Chapter Sixteen

Brendon was hyperventilating.

He sat hugging the bottom of the toilet bowl in the hospital’s restroom, crying and heaving. He’d already emptied his stomach twice but he wouldn’t stop dry heaving, his muscles aching painfully. That was just after his realization that he had to find a cure for Spencer in less than two hours.

That’s no time to lose your stomach, Brendon! Get the fuck off your ass and find the fucking antidote!

He quickly got up on shaky legs and flushed the toilet, rushing out to wash his face and hands and then he was quickly running down to the labs thanking the goddess that the hospital he’d rushed Spencer to was the same one they worked in. It was late and most people had gone home except those on the night shift but Brendon didn’t even care.

He pulled out his phone and felt his stomach sinking with trepidation when he put an alarm for one hour.

He was giving himself one hour to find the cure. If he couldn’t do it…

No, that was the wrong way to think. This was Spencer. This was his mate – he had no choice but to find the cure. He normally didn’t take his phone with him into the lab – neither did Spence – but now he needed the heavy weight in his pocket as a reminder that time was running out.

His hands were shaking violently when he finally got to the changing rooms outside the labs, frantically putting on his scrubs and then rushing into the lab. He couldn’t stop quivering and his breaths were coming in fast and choppy, making his chest hurt and his stomach muscles clench. He couldn’t breathe. He was panicking too much.

Just looking at the lab made him so fucking mad! How on earth was he going to do this? How was he going to find the cure for a virus to which they’d only just discovered how it worked?

Breathe, Brendon. Come on. Think!

Nothing but static filled his brain. His mind kept replaying the time he’d pressed the nozzle of the bottle, the way Spencer had clutched at his face and his screams of pure agony.

Even if he managed to save Spencer, would the beta – no, alpha – would he even want Brendon anymore?

The thought made Brendon’s heart shatter into a million pieces underneath his ribs.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want me anymore. IT’s understandable – I tried to fucking kill him. Sure, I was in the middle of a panic attack because of the alpha pheromones but that wasn’t an excuse.

“Spencer,” he whispered on a broken sob. “Spencer.”

He clenched his eyes shut so the tears could fall before he moved on, needing to do something, anything. He got the test tubes filled with samples of Aide Wellis’s and Setris’s blood, putting both samples into discs and staring helplessly at them, his hands still shaking. Hot fat tears welled up in his eyes again and he felt so weak, so completely useless and now the best thing that has ever happened to him was going to die – because of him.

He blinked, the tears rolling down his cheeks and soaking into his face mask, his blurred vision clearing as he frowned at a half-finished bottle of water left on the work top, right beside the discs of blood.

Lillian.

Are you fucking serious? This wasn’t the first time the female beta was doing this! She always came into the lab with a fucking drink or other, grumbling that it was safe as long as she watched it but then almost always forgot the damn thing in the lab. This was why she was going to remain an assistant for the rest of her fucking life.

It was something small – something that had never pissed him off before – but the sight of the bottle just seemed to cork open the bottled up emotions and Brendon screamed, lashing out at the offending bottle, sending the bottle cap, which hadn’t been properly screwed on, flying, its contents spilling all over the discs of blood he’d laid on the table.

Fuck. Fuck.

Those were the last samples they had.

He sank to his knees and howled, burying his face in his palms, sobbing uncontrollably. What was he going to do? What was he going to do? Goddess, what the fuck was he going to do now?  

Get up! Get the fuck up! Think! Think! Come on!

Spencer! He could take a blood sample from Spencer!

He got up from his knees, his head banging, his body aching and he suddenly felt a million years older, like someone had dropped a large boulder on his shoulders. He was about to leave the lab and change into his scrubs when he noticed something.

The two discs of blood where the water had spilled had caused what looked like a chemical reaction.

In the discs were two liquids – the blood, heavy and dark at the bottom and a weird yellow liquid floating on top – just like oil and water refusing to mix.

He practically stumbled to get a microscope and then he was looking at the sample underneath the glass.

He could see, clear as day, the water components were separating the virus constituents from the blood cells.

Oh my god.

Oh my fucking god.

Water was the cure.

Fucking water was the fucking cure.

Perhaps Lillian deserved a raise after all. Brendon didn’t waste time looking at his wrist watch or even changing out of his scrubs, he just decontaminated himself – it was automatic, anyone leaving the lab was sprayed with the decontaminator in a small tube – before he rushed frantically up the stairs, foregoing the elevator and practically flying to the reception.

