Chapter Text
“Okay,” Jinx said. “One more time.”
The clock on the mantle read a quarter past one. Caitlyn’s eyes were burning. The two kettles on the end table had been long drained, the comfort of their warming beverage long spent. Dutifully, Caitlyn sat forward, doing her best to blink the exhaustion from her eyes, and began reciting the details of the case with rote precision, using the scattered mess of paperwork across her coffee table as more of a guide along the too-familiar points now than actual reference. Jinx stood across the room and listened, her hands canted against her hips, her head slightly bowed, her blue eyes exhausted and distant as Caitlyn went painstakingly over the details of the case again. She had no new input this time, no moments of interruption to point out a detail they had missed or a sudden connection she had picked up in the gaps of their exhaustive research. Caitlyn finished her recitation, and sat back a little, leaning her elbows on her knees, not bothering to lift her head, her eyes all but glazing over as they scanned across the documents that built out their case so far.
“Alright,” Jinx said finally. “What about the Champions?”
“Couldn’t have been, remember? We questioned three of them already, their alibi is airtight–“
“I know,” Jinx said, waving a hand. “Unless it was only a few of their alphas, acting independently. That’s not unheard of, pack leaders not communicating with their pack.”
“That still doesn’t explain motive.”
“They’re a gang, what other motive do they need?”
Caitlyn huffed out a breath that could not quite be called a laugh. “I wish that were enough, too, believe me.”
Jinx snarled quietly, putting one hand on the mantle, the other on her forehead, pinching her temples between thumb and forefinger. “What are we missing?” The question was quiet enough that Caitlyn knew it wasn’t for her.
She looked up at her partner. Jinx was still wearing her shoulder holsters with her guns in place, an odd choice considering her shoes and jacket were both off at this point, considering that they’d been in Caitlyn’s living room for the better part of the night and uniform protocol was certainly not being upheld at the moment. The posture of her shoulders was defeated, the furrow in her brow all but permanent at this point as she closed her eyes and attempted to knead out a headache with her fingertips. Caitlyn wished, not for the first time and what she was sure would not be the last, that they could find a break in the case if for no other reason than to give Jinx some semblance of peace of mind. She wondered how long it had been since she’d slept a whole night through.
“Look,” she said gently. “Why don’t we call it for the night? Get some sleep, come back to it in the morning.”
“Go ahead,” Jinx said. “I’ll stay up a little longer. I’ll lock the door when I leave.”
Caitlyn stood then, moving to stand in front of Jinx. “Come on,” she said. “You know you’re not going to find anything new, not in this state. You need to rest.”
“I need,” Jinx said hotly, “to find the assholes who are making this city such a bitch to live in.”
“And we will.” Caitlyn was entirely too tired. She didn’t even think twice before putting her hand on Jinx’s shoulder, before giving it a gentle squeeze.
Jinx looked first at her hand, then up at Caitlyn, and Caitlyn couldn’t place the expression in her eyes.
“I promise,” Caitlyn said.
A wild thought flashed behind her eyes, one she had had before, much to her own shame and chagrin—lifting her hand, stroking Jinx’s cheek with her knuckles, tracing the light freckles there, leaning in, pressing her lips to–
“Okay,” Jinx said, blinking and looking away. “I’ll head home. I’m sorry for intruding on your hospitality.”
“If you want to stay here, you can,” Caitlyn offered, unable to even remotely muster the proper levels of alarm at how poorly her filter was functioning at the moment. “It’s so late, it’ll be ages before a transport is available, and if you’re just going to come back in the morning to go over the case…”
“I’m going to the precinct in the morning,” Jinx said, confused.
“Jinx, it’s the weekend. The precinct will be closed tomorrow.”
Jinx cursed under her breath, closing her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
“Right,” she said. “I forgot.”
“You don’t have to stay,” Caitlyn said softly. “But the offer is there for you. Otherwise, I can call you a transport.”
Jinx was quiet. Caitlyn thought she was about to turn her down, but Jinx didn’t. Jinx exhaled, then nodded.
“I’ll stay. Just for tonight.”
Caitlyn realized she was still holding Jinx’s shoulder, and she let her go.
“Good. Let me get you something comfortable to sleep in, and then I’ll show you the guest room upstairs.”
Caitlyn woke to the smell of an intruder in her house. It wasn’t yet morning—her room was still dark—but the pungent scent of someone unfamiliar was thick in her nostrils, rousing her better than any alarm. She got out of bed, moving with smooth, practiced precision as she got her rifle from the safe, loading a round blindly and quietly racking it forward. The smell contrasted starkly with the adrenaline in her veins, almost a pleasant musk compared to the protective instinct riding high in her throat. She thought of Jinx just down the hall and felt the hackles raise on the back of her neck. Whoever had decided to break into her house had very poor timing indeed to do it when Caitlyn had a beta in her care.
