Chapter Text
Charles' throat burns as he heaves.
He’s long since stopped throwing anything up, even bile. Still, his stomach won’t settle down, no matter how much water he’s given or how many anti-nausea tablets are shoved under his tongue.
It’s not unreasonable, he thinks, to feel as sick as he does, but everyone around him seems to be losing patience.
You agreed to this, Fred reminded him ten minutes ago, when he’d come into Charles’ hotel room to see why they were taking so long.
Charles, pale faced and shaking, had stared at his team principal, unable to say anything.
Of course he’d agree to this. It was either this or leave Ferrari—and motorsport—forever. When he looked at it coldly, logically, obviously this had been the only choice.
Except now the auction is here, and he’s only just now realising what this might mean. If Pierre fails . . .
He won’t, Charles tries to reassure himself. It’s going to be fine. Ferrari will get their money, Charles will get an alpha that he knows to claim him, and he’ll still win the Championship this year. There are no other options. An alpha that he doesn’t know winning the bid is not an option. Being forced to mate with an alpha he doesn’t know is not an option. Being forced by his new alpha to leave F1 is not an option.
None of that is going to happen.
He’d rather he didn’t have to mate with Pierre, either, but at least this way somebody that he knows and trusts will be in control of him. That’s what is going to happen. Charles has made sure of it.
The way Pierre had stared at him in horror when Charles had told him what he agreed to doesn’t matter. The fact that he couldn’t even stomach the idea of telling his maman doesn’t matter. That Ferrari picked out a set of red, flowing lingerie doesn’t matter. That he’d immediately thrown up as soon as he’d seen himself in the humiliating outfit doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that he gets to keep driving. That he gets to keep winning.
“We’re running very late,” Guilia says nervously by the door, phone twirling in her hand.
Charles wonders what she thinks of this. She looks sympathetic, but that’s mostly happened since he threw up. Before today, she didn’t seem to think much about it, one way or the other. It doesn’t surprise him, really, that the betas he knows aren’t taking much interest in his fate. Omega rights aren’t something they need to worry about as betas, he’s been told countless times in his life.
Still, his colleagues at Ferrari are people he’s known for years, and they thought him a beta until two weeks ago. He’d thought they saw him as a person—that they would continue to see him as a person, despite his newly revealed designation.
Apparently not.
“I—” Charles' voice is hoarse, weak and croaky from vomiting.
He doesn’t finish the sentence. There’s not a single thing he can think to say.
“You agreed to this,” Guilia reminds him. She even looks down at him with the same impatient stare Fred had levelled at him. “Look, if you’re not going to do this, tell me now. It’s not too late to just sign your termination papers.”
Charles almost throws up again.
This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair. Nobody even knew he was an omega two weeks ago, and he’s been racing in F1 for six years! If they didn’t care then, why should they care now that they all know?
Why should any of them care?
The FIA having some old rule that omegas can’t race without being mated by an alpha is pointless, and Charles thinks it’s outdated. From the way the FIA and the internet have been going on since he’d accidentally revealed his designation two weeks ago, they don’t agree. Apparently, he’s deconsecrated the sanctity of racing or something by lying about his designation, and subsequently being an unmated omega while racing. It’s all part of the reason why he’d lied in the first place, really.
Pierre is down there, he reminds himself again.
He can do this. He will do this. He’s not signing termination papers, no matter how much everybody wants him to.
With shaking arms, he pushes himself up from the bathroom floor. The red of the draped camisole they’ve forced him into drags against the side of the toilet, Rosso Corsa in all its glory. Charles isn’t sure how he’ll ever look at the colour the same way again.
“Good,” Guilia says, then turns back to her phone and begins to type. “I’ll tell Fred we’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes until he’s sold to the highest bidder.
His stomach rolls again, but he takes a deep breath to try and calm himself down. He needs to pull himself together now, and there’s nothing left for him to vomit, anyway.
“Come on, there’s a couple more things you need,” Guilia says, still staring at her phone. She turns her back to him, leading him back towards the bed.
It takes him a few seconds to follow, knees buckling every time he takes a step.
The red high heels that have been picked for him are sitting neatly on the floor, next to the sneakers he’d put on to come here this morning. The difference between the two is nauseating–he would never choose to wear heels himself. He’s just a newly-revealed omega, not an entirely different fucking person.