“Water,” he wheezed, “I need lots of drinking water at room 106 on the third floor, immediately!”

The nurse flew up from her seat, her eyes wide, “106 is emergency, Mr McKelly. Only qualified personnel are allowed to –”

“Did I fucking stutter?” Brendon growled, his eyes flashing, claws itching to extend out of his fingers.

“N-No, Sir. Lots of drinking water to room 106, pronto.”

“Now!”

The nurse squeaked and rushed out of her seat while Brendon ran to Spencer’s room, checking the alpha’s vitals. He was breathing but barely – the heart monitor showed each beat of his heart at one beat every three seconds – it was slowing down and that wasn’t good. Despite Spencer’s dark skin, the alpha looked pale, lips pasty, eyes twitching beneath his eyelids like he was having a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

Spencer clutched his hand desperately, his eyes watering again. “Hang on for me, Spence. Please, just hang on for me.”

The nurse soon burst into the room with a carton of drinking water and Brendon got one of the bottles out immediately, ripping the cap off without preamble.

He forced Spencer’s mouth open and massaged his throat so that the alpha would swallow the water despite his unconsciousness. He kept doing it, emptying bottle after bottle into Spencer’s body, his heart thumping as he glanced at the heart monitor and at Spencer’s face, refusing to acknowledge the cold in his stomach at the lack of response.

“Come on, Spence. Come on, please.”

He’d just finished half of the carton when he felt a vibration in his pocket.

Time’s up.

“No,” he whispered brokenly, “No. No. Spencer, come back to me. Please come back to me,” he sobbed but he didn’t stop, he kept emptying the bottles into his parted lips, not caring that the water was spilling over his mouth to fall into the sheets because Brendon’s hands were shaking.

His heart beat was still slowing and when Brendon was done with the carton, Spencer’s heart stopped all together.

Just like that. There was the sound of the steady albeit slow beeping to show that his heart was still struggling and then just like that it was gone, filling the room with cold suffocating sound of the flat line.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse whispered. Brendon hadn’t even noticed that she’d lingered. All he could hear was the long beep that signalled that Spencer’s heart had given up.

He felt cold, numb.

He wanted to shift. His wolf was howling wildly inside him and he just wanted to shift and then throw himself off a cliff.

He took one step back just as Spencer coughed. Brendon felt his heart jump into his throat.

The heart monitor was silent for a mini-second before giving a short beep.

Brendon froze. The heart monitor beeped again. And again. And again.

“Holy Goddess,” the nurse whispered, staring in shock. “He’s alive.”

“He’s – he’s –” Brendon lost control of his body and collapsed on the floor, the entire world turning black.

*

“So, Mr Hanson, could you please tell me what’s bothering you?” the beta doctor finally asked when she was done fiddling with Tom’s details in her computer.

Tom shifted a little in the seat he was in. “I’ve just…I’ve been a little weird lately.”

“Weird in what way, Mr Hanson?”

“Please call me Tom,” the omega replied nervously and the woman smiled and nodded, her light brown hair tied tightly into a bun behind her head and gelled up so thickly it looked and shone like porcelain glass.

“Please elaborate, Tom.”

“Well, this was just yesterday and I’m sure it shouldn’t be a cause of panic but I had severe cramps last night – it was just a light tummy ache in the afternoon but then it escalated at night. Uhm…my appetite has gone off kilter. Firstly, I was craving foods I really didn’t like and then I lost my appetite all together this morning. That’s…I think that’s about it.”

“Right,” the doctor replied thoughtfully, turning to face her computer and typing into it rapidly.

“I’ll just take your vitals, Tom, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

The woman got up from behind her desk and Tom waited while she brought out the necessary items to take his vitals. She took his temperature, his blood pressure and some other vitals for his chart before heading back to her desk and typing rapidly again into her computer.

Tom felt uncomfortable with the doctor because he was a regular patient in this hospital and he had his own personal doctor, but Sheila wasn’t around and because of the short notice, she couldn’t make it to examine him and see what was wrong. The nurse assured him that Bridget – the woman in front of him – was just as trustworthy but that was the thing with Tom and his personal doctors, he had to bond with them a little first before he could let them see him intimately. He just thanked the goddess it was nothing too big and he guessed that he could let Bridget take care of this simple matter.

“When did you have your last heat?” Bridget asked, still typing and not lifting her face from her computer.

Tom frowned a little at the question. “Uhm, about a week or two ago.”

