Chapter Text
The door swung open with a low creak, a ray of light illuminating the otherwise dark study. Inside was a single occupant bound tightly to a chair with rope, a blindfold tied over his eyes.
“So this is the intruder who caused such a stir,” Sung Hyunje mused. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the guards and lit the lamps in the room, letting the door close behind him with a dull thud.
At the sound, the prisoner lifted his head, although the cloth over his eyes prevented him from seeing anything. Underneath the blindfold, though, there was something about his features that struck Sung Hyunje as familiar. Curious, he walked over and yanked off the blindfold in one, swift motion.
The prisoner’s soft, black hair was pulled into disarray as the black cloth slid off to reveal his face. Immediately, Sung Hyunje realized two things.
First, that he did in fact recognize this face, although he’d only seen it once or twice—Han Yoojin, the reclusive elder brother of the neighboring country’s monarch.
And second, that Han Yoojin’s eyes were a little glassy, his face a bit red, and his breathing heavy. He was either poisoned, ill, or—he was an omega about to go into heat.
“From what I hear, your brother usually keeps you tucked away and out of sight,” Sung Hyunje remarked. “I suppose I should be honored by your presence, although I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it.”
“Mmm…” Despite his half-lucid state, Han Yoojin blinked rapidly in what appeared to be an attempt to collect his wits. “I was just curious,” he said, with a bit of a slur. “What the rumored Seseong palace looked like.”
“You were curious,” Sung Hyunje repeated with amusement. “So you snuck inside unannounced, stole a servant’s uniform, knocked out three guards, and nearly made it to my private quarters before being captured.” In truth, given how much trouble they’d had with Han Yoojin in his current state, Sung Hyunje doubted that his guards would have been able to capture him at all under normal circumstances. “Was there something you were looking for? I don’t believe that our kingdoms are close enough for me to consider this just a friendly visit.”
It wasn’t that Seseong and Haeyeon were enemies, exactly, but calling them friends would certainly be a mistake.
“Then consider it an unfriendly visit. There’s something I’m looking for, but I haven’t gotten it yet.” Han Yoojin tilted his head back to look up, exposing the pale skin of his throat, as well as the black band that struck a stark contrast against it.
A neck guard.
Publicly, Han Yoojin was known as a beta, but…
“What would happen,” Sung Hyunje said idly, slipping a finger lazily under the fabric of the neck guard, “if I took this off right now?”
In response, Han Yoojin almost seemed to expose his neck further, the glistening of his tear-damp eyes doing nothing to diminish the intensity with which he held Sung Hyunje’s gaze. “If you want to know,” he said in a low voice, “then try it.”
Sung Hyunje raised an eyebrow, but he was rarely one to back down from a challenge. With only the barest of tugs, the neck guard came clean off, revealing the entirety of Han Yoojin’s throat as well as the thick pheromones sealed behind the accessory.
The neck guard slipped out of Sung Hyunje’s fingers and clattered to the ground.
The scent of Han Yoojin’s pheromones hit him like a punch to the gut. It was mellow and cool, with a subtle sweetness that lingered on the tongue like an aftertaste. But for all its gentle nature, the sweetness seemed to stoke a burning hunger that refused to be ignored. It was the first time in Sung Hyunje’s life that he’d felt controlled by his alpha instincts the way the stories seemed to like to tell it. A dumb alpha reduced to a knot, drooling over an omega’s scent.
“… A fated match,” Sung Hyunje murmured. “How long have you known?”
Han Yoojin’s shoulders seemed to sag a little with relief as he wet his lips nervously with his tongue. “… For two years,” he answered.
It was Sung Hyunje’s first time smelling Han Yoojin’s scent, but with how often Sung Hyunje used his pheromones to accentuate his own presence, the reverse certainly wouldn’t be true.
But no matter how many romantic ballads were written about the subject, a fated match was nothing more than a marker of physiological compatibility. They were no more inevitable nor irresistible than a particularly tantalizing piece of dessert.
“… You’re not curious to try it once?” As if guessing his thoughts, Han Yoojin lowered his head slightly, the action sending a fresh burst of sweetness Sung Hyunje’s way. “Passing a heat as a fated pair. Isn’t it supposed to be the most pleasurable experience in the world?”
