Chapter Text
Heat surged through Itachi’s body, potent in its urging. He needed to go. His mate wanted him. Needed him, as he needed her.
The memory of her which he had carried for three years had been supplanted by a new image from their previous encounter: the way she had stood, strong and proud, as her team faced off against him, her hands on her hips as she had studied him.
She had grown taller, and her soft curves had hardened to lean muscle. His mouth watered around the gag. If only he’d chosen differently, if only he’d taken the opportunity to damn his mission, he could have whisked her away. She would be there beneath him, and he could touch her and learn her body once again.
He thrashed in his restraints, barely noticing the burn of the rope that dug into his wrists. Another warm haze of lust washed over him, filling his eyes with pink – the pink of her hair, her lips, her sweet cunt. He could imagine Sakura now. Itachi, please, she’d cried at their last meeting. She’d be screaming it again, in the throes of passion as she begged for his knot.
Dimly, he realized that he’d managed to flip himself over, that he was rubbing himself against the floor, a pathetic creature ruled by his basest desires.
He wished, yet again, that Kisame would agree to tie him spread-eagle so he would be unable to debase himself in this manner. Instead, he insisted on securing his wrists and ankles next to one another, with enough slack in the ropes that Itachi could seek a wretched imitation of relief.
He snarled as he tried to direct his chakra to his arms. He just needed a little to snap the ropes that held him, and yet – and yet – that damned seal, leeching away every drop of chakra his body could muster. Fool. You did this to yourself.
The scent of petrichor surrounded him, wet earth reminiscent of Konoha’s forests after a rainstorm. It was so vivid, he could almost delude himself she was here –
His eyes flew open, his head twisted as he stretched for a glance at the doorway. She stood there, eyes wide and body trembling. Impossible. An illusion, that was all. She could not actually be there.
The illusion stepped forward. She inhaled before dropping to her knees. “Itachi,” she whispered, her voice thick with desire.
He shuddered. His cants against the floor grew more desperate, more pathetic. It was not enough, never enough, he needed her. Needed to take her, needed to be inside her warm embrace. Needed to be home.
It was so real. He breathed in another whiff of her intoxicating fragrance. It called his name, made his blood sing.
Her warm hands pressed against his skin. His whole body was afire. He wanted. She was turning him over, and he gazed into her soft green eyes. He remembered how they’d filled with tears as she’d choked on his cock, as she’d –
As she’d wept, for everything he had done to her.
She was still on her knees beside him, and cold certainty washed through Itachi. This wasn’t a hallucination brought on by desire. It was real. Somehow, Sakura had found her way to him.
He could have cursed the gag. What purpose did it serve? It was an obstacle, stopping him from telling her to flee. If only he could speak, he could command her to escape before he hurt her again.
But instead, he was left violently shaking his head, begging her to understand, even as his hips rolled, seeking her soft skin against his.
Please. Run.
She was cutting his shirt away with a kunai, and then her hands were running up and down his chest, sparking conflagrations wherever they touched. She hummed to herself as she tormented him, vixen that she was.
He twisted. If he could only – turn away –
Her hands pressed him back down against the floor. “I should have left you to rot,” she said. “Like you did to me.” The harshness of her words was belied by the tenderness of her hands as they stroked him and the hazy brightness of her eyes.
Her fingers hooked into his waistband, pulling. No. He could see the writing on the wall. His plans would be thrown aside once more. He’d spend his days panting after her, never mind that Sasuke needed his death, that he would undoubtedly repeat his mistakes, that he would make her weep.
That he would, once again, become nothing more than a mindless beast.
“I tried, you know,” she went on. “I told myself that you don’t deserve me. Not after you left me to suffer alone.” She was sinking onto him then, her wet heat pulsing around him.
He would have screamed her name if he could have. His entire world narrowed. There was only Sakura, and the ecstasy that rippled through him with every shift of her hips.
She leaned forward until her body was pressed against his, and he realized belatedly that she had taken off her vest at some point, that her soft breasts were pressed against him. She buried her face into the crook between his shoulder and neck and inhaled deeply.
“I’ve missed this,” she sighed. “There’s no reason I should be punished just because you fucked me over, right?”
His arms thrashed in their restraints yet again. He wanted to wrap his hands around her hips, to end this sensual torture of helplessness. If he could – just make her fuck herself on him –
She batted his arms back down. “No,” she growled. “You abandoned me. You don’t get to touch me.”
The alpha was practically salivating. She was exquisite. The steely resolve she displayed as she asserted her rights was what she’d always been capable of. And now that she had grown into herself, she was utterly perfect.
She pulled herself back upright. “Thirteen heats,” she said. “Twelve ruts. That’s how many times you abandoned me. You owe me, Itachi. And I’m going to start collecting.”