She eased her bedroom door open, and the smell washed over her from the hallway. She paused, listening, taken aback by how close the smell was—had the intruder already made their way upstairs? The scent slid through her nostrils, over the back of her tongue, saturating her sinuses, and she realized with a hideous jolt that her body had responded to it in more ways than just rousing her from sleep and arming her in the dark. Her cock was hard, lifting against the fabric of her pajama pants. This person was truly new levels of stupid, staging a robbery while in heat. Caitlyn would be happy to show them the error of their ways, the inconvenient presence of her erection aside.
She stepped quietly down the hallway, letting her nose guide her. The perfume of the heat was soaking into her senses, irritatingly intoxicating with notes of musk and the white heat of gunpowder, making her blood rush in her ears, bringing forward all kinds of intrusive imagery—hard, slavering fucking, her hips pounding down into slick wet, her climax rolling through her, pulsing outward—that she hastily and roundly shoved away. Why did it smell so good? She’d smelled omegas in heat in her time, of course; it was impossible to walk down the street without moving through a cloud of pheromones left behind by some passerby, but none of them had ever affected her like this. It was because it was here, she reasoned, in her home, a place of familiarity. Her own pheromones were confused by the proximity.
She glanced over the balcony as she approached, but there were no signs of a break-in from the front door, or any of the windows in sight. Her scan of the floor below was interrupted by a noise—a muffled groan, emanating from behind the closed bathroom door a few paces away. Caitlyn stared toward the sound, her sleep deprivation and arousal making her take much longer than necessary to realize that she recognized it. She had never heard it this way before, but as the sound came again, a high, wanton, pleading noise, muffled in what sounded like a balled up mound of fabric, Caitlyn knew—that was Jinx’s voice.
With that realization came panic—Caitlyn was too late, the intruder had come and gone, leaving their scent behind, and they’d hurt Jinx in the process. The thought was too much to bear. Caitlyn saw red and she strode across the landing. The handle of the door was locked and Caitlyn rattled it.
“Jinx? Jinx, are you alright? What’s happened? Did they hurt you?”
There was only silence from within for a long, agonizing moment. Then, Jinx’s voice, gasped out and partially strangled.
“I’m fine. Go away.”
The rejection stung, mingling with confusion. “What did they do to you?” Caitlyn asked anxiously. “Jinx, please open the door.”
“Go. Away.” Jinx sounded furious and wounded and Caitlyn’s heart constricted with worry.
“I’m going to call an ambulance, alright?” she said, moving away from the door with the intent to make good on that promise. “Just hang on.”
“No.”
That word was the most desperate and terrible of all the sounds Jinx had made so far, a panicked half-scream, and then the door opened.
Caitlyn didn’t even register Jinx at first, because when the door opened she was hit by a wave of heat scent so powerful she thought for a moment she was going to pass out. Her body ignited, a thousand instinctive thoughts surging forward anew, all of them uncouth and dangerous and delicious. She clenched her jaw against the way her salivary glands had suddenly kicked into overdrive, reeling back a few steps, trying to break through the haze of smell. Then she registered Jinx, who was standing with her hand still on the door handle, half crouched as though she had been wounded, her eyes hazy, her cheeks flushed, an expression of exquisite pain inscribed across her features. Caitlyn scanned her body and saw no signs of harm.
The realization moved into place quickly, rife with confusion but steady with the knowledge that there could be no other explanation. Caitlyn pulled the collar of her shirt over her mouth and nose, holding them in place with her palm.
“Jinx,” she said, and she was strangled too now, wrestling with the roar of her body. “What’s going on? Why do you smell like that?”
It was a stupid question—there was only one possible answer—but she needed to hear Jinx say it.
Jinx bared her teeth briefly, shutting her eyes against a sudden spasm. Caitlyn did not watch her body move, forcing her eyes to stay on Jinx’s expression.
“I forgot my last dose,” Jinx said tightly.
“Your last dose,” Caitlyn repeated. “Pheromone pills. You’re masking.”
“Well,” Jinx huffed out humorlessly. “I was.”
A short cry burst from her mouth then, poorly hidden without the help of the towel that was lying in a pile on the floor behind her. She dropped her head and sank slowly to her knees, wrapping an arm around her stomach as though trying to hold herself together. She shivered there, and Caitlyn looked at her, and her body was raging against itself.
“You’re an omega,” Caitlyn said.
“Yes,” Jinx said, and Caitlyn felt it everywhere.
She turned away, taking another few steps back from the bathroom. She had a thousand questions, hurt and confusion swirling like a maelstrom in her mind. She and Jinx had been partners for months now, and had been deputies together for years prior to that. And all this time, she’d operated under the belief that Jinx was a beta—a poor match to her own alpha status, a completely disinterested party that had held Caitlyn’s interest in her at bay. Caitlyn gritted her teeth, fury and shame pouring through her at the embarrassing feelings of relief. Maybe we have a chance after all, her mind clamored. Now that Jinx is an omega.