Without warning, Sung Hyunje grabbed hold of Han Yoojin’s jaw, watching as the flesh of his round cheeks deformed under his grip, and the wetness that had gathered in his eyes finally overflowed in the shape of a tear. Han Yoojin sucked in a sharp breath as his scent spiked with anxiety.
“Be careful,” Sung Hyunje cooed in a steady voice. “Fated match or not, there’s a word they use for omegas who use their heats as an excuse to climb into an alpha’s bed.”
Han Yoojin’s back strained in an effort to take some of the pressure off of his jaw, but the rope only dug into his arms, keeping him secured tightly against the back of the chair. The discomfort seemed to do nothing to stave off his oncoming heat, though, and the first hints of arousal were starting to bloom in his scent.
“That word should be ‘resourceful,’ shouldn’t it?” Han Yoojin panted. “Rather than buying a toy, finding a ready-made knot is more—mmfghk!”
Two of Sung Hyunje’s fingers slipped roughly into his mouth, distorting the rest of his words. In response, Han Yoojin bit down as hard as he could, but the pain wasn’t nearly acute enough to distract from the wet warmth of the inside of his mouth. Sung Hyunje played curiously with the slippery flesh of his tongue, his fingers fucking all the way into back of Han Yoojin’s throat until tears pooled in his eyes as he tried not to gag.
“It’s the first time I’ve been treated as a substitute for a knotting toy,” Sung Hyunje commented mildly. “It’s not that I mind providing the service, but the necessary respect is still due, don’t you think?”
Han Yoojin tried to say something around Sung Hyunje’s fingers, but whatever it was, it came out as little more than angry, garbled grunts. Not that his words would have been very convincing regardless, considering the rapidly thickening scent of arousal in the air.
Sung Hyunje looked down, and sure enough, there was already a damp patch on Han Yoojin’s pants. By the time his heat was in full swing, he would no doubt be dripping with slick. Lazily, Sung Hyunje withdrew his fingers and shoved his hand inside the omega’s waistband. Han Yoojin gasped and arched his back as Sung Hyunje found his cunt, whimpering prettily when he thrust two fingers inside.
Hmm. Maybe this fated pair business had some merit to it after all.
“I’ll ask you one last time, Han Yoojin,” Sung Hyunje said, lazily fucking his fingers into him. “What did you come here to find?”
Han Yoojin let out a low moan, but he didn’t answer the question. Sung Hyunje waited until his cunt began to seize up in imminent pleasure, then he cruelly withdrew his fingers.
“Bastard!” Han Yoojin groaned in frustration, his hole clenching as if in enticement.
“Unfortunately,” Sung Hyunje said pleasantly, “I don’t have time for those who consider themselves above my questions. Once I complete my work, though, perhaps we can revisit the topic.”
Once Han Yoojin’s heat started for good, maybe his lips would be a little looser.
Tied to the chair, Han Yoojin made such a pretty picture that Sung Hyunje had been loath to move him, so he’d decided to keep him there for the time being and simply make him… a little more comfortable.
His pants had been cut away, and his slick was pooling directly onto the wooden seat of the chair. Inside of him, Sung Hyunje had stuffed the dense, egg-sized paperweight that usually graced his desk. It was too small to feel like anything close to a real knot, but it was too large and heavy to be fully ignored.
His legs had been spread and slung over the armrests of the chair and bound in place with golden chains, denying him any friction from rubbing his legs together while giving Sung Hyunje an excellent view of the desperate clenching of his cunt as it tried to milk the paperweight inside. Over the course of the past few hours, Han Yoojin had gotten it into his head a few times to try pushing the paperweight out, and Sung Hyunje had been forced—with great reluctance, obviously—to shove it back in until it bottomed out against his cervix, delighting in the half-pained, half-aroused moans that leaked from his lips.
By now, though, all of that inconsequential resistance had been forgotten, only heat-induced desperation and needy mewls remaining. Sung Hyunje’s scent hung thickly in the air, and he had discovered a perverse delight in watching a trickle of slick gush from the omega’s hole every time he released his own pheromones.
The downside, of course, was that Han Yoojin’s scent seemed to have just as potent an effect on him. His rut wasn’t due for another few weeks, but he could already feel the restless edges of it trying to overtake his body. His pants felt abnormally tight, and only a herculean amount of self-control was keeping him from palming his own dick—or better yet, thrusting it into the wet, needy omega in front of him.