The muzzle is still on the bed.
“Do I—do I have to wear those?” Charles asks quietly, unable to meet the eye of anyone in the room.
“Hm? Oh, yes, they’re to entice bidding. A lot of the alphas that accepted the invitation are quite traditional, and we need to get as high a price as possible to recoup the loss.”
Charles runs back into the bathroom to throw up.
By the time Charles gets downstairs to the backstage of the auditorium, he’s shaking like a leaf.
The heels are still in the hotel room, because he’d put them on and then immediately fallen over, unable to walk in them. Guilia had tutted but decided to let him be barefoot instead, considering their time constraint.
He couldn’t argue his way out of the muzzle. It’s only made his nerves worse, and has given him a terrible headache. It’s pinching his cheeks, too tight right at the hinge of his jaw, but every time he lifts his hand to fiddle with it in an attempt to loosen it, somebody slaps his hand away.
Like this, he can’t even tell anyone that it hurts.
Even from here, Charles can hear the dull chatter of a crowd. It’s . . . more people than he expected. It’s more alphas than he expected. They were the only ones invited to take part in the bid, but Charles hadn’t realised there were so many connected to F1.
Only people who understand your importance will be invited, Fred had told him, when Charles had first been told about the idea of an auction. They will have to be connected to F1 already. That way, we can be sure you receive a proper valuation.
Guilia stops in front of a glass box, the door of it already open.
“For you,” she says, jutting her chin towards it.
Charles stares at her with wide, terrified eyes. Nobody told him he’d be put in a cage.
“It’s for your safety,” she clarifies. “Most of these alphas have never even seen an omega before. We don’t want any of them smelling you and trying to hurt you.”
Hurt him. They think there’s a possibility that he’ll be injured. Why the fuck would they invite people they think might hurt him?
“Quickly now,” she says, that impatient tone back. “We’re already late, remember?”
“Guila.”
Charles’ shoulders tense even further, hands shaking by his thighs.
“Hello, Mattia,” Guila says, turning around with a pleasant smile. Charles can tell she’s frustrated by being interrupted right before getting him in the cage, but she clearly forces herself to be polite to their old boss. “The auction is just about to start. Are you having trouble finding your seat?”
“No, I know where I’m sitting. I just wanted to see our dear Charles before it starts.”
Charles forces himself to take a deep breath through his nose, turning around slowly. He never liked Mattia, but he knows how to handle him. Mattia is dressed up formally, in a tailored black suit, crisp white shirt, and with a black bow tie. Charles never knew the man to like suits; he wonders whether this event has a fucking dress code.
“I was fairly surprised when the news leaked of your designation,” Mattia admits. “I was your boss for four years, and I never suspected.”
Despite the circumstances, Charles feels a little pleased with the admission. He’s gone to extreme lengths for more than decade to keep his secret, and the day he’d learned Mattia was an alpha he’d thought he’d have to sacrifice his dream of driving with Ferrari in order to keep his secret.
And then his papa had died, and he’d thought, Fuck it. I’m risking it.
It’s nice to know that the risk had been worth it–that even working in such close proximity to an alpha, all the medications he’s been forcing down his throat for years were really, truly working.
“And then to receive an invitation to your auction!” Mattia says, clearly delighted. Charles is disgusted by him. “I didn’t think Fred had it in him. Auctioning off the mating rights to his dear il predestinado, just to gain back some financial support? It would be a scandal if it ever got out, even though your lies have worsened public opinion of you quite considerably.”
Charles doesn’t know what he’d say even if he weren’t muzzled. He’s glad he doesn’t have to bother trying to come up with something.
“Though I suppose those lies are the exact reason why Ferrari just lost so many sponsors,” Mattia muses. “Is that why you’ve agreed to this, omega? Because you feel responsible for the mess you’ve put Ferrari in?”
Charles swallows. It’s the exact reason why he did it, but coming from the mouth of somebody else, it sounds . . . absurd. The second thoughts he’s been having all day come raging to the front of his mind.
Mattia hums, then steps towards Charles. Charles leans away from him, his doubts quickly replaced by panic at having an alpha so close to him while he’s this vulnerable. Mattia doesn’t stop, just leans down until his mouth is by Charles’ ear.