“Hm.”

Silence.

Tom bit his lower lip, his hands clasped in his lap tightening into fists. Goddess, just get on with it, will you! He thought furiously, trying not to glare at the young woman.

“Are you mated or bonded, Mr Hanson?”

Tom sighed deeply. “It’s Tom.”

“Apologies. Are you currently mated or bonded, Tom?”

Tom felt a blush rising up in his cheeks and he knew that if the beta scented him, she would know if he was single or not but scenting people was considered rude in some societies – especially for doctors – so it was no wonder she hadn’t sniffed him out. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I – I’m mated, I guess? Uhm, not officially though but…I have…uhm…I have been seeing someone.”

“And you have been intimate with this person?”

Tom’s blush deepened even more and he wished more than ever that Sheila had been the one to cater to him because he wouldn’t be so embarrassed – wouldn’t feel like some stranger was poking their head into his private life.

“Define intimate,” he blurted with a furious blush.

Bridget smiled gently. “Have you gone beyond the usual kissing and scent marking? Basically, have you gone ‘all the way’?” she smirked at the term, using her fingers to quote the words.

“No, we haven’t,” Tom flushed. “We haven’t gone beyond the kissing and scent marking.”

“Right.” She turned back to her computer. “And for how long have you been seeing this person?”

“For about – maybe two weeks, I think.”

“So, you met him at around the time of your last heat?”

The tips of Tom’s ears burned. “You could say that.”

“Pardon me for asking, Tom, but this is strictly for the record. Have you had sexual relations before meeting this person you’re seeing currently?”

“I – no, I haven’t.” Tom’s face was burning and he shifted again uncomfortably. I’m a virgin, he wanted to add, just to make it clear. Gods, if Sheila had been here, she wouldn’t have needed to ask that question because she knew everything about Tom. This was slightly mortifying.

“Mhm,” Bridget replied, turning back to continue typing furiously into her computer. When she was done, she faced Tom again with a bright smile, “Well, this is nothing to get too worried about.”

“What? What is it?” Tom asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

“Well, Tom, what you’re experiencing – or about to experience given the symptoms – is an impromptu heat.”

Tom wrinkled his nose, cheeks burning. “I beg your pardon?”

“Impromptu heat,” the beta doctor repeated with a small smile, “Your wolf has picked out a bond mate for you, Mr Han– Tom,” she corrected herself quickly, “and in doing so, is forcing your body into a small heat to encourage you to mate or bond with this person.”

“O-Oh. But – my next heat isn’t due until –”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of that,” the woman interrupted rudely, “This isn’t the same thing, Tom. It’s going to be a shorter heat, will probably last just a couple hours instead of a full day, and since you started experiencing the loss of appetite and cramps between the day before and today, I’d say you have at least two days to prepare. This isn’t entirely uncommon, Mr Hanson.”

Tom didn’t bother correcting her. Fuck, his body was forcing him into heat so that he could mate with Chris. Fuck, he’d never been so mortified in his life.

“So…it’s natural, then?” he asked, swallowing down his embarrassment.

“Very natural,” Bridget assured, “Just go about it like a normal heat and you’ll be fine. I suggest spending it with your partner to prevent this from happening again – you don’t have to bond if you don’t want to. Normal penetrative sex or just knotting, if your mate is an alpha, will do the trick.”

“Goddess,” Tom gasped in chagrin at her bluntness, hiding his face behind his palms.

“I trust you’re on suppressants or some sort of birth control?”

“Birth control,” Tom replied. His mother would rather die than see him using those god awful suppressants. She believed that they made people impotent or destroyed the womb. Tom wasn’t really bothered though because he enjoyed his heats and taking suppressants would stop that from happening.

“Well then, I believe we’re settled here, Mr Hanson. Tom.”

*

“I want you to spend it – my heat I mean – I want you to… to spend it with me.”

Chris nearly dropped the plate he was holding, managing to catch onto the china before it shattered on the floor. He glanced up at Tom and his cheeks were hot with a blush. Never in a million years would he have expected Tom to say that, even though the omega had literally just told him about his visit to the doctor, and how his proximity and intimacy with Chris was going to send him into an impromptu heat in two days.

“Oh,” Chris replied, his voice coming out croaky. Tom shifted nervously and Chris quickly said, his own cheeks burning, “I’d love that.”

Tom’s smile was like the heaven’s gates opening.

*

“Wow,” Chris breathed, staring at the expanse of space that was Tom’s workshop.