She shut the thoughts down as well as she could as she turned back to Jinx who was still kneeling on the floor, doubled over. Her mind raced, trying to get ahead of the overwhelming physical roar of her body. Jinx was an omega in heat. If she’d been on suppressors for years, she was about to have the most difficult heat of her life now that the effects had worn off. She needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable, somewhere with her own loved ones.
“Jinx,” Caitlyn said, redoubling her efforts to cover her mouth and nose. It didn’t help much. “Where’s your pack? Let me call someone for you.”
Even through her haze of agony, Jinx laughed, and it was a broken sound. “I don’t have a pack,” she spat. “Just call me a transport, I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Absolutely not,” Caitlyn said firmly. “You can’t be alone at this hour, not with…” Not with sex pouring off of you like this. “Not in this state.”
Jinx made a sound - Caitlyn’s body forced her to call it what it was - Jinx moaned, and Caitlyn thought she was going to burn away on the spot.
“Alright,” Caitlyn said. “Alright, I just need a minute.”
She didn’t wait for Jinx to respond before turning and going back down the hallway to her own bedroom. She shut the door behind her, unloaded her rifle, put it back into the safe, and closed and locked the safe again. Then she went to her closet and changed her clothes, putting on the reinforced underwear that she kept on hand in cases exactly like this one—where her body wanted one thing, and she wanted another. The thick elastic material held her erect cock tight against her body, significantly diminishing its aggressive profile. It wouldn’t do to frighten Jinx any more than she was already frightened—she’d hidden her identity as an omega for a reason, and Caitlyn was not going to be the one to prove her fears right. Caitlyn put her hair up, and she splashed water on her face from the sink, gasping a little through the shock of the cold. Then she swiped a stripe of menthol salve beneath her nostrils, and she went back out into the hall.
The bathroom door was still open. Jinx was lying on the floor, her face pressed into the towel again, her body curled into a crescent of misery. Another towel was bundled up beneath her, as if she’d tried burrowing into it, creating a sad attempt at a nest. The smell was stronger than ever, the menthol only slightly muting it. Jinx’s heat was cresting at an alarming rate, no doubt spurred on by how long it had been since her last. She looked up and startled a little at Caitlyn’s presence in the doorway, instinctively shrinking away. There was fear in her eyes, mingled with the pain, and Caitlyn took a step back, her chest aching unpleasantly.
“I’m sorry,” Jinx said. “Please…” She shuddered. Her eyes were hazier than ever. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The words rang like a bell. They cut like a knife, razor sharp, searing clarity through Caitlyn’s person, shunting her pheromonal confusion to the back of her mind for the briefest of moments. She did not know where Jinx’s plea came from—if she had been hurt before by an alpha who didn’t know their limits, or if she carried the instinctual fear of alphas that so many omegas rightly had—but it didn’t matter. Caitlyn knew in that moment that nothing mattered more than protecting Jinx, even and especially against herself.
“I would never hurt you, Jinx,” Caitlyn said fervently. “I’m going to help you. If you want me to.”
Jinx blinked up at her, her expression locked in a mask of discomfort, her fever high in her cheeks. But she nodded finally.
“Alright,” Caitlyn said, relief cracking through her chest like a fracture of light. She stepped a little closer, considered picking Jinx up from the floor, thought better of it, and held out her hand instead. “Let’s get you back into bed.”
Jinx took her hand weakly and Caitlyn pulled her to her feet. Jinx stayed a little hunched, but she leaned into Caitlyn’s side, one arm going around her waist, the other hand clutching at her shirt. Caitlyn ignored the thrill of her body at Jinx’s touch and she walked her down the hall, back to the guest room.
As they stepped inside, Caitlyn was immediately aware of exactly how unfitting this room was for the purposes of sheltering Jinx through her heat. It was comfortably furnished, of course, but the plain white bedspread and minimal assortment of pillows left quite a bit to be desired. Caitlyn left Jinx at the doorway, lowering her into a crouch, and told her to stay as still as she could. Jinx obeyed wordlessly, burying her face in her arms, and Caitlyn set about building a nest. She shoved the bed into the far corner, pushing it up against the wall, trying to remember everything her father had told her about omega’s preferences for nesting. The more surrounding walls, the better, he’d told her once. Makes things feel more cozy and safe that way.
Once the bed was moved, she went to the closet, keeping her gaze away from Jinx, away from how she was trembling, wishing she had a way to look away from how she sounded, too, despite Jinx’s best efforts to muffle herself in her arm. She pulled out extra blankets and every spare pillow she had from the closet, piling them onto the bed and arranging them in what she hoped was a comforting way. Her heart was high in her throat, her body was trembling, Jinx’s cries were getting harder to ignore, she had never built a nest for anyone before, she’d thought her first time would be for her first mate... She had to think of something else—having Jinx and mate in the same thought was sending her mind careening into territory she didn’t feel at all equipped to traverse.