“I wouldn’t have auctioned you off,” Mattia murmurs, breath hot against Charles’ cheek. He smells as pungent as he always did, bitter and sharp like an over ripe lemon. “If I were still your team principal, I would have mated you myself and found the money another way.”
Charles shudders, unable to stop himself. The thought of being claimed by Mattia is nauseating. Thank God he isn’t–
“I suppose I’ll just have to try my hand at buying you, instead,” Mattia whispers, then finally pulls away. God, no. Does he have enough money to buy him? Team principals never make as big a salary as their drivers, but for all Charles knows Mattia has some kind of generational wealth he’s happy to splurge on an omega. “I’d ask you to wish me luck, but–”
He taps at his own cheek, over where the muzzle is pinching into Charles, and then laughs loudly. Then he walks away, whistling quietly, hands in his pockets.
Charles looks over to Guila, who is watching Mattia walk away, and wonders if she thinks that conversation was as disgusting as Charles does. Mostly, she looks annoyed to have been delayed again.
Charles has never felt so distant from betas in his life. He has no idea why so many of them think that second gender dynamics are meaningless to them. And he knows these people–he knows they have at least a basic sense of empathy. Yet somehow, for some reason, now he’s been revealed to be an omega he’s almost worthless to them.
A hand settles on his back, turning him around and pushing him back towards the cage. He flinches away from whoever it is, some beta who has no idea what this all means for him. None of them understand what this means for him.
Guilia reaches for him, putting her hand on his bare bicep and guiding him forward herself.
He recoils away from her, too.
“You agreed to this,” Guilia says again, right as the door closes.
Did he? Did he?
He agreed to help Ferrari find the money they lost because of him. He agreed to allow Ferrari to sell the rights to claim an unmated omega. He even agreed to an auction, however reluctant he had been.
He hadn’t agreed to have every square inch of his body waxed and prodded, to make you look like a traditional omega, Fred had said. He hadn’t agreed to the outfit, or the muzzle, or to be paraded around in front of alphas. He certainly hadn’t agreed to a fucking cell.
But when Guilia closes the door and locks him in, he understands that it’s too late for him to back out now.
He’s got nobody to blame for this but himself.
Charles doesn’t recognise the four men that stand by the four corners of his glass cage, and locked in here he can’t even smell them. He can’t smell anything, now that he thinks about it. He can’t even hear the crowd anymore.
Instead, all he hears is his heavy breathing and a ringing in his ears that’s getting louder and louder.
When the four men start to push the cage, Charles stumbles. He barely manages to catch himself against the glass, knees still weak. The heels would’ve made standing even harder, and he’s glad they took even that small mercy on him.
As the cage is rolled out onto the large stage, Charles looks out in the direction of the crowd, wondering what he might be able to see. The lights pointed at the stage are so blinding he can barely see anything, but when he squints he can make out the shape of the room, the clusters of round tables with alphas sitting all around like they’re at some kind of dinner party. There are less than five tables, each with maybe ten or so alphas sitting around.
He can’t see Pierre. He has no idea if he’s even here. The thought sends a fresh wave of terror through him. If Pierre isn’t here . . .
Still, he can hear the very dull roar of the crowd through the glass. It’s barely anything, just a faint buzz, and it dies down quickly enough.
Charles didn’t know humiliation could feel like this.
He’s been cut bare by Ferrari and the media enough times to know the prickle of shame, but this doesn’t even resemble that feeling. This is entirely consuming, a mixture making his skin itch and body feel entirely numb—like this is happening to somebody else.
The four men don’t leave even when the cage stops rolling.
There’s cameramen in front and to the side of him, and when Charles looks behind him he can see a huge screen, his pale face in high definition for everyone to see. He looks terrible, face grey, sweat dotting his hairline. But his hair is styled to perfection, eyes lined with a dark kohl, his stubble waxed off him this morning to give him a smooth face.
He’d been told it was to make him look the part of a soft omega; he has the terrible, sinking feeling that it was actually to make him look even younger than twenty six.
Charles can’t look at himself. If he does, he might heave again.
Noise crackles inside the cage suddenly, making Charles startle and look up towards where it came from. There’s a speaker embedded in the top of the cell, and Fred’s voice filters in.
“Settle down, settle down,” Fred says, and Charles realises with a start that he’s talking to the crowd.
