Chapter Text
Chapter One
“I don’t really like America. Too many rules, you know…”
Lalo shrugged and took a sip of his whiskey. A strand of light-colored hair fell across his forehead as he leaned against the bar, dressed in an orange casual dress shirt. He looked relaxed and casual.
“… It’s not as warm as Mexico. Here, everywhere you look, there are elites walking around—politicians, lawyers, stock brokers… Every day when I step outside, I find myself wondering, ‘God, where am I? Wall Street?’”
He chuckled and shook his head, as if unable to tolerate the thought.
Next to him was Nacho, who looked somewhat uncomfortable. Nacho scanned the room with a serious expression, and Lalo couldn’t figure out what he was nervous about.
Maybe that’s just how the kid is? Lalo thought back and realized that Nacho almost always had a worried look.
Lalo didn’t pay it much mind. Everyone has their troubles; he didn’t like to make baseless assumptions about the people around him.
At the moment, Lalo and Nacho were in a luxurious bar, investigating Gus’s daily activities.
Lalo had ordered quite a bit of alcohol. The glasses piled up in front of him and Nacho, reflecting colorful, dazzling lights. He had hoped to use this opportunity at the bar to relax and have a few drinks with his new subordinate to build rapport. However, after a few drinks, Lalo keenly sensed the interference caused by the trace amounts of pheromones in the air and furrowed his brow, realizing an unexpected issue.
His sensitivity phase had started.
In the dim, moody lighting of the bar, Lalo adjusted his shirt collar and reached for the pheromone patch on the back of his neck. He could feel several people’s gazes subtly focused on him (likely sensitive omegas). He had no choice but to pull Nacho to a corner of the bar, away from the crowd.
What a hassle.
Lalo pouted, feeling quite unlucky.
Since Lalo’s transition to alpha, he rarely remembered his sensitivity phase every three months. He was too busy to deal with such minor physiological issues. Moreover, compared to other alpha individuals who became restless during their sensitivity phases, Lalo felt he was doing okay, just that the pheromone secretion was harder to control than usual.
At least he had applied a pheromone patch today, which barely allowed him to smell like a normal person. If he hadn’t used it, he shuddered to think what might have happened.
“What's wrong?”
Nacho noticed the subtle change in Lalo’s expression and asked.
Lalo raised his glass and swirled it in his hand. He gave Nacho a smile.
“Nothing, just thinking. Ignacio, could you get me a few more drinks?”
Fortunately, Nacho was somewhat insensitive to pheromones and didn’t notice anything unusual about Lalo, so he went to get more drinks. As Lalo held his forehead, trying to calm his more erratic emotions, the gazes of several nearby omegas became increasingly noticeable. Their eyes seemed to stick to him, subtly scanning his back, as if they had seen through this well-dressed, charming alpha who was clearly in need of comforting during his sensitivity phase.
People started whispering about Lalo—some omegas in America seemed even more open than those in Mexico, viewing an alpha’s sensitivity phase as prime time for flirting. And look at Lalo… He was just sitting there with a bit of a troubled expression, his sleeves rolled up, showing off the tattoos on his arms. Frankly, it seemed like 90% of the omegas here would be eager to use their pheromones to help him deal with his sensitivity phase.
I should get out of here as soon as possible.
Lalo thought.
… Or at the very least, I should switch to a more effective pheromone patch. Do I have a bag of heat-specific pheromone patches in my car? God, I really should take my alpha status more seriously…
Before anyone actually approached him to strike up a conversation, Lalo stood up. He pretended to be taking a phone call and hurried out the door. As he passed a table where two female omegas were seated, they stared at him intently, whispering to each other.
“Is that... the smell of whiskey on him? Residual alcohol?”
“No, you fool. It’s clearly the scent of his pheromones…”
Ignoring all the chatter, Lalo quickly headed to the parking lot. He retrieved a packet of pheromone patches from the back seat of his car and was about to close the door when he suddenly detected a subtle scent behind him.