As for whatever work he was pretending to be occupied by—he might as well just be scribbling meaningless lines onto paper.
With a glance at a timepiece, Sung Hyunje judged that the waiting had gone on long enough. He stood up decisively, walking with slow, measured steps toward Han Yoojin. At the sound of his approach, the omega’s cunt let out another gush of slick.
“I guess you finally… nngh… remembered how your dick works?” Han Yoojin panted.
It was cute—and impressive—that his mouth was still sharp to this degree.
“Yes, though I don’t know if you could say the same,” Sung Hyunje answered. He grabbed the omega’s little cocklet, giving it a rough squeeze, and Han Yoojin made a delightful punched-out sound, his eyes rolling back. “I don’t suppose you have much use for this pretty little thing.”
He stroked it tenderly a few times, paying extra attention to the cute, pink tip. Although Han Yoojin bit his lip to muffle his cries, he couldn’t help but throw his head back and shout when Sung Hyunje dug his thumb into the slit, coming messily onto his own stomach.
“Was that enough to satisfy you?” Sung Hyunje asked amicably, knowing the answer full well. Han Yoojin’s cunt was still clenching hungrily around the paperweight. Nothing less than a full knot would satisfy an omega in heat.
“If your knot… mmngh… is too small to use… just say so…” Han Yoojin ground out.
“You’ll have to be the judge of that yourself,” Sung Hyunje answered. He unbuttoned his pants, letting his cock spring free, feeling a surge of juvenile pride at the way that Han Yoojin’s eyes widened, and his breathing stuttered. “Come on,” he coaxed, lining his cock up with the omega’s pussy. Instead of pushing in, though, he simply rubbed the length against Han Yoojin’s folds, reveling in the slick texture against his cock. “If you answer my question, I’ll knot you properly.”
Han Yoojin bit his lip, the struggle evident on his face, but in the end, he shook his head vigorously from side to side.
… Pity.
Disappointment lanced through Sung Hyunje’s chest, along with surprise. One of the first rules of negotiating was not to hold hostage a condition that you yourself wanted. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made such a fatal blunder.
“Your Majesty,” Han Yoojin suddenly whispered, looking up at him with big, pleading eyes. “Knot me, please? Put—nngh—a pup in me.”
Sung Hyunje’s breath hitched.
His willpower was crumbling much faster than he’d like to admit, but that didn’t mean that he could give it up completely, either.
“… Fine,” he allowed. “But I think you have something else in there right now, don’t you?” He smiled sunnily. “Push it out, and I’ll knot you.”
Instantly, Han Yoojin’s pleading eyes morphed into a sour look. Still, he complied, his face scrunching up adorably as he tried to push the paperweight out of his hole. Perhaps in the last few hours, he’d spent so much time clenching down on it that he’d forgotten how to push—but finally, a few laborious tries and much heavy panting later, the tip of the paperweight began to poke its head out of his cunt.
A sudden impulse seized Sung Hyunje, and he grabbed Han Yoojin’s cute cock again. Immediately, the omega lost his concentration, the egg slipping back inside the folds of his cunt as he let out a frustrated keen.
“Don’t mind me,” Sung Hyunje purred. “I’m merely trying to ensure that you don’t get bored.”
The daggers that Han Yoojin glared at him were positively lethal, but he seemed to have become absorbed in his task already, trying to push the paperweight back out again without any further prompting. However, once again, Sung Hyunje thwarted him with long, deliberate pumps of his pink cock, causing him to clench involuntarily and fuck the egg back into himself with a shudder.
“I’m beginning to doubt whether you’d like to be knotted at all,” Sung Hyunje commented. His own patience was wearing thin, too, and there was a hoarse edge to his voice—but luckily, Han Yoojin seemed too preoccupied to notice beyond shooting him another dark look. This time, finally, he managed to push the paperweight out completely with a choked groan, and it clattered to the ground, rolling lopsidedly in wobbly circles.
“Are you finally—”
Without waiting for him to finish speaking, the chains around his legs had already slid off, and Sung Hyunje cut the ropes binding his upper body to the chair in one clean stroke. Grabbing the omega by the waist, he lifted him up easily and threw him over the top of the desk onto his stomach, his plush ass wriggling invitingly right in front of Sung Hyunje’s eyes.