He’s going to be able to hear himself be auctioned off. His breath comes out harsher from his nose as he bites down on the rubber mouthpiece attached to the muzzle.
“Thank you all for attending on such short notice,” Fred continues, once the crowd has quieted down. “With the next race in only a week, it was imperative Charles be claimed as soon as possible.”
An excited clamour goes through the room. Charles can’t make out any words, let alone specific voices, but he can still hear the vague buzz of the crowd.
“Now, you all know what you’re bidding for: the omega Charles Leclerc, and the rights to mate and claim him. However, I must make clear the rules of this auction before the bidding begins. Firstly, this auction has been called because news reached Ferrari and the FIA that Charles is an omega, and not the beta he claimed to be. If you are not aware, the FIA does not allow unmated omegas to race in any category of motorsport. As the current Championship leader, it is vital to Ferrari that Charles be allowed to continue racing. This means that the first rule of the contract is that Charles must be claimed within the week to prevent disqualification.”
Charles knew that. Of course he knew that. It’s why he’s fucking doing this.
And yet . . .
He never wanted to mate with an alpha. Ever. He’d made that decision young, almost as soon as he’d presented and been faced with the fact that if he were to mate, he’d lose the right to own property, to have money of his own. His alpha would be in control of everything, his body included, and Charles had decided that he’d rather never be married to anybody than to be mated to an alpha.
Hearing it now, hearing that within the week he is going to be claimed in the way he’d promised himself he’d never do . . .
God.
What was he thinking?
Maybe he shouldn’t’ve—maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe he should just give up motorsport. He’s still young, he could go to university and get a degree in architecture. It had been his backup anyway, so—
“Secondly, and for the same reason, Charles must always be made available to race,” Fred continues. “He is not to be kept at your residence when he is scheduled to either be at a race or at Maranello. However, as long as he is physically available and in a fit state to work and race, you may keep him in the state you wish. As his alpha, his freedoms will be at your discretion.”
Charles whips his head over to Fred.
They’d never discussed that. Free to race, of course—that’s the whole point—but his other freedoms?
I’m a human being, he wants to shout. You can’t make me do anything.
Except they can. They’ll be his mate, and they can make him do anything they want.
“The third and final rule,” Fred starts, this time slightly more reluctantly. Charles' heart pounds in his chest. They discussed more than three rules—the contract was supposed to have endless stipulations around violence, about keeping him safe, about keeping him on heat suppressants. “I’ve heard your questions about whether he can be bred while he is still racing.”
He can’t throw up. His jaw is muzzled shut, there’s rubber in his mouth—he’d have to swallow it back down if he threw up.
It’s that thought alone that forces him to breathe in through his nose, trying to calm himself.
“As he will be your omega, it will be your decision if and when you choose to breed him.”
Charles suddenly feels like he might be about to faint. His vision goes spotty, blood rushing in his ears, and he has to lean forward in an attempt to press his face against the glass to cool himself down. The muzzle stops his skin from making contact with the glass, and his clammy hand slides against the smooth pane, and suddenly he’s falling, vision whiting out as his knees buckle.
He doesn’t really remember the fall, but the next thing he knows the crowd is even louder, his knees, head, and back are aching from where he must have hit them when he fell, and there’s a hand around his bicep.
“Come on, get up,” a deep voice grunts.
Charles blinks, barely able to stop a quiet whimper getting out past the mouthpiece. The man is one of the four who had wheeled him in, and Charles can tell now that he’s a beta; more terrifyingly, however, is that he now has a nose full of the overpowering, bitter scent of a room full of excited alphas.
He scrambles back, trying to cover his nose, but the thick top bar of the muzzle is in his way.
“Get up,” the man says again.
Charles barely manages it, hand slipping against the glass again, but he folds his legs underneath himself and uses the strength in his thighs to stand.
The beta thankfully closes the door, but the damage has been done—the whole cage stinks of alpha pheromones, and it makes his eyes burn.
