Chapter Text
“How can it be…” Jingyan doesn’t dare touch his fingers to his bed, but he recognises the sweet scent wafting around him, promising to burst like an overly ripened fruit. Twelve years he has gone without any trace of it, all thoughts of his omega status burnt to ashes on that fateful cliff, nothing to mark him aside from a scar on his neck, the perfect imprint of all that he lost.
“Prince Jing!”
“Don’t come in!” He snaps, his thoughts running wild, turning him frantic as a cornered beast. He wasn’t aware of it when he woke, but Jingyan feels it now, the smouldering heat sitting in his lower belly, a threatening inferno that will remove all his rationale, and Xiao Shu is not here, he is not here
Panic suffuses him and he cannot breathe, because his alpha is not here, but his omega body doesn’t know, priming itself to be receptive, and isn’t this a betrayal all over again, because he let Xiao Shu down by not being on that cliff with him, and now his traitorous genetics has him desperate for someone that cannot be there.
He stumbles and drags the entire table down with him, crashing it to the floor.
“Prince Jing! Guards-”
“DON’T COME IN,” He snarls, defensive of as any omega to their den, he has to protect it, his alpha has entrusted it to him. All his senses has sharpened, and now even after twelve years, it’s still here, Xiao Shu’s scent, lingering like a restless spirit and Jingyan is so hungry for it, has been starving to be filled for so long. The hair on his arms stands and he bites down on his arm to stifle a crooning whine, designed to call out to his alpha, to Xiao Shu who has always been there-
His heat is rolling in on him, fast, vengeful for all the years denied and he struggles for any shred of composure, gritting out his words. “See that I am not to be disturbed for the next three days.”
“Prince Jing-”
“This is an order!” He hears his second in command turning everyone away, but he cannot bring himself to care for the logistics right now.
Xiao Shu is laughing as Jingyan tackles him, his limbs cradling Jingyan close. “Order me and I’ll be yours, your majesty” Xiao Shu gasps, throwing his head back at Jingyan’s amorous attentions as Jingyan seeks out to scent mark him, to warn every omega away. “Jingyan,” He says Jingyan’s name like a promise, as he takes Jingyan under a night sky, their coupling accompanied by the sounds of cicadas, Jingyan’s face wet with tears and the morning dew, Xiao Shu moving above him, his beautiful face fierce with desire-
“Xiao Shu,” Jingyan rasps out.
Somewhere in a distance, a bell is ringing.