Warmth suffused his body and the alpha roared his approval. She was his omega, after all. She owned him as completely as he owned her, and he had neglected his responsibilities. It was only right that she demanded her due.
She tugged at the cloth stuffed in his mouth, and the gag was gone. He drew in a choked breath.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me how sorry you are.”
“Are you –” he gasped, and coughed. He cleared his throat and tried again, hoping beyond hope that the frayed threads of his restraint would hold. “Are you protected?”
She stilled. Her eyes met his, and he could not bring himself to mask the significance of the question. There was absolutely no doubt anymore that he would surrender to his cravings, to her, but he needed this moment to belong to them and them alone. No manipulations, no schemes, no chance that their actions could cause them both more agony.
She nodded, and he could breathe once more. “Do it,” he said. “Use me.”
She lifted herself off him, and he could have wept at the loss of her warmth. “I wasn’t asking for your permission. I want your apology.”
Such simple words. They would soothe her, and he would have relief from the fires raging through him. Tell her, the alpha snarled. But of course, the alpha would do anything, say anything, if it would get his cock back inside his omega.
Itachi could not. He had to be better. There might still be a chance to come back from this if it stopped with sex. But he could not allow Sakura to love him. Could not seek her forgiveness. He did not know how to care for her as she deserved. The only thing he could do was to push her as far from him as possible.
She slammed a fist onto his chest. “Fuck you,” she spat. “Do you hate me that much?”
No. It was for her own good. Hers, and Sasuke’s. He had to be strong.
As his silence stretched, she gave out an inhuman cry before falling atop him, pressing her lips against his neck, and a searing bolt mingling pain and pleasure shot through him. It took him a minute to register that she’d bitten him. On his mating gland.
“Accept my mark,” she snarled. “You owe me that much, at least.”
Accept her mark? His head felt as if it had been stuffed full with cotton. She couldn’t mark him. A mating needed an alpha’s bite on an omega’s neck, not the other way round. And they were already mated in any case. What did it matter?
But the desire that surged through him to accede, the alpha’s growl of pleasure, was all he needed to know that he should not comply. “No,” he rasped. “Use me if you will, but that is –”
She sank down enough that the head of his cock parted her lips, but nothing more. She rolled her hips and no matter how much he chased her, thrusting upward, he could not attain anything more than that tease of sensation.
And then, she was pressing kisses to his jaw, each one landing atop his skin like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. Agony.
“You want this,” she whispered. “You want to knot me, don’t you? You need me, Itachi. Just accept the mark. It’ll all be yours. You’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours.”
That word reverberated through his mind. Mine. Mine. Mine. Why was he resisting? “Sakura…”
“Do it,” she whispered. “I know you can.”
No. He forced his eyes closed, denying the temptation, but that did little to ease the ache in his cock, the way her scent surrounded him, ensorcelled him.
Another growl, and there was a hiss of cool chakra against the wound she’d bitten into him. Like medical chakra, but also not.
The seal was supposed to have siphoned away anything more than the bare minimum of chakra needed to keep him alive, but somehow, she tugged on a thin thread of it. It coursed through his body, towards –
No.
He understood, with painful clarity. His will was not required. She was somehow coaxing his chakra towards the wound.
Fragments of memory swirled into sensation. Stumbling into bed after an exhausting march, a warm bath after a gruelling mission, swallowing the first bite of food after a period of starvation. What he felt was all of those at once, and somehow greater.
He was home, and he could feel her. Awareness pulsed through him, a greater joining than what they’d had before. He understood, then, that their bond had previously been incomplete.
And now, she had done it. She had bound them even more tightly to each other, disregarding all his attempts to cut her free. All his sacrifices, all for naught.
In that moment, he loathed her.
And then she was riding him, using him as he’d allowed. Ruining him, his resolve, everything that he was. “Itachi,” she cried. “So good.”
His arms and legs yanked again against his restraints, desperate to throw her down and take her. To regain some control in this madness. To show her exactly what she had done. “Free me,” he said. Or tried to say. But all that emerged from his mouth were incoherent moans as a wave of pleasure built within him.
“Yes,” she cried. “You’re filling me up so much, Itachi, so hot, so hard, so good.”
Her words were the last impetus he needed to lose himself, and he spilled within her.
Sakura lay against Itachi’s chest, breathing in the earthy scent of his sweat mingling with the scent of his chakra. At last. Her fingers brushed against the mark on his neck. A mark to match hers. She remembered Chiyo-baa-sama’s frail voice, imparting all her knowledge to Sakura with her dying breaths. “Your bond is imbalanced,” she’d said, her voice hoarse and weak. “Bite him back. Make him accept your mark. You’ll always know where he is, and his orders won’t be absolute anymore. If you’re strong enough, you can give him orders too.”
Such a gift she’d given her. Sakura hummed, pleased with the awareness at the back of her mind that told her Itachi was right there, under her.