“Gentlemen, please, settle down,” Fred says nervously. There’s a long pause, where Charles can hear the crowd slowly quieting down. He just wants this whole thing over with already; he wants to get out of this costume, he wants to go home, and he wants to be safe with Pierre. “As the purpose of mating is to have Charles race, the breeding must be timed to minimise the effect on the active season, and preferably won’t happen in consecutive years. It would of course be our preference that he not be bred for the next five years, but as his alpha it is ultimately your decision, and we would certainly be willing to negotiate. Furthermore, you do not have to keep him on suppressants, but his heats cannot affect the season and must be timed. He has been kept on suppressants all the way until today, and it is your choice whether he continues to take this medication—keeping in mind that next week is a race week.”
The lightheadedness rushes back.
That was absolutely not part of the agreement. He’s supposed to be able to continue his suppressants, and he’s supposed to have full authority over any birth control he chooses to take before any of his timed heats.
Why would they do this? Why have they changed the terms of the agreement?
Of course Pierre will win, so it won’t matter, but now Charles is going to have to spend the rest of his life knowing that Ferrari were willing to change the terms of the contract behind his back. He’ll have to spend the rest of his career working with these people, knowing that they were willing to let him be forced into a pregnancy he does not want.
“I will turn over to the auctioneer to continue with the night’s proceedings,” Fred says. “But before I do, remember that if the price for the omega does not reach the reserve, the auction will be passed in and opened to a wider set of bidders. If the price reaches the reserve, the contract will be signed and Charles will be delivered to you this evening.”
Charles is trembling again, he realises. His thighs have gone weak from it, his teeth chattering against the rubber mouthpiece.
There are faint jeers again from the crowd through the speaker. Charles wishes he couldn’t hear any of it—it’s useless to him, because he’s never going to be able to hear if Pierre wins, and instead it’s just making him unbearably anxious and frightened.
He watches Fred leave the stage, not even sparing a glance back at Charles.
Doesn’t he care at all? Isn’t he worried about where Charles might end up? He’s known Fred for six years, since his rookie year in F1 Sauber. He’d thought they were closer than this; he’d thought Fred cared for him more than this.
Fred is replaced at the lectern by a man Charles doesn’t recognise; he’s wearing a crisp dark suit, hair slicked back, and he doesn’t seem at all concerned with what he’s selling.
His voice filters through the speaker, going over the bidding rules of the auction again; that the price must hit the reserve, that the buyer must have funds available immediately, that the sale is final, that Charles will be delivered to the highest bidder tonight.
“We’ll start the bidding at fifty million euros.”
Charles’ legs go weak again; this time, he just manages to catch himself before he falls.
Fifty million euros.
That’s—that’s almost all of the money that he gave to Pierre to win the bid. He’d sold his apartment—knowing it would end up the property of his winning alpha, anyway—he’d transferred all the cash he had to Pierre, he’d sold almost all his possessions. Between he and Pierre, they’d come up with sixty five million.
Charles had initially thought the price obscene, because why would any alpha pay that much money just for an omega?
But when he’d thought about it more, he’d known that Ferrari would want as much as they could get after they’d lost so many sponsors. He’d also known that there would be alphas with too much money to spare and too strong a desire to have an omega—his designation is rare, and he knows that most alphas in the world will never even meet an omega, let alone get the chance to mate with one.
But alphas are rare, too, and alphas who are connected to F1 already, even rarer.
God, he hopes sixty five is enough. He hopes even more that it reaches the reserve price Ferrari has set.
Surely. Surely, the price of a single person is not worth even sixty five million euros.
“And currently the bid is at fifty-three point five million, for bidder 56 in the back—let’s go to fifty-four, fifty-four, who’s bidding fifty-four?”
He’s trembling so much he has to sit. He has no choice, otherwise he’s going to fall over again and he couldn’t bear the humiliation of that.
He wishes he were stronger than this. He should be stronger than this. As everybody keeps reminding him, he agreed to this. In a better world, he would never have known that he’s willing to sell himself to keep driving and pay back the lost sponsorship money to Ferrari. It’s something he wishes he’d never learnt about himself.
But he did learn it, so now he knows and yet he’s still stumbling at the last hurdle. Faced with the fact that he might be about to be sold to an alpha that is not Pierre, Charles now wonders why he ever thought he could do this.
The glass is cold under his bare arse, the thong he’d been forced into not covering his skin in the slightest. Sitting makes the stupid thing tighten uncomfortably against his dick, too, yet another humiliation he can hardly stand. He’s never worn a thong in his life, and after this he hopes he never does again. The shame of being forced into it has his blood running hot.
