Mountain weather was fickle and ever-changing. In the span of a heartbeat, fierce winds rose and dark clouds massed overhead, churning across the sky as several raindrops the size of beans struck Luo Congye.
In the mere time it took to wipe his face, a torrential downpour cascaded down. Luo Congye squinted through the curtain of rain, only to find that the spot where Bai Heting had been now completely empty.
Panic seized him instantly. He strode over ten meters back upstream against the current.
Although his vision was restricted, the fir pheromones served as a trail of guideposts, quickly leading him to find Bai Heting submerged in the water.
Luo Congye scooped him out of the river. Bai Heting choked and coughed a few times before losing consciousness once again.
Disregarding all notions of status and propriety, Luo Congye lifted him in a bridal carry and ran all the way to a sheltered spot they had passed on their way here.
The cave seemed to be naturally formed; it was about three meters wide, and its highest point was only slightly taller than him standing upright. Fortunately, the stones on the ground were relatively flat and clean. He took off his hunting jacket, spread it flat on the ground, and laid Bai Heting down on top of it.
The concentration of fir pheromones had become so overwhelming that even drawing a breath felt difficult.
Bai Heting’s body was so soft it felt as though it could melt into water, and he was trembling subtly all over. Suppressed gasps leaked through his tightly clenched teeth. Writhing restlessly, he unconsciously tore open a few buttons at the collar of his hunting attire, finally curling into a ball with his legs crossed and tangled together.
His snow-white chest was exceptionally striking in the darkness.
Luo Congye did not dare look any longer.
This did not seem like an Omega’s normal state of estrus fever.
The escort guards had taught them a particular way of handling Alphas and Omegas; a method loathed by everyone, yet undeniably effective. Because he had arrived too late earlier, he didn’t know how Bai Heting had been targeted, but looking at his current state, it was highly likely he had ingested some sort of aphrodisiac drug.
The soft, fragile moans of the Omega echoed repeatedly within the pitch-black, cramped cave. Luo Congye stripped off his close-fitting short-sleeved shirt as well, bundled it into a ball to cushion underneath Bai Heting’s head, and fled the cave as if escaping for his life, finally able to breathe smoothly in the wild storm.
He sat on the ground facing outward. Once his impulses had calmed down, he released a tiny amount of soothing pheromones.
An Alpha’s pheromones could give an Omega a sense of security, and the higher the rank of the pheromones, the stronger the soothing effect. Before long, the moaning inside the cave gradually subsided.
Luo Congye silently let out a sigh of relief.
Just as sleepiness started to overtake him, a faint rustling sounded from behind. Through the haze of his fatigue, he felt a hand covered in leather finger guards graze across his slim lower abdomen.
“Gen…” Luo Congye snapped awake from his half-asleep state instantly. “General?”
That hand slowly crawled upward along his chest, finally catching his throat in the crook of its thumb and index finger.
His entire body was once again enveloped by the overpowering scent of fir. The Omega’s fever-hot body was pressed firmly against his bare back, while a sharply defined nose rubbed intimately against the gland at the nape of his neck.
Although the nape gland was exposed, it was also a vital sexual characteristic for both Alphas and Omegas; touching the gland carried a heavy, suggestive undertone.
The sound of the pouring rain was entirely swallowed by his deafening heartbeat, and a current-like pleasure shot all the way from the back of his neck to his tailbone.
Bai Heting had actually bitten his gland.
An Omega does not have the ability to mark others; this action only represented an Omega’s straightforward and intense desire for an Alpha.
Luo Congye’s mind went entirely blank. Bai Heting seemed to say something right by his ear, but the raspy words were completely drowned out by the sound of the rain.
Only then did Luo Congye sluggishly realize that Bai Heting was out in the rain with him.
Without daring to waste a single second, he carried the man back into the cave, but Bai Heting kept his arms wrapped around his neck, refusing to let go, and muttered the words once more.
This time, Luo Congye barely managed to understand.
Bai Heting opened a pair of unfocused eyes, his hot, damp breath gently brushing against Luo Congye’s face, “Pheromones… give me more.”
Luo Congye knelt in place, utterly at a loss, and obediently released his pheromones.
Bai Heting climbed higher, burying his face in the hollow of Luo Congye’s neck and inhaling deeply. Apparently unsatisfied even then, he practically clambered onto him before wrapping his arms around him in a face-to-face embrace.
Separated only by fabric soaked with bodily fluids and rainwater, the Alpha’s ready-to-burst desire pressed right against the root of his thigh; he could even feel that thing throbbing with excitement.
Instinct told him that this thing could bring him pleasure and relieve his agony.
And indeed, it did.
Awkwardly shifting his waist, he rubbed back and forth a few times against that considerably hard, large object. A numbing, warm current gradually pooled in his lower abdomen like a rising tide.
Luo Congye let out a low gasp with his hands clamping down on the other party’s waist.
Dissatisfied, Bai Heting commanded, “Let go.”
Instead, Luo Congye gripped his waist even tighter, veins bulging along his solid arms.
Before the differentiation of their second gender, almost every adolescent boy hoped that he would differentiate into a powerful Alpha.
But Luo Congye was different. He only wanted to be a Beta, one unaffected by Omega pheromones, so he could join Bai Heting’s escort guards and become his spear and his shield.
Yet, when he was fifteen, things went against his wishes, and he differentiated into an Alpha.
At that time, Bai Heting was already an army colonel. He fled from Bai Heting’s mansion and hid in the fields of the countryside. Using a harsh technique he had learned from a religious follower, he spent an entire year training his body to regulate and suppress the release of his pheromones at will.
But after all, he was still an Alpha.
The copper walls and iron bastions he had spent so much effort building were full of flaws in front of the Omega he admired.
In this country, Bai Heting was the only Omega who could stand on equal footing with Alphas or even reign above them. Luo Congye knew just how much he had paid for this.
A person like him would never allow himself to submit beneath any Alpha.
Right now, he was no different from someone taking advantage of another’s peril. When his general woke up tomorrow, he would hate him to the core.
His rationality was on the verge of collapsing, and his suppressed instincts were about to break free from their shackles. Luo Congye threw his head back in despair, his voice turning hoarse as he sank into the heat of passion.
“General, it’s me. When I was six, you saved…”
Bai Heting suddenly raised a hand and sealed his mouth.
His body was limp and weak, turning this punitive gesture into a gentle caress.
“I told you to forget your name.” Bai Heting’s consciousness was close to a daze, his voice intermittent amidst his pants. “Even if someone holds a knife to your throat, your name is still Luo Congye.” He gently slid his lightly calloused fingertips over Luo Congye’s lips, then continued to reach downward. “Don’t make me say it a third time.”
