The silver fir pheromones surged wildly through the air, and a bead of hot sweat traced down that perfectly shaped jawline, finally dripping onto the back of Luo Congye’s hand.
While his body temperature surged, Bai Heting’s gaze grew even colder and sterner, and his voice dropped low. “Get your dog scent under control.”
Luo Congye glanced back. The few Alphas with slightly less self-control had already sensibly retreated over a dozen meters.
Male peacocks love to flaunt their tails, and Alphas similarly enjoy showing off their pheromones in all kinds of ways; the higher their grade, the truer this becomes.
But Luo Congye was an anomaly.
He seldom released his pheromones of his own accord, and he always kept a suppressor patch; something typically only Omegas would voluntarily use to prevent accidental pheromone leakage, sealed over the gland at the back of his neck.
A total waste of a one-in-a-million top-grade tequila.
He bent down to pick up the dagger stained with his own blood, wiped it casually a couple of times against his pants, and shoved it back into Bai Heting’s hand, speaking honestly. “If I get my dog scent under control, your situation might become a bit dangerous.”
Bai Heting did not reply.
He had suffered from this before.
Luo Congye kept his gaze lowered, momentarily losing his train of thought as he stared at the mottled bloodstains smeared across the blade.
Bai Heting had once developed a pheromone disorder and resistance to suppressants due to the abuse of inhibitor drugs. It was for this very reason that Luo Congye had gained the opportunity to become the hidden, private bed partner to this person who was as high and out of reach as the stars.
That’s not right.
It could hardly even be called a bed partner; he was merely a tool used to satisfy the desires of a superior during their estrus period.
His status was probably lower than that of a cucumber in the vegetable garden of the General’s Mansion.
Luo Congye pulled back his train of thought. Just as he was about to speak, an unfamiliar voice drifted out from inside the room.
“Let him go.”
The wording was very firm, yet there was a barely perceptible tremor in the vocal line.
Luo Congye blanked momentarily. Once he realized what was happening, he lowered his head and let out a laugh.
Not long after those words landed, another groan of pain and the clatter of metal hitting the floor rang out.
Only then did Luo Congye look into the room.
Jiang Han was in a pathetic posture with his hands pinned behind his back as he was pressed face-down against the floor by another Alpha who had slipped in through the window at some unknown point.
He only remembered his popliteal fossa being kicked brutally hard, followed by a crisp snapping sound of his wrist bone dislocating, and his field of vision spun upside down in an instant.
The scalpel slipped from his hand, dropping over a meter away.
The scent of alcohol grew heavier. Bai Heting hastily pressed down on Luo Congye’s shoulder and barked in a low voice, “Don’t touch him.”
Luo Congye kept his eyes fixed on that seemingly frail Beta before throwing out a completely rogue question, “On what grounds?”
He was no longer even bothering to pretend.
Bai Heting controlled the rhythm of his breathing while pronouncing each word slowly, “He is just a physician.”
Luo Congye turned back to look at him for a few seconds.
He was clearly already at the end of his strength, his body so frail he could barely remain standing, yet he was still worrying about someone else’s chances of survival.
A Bai Heting like this felt unfamiliar to him.
“Bei Yang.” His face darkened as he commanded the Alpha holding the man down, “Take him away.”
Bai Heting froze for a moment and was about to turn back, but Luo Congye gave him no chance to do so.
He lowered himself into a half-crouch, drove his right shoulder forward, and at the same time swept both of Bai Heting’s legs up with his right arm—lifting the person onto his uninjured shoulder.
*
The room was filled with a dense silver fir pheromone; without even asking, Luo Congye knew whose bedroom this was.
A bed, a table, a stool, and a low wooden cabinet comprised the entirety of the furnishings with not a single personal belonging in sight to reflect any trace of individuality.
Compared to the majestic and luxurious General’s Mansion, the conditions here were inferior even to the servant quarters back at the estate.
A used syringe lay on the table. Luo Congye picked it up for a brief look, then casually tossed it onto the floor.
“This ailment still isn’t cured?”
Bai Heting buried his face into the bedsheets, lacking the strength to argue back.
His thin summer garment clung to his body as if soaked in water, exposing a pair of butterfly bones that rose and fell with his breathing, along with the lines of his waist and hips that were usually hidden intentionally.
At some unknown point, the weather outside the window had turned; thick storm clouds swallowed the stars and moon, while towering waves surged toward the shore, smashing against the reefs and exploding into shattered, snow-white foam.
Luo Congye just watched Bai Heting in this lightless night.
He was originally a wolf, yet he had willingly lived as a dog.
His wholehearted sincerity had been mercilessly trampled by this person, ground into pieces beneath his feet.
Military boots thudded heavily across the damp floorboards, the sound of footsteps circling the room before finally returning to the bedside.
Bai Heting gripped the dagger tightly in his hand, but a short, muffled groan still leaked out from between his clenched teeth.
An icy fingertip suddenly pressed against the gland on the back of his neck.
No, it wasn’t that the finger was cold; it was that he himself was too hot.
Luo Congye looked down at the Omega’s fragile neck before brushing aside those few damp strands of hair clinging to the gland.
Although the pheromones had already told him this outcome, seeing this faint scar with his own eyes still caused his chest to throb with pain.
Mark-removal surgery was strictly prohibited by law in the country, and only a few underground clinics dared to perform it. Medical standards in such places were extremely limited; not only could the procedure cause irreversible damage to the gland, but if one was unlucky, it could even result in death on the operating table.
This person had defied the law and risked his life just to wash away the permanent mark between them.
Luo Congye moved his hand away.
He stood by the bed in silence for a moment, then asked in a calm tone, “Do you want a temporary mark, or do you want me?”
Bai Heting’s shoulders trembled as he cursed viciously, “Get the hell out.”
Even if it were only a temporary mark, an Omega would still develop an uncontrollable physiological dependence on the Alpha who had marked them. The all-disdainful General Bai had a strong sense of psychological purity; there was no way he would allow himself to become enslaved by instinct, much less permit any Alpha to “possess” him.
Luo Congye laughed. “So that’s why you found a Beta?”
Bai Heting stopped replying.
The only sound left in the room was the Omega’s rapid and ragged panting.
Luo Congye asked again, “Do you want me, or do you want someone else?”
His throat felt as if it were on fire.
Bai Heting clenched his teeth and remained silent for a while before finally squeezing four words out of his throat with great difficulty, “Get someone else… to come.”
A soft chuckle suddenly rang out above his head.
“Why are you laugh—” Before Bai Heting could finish his sentence, his back was brutally pinned down by a surge of brute force.
“In your dreams.”