“I hope you are satisfied,” Itachi said, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. His eyes sparked with anger.
Her chest tightened. It wasn’t enough that he’d left her, wasn’t enough that he’d refused to complete the bond, forcing her to use a technique that directed his own chakra to the wound she’d inflicted. No, he’d done all that, and he wasn’t even the slightest bit sorry. He had the gall to be mad at her, when she was the one who had been wronged.
“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be?” she asked, proud of how steady her voice was. “Or no, actually, I should be the one asking you why you aren’t satisfied. Your omega taking your knot should be everything you wanted.”
“You should not have come. I gave you your freedom, and you threw it away.”
“Freedom? Is that what we’re calling it now? I needed you, and you left me for dead.”
“Six days of pain every three months,” he said. “Three for a heat, three for a rut. Twenty-four days a year, and the other three hundred and forty-one for you as you please. Freedom does not come free, but the cost was acceptable in this instance.”
Her eyes stung and her face grew hot. Acceptable. He had to tie himself down atop a seal that leeched away every drop of chakra he could build – she’d had to fight it to pull even the dregs she’d guided to her bite – and still he thought it acceptable. “I know you’re not a bad person,” she managed. “You were forced to kill them, because of the coup –”
“No one compelled me to stay away from you,” he replied, the words clipped. Each and every one was a stab, a vector for the poison that was his disdain. “That was my own choice.”
“Why?” And with that, her voice cracked. She’d come up with so many explanations, told herself that they just needed to see each other again, and everything would be alright. He’d called her his paradise once; he’d spoken poetry to her… She thought she’d accepted the pain of his rejection, thought she’d grown strong enough to convince him that he loved her too – but with every word out of his mouth, he broke her anew.
“You said you discovered the truth of the massacre. You know I killed not for pleasure, but for duty. But because of you, I became a mindless beast. One that only knew how to kill and fuck,” he said, practically spitting out the last word. “I delighted in the slaughter, did you know that? Your Airi-sensei screamed as I gouged out her eyes and broke every bone in her hands, and I enjoyed every minute of it.”
She shuddered, remembering the clean-up job she’d been assigned to after his rampage. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered. How did he manage to turn her back into a crybaby every single time? “We were both manipulated.”
“And that does not change the fact that your presence suffices to turn my restraint, my rationality, to dust. I despise the very sight of you.”
She’d thought her heart was broken beyond repair before, but now, she was proven wrong as it shattered yet again.
I despise the very sight of you.
I despise you.
Lovesick fool that she was, she searched his eyes for just a hint of gentleness. Something to prove his words a lie.
But he couldn’t lie, she remembered numbly. Not without the bond revealing it as such. He’d spoken those words so easily.
Somehow, she managed to keep her tears from spilling over until his knot loosened enough for her to pull herself away. She grabbed her vest and strode out, leaving him tied down to the seal. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To be left alone, his chakra drained so he couldn’t free himself? Well, he could have it.
The instant the door slammed behind her, she dropped to her knees. The scream that had been building inside her ripped itself free, and she beat her fists against the dry soil as she bawled. She loved him still, after everything he’d done. He’d forced himself on her, abandoned her, left her to the scorn of the village, said he hated her, and still, she loved him.
Why couldn’t she stop?
The moment Sakura left, the door slamming behind her, Itachi exhaled. It was done. He’d somehow found the words to shatter whatever dreams she’d built inside her head.
He’d thought he’d killed everything within him that had the capacity to feel on the day he’d killed his clan and tortured Sasuke. But Sakura’s screams echoing through the air, the sound of her heartbreak, proved the lie.
It is for her own good. He would not live much longer. He only needed to see their bond broken, and then, he would be free to lure Sasuke to engineer his death. She would heal, and perhaps find someone else to mate –
He paused instinctively, waiting for the recoil of the alpha’s outrage. It was present, of course – the alpha would not countenance his omega with anyone else – but it was muted, almost benign. A protest solely for the sake of protest.
Was this the impact of the completed bond? He focused his awareness on his mating gland, where Sakura’s chakra pulsed, mingling with his. It soothed him, as her presence always did.
A pang of regret shot through him. It could have been enough, if his life wasn’t promised for Sasuke’s vengeance. He could see himself pursuing Sakura, begging her forgiveness, dedicating the rest of his days to her happiness.
But it was nothing more than an impossible fantasy, and he was nothing more than the foolish child he had accused Sasuke of being. The completed bond was no assurance. It was nothing more than an additional, unnecessary burden. Making the situation far more complicated than it had any right to be.
He had spent the past three years scouring the world for anything that could break a mating bond, and heard nothing more than hints of possibility. None of those had contained even a whisper that there was anything more to the bond than an alpha’s bite. Could the answers he sought destroy a bond that was anchored by both an alpha’s and an omega’s bite?