One of the men knocks on the glass, but Charles can’t stand up. He tries to keep his head up so the alphas can still see him and hopes that that’s enough. The man glares at him through the glass, but doesn’t open the door again.
“Fifty-seven million euros, can we take it up to an even sixty? An even sixty? Fifty-nine million to bidder 29 at the front, let’s get it up to sixty, gentlemen.”
Charles' eyelids flutter.
Sixty million . . . it’s his whole life. It’s almost every asset he’s ever owned, and it’s all the money he had in his various accounts. He’d have taken a loan if he were legally allowed.
And he’d never really thought it wouldn’t be enough. It was why he’d even agreed to the auction in the first place—he’d felt confident that Pierre would make the winning bid.
Sitting here in the Rosso Corsa lingerie, the indistinguishable shouts of alphas echoing in his cell, the ever rising bid a constant sound, he’s forced to face the fact that Pierre isn’t likely to win. Somebody else is going to be able to bid higher than Pierre, and Charles will be forced to mate with an alpha he doesn’t know and who thought bidding for him in an auction was a morally acceptable thing to do.
Somehow, he hasn’t really cried yet.
Now, he can’t stop it; tears spill over his cheeks, hot against his skin. It’s the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to him, and it’s probably being displayed on the screen for every alpha here to see.
“Sixty-two, sixty-two, this omega is a fine specimen in the prime of his life, ready and able to breed—surely that’s worth sixty-five to you fine gentlemen.”
He can’t listen. He doesn’t want to listen. He’s on the verge of a panic attack, and all he wants is to see Pierre, see his maman, he wants to be told that everything is going to be okay and that this is fine, everything is fine. Better yet, he wants to be told that Ferrari and the FIA never found out he’s an omega. He wants to go back to two weeks ago and leave the track sooner, to make sure he got back to his hotel room before he’d been too out of his mind with desperation.
He wants this all to have never happened.
“At seventy million euros we’re starting to get to the right price, but it’s just a fraction of what this young omega is worth. His talent alone is worth that money, but his designation makes him almost priceless. We’re going to find that price tonight though gentlemen, so let’s get this bid up to seventy-five.”
If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that this is all just a bad dream.
He’s barely breathing, tears tracking down his cheeks, arse cold, and the foul stench of the excited alphas is still so strong the air feels thick with it.
But if he focuses, really focuses, he can almost pretend he’s home. His childhood apartment, where he always felt so safe and warm—it’s only a twenty minute drive from here. He imagines that he’s tucked into bed, his maman sitting beside him and pushing his hair back from his face, singing quietly while he drifts off.
He’s brought back to harsh reality with the sharp sound of the gavel hitting the lectern.
Oh, God. That’s—
That’s it.
Somebody has bought him.
The crowd is cheering and booing in equal measure, and Charles tries desperately yet again to see out into it. He wants to know who won—he’s still hopeful that maybe Pierre pulled it off.
Maybe he was able to take out a loan, or borrow some money from the other drivers. A few of them had been outraged that he was forced to mate in order to keep driving, just because of some long-forgotten FIA rule—but most of them are betas. Aside from Pierre, there is only one other alpha on the grid, and Charles now knows that betas don’t care for him as much as they say they do.
If any of them are lending Pierre money, it will be because they feel for Pierre—not to save Charles.
Still, money is money, and if he’s going to get delivered to Pierre in a moment then he doesn’t care where it came from. All he cares about is being safe.
The glass cage abruptly starts rolling off stage; Charles shoots up, trying to see out, trying to get some kind of clue as to his fate. He presses his face against the glass, as much as he can with the muzzle, trying to shield the light from his eyes and see out.
All he manages to see is the sheer number of alphas who had bid on him; there have to be almost fifty. He doesn’t know how they found even that many, if he’s honest.
His view is cut off by the cell being wheeled backstage again. He has to blink several times to readjust his vision now that the bright lights are gone, but once he can see he wishes he couldn’t.
There are Ferrari personnel celebrating everywhere, and he’s met with Guilia’s beaming face.
“A hundred million euros,” she says happily, as soon as the door is unlocked. Charles stares at her. “That’s more than we lost in sponsorship deals because of all this. God, Charles, you did great!”