She helped Jinx into bed, then stepped back as Jinx situated herself amongst the pillows and blankets, burrowing into the softness with instinctive movements, an omega at home in her heat. Through the haze of her body, Caitlyn felt her chest squeeze with a surge of affection, an affection she’d managed to keep at bay for an impressively long time, all things considered, and she allowed herself to feel it just for another moment longer in her pheromone-addled state. Then she went and got Jinx a glass of water and a full pitcher from the kitchen, putting both at her bedside table. Jinx looked up at her from the blankets, her blue eyes dark and hazed-over. Caitlyn made the mistake of meeting her gaze, and a new wave of desire surged up in response to the particular pleading expression of an omega in heat. Caitlyn looked away, stepping back again.
“If you need anything, just call, alright?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Jinx whispered.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Caitlyn said quickly, glancing at Jinx’s face and then away again.
“I didn’t do this on purpose, I swear,” Jinx said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Caitlyn said, moving toward the door now. “Get some sleep if you can. I won’t–” She cut herself off. How was she supposed to say it? “You’re safe here,” she said finally. “I promise.”
Jinx didn’t respond, and her wide-eyed, feverish gaze followed Caitlyn out of the room, staying with her even after she’d closed the door, even after she’d gone back to her room, turned on the shower, stepped under the freezing stream, left bite marks on her forearm as she humped desperately against her own hand. She made herself come three times before she left the shower, feeling only mildly sated but unsteady and proud that all three times, she hadn’t said a name. Not out loud, at least. She hadn’t said her name out loud.
She didn’t sleep well. Despite throwing her windows open wide to air her room out, despite closing her own door and Jinx’s, the smell still lingered, hot and burning in the back of her throat. She tried not to listen. She tried very fucking hard not to listen, but there wasn’t enough noise here in her quiet neighborhood and in her sleepy, pre-dawn house. Even burying her head under several pillows to the point where breathing became a chore was not enough to drown out the desperate, half-muffled sounds Jinx was making down the hallway as she orgasmed again and again and again. The few moments of sleep Caitlyn managed to slip into were edged by hot, terrifying need and she woke from them panting, halfway to orgasm with her cock in her hand already.
Part way through the night, she had to accept the fact that was now unignorable—Jinx’s heat pheromones were sending her careening headlong into her own rut. She had tracked her ruts religiously since her first, and she’d been able to prepare herself for them well in advance, always scheduling time off and ensuring she wouldn’t have any visitors until the rut was over. But there was nothing she could do about this now; her rut was already underway, and there was no way she could get away from Jinx long enough to end the rut early. Sending her into the city in this state was a recipe for certain disaster. She would be safer here. Wouldn’t she? A sick terror gripped Caitlyn’s throat momentarily and tears pricked her eyes. She’d never spent a rut in anyone’s company before, let alone an omega for whom she already had preexisting feelings. To say the challenge of the task was daunting would have been a laughable understatement. It was going to be hell. It was going to hurt. Caitlyn stared up at her ceiling and she thought of the fear in Jinx’s eyes, and she decided she would suffer any pain if it meant protecting Jinx from whatever she was so afraid of.
When the sun finally rose, it was a relief. She went downstairs, hurrying past Jinx’s room where her smell was wafting from under the door, and began slicing fruit into a bowl. Her father had told her once that cold, fresh foods were best for an omega in heat—it helped to counteract the fever, helped soothe the internal burning at least a little. She brought it up to Jinx’s room and knocked on the door. There was a moment of quiet, and then a small, raspy, “Come in.”
Caitlyn took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door. She had the presence of mind to step back and a little to the side, letting the initial wave of scent roll out past her. Whether that was an effective method, she couldn't be sure, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. After a few moments, she stepped inside the room. Her blood started boiling almost immediately, her cock all but jerking awake beneath her restrictive underwear, but she moved through it with barely a hitch in her breathing, clenching her molars hard.
“I brought you something to eat,” she said, placing the fruit on Jinx’s bedside table. The water pitcher and glass were completely empty and she picked them up, ready to take them downstairs.
“Wait,” Jinx said, her voice a quiet plea that went straight through Caitlyn’s belly.
Caitlyn paused, turning, breathing through her parted lips as though it might help alleviate Jinx’s potent scent. It didn’t.
Jinx looked at her again with those eyes, those damned eyes, that were bottomless and begging. Caitlyn wanted to answer her plea, she wanted nothing else. She could feel her blood all but purring in her veins as, for a split second, she entertained the idea of giving in, of going to Jinx, of mounting her– She looked away from Jinx’s face, shame making her ears feel hot.
“Why are you doing this?” Jinx asked.
Caitlyn chuckled softly, regretting it as a pang of hot scent hit the back of her throat on her next inhale. “What else could I do? Kick you out? Leave you to fend for yourself in a city full of alphas while you’re in the middle of heat?” Jinx’s gaze dropped, and Caitlyn felt a little sick, wondering if Jinx was reading some sort of callous alpha superiority into her words. “I meant it when I said you’re safe here,” she said, feeling suddenly desperate for Jinx to understand her. “If…if there was anywhere for you to accidentally go into heat, I’m glad it was here. I’m sorry if that sounds selfish or…untoward.”