Lalo clearly wasn’t the unluckiest person tonight. While Lalo and Nacho were trying to figure out if Gus was hiding something in the bar, a few senior managers from HHM were having a team-building event in an upstairs private room.
At this moment, Lalo downstairs hadn’t yet noticed the onset of his sensitivity phase. Meanwhile, Howard was putting on a polite smile, clapping for a colleague who was singing after getting drunk.
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
Howard’s perfectly crafted smile seemed to be glued to his face as he clapped vigorously, contemplating what kind of flattering remarks he should make next to send these overexcited drunks home. After all, they still had to work tomorrow… If Howard had known these people were so out of control, he definitely wouldn’t have chosen a bar for this team-building event.
The transparent coffee table was littered with an array of liquor bottles, and the lawyers sat around a sofa, babbling drunken nonsense. Most of the conversation revolved around complaints about judges, prosecutors, and clients, with several discussing their finances and bills.
Having drunk an unexpectedly large amount, Howard’s face was redder than usual. As he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face, an unexpected sense of discomfort abruptly interrupted his thoughts.
He touched his face and belatedly realized a problem he had overlooked under the influence of alcohol.
His heat cycle had started early.
Amidst the loud commotion, Howard’s face turned pale. He immediately reached into the inner pocket of his suit for his suppressant, but he didn’t find the expected syringe—he suddenly remembered he had left the suppressant in the pocket of his work suit from earlier in the day.
This is a disaster.
“Everyone, I’m just stepping out to take a call. I’ll be right back.”
Howard stood up, using the excuse of a phone call to exit the private room. He hurried through the bar’s hallway, the flashing lights making him feel dizzy and disoriented.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest: “Thump, thump…” and his pheromones were increasingly spilling uncontrollably.
It was the omega pheromone he had never admitted to having.
The reason Howard hid his omega identity and presented himself as an alpha was complex, but it mainly boiled down to family—specifically, his father. Even though it was now common for omegas to hold important management positions and societal discrimination against omega professionals had decreased, in Howard's father’s generation, omega was still considered a “third-class gender.”
In short, for the sake of his law firm, Howard’s father concealed Howard’s true gender.
Howard played the role of an alpha seriously, even getting engaged to an omega lawyer named Sheryl. But before their wedding, he revealed his true gender to his fiancée, and unsurprisingly, he was unceremoniously dumped. So, Howard was still single.
Every three months, during an omega’s heat cycle, Howard injected himself with suppressants to forcefully endure it. Over the years, the dosage had increased from one vial to a dangerously excessive five vials, reaching a critical point. Yet Howard had no idea what other options he might have.
As Howard made his way from the private room upstairs to the parking lot, the heat-induced urges had him disoriented, nearly stumbling to the ground. If he were a typical omega, he could seek help from the bar and easily obtain free suppressants—but he couldn’t do that because his identification listed his gender as alpha, not omega.
He staggered forward, sensing a strong alpha pheromone in the air—a scent of strong liquor… whiskey? Maybe Scotch whisky, though he couldn’t be sure.
He clumsily got into his car, collapsing into the driver’s seat. Howard’s consciousness blurred as he closed his eyes, trying to endure the initial wave of disorientation from his heat. Suddenly, the car window beside him was knocked on.
“Hey, sir.”
A man’s voice spun around Howard’s ears.
“…This is my car.”
Howard struggled to open his eyes, breathing erratically, and looked at the person speaking through the window. He then realized that he had mistakenly gotten into a car that wasn’t his—his car was actually parked next to it.
“Sorry, sir… I made a mistake…”
He tried to gather his scattered wits and get out of the car, but the scent of pheromones was almost enveloping him, dragging him into an abyss.
It was the alpha pheromone he desperately needed right now.
Lalo rested his smooth, toned arm on the car window, watching in exasperation as this omega suddenly opened his car door and climbed in. He wasn’t sure what to do.
This omega seemed to be in heat? Indeed, during their heat, omegas would instinctively seek out an alpha’s protection. But didn’t this person know they needed to carry suppressants when going out?
“Sir, do you need help?” Lalo raised an eyebrow and asked. “You can give me your ID, and I’ll go to the bar’s front desk to register you, and you’ll get free suppressants.”