Tom shuffled his feet bashfully, a small smile on his face. “Yeah.”

The workshop was large and spacious, looking more like a room to practice dancing lessons rather than a workshop. One wall was just a huge mirror, the room was double heighted and the bare walls held pictures of some of the most beautiful sculptures Chris had ever seen. In a row along the wall underneath the length of windows were several machines of different sizes and type but of the same nature, benches and chairs behind the machines. Some of them still had clay on them, other’s had pottery littered around their feet.

Chris’s attention went back to the hanging pictures on the wall. They were magnificent – and he wasn’t just talking about who took the pictures – the sculptures in them were beautiful and done with such obvious love – such blatant passion that Chris couldn’t help but want to buy it all.

“You did all these?” Chris asked with awe.

“Uhm, yeah, I guess. I mean, the tea set in that picture and the small statue in that one aren’t mine,” Tom said, pointing at each picture respectively, “those were done by my colleagues. Technically, they work for me but I like to pretend that they don’t.”

Chris laughed a little.

“There’s a…uh, there’s a room just off here,” Tom led him inside towards a door he wouldn’t have even noticed on the left hand corner of the room, the opposite wall being the mirror. “Most of my finished works are exhibited here.”

Chris followed him into the room and didn’t stop his jaw from dropping dramatically. Most of the sculptures were safely protected by glass cases and the room honestly looked like part of a museum exhibit. He took his time walking around the room and admiring all of the sculptures, unable to help imagining Tom making them with his own bare hands.

Those hands were currently stroking over the glass cases reverently, the omega’s gaze faraway as he probably remembered making the masterpieces that lay beneath the glass. Chris walked up to him and cupped his hips from behind, leaning down to nose at Tom’s neck intimately. “You’re incredible.” He smiled fondly at the pink hue that spread over his neck and the tips of his ears.

“Thank you,” Tom replied shyly, involuntarily preening on the inside. Unable to help himself, wanting to show off to Chris just a little bit, he whispered, “Want to watch me make something?”

Chris grinned, spinning the omega around. “Really?” he asked excitedly.

Tom giggled at his obvious excitement. “Yeah, really. Just something small and quick so you see how I do it.”

“Lead the way,” Chris beamed and Tom beamed right back at him before giddily leading him out of the exhibition room back into the workshop room.

He made his way to one of the machines, sitting behind it and Tom smiled up at Chris, all white teeth and chiselled cheeks, “Pottery wheel,” he said in explanation, tapping the machine.

Chris watched with intense concentration as Tom rolled the sleeves of his long sleeved grey V-neck shirt up his arms, putting on an apron and then taking off his shoes and socks with a blush.

When Tom was done setting the machine up and began to actually mould, Chris felt like he’d stopped breathing. Tom was staring at the object forming in his hands with passionate deliberation, his tongue poking out of the corner of his lip in a cute manner. He watched Tom’s long, lean fingers shaping the clay and couldn’t help but feel arousal bloom in his tummy at the way Tom was effortlessly modelling the clay underneath his hands, moulding with such perfect precision that Chris couldn’t help but imagine those hands moulding just like that over his skin.

Tom glanced up at him, licking his lips. He’d just wanted to check out if Chris was enjoying seeing him in his element, seeing him do what he loved in the whole wide world when he noticed how dark and intense Chris’s gaze had gotten.

His stomach cramped, his hole clenched and he was immediately soaking his shorts with slick, his body’s natural lubricant, the syrupy sweet scent wafting up into his nose.

“Oh god,” he whimpered, nails digging into the clay and ruining whatever object he’d been about to make. Holy shit. Fucking Chris had sent him into his heat two days early. Two days? His mind mocked, more like two weeks if you screw that impromptu heat bullshit!

It took Chris a second to scent it and when he did, his nostrils flared and his pupils blew to hell.

“Holy fuck,” he growled before he was quite literally pouncing on Tom.

Their lips crashed together and Tom barely managed to switch the potter’s wheel off before him and Chris were falling onto the floor, the alpha on top of him, their mouths meshing furiously. Chris grabbed Tom’s hips, wrapping the omega’s legs around his hips and rutting up against him furiously.

“Holy shit. What the fuck,” Chris sobbed, unable to think beyond the lust burning through his system, “What the hell – uhn, fuck, Tom – what the hell is going on?”

Tom’s brain was refusing to come back online. “I’m – the doctor – I’m going into heat –”

Chris groaned, “I thought you said it wasn’t for another two days.”