Jinx looked up at her again and she smiled, just a little, and it was the most beautiful thing Caitlyn had ever seen. “Untoward,” she said quietly. “That’s a five dollar word right there, Kiramman.”
Caitlyn smiled too, heartened by Jinx’s show of her usual sarcastic sense of humor. “Yes, well,” she said. “I still have to keep you on your toes, don’t I?”
“I’m glad it was here, too,” Jinx said suddenly. “I hope that isn’t too…untoward either.”
There was something bright in her eyes, unfamiliar and frightening and it moved through Caitlyn’s body like the licking tendrils of a flame. She looked away and shook her head. “Not at all,” she said, feeling suddenly breathless. “I’ll get you some more water.”
After she had refilled Jinx’s pitcher and glass and delivered them to her, she went downstairs and settled herself on the couch to review the case again. Occupying her mind with something besides Jinx’s, well, everything, would probably be good for her. She expected to look at the case files and see the same old patterns they had been going in circles about for weeks. But as she opened the first folder and began re-reading the information, it was as if something had changed. The words felt new, even though Caitlyn still had them all but memorized. Her altered, rut-addled state of mind seemed to cast the information in a new light, as if she’d memorized the layout of a room in the dark, and then the light had been turned on, and she could now recognize this object as a chair, that one as a side table. Her blood was still running hot, her cock still erect and aching, her body thrumming with unreleased energy, but she felt that she’d suddenly gained a bird’s eye view of the case. The details began unfolding, clues they had missed revealing themselves plain as day. She thought of calling out to Jinx, but thought better of it, and opened a notebook to begin frantically jotting down the new map of realizations. She only paused once, when Jinx’s cries echoed from upstairs and Caitlyn had to quickly move into the bathroom, relieving her ache into a hand towel two, three, four times, leaving marks on her skin again to muffle herself before returning to the task at hand, feeling grateful that Jinx had fallen quiet by then. Hours passed before she was finished. When she finally sat back, her writing hand aching, she hadn’t solved the case, much as she’d hoped she would, but there were suddenly a whole host of new possibilities available to them to pursue.
She gathered a few of the files and her notes into her arms and went up the stairs, pausing near the top, listening for telltale signs that she was going to interrupt Jinx. None were forthcoming—there was only quiet beyond the door—but she could smell Jinx’s heat even from here. She moved forward anyway and knocked quietly. The scent of Jinx saturated her senses from where she stood, coating her tongue with a sweet metallic musk, and she knew suddenly that if she opened the door while she was riding the elated high of the new break in the case, the situation could potentially get out of hand very, very quickly. So, when Jinx said, “Come in,” Caitlyn cleared her throat.
“I can’t come in,” she said carefully. “But I think I’ve had a break in the case. Can I tell you about it from out here?”
There was a pause, then a rustling sound from inside the room, moving closer to the door. For a moment, Caitlyn was afraid that Jinx was about to emerge, but the rustling stopped, and she heard something slide against the door, ending in a soft carpeted thump.
“Tell me,” Jinx said, her voice muffled through the wood.
Caitlyn settled herself with her back against the door, spreading out her files and notes on the landing in front of her, and began to talk Jinx through her new discoveries. Jinx listened, chiming in every so often with questions that Caitlyn hadn’t thought of before, and she wrote them down quickly, filling out the roadmap with even more new clarity. It seemed that the heat was doing Jinx’s head some good too, despite everything. She made her way through the case, piece by piece, feeling oddly elated with the back-and-forth with Jinx, despite the way her body still fought her, despite the hunger that yawned in what felt like every single one of her nerve endings.
When she was finished, she leaned her head back against the door, holding her notebook in her lap. They were quiet. Caitlyn took a deep breath, feeling the insanity creep into her blood at the smell of Jinx, and for a moment, she let it. It was delicious and it was agony and she was fine with both.
“We’re going to get this motherfucker, aren’t we?” Jinx murmured through the door.
“Yes,” Caitlyn sighed. “We’re going to get this motherfucker.”
There was a tight sound beyond the door, one that made her stomach clench, that made her instincts roar with need. She sat still against them, one hand closing over her cock through her clothes as if to hold it still, as if the friction of the cloth alone wasn’t enough to stoke her growing need.
“I like when you swear,” Jinx said, and her voice was high and tinged with a whine, trembling with her efforts to control it.
Caitlyn shut her eyes, feeling her nostrils flare, her grip tightening over her cock.
“Could you hear me last night?” Jinx asked, and the question may as well have thrown Caitlyn off a cliff for the way it made her stomach drop. She stayed quiet, clenching her teeth so hard it made her temples ache. There was a rustling in Jinx’s room again, the slightest whisper of cloth moving, combined with the quiet sound of wetness. “Caitlyn?” Jinx prompted pleadingly.
“Yes,” Caitlyn bit out, the word at the very bottom of her voice, breathless and furious all at once. “Yes, I could hear you.”