It put him at the perfect height for Sung Hyunje to sink his length inside. The first bit was easy, but even after leaking all that slick, the omega’s cunt was still tight and unprepared. Han Yoojin let out small, quiet gasps as Sung Hyunje pressed inside another inch, his fingers clutching the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white.
Eventually, Sung Hyunje let out a low groan as his cock sank all the way in, enveloped in tight heat. He gave Han Yoojin only a brief moment to adjust before pulling out and thrusting back in again, hips slapping loudly against the omega’s ass as he established a brutal pace. Han Yoojin let out a pathetic whimper every time Sung Hyunje’s cock bottomed out, but his scent was radiating satisfaction.
This position put the vulnerable back of the omega’s neck right in front of Sung Hyunje’s eyes, and he couldn’t help pressing his nose against it, inhaling the sweet, addictive scent. A mate who was guaranteed to be perfect for him. Of course, it was an illusion created by their physiology, a manifestation of the primal directive to breed, but Sung Hyunje did not feel much superior to his basest instincts in that moment as he released his seed, and his knot swelled inside the tight heat of his—theoretically—perfect mate.
Han Yoojin let out a lewd moan, his walls milking the knot inside of him as he shuddered in his own orgasm. His pheromones exploded with dizzying fragrance, and even more than before, Sung Hyunje felt the urge to bite. To mark him, claim him. He licked the back of the omega’s neck idly, his teeth lightly grazing the gland. In response, Han Yoojin whined and shivered, completely knot-drunk.
“Since you won’t tell me,” Sung Hyunje said conversationally, once he’d caught his breath a little. “I have no choice but to guess for myself why you’re here.”
“Mmm…” Han Yoojin only let out a quiet sound of acknowledgement, which turned into an overstimulated moan as Sung Hyunje started rocking his hips lightly. There wasn’t much room for him to move with the knot still locked firmly in place, but the omega twitched deliciously whenever his knot pulled against that tight outer ring of muscle, then fucked mercilessly back in.
“Haeyeon is facing pressure from the east and the south,” Sung Hyunje continued casually. “No doubt your brother would be eager to stabilize at least one border. And if it came with a military alliance that could serve as deterrent to even one of your neighbors, all the better.” He punctuated his statement by grinding his knot against the omega’s walls, which rewarded him with another keen. “Is that what you came here for? A claiming bite, in exchange for an alliance?”
“Nngh… aahhh…” Han Yoojin shuddered, his attempts at speaking thwarted by his overstimulated gasps, and Sung Hyunje had to force himself to stop moving for a few moments to give him a chance to speak. “It’s not—mmfgh—a bad deal, is it?” He glanced back at Sung Hyunje coyly, dewy teardrops clinging to his damp lashes. “Haeyeon would—mmgh—be a good ally.”
Was this how kingdoms fell? All of a sudden, Sung Hyunje felt much less confident in his ability to distinguish a good decision from a bad one when a pretty face was whispering it into his ear.
As vengeance, Sung Hyunje hauled Han Yoojin off the desk, still clenched around his knot, and sat down, positioning the omega on his lap. Han Yoojin whined a little as the new position drove Sung Hyunje’s cock deeper inside of him, his quiet noises turning into pitched cries as Sung Hyunje pressed on the slight bulge in his stomach, feeling the answering pressure on his own cock.
This little omega’s tongue was a lot less dangerous when it wasn’t speaking.
“Although you say that, my feelings are a bit hurt,” Sung Hyunje sighed forlornly. “You’ve known that we’re a fated match for two years, yet you only seek me out now, when Haeyeon’s borders are under pressure. So, even as a knotting toy, you didn’t want my company?”
“Like your company—is anything to covet—mghk!”
Sung Hyunje stuffed two fingers back into Han Yoojin’s mouth, but this time, instead of biting, the omega began suckling instinctively. Every probe of his fingers seemed to trigger a mindless squeeze around his knot, and very soon, Han Yoojin’s oversensitivity tapered off back into simmering need again.
In the past, Sung Hyunje had never understood the alpha obsession with heat-drunk omegas, but he thought he could see the fascination now. It was the thrill of bedding a live blade, of turning something sharp and dangerous into a docile, whimpering mess—for as long as you could.
“A claiming bite is one-sided, and I’m not particularly looking for a mate,” Sung Hyunje remarked, his thumb stroking the back of Han Yoojin’s neck in contemplation. “Did you factor that into your plan? That I might decide to keep you as a toy, a convenient outlet for ruts?”