“I-I thought so too – oh gods – Chris – fuck me.”

“Holy fuck!” Chris growled, his eyes burning hot with desperate tears as he sat up, fumbling to get his jeans off because holy shit he was about to knot in his pants, the base of his cock fucking burning. He ripped the zipper open, shoving his pants open and had barely pulled himself out when Tom was scrambling onto his lap, the omega’s pants already low on his hips as he straddled Chris’s hips. “T-Tom holy shit, wait! Fuck, condom!” he gasped, hips straining as Tom tried to work himself down onto his burning length.

“I’m on birth control,” Tom replied hoarsely and sank right down on his cock, straight to the root.

Chris howled and shoved his hips up, his claws shooting out of his fingers and digging into Tom’s hips, vision blurring as the base of his cock began to swell rapidly, indescribable pleasure burning in-between his legs.

“God fucking dammit, Tom!” Chris mewled, clenching his eyes shut and trembling against the pleasure, Tom hot and slick around him, clamping around his cock like a goddamn vice.

“God. God. Yes. Yes. Knot me. Knot me. Fucking breed me.”

Chris keened, hips pumping furiously and had to bite his lip so hard he started bleeding to keep from coming when his knot was suddenly slipping inside Tom’s body, the omega immediately clenching up around him.

“Fucking shit!” he mewled, shaking frantically, his hips still grinding and pumping, “Tom oh my god you need to come right now goddess please oh my god –”

He nearly screamed when Tom finally came, all those muscles clenching and massaging against his knot and Chris’s vision whitened as his cock pulsed, shooting furiously.

“Oh god yes!” Tom sobbed, rocking his hips frantically, eyes glazed over, “fill me – fill me up.”

“Shit!” Chris cried as his knot fucking burned, pumping more cum into his mate. Holy hell who the hell was this sexy demon writhing and moaning in his lap – it was like Tom had been completely taken over by some incubus. Chris squirmed and writhed, sobbing to the pleasure, the pressure around his knot fucking god it felt so fucking good.

“Fuck, fuck!” he whimpered, rocking and rolling his hips. Shit, he wouldn’t stop coming. God, god…he arched his hips, grinding hard and deep, thighs shaking. Fucking hell, it was too much, oh my god, holy shit. “Fucking god, Tom! Fucking shit.”

Tom clung to him tightly, face buried in his neck while his inner muscles clenched rhythmically, fucking milking him, goddess fuck.

When he was finally done coming, he collapsed onto the floor on his back, his body still quivering uncontrollably. “Fuck,” he whispered shakily.

“Fuck is right,” Tom replied with a giggle, wiggling his hips a little to feel Chris’s knot more fully, the baseball sized ball at the base of Chris’s cock pressing right onto his prostate and making him feel so full; the stretch hurt so good. He felt plugged up to the brim with his mate’s release. “Gonna have your pups. Pretty, pretty pups.”

Chris whimpered, eyes widening with shock when Tom’s words pushed him right into another orgasm. He grunted, clenching his eyes shut, his hips circling weakly as he came again.

Tom collapsed on his chest when Chris’s hips were done churning against his. He breathed harshly into the alpha’s neck, gently licking and sucking the exposed skin, scent marking him greedily. Chris couldn’t help but return the favour so that by the time they were done, both their necks were sporting a multitude of dark red hickeys, both of them smelling so thoroughly of each other and sex that it would probably block someone’s nose.

The heat haze finally cleared and Tom blinked before his cheeks were suddenly burning bright red in mortification. “Oh my god,” he groaned in dismay, clenching his eyes shut. “Please kill me now.”

Chris had the gall to laugh, the action making Tom shift and they both moaned at the sensation where they were still joined by Chris’s knot.

“Shut up. Stop laughing at me.”

“Seriously, Tom. I mean…wow.”

“Shut up. I hate you.”

Tom had gotten clay everywhere. In Chris’s hair, on their clothes, on the floor…god, the place was filthy. When Chris’s knot finally receded, Tom lifted off him with a low moan, blushing in humiliation as Chris’s release was literally gushing out of him and onto the floor.  

Chris resisted the urge to whine at the loss, ignoring the primal part of his brain that was distressed at the waste, that Tom wouldn’t get pregnant now. Just the thought of Tom carrying his babies made Chris’s arousal surge all over again.

“We need to get back to the apartment,” Tom whispered huskily, his eyes darkening, obviously on the way to round two, “we need to – before the second wave hits.”