“Do you want to hear me again?”
The fingertips of her free hand were aching. She realized that she was gripping the carpet so hard the fibers were beginning to separate from their tethers. She didn’t let go. Jinx whined, the sound half-broken in her throat. Caitlyn’s eyes rolled back.
“Yes,” she groaned, her voice guttural.
The sound of wetness increased in pace, Jinx’s breathless whimpers keeping time. Caitlyn jerked a single rough stroke against her cock, not daring to pull it free from her pants, worried that the movement alone would undo her.
Jinx came quickly, and her cry was long and bright and hard. The wood of the door creaked where she pushed back against it. Her scent increased in intensity all at once at her pheromonal release, and Caitlyn bit into the heel of her hand as she orgasmed roughly, her hips bucking, her body shuddering, a low, hungry sound dragging itself from between her jaws. The orgasm passed in a rush, leaving her panting in its wake, sagged against the door frame.
Her mind was, for a moment, blissfully clear, free from the oppressive burden of the rut-induced frenzy, and into that clarity surged guilt, fresh and blinding and strangling in its hold on her. She opened her eyes.
“Jinx,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m– I’m sorry. If I overstepped– I shouldn’t have taken advantage, I realize you’re in a compromising position–”
“Caitlyn,” Jinx murmured, her voice like velvet through the door, stopping Caitlyn’s stammering in its tracks. “I’ve wanted that for a long time.”
It was the heat speaking. It had to be. But Caitlyn’s heart thundered anyway and she wished desperately that she were on the other side of that door and she could not be more grateful that she wasn’t. Already her body was beginning to ache again with need, her rut clawing its way through her veins. She wanted to stave it off. She wanted her clarity of mind to last. She wanted to be here with Jinx, without this impossible, infuriating barrier of chemicals keeping them at a distance.
“Why are you masking?” she asked without meaning to.
A pause. A shift beyond the door.
“My sister,” came the quiet answer. “She was the one who started me on the blockers after my first heat. She wanted to protect me, wanted to make sure that if…if she ever wasn’t around, I would still be safe. I’ve taken them ever since.”
“What happened to her?”
Another pause. A heavy exhale. “She died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Caitlyn could picture Jinx’s face—her eyes closed, her brows pressed up in the center just a little, her mouth tight at the corners. “Me too.”
Jinx’s heat had not passed by the time the work week began, and Caitlyn’s rut was still in full force accordingly, so Caitlyn sent word to the precinct that they’d both caught some kind of bug over the weekend and were quarantining until it was over. She wrote two separate notices, sending the pneumatic tubes a few hours apart, hoping it would be enough to stave off any rumors that what it seemed like was happening was actually happening. Perhaps, she thought, it would be enough to prove her innocence if Jinx showed back up to work without a new bonding mark on her neck. She then promptly had to move her thoughts elsewhere as the idea of Jinx bearing Caitlyn’s bond flared like a bonfire in the pit of her stomach.
Aside from ensuring that Jinx was fed and watered, she filled her time with cold showers and as many mental diversions as she could manage—further reviews of the case, book reading, playing the piano. Nothing helped. Jinx was everywhere. Her scent permeated the air, sank into the walls, into Caitlyn’s skin and tongue and nerves. She learned the subtle notes of Jinx’s scent intimately and without meaning to: there was that heady, powerful gunsmoke scent, the clear, bracing bite of a freshly fired bullet, but there were also notes of earthy musk, the warm, rounded-out smell of dirt just after a rain, the tang of metal shavings, and something else, something low and sweet that she couldn’t put a name to, that smelled exactly and perfectly of Jinx. It was beautiful and painful and Caitlyn thought of how fitting it was that Jinx’s smell was both at once because her every moment in Jinx’s presence had been an echo of those two words from as early as Caitlyn had known her name.
When it was unbearable, and it was almost always unbearable, Caitlyn went into her room and shut the door and opened her windows and buried herself in her blankets and bit down on her pillows so hard she ruined at least three of them and she curled up and thrust into her fist until she was falling into oblivion over and over and over again. The relief was only ever temporary, as if her body knew that she was fucking the emptiness of her own bed. The air in her room tasted like agony and exquisite loneliness. She kept herself wordless, making sure her muffled moans were incoherent, but when she closed her eyes she thought of hands on her cheeks, of a body just as warm and aching as her own curled around her, beneath her, cradling her and letting her in and bringing her home. She pushed the tears away from her cheeks with an impatient hand. It was just the rut, she knew, taking over her brain and body and chemicals and making her into this embarrassing, lonely mess. It hurt all the same.
The end of Jinx’s heat couldn’t come soon enough. Once it did, they could just move on like nothing had happened, go back to being nothing more than detective partners. Then Caitlyn could pretend that this longing hadn’t existed prior to this hormonal mess, that Jinx had only ever been a coworker, someone she respected and trusted in the line of duty, that Caitlyn had never dreamed of her before this, had never thought of her with a tenderness that made her chest ache. She did her best to convince herself, as the sun sank and she slipped into a sleep amongst her ruined pillows, that it wouldn’t hurt as much once the rut had passed, that she would be able to strike Jinx’s smell and her sounds from her memory the moment her head was clear again. She had to ignore the way her chest echoed with sadness at the thought.