He could only hope. His final gambit to free Sakura was nowhere near an ideal solution, and not one he was eager to use. But he would, if there was no other choice.
He breathed deeply as heat curled within his midsection. Knotting Sakura had granted him a temporary reprieve, but his rut was once again making itself felt, his body once again yearning for her touch.
It would simply need to learn to live without. He had driven her away.
He drew in ragged breaths, preparing himself. Without the gag, he would need to be conscientious to avoid screaming her name.
There was a loud slam, and the scent of petrichor filled the room once again. His eyes snapped up in disbelief. He did not usually begin seeing visions of her until his rut was well underway, which meant –
“I know you don’t want or deserve my help,” Sakura said. She briskly stripped off her clothing, tossing it aside. “I’m calling myself all kinds of idiot too, just so you know.”
She was truly there. How? Had he so badly miscalculated the words that would break her?
She glanced down at the array beneath him, lips twisting into a frown. “I’ll deal with that later,” she decided. She knelt next to him and reached out to him.
As much as he wanted to turn away from her, he found himself eagerly thrusting into her hands as they cleverly stroked him. He wasn’t going to last very long like this. Not with her intimate knowledge of how best to coax his orgasm from him.
“Sakura,” he whispered, his voice ragged. He did not understand. After everything he’d said, why would she return? It certainly wasn’t to satisfy her own physical need. He could smell her arousal, and knew she was ignoring it in favour of bringing about his release.
“That’s right,” she murmured. “You need this, don’t you? You can hate me all you want, but you still need me.”
“Yes,” he hissed as she leaned down to press a light kiss to him. It was everything he had ever wanted, and it was not enough. “Yes, Sakura, please.” He could not bring himself to care that this was probably some attempt to humiliate him. Let her. Let her exalt in her sense of superiority, so long as she did not stop touching him.
“I forget how big you are sometimes, when you’re inside me,” she said in a sultry voice, continuing to caress his cock. Her hands were callused as they had not been three years ago, and they were still utterly perfect. They continued moving up and down, gripping him just as he liked. “I’m always so wet for you. Your cock slides right in, and you fit so perfectly. It’s only now, looking at you, that I wonder how all of you can fit inside me.”
He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from telling her how wonderful she was. But gods, how he wanted to. His Sakura loved to be praised, and she deserved it for everything she was doing to him.
You must not. She deserves her freedom.
“Why,” he managed.
She smiled wanly, and her eyes met his. “You hate me, and that’s –” she burst into a fit of coughing, hands leaving him to press against her chest. “Well, I guess that’s a lie. I don’t actually feel like it’s okay.”
She gave a self-deprecating laugh. He ached to put his arms around her, to tell her that it was not because anything was wrong with her, but because of his own deficiencies.
“I can’t honestly say that I can live with it either,” she went on. She moved to straddle him, her wet cunt pressing against his arousal.
“Sakura,” he gasped, rubbing himself against her with no regard for dignity or restraint. What did it matter, when every cant of his hips thrilled him? When every nerve in his body sang for her?
“All I can say is that I can’t change how you feel about me. But... I can’t change how I feel about you either. Stupid, isn’t it? After everything you did, I still love you, and I can’t stop.”
It was not stupid. It was courageous, and spoke to the strength of her heart, to openly speak of her love to someone who had spurned her so thoroughly.
He did not deserve her at all.
She laughed lightly, the sound ringing hollow. “And when you love someone, you can’t bear to see them in pain, you know? And I just – I just couldn’t leave you, knowing you needed me.”
Her words – you can hate me all you want, but you still need me – took on a different cast, then. She had not been trying to taunt him, and there had been no malice in her motives. She had simply been thinking out loud, assuring herself of his need.
He gritted his teeth as his muscles tensed. He was so close, and he had to make sure he did not say anything to contradict his earlier words.
“Come for me, Itachi,” she said. It was as if his body had been waiting for her command. He reached completion, spilling his seed. And yet, even in the midst of this delirious thrill, he was unsatisfied. His knot lay exposed to the humid air, instead of being cradled within her body.
She patted his thigh as she climbed off him, as if she could sense exactly what he felt. “I’m sorry. It’s still – it just hurts too much. I couldn’t bring myself to… to let you inside me.” A drop of wetness splashed onto his chest, and he realized that she was weeping.
It will heal. I will leave her life, and she will heal, and she will never shed another tear for me again.
The thought was less comforting than expected.
She drew in a deep breath, and slapped her cheeks. She met his eyes, then, daring him to remark on her struggle to maintain her composure.
He would not. It was the least he could do after all the ways he’d wronged her.
“I’m going to cut the ropes now,” she said. “But don’t go running off just yet. Sasori told me he was passing me the favour you owe him. You’re going to stick around and hear what I have to say, because I’m calling it in.”