Han Yoojin moaned quietly as Sung Hyunje grabbed his hips and thrust into him lazily, but the lack of distress in his scent meant that the words came as no surprise.
“I could keep you in heat indefinitely,” Sung Hyunje mused. “Keep both of your holes filled so that your scent is always at peak ripeness. Do you think it would make negotiations with your brother go more smoothly if I walked out to table with you around my knot?”
It wasn’t until the last sentence that Han Yoojin’s scent flared with anxiety. Interesting.
His knot was starting to deflate, but despite that, Sung Hyunje still felt far from satiated. If nothing else, the omega should take responsibility for that, at least.
Giving Han Yoojin’s scent gland one last, lingering nibble, he stood up and pulled the omega off of his cock, laying him out on the desk again, this time on his back. As Sung Hyunje’s dick slid out, white cum dribbled out of his swollen cunt, mixing with the slick to form a lewd puddle on the wood.
“Spread yourself,” Sung Hyunje ordered.
Without any argument, Han Yoojin reached out with trembling arms and held onto his knees, folding them against his chest. It gave Sung Hyunje a perfect view of both his holes, one tight and unused, the other puffy and leaking. And his little omega cocklet, lying cutely against his stomach.
“If I’d known about your visit, I could have prepared many more ways to play in advance,” Sung Hyunje lamented.
However, it was hardly a difficulty to thrust himself back into the inviting heat of Han Yoojin’s cunt, the passage now wet and loose from their last coupling. Lost in his heat, Han Yoojin was no longer trying to hold back his noises, and his cries were loud and delicious every time Sung Hyunje thrust deep.
After having come once already, it took Sung Hyunje much longer to reach his peak this time, and by the time he was close, Han Yoojin had evidently lost the strength in his fingers to keep holding his legs apart. Just this once, Sung Hyunje decided to forgive him, gripping the soft flesh of his thighs and pushing them back against Han Yoojin’s chest. Even though the rest of his body was limp and spent, his cunt didn’t forget to tighten around Sung Hyunje’s cock as he released his seed, and his knot expanded.
By now, every tiny movement had Han Yoojin twitching and whining with oversensitivity. Sung Hyunje kept his hips still as he gripped the omega’s jaw and turned his head toward him to grab his attention.
“I’ll agree to the alliance,” he murmured, bending toward Han Yoojin’s ear. “But I won’t mark you.”
With some difficulty, Han Yoojin’s glazed eyes regained a bit of focus. “But, we’re a fated pair. A fated pair.” He repeated the second part quietly, almost petulantly.
The tone of his voice gave Sung Hyunje pause. “Don’t tell me, after all of that, you’re actually a bit of a romantic, Your Highness?” He commented with surprise.
Han Yoojin didn’t answer, but his mouth twisted in a pout as he turned his face aside. The sight was so endearing that it compelled Sung Hyunje to kiss his sweat-soaked temple.
“I won’t bite you because of the deal, or because of some physiological compulsion,” he said, more softly this time. “But I’ll happily welcome another visit from you when you want a toy for your heats.”
Han Yoojin only shot him a nasty look in reply. “You must really be overestimating yourself, Your Majesty, if you think your knot is so special that it’s worth crossing the kingdom for. Next time, I’ll just grab some random alpha from home—mnngh!”
Without warning, Sung Hyunje crushed his hips against Han Yoojin’s, his cock grinding mercilessly inside him. Han Yoojin shouted and arched his back, his pussy seizing as slick poured out in another weak orgasm.
“If I find out that you’ve had another alpha’s knot,” Sung Hyunje said cheerfully, “I’ll kill them.” He paused. “Of course, I’ll happily be the one to come to you next time, if you prefer.”
Han Yoojin only let out a dazed groan. Frankly, Sung Hyunje wasn’t certain he’d even properly heard the words. Despite the fact that his knot had yet to go down, the omega was already mindlessly attempting to pull himself off of it, letting out overstimulated whimpers and moans as the fat knot dragged across his walls.
Sung Hyunje watched his attempts with amusement for a while, then pulled him right back onto his cock.
“Where are you going?” He asked mildly. “Your heat isn’t over, and my rut is about to begin. We still have a great deal more time to spend in each other’s company.”