She’d grown used to the sounds of Jinx in the night, or she had done her best to grow used to them, but the sound that broke her from her restless sleep tonight was different. It sat her bolt upright in bed, her ears tuned, her skin shivering. There was a lull of quiet so long she thought perhaps she’d made up the sound to begin with, but then it came again—a long, shuddering breath, followed by a gut-wrenching sob. Caitlyn was out of bed in an instant, bolting down the hall, only slowing as she approached Jinx’s door, as her body responded to the increased intensity in scent and she forced herself to kill her own momentum. She pressed a hand to the door.
“Jinx?” she called softly, her heart in her throat. “Are you alright?”
She could hear a wet sound, and for the first time in four days she knew it had nothing to do with Jinx’s heat. It was the sound of Jinx trying to breathe through tears. Worry crawled through Caitlyn’s veins as she tried to think through the haze of her rut. What could have happened? Was this level of distress normal for a heat? She’d known the heat would be severe, intensified by Jinx’s withdrawals from her blockers, but was it possible that Jinx was in genuine pain? What if something was happening to her that would cause permanent damage?
“Jinx, I’m going to open the door. Is that alright?”
A cut off sob. Then, “Yes.”
Caitlyn opened the door and she had to stand stock still to gather herself as the wave of smell rolled past her. It really never got easier, did it? If anything, the surge of need in her had become stronger, but she’d done harder things than this, she was sure. The initial wave passed, and she took small, shallow breaths in a futile attempt to control her racing, raging heart. Jinx was buried in her nest, her shining eyes turned toward Caitlyn, her cheeks streaked with tears, her lips pressed flat and trembling with what looked like barely-controlled grief.
“Caitlyn,” she said, and Caitlyn felt her mind go blank at the plea, her neurons all but shutting down as her every instinct surged into overdrive, demanding that she answer Jinx’s call with the response of her body.
The door handle creaked in her grip. She stayed where she was. She knew she needed to ask questions, inquire after Jinx’s well-being, but that would require her to take another breath. It would require her to open her mouth, to pull Jinx even further into her, and she didn’t know if she could withstand that.
“It hurts,” Jinx said. “I need…I need you. I need you to touch me, Caitlyn, please.”
Caitlyn’s nostrils flared. Jinx slipped down her throat like blood, like fire, like a poison that numbed everything, that left her empty and aching and full of need.
“No,” she whispered, feeling it grate against the back of her tongue.
Jinx’s expression split. Her eyes closed. Caitlyn saw that she was gripping the blanket as if for dear life, her hand trembling with the effort. “Not like that,” she bit out. “I haven’t been…no one has touched me in years. I know I’m in heat but it feels…” Jinx’s voice broke, but she pushed through it. “It feels like I’m dying.”
Caitlyn tried to think. She forced herself to think. She forced herself to remember the ache of her own loneliness, the cry of her hormones for someone to bring her the companionship she so desperately craved. She thought of what it would feel like to have that feeling amplified a hundredfold through a surge of unchecked chemicals pouring in after a years-long absence. Yes. She imagined it would feel something like dying.
She swayed on the spot, the two forces inside of her colliding like rabid wolves, tearing each other to pieces. She looked at Jinx, and Jinx looked at her, and Jinx was fractured, and Caitlyn made a decision. She let go of the door handle and moved to the bed and sat on the edge and leaned down—Jinx’s heat raked through her nose, her eyes, her throat like razor-sharp claws—and she took Jinx in her arms and pulled her against her chest.
Jinx let out a sound, a cry of agony, of relief, and she wrapped her arms around Caitlyn so tightly Caitlyn felt sure that one of them would break. She didn’t let go. She trembled, and she shut her eyes, and she breathed through the fire in her veins. It was like wearing a gas mask, only the fumes were on the inside, sealed in with her, pouring off of Jinx so strongly Caitlyn thought she would drown in it. She didn’t let go. She held Jinx, trying to pull her back together, trying to mend the fractured parts of her. Caitlyn’s body was turning on itself, spasms racking down her muscles, her breathing unsteady, half-choked and rancid in her lungs even as her face instinctively turned toward the spot on Jinx’s neck where her pheromones were closest to the surface. She heard herself whisper, her voice raw and red, “You’ll be alright. I promise.”
She heard Jinx respond, drowned in her own right, “I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m so sorry.”