Howard didn’t respond, just sat there in a daze, seemingly trying to open the door. Seeing that Howard wasn’t reacting, Lalo shrugged and simply lifted Howard out of the driver’s seat, placing him in the back seat of his own car.
“Wait…”
Howard called out briefly, but Lalo did not hesitate. He smoothly reached into Howard’s suit and took out his wallet. Howard swore he didn’t see Lalo’s actions clearly.
When Lalo saw “alpha” in the gender field on Howard’s ID, he finally understood the situation.
“False gender?” Lalo chuckled, “A lot of tricks, huh?”
Getting caught with a fake gender was a serious problem. Given how complicated the situation had become, Lalo had planned to toss Howard out of the car and drive away. However, Lalo then noticed Howard’s business card with the title “Owner of HHM Law Firm.”
America was a complicated country; compared to the freedom of Mexico, Salamanca could easily end up in trouble here. Making a few lawyer friends wouldn’t be a bad deal… After all, at the very least, it would be useful to rescue a few drug-dealing guys from prison.
He now knew a secret about Howard he could leverage. It all seemed so perfect, didn’t it?
Lalo leaned in and smiled through the car window at Howard.
“Mr. Howard Hamlin from HHM Law Firm, I’m Eduardo Salamanca. You can call me Lalo. You have two options: I can drive you home, or I can give you a temporary mark and you’ll be able to recover on your own after a while.”
Howard’s pheromone was pine-scented, close to the smell of paper and office furniture. At this moment, the pine-scented omega pheromone had filled Lalo’s car, and their pheromones began to mix. For Lalo, who was in a sensitivity phase, this close contact with a heat-cycling omega was quite uncomfortable.
When Lalo took Howard’s ID, Howard’s face was already pale, drenched in cold sweat.
Especially during his heat, at this moment…
Before falling into complete chaos, Howard forced himself to make the most rational choice.
Long-term use of suppressants had made Howard’s heat difficult to calm down. If he wanted to stay peacefully in the same car with an alpha, a temporary mark was unavoidable.
A temporary mark… but he had never accepted a mark from any alpha before.
Now?
What was that man’s name? Lalo? An entirely unknown alpha. His fashion sense was a bit odd, but he seemed nice enough? Though first impressions could be deceptive.
He had already seen the ID; maybe he would use the discovered fake gender to blackmail.
Is it really necessary to get a temporary mark from someone like him?
As Howard sat in the back seat of the car, wrestling with this internal storm, Lalo leaned against the car, giving him space to decide. He called Nacho, who was still at the bar.
“Ignacio, sorry, I have some personal matters to handle. You can leave now, and we’ll catch up later.”
Lalo leaned against the car, carefully peeling off a new pheromone patch and applying it to the back of his neck. Marking an omega in heat as an alpha during a sensitivity phase was a delicate procedure; any misstep could lead to a permanent mark. Lalo avoided permanent marks because he didn’t want to be responsible for any omega.
As he applied the new patch, he saw Howard reach out and gently knock on the car window. Lalo heard a soft, muted voice.
“...Give me a temporary mark and then take me home. Thanks.”
Lalo opened the car door and sat next to Howard. At that moment, the pine-scented omega pheromone washed over him like a tidal wave.
Performing a temporary mark on an omega under such conditions was as challenging as running a tightrope after taking a hit of heroin. Lalo reached out, embracing Howard and patting his back.
Howard clung to Lalo’s shirt, breathing deeply in this close embrace.
The embrace meant safety, yet also danger. It felt like grabbing a thread in the abyss while being dragged deeper.
“Relax, Howard. I know how temporary marking works, okay? It’s just exchanging pheromones. You’re too tense.”
“…”
Compared to the comforting Lalo, Howard’s tension was palpable, his limbs frozen and unmovable. Lalo slowly removed the pheromone patch from Howard’s neck, his movements even gentle.
Lalo leaned in close to Howard, his sharp teeth lightly brushing Howard’s gland.
tbc