the tidal wave of sensation from the bond.It wasn’t just a physical joining. He felt Tharn’s pleasure, a dark, soaring thrill of possession. He felt his own desperate clenching, his inner muscles fluttering around the invading length, pulling him deeper.
Tharn set a punishing rhythm, each drive knocking the breath from Boom’s lungs. His hips slapped against Boom’s ass with a wet, rhythmic sound that drowned out the distant bass. One hand stayed clamped on Boom’s hip, the other tangled in his hair, keeping his face pressed to the wall.
“Omega,” Tharn snarled, biting again at the bleeding mark on Boom’s neck, sending fresh jolts of electric pleasure-pain through his core.“Mine.My Omega.”
The words meant something. They carved themselves into Boom’s soul. The knotting instinct, the bonding gland, the submission—knowledge that wasn’t his flooded the empty spaces in his mind.He was an Omega. This was his Alpha.The reality of it, the irrevocable truth, broke something open inside him.
He came with a silent scream, his body convulsing, splattering the filthy brick wall as Tharn’s thrusts grew more erratic, more brutal. He felt Tharn swell impossibly larger inside him, the base of his cock thickening into a hard, locking knot.
Tharn roared, his body bowing over Boom’s as he emptied himself in hot, pulsing jets. The knot locked them together, a final, inescapable tether.Boom was pinned, impaled, filled. Spent.The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the steady drip of a leaky pipe. The bond thrummed between them, a live wire of fatigue, shock, and a terrifying, deepening connection.Tharn rested his forehead between Boom’s shoulder blades, his body heavy. The cold began to seep back in, the chill of the alley, the stickiness on his skin, the ache between his legs.The world, once simple, had shattered.
As the knot slowly began to soften, Tharn pulled out, the sensation making Boom whimper. He slumped, unable to stand, and Tharn caught him, turning him roughly.The silver eyes were different now. The hunger was banked, replaced by a storm of conflict—disgust, anger, and a possessiveness that looked a lot like horror.Tharn stripped off his own expensive jacket, wrapping it around Boom’s trembling shoulders. It smelled overwhelmingly of him.
“You can’t go back,” Tharn stated, his voice flat, final.“Not to your life. Not now.”
Boom stared up at him, the kind brown eyes wide with shattered innocence. He touched his own neck, his fingers coming away stained with blood and something silvery that shimmered faintly.The mark.
He believed him.