He doesn’t feel even a shred of relief.
“Fred will be here with the winner soon; they just have to adjust the contract so your new alpha can’t make you give him team secrets, considering he’s on the grid. I’m going to take you back up to your hotel room, Fred and the winner will meet you there.”
His alpha is on the grid. His alpha is on the grid.
He almost falls over in delight, barely able to contain the huge grin that spreads across his face despite the muzzle.
Pierre did it. He fucking did it! Charles has no idea where he got a hundred million, but he doesn’t care. He’ll spend the rest of his life paying back that debt for Pierre, because his best friend has saved him. The relief that failed to find him now surges through his body, making more tears fall. These, at least, are happy tears.
He doesn’t have to worry. He should’ve had more faith in Pierre, he should’ve known the alpha would come through for him. He’s been protecting Charles for as long as they’ve known each other—of course that doesn’t stop now.
Charles almost has a spring in his step as he’s put into a robe and taken back upstairs to the room he’s been locked in all day. He doesn’t even care about being taken back there, because Pierre will take him back to his apartment as soon as they’re left alone. They can’t go back to Charles’, obviously, because he’d sold his apartment to get the money, but he couldn’t care less about that right now. All that matters is that he’s safe, Pierre is his alpha, and he’s going to be able to keep racing.
Charles’ changed mood is infectious, and Guilia is chatting a hundred miles a minute as they close in on the hallway. She’s talking about how they’ll break the news of his mating to the wider public—“People will be devastated you’re off the market, but I think I'll be able to spin a story.”—but Charles is barely listening to her.
On the other side of this door is safety. On the other side is Pierre, his best friend, his alpha.
The door swings open under Guilia’s guidance, and Charles practically skips inside, ready to tackle his friend in a deep hug.
Except Pierre isn’t waiting for him.
Pierre is nowhere to be seen.
Instead, it’s just Fred, contract clutched in his hand.
Charles slows down slightly, confused as he looks around. There’s the faint smell of an alpha in the room—it’s vaguely familiar, but it doesn’t really smell like Pierre.
“He’s just gone to the bathroom,” Fred says, a grin spread wide over his face. “But we’ve signed the contract!”
He waves it around, clearly delighted. Charles wants to snatch it from his hand and see the signature. He wants, needs, the confirmation that he’s safe. Standing around and waiting for his new alpha to come back from the bathroom is a wait he wasn’t anticipating, and his eyes are now glued to the closed ensuite door.
“We have of course adjusted it so that he cannot coerce you into giving him Ferrari secrets,” Fred says dismissively. “It is one of the many weaknesses of your biology, that you are so susceptible to commands from your alpha. But he has agreed not to ask, so we have signed.”
Charles can hardly care about the jab at his biology—he has bigger things to worry about than that.
“Weren’t you supposed to be wearing shoes?” Fred asks suddenly, but Charles can barely hear him.
The bathroom door is finally creaking open. This is it, this is the moment where he finds out that everything is fine, that his plan worked, that nothing is going to change and he’s managed to get Ferrari their money, get a mate, and finish the season with the Championship trophy in his hands.
But as the door reveals his new alpha, reality comes crashing down.
Dread and terror curdle in Charles stomach, a scream lodged in his throat, unable to get past the muzzle. Charles glances around the room wide-eyed, hoping this is a sick joke.
This isn’t—why isn’t—
The strong smell of the alpha invades his nose, the familiar scent of a thunderstorm filling his brain as he comes closer to them all, face blank as his icy blue eyes stay locked on Charles.
“Go on,” Fred says, clasping his hands over Charles’ shoulders. “Go over to him. I’m sure your new alpha is very eager to inspect his prize.”
Fred nudges him forward and Charles stumbles, tripping over his own toes. He’d fall flat on his face if he weren’t caught, strong hands steady around his waist. Eager to get away from the alpha, Charles tries to tug himself out of his grip, but his hands stay firm and only pull him closer until Charles’ whole body is pressed against him.
The earthy scent of freshly fallen rain gets even stronger, and Charles immediately holds his breath in an attempt to stop the smell from going straight to his head. He used to love this smell, and he’s always hated the fact that the smell of a storm was ruined for him just because of a stupid alpha.
He should’ve known that this is the way the auction would turn out, really.
Max Verstappen always ruins everything.