Caitlyn held her for as long as she could, keeping Jinx in her arms like she was a life preserver and a cinderblock all at once. Then her body juddered, and she felt that slavering instinct begin to break through her nearly-frayed resolve, her hips fighting to roll upward, her thoughts threatening mutiny, threatening to violate the person she wanted so desperately to protect. She closed her eyes and whispered an apology, and then she let Jinx go and left the room without looking at her again and closed the door behind her and stripped her clothes off in the hallway and went into her room naked and scrubbed herself raw in the shower until Jinx’s smell was a little less potent. She vomited once, her body’s punishment for her stubbornness, and her cock shivered and slavered and she let it, ignoring its cries, grateful and terrified and reeling a little. She had touched Jinx, and she had not hurt her, and nothing else mattered.
Jinx’s heat broke the next day. Caitlyn could smell the difference when she woke, and it was such a relief that she lay there for a few minutes and just breathed the clear fresh scent of the air even as her body ached a little in the absence of Jinx’s powerful, beautiful scent. She heard the shower start down the hall, and she was glad that Jinx didn’t feel the need to ask for permission first. Maybe she’d started to feel a little at home here. Caitlyn shut her eyes, not letting her mind run away with the thought. She’d kept Jinx safe and secure during an extremely vulnerable time, and that was more than enough. She didn’t need to want more than that.
Her body retreated from its rut over the next few hours. It felt like slowly removing a rotten tooth—dull and painful and relieving, leaving an empty space in its wake. When she felt a little more close to normal, she dressed herself and went downstairs to find Jinx sitting at the couch, thumbing absently through the case files on the coffee table.
Jinx looked up and stood sharply as she saw Caitlyn, her posture rigid. Her sudden formality made Caitlyn’s heart sink—was she going to put up barriers now, after everything that had happened? Caitlyn stopped at the end of the couch, giving her space.
“How are you feeling?” she asked after a pause.
“Better,” Jinx said shortly. Her blue eyes were unreadable, and she looked down after a moment, her fingers twisting together.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Caitlyn offered hastily, anxiety making her gut churn. “I should’ve controlled myself better, I know you weren’t in your right mind, I should’ve refused you outright. If you’re angry with me, you have every right to be.”
Jinx looked up at her quickly, her brows furrowing. “Angry? Caitlyn, if anything I’m, I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t have asked for…what I asked for. I shouldn’t have asked for anything.”
Caitlyn almost said, I wanted you to. She almost said, I’m so glad you did. She almost said, Jinx, there’s something I need to tell you.
Instead, she said, “Did I hurt you? Did I scare you?”
“No,” Jinx said, sounding startled. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. At all.” She paused, then asked, “Did I hurt you?”
Caitlyn almost answered right away with a vehement, “No,” but decided that she wanted to be honest here. It seemed important to be honest. “It…did hurt. That’s the nature of it. But it was a pain I experienced willingly. I can’t imagine how difficult that heat was for you. I wanted to make it better, if I could.”
Jinx blinked rapidly, her gaze darting away again, a light flush coloring her cheeks. “Well, you did,” she said quietly.
Caitlyn’s heart soared for the briefest of moments. She hid her smile as she nodded. “I’m glad to hear that.”
"Listen, about me being an omega," Jinx said slowly.
"I won't tell anyone," Caitlyn said.
"I wasn't trying to lie to you."
"It's your life, Jinx," Caitlyn said firmly. "You don't owe anything to me or anyone else. I'm sorry it came to this, but your secret is safe with me, I promise." You are safe with me. I promise.
Jinx gave her a long look, her expression unreadable. Then she said, "Thank you."
Her eyes were a little wide, the blue of them shining in the sunlight. Caitlyn wanted to say a hundred different things, she wanted to ask if Jinx remembered what she had said, if she'd meant it. But she stayed quiet. Jinx had been through enough. Caitlyn knew better than to pry.
“I’m going to head home,” Jinx said finally, blinking as she broke her gaze away from Caitlyn's. “Get changed, get my pills. I’ll see you tomorrow to get back to the case, yeah?”
“Of course,” Caitlyn said.
She walked Jinx to the door, opening it for her, trying not to focus on the preemptive feeling of loss spreading through her limbs at the idea of Jinx walking out and leaving this experience and Caitlyn behind. Jinx didn’t go right away. She put her coat on, taking longer than necessary to adjust it around her shoulders, to flatten the collar. Caitlyn noticed her breathing had increased in pace, that she kept her eyes averted for longer than seemed normal. Caitlyn could smell her from this distance, that low sweetness of her sinking into Caitlyn’s skin like a warm ray of sun, all the pain of the heat completely gone now.
Then Jinx took a step toward Caitlyn, closing the space between them, and she took Caitlyn’s arm in one hand and lifted the other to cup Caitlyn’s jaw, and she leaned up and kissed her cheek. Caitlyn blinked, her heart suddenly hammering as Jinx stepped away again. Jinx was finally looking at her, and she was blushing furiously.
“Thank you,” she said, and her voice was quiet and raspy. “For everything.”
She stepped out the front door, closing it behind her, leaving Caitlyn in her wake with wide eyes and a fluttering pulse. Caitlyn touched her cheek where Jinx’s lips had been. Then she smiled, and a laugh danced its way out of her throat.