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“I’m not drunk. You’re drunk! Drunk on power!” Utahime yelled across the room.
The officer turned away. “Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, lady.”
If the officer rolled his eyes or not, Utahime couldn’t see. All she knew for sure was that the officer was in earshot, he couldn’t care less, and the bars of her holding cell were her least favorite kind of bar.
The officer locked the door.Utahime snuck her arm through the bars, contorting herself in a vain attempt to grab him. The most she could do was bark and growl.
“Who’re you calling a lady? Get back here. I’ll make a lady out of you, first.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the officer uttered with the exact tone to mean no. “Sleep it off, boozer.”
“You sleep it off!”
Utahime slammed her foot into the metal railing. A shot of pain ran up her heel. She grit her teeth to suppress it and snarl. “Get back here!”
For a list of what were no doubt irritatingly practical reasons, the officer didn’t answer. He marched away as if Utahime didn’t exist.
”I’m not drunk!” Utahime yelled, trying to catch his attention. The silence surrounded her long enough for her to add. ”You’ll hear from my lawyer! And my wife! You think I’m scary, wait for her. Now, she’s scary!”
To no one else’s surprise, yelling threats at the police didn’t help.
Utahime smashed her fist into the bars. The bar shook from her smack. Her insides shook more. “Ow-“
Utahime clutched her fist, holding the sore spot against herself. Her teeth clenched in focus. She’d focused so completely, she almost didn’t hear someone behind her ask, “Can you stop?”
“No,” Utahime answered without thinking.
The cell bars kept shaking. Utahime’s thoughts caught up. Whatever else was happening around her, she wasn’t alone.
Utahime assumed, until this second, she’d been dragged off to a drunk tank. It wouldn’t have been the first time Utahime picked the wrong fight when she was wasted, and ended up being held until her wife or a friend took her home. It was looking a lot less like that when she saw who else was there with her.
A woman with chestnut colored hair, wearing a white coat with a t-shirt underneath. Whatever attention her sunken eyes and masterfully placed beauty mark would normally draw, it was overridden and overwritten by the words across her chest. It read “ Don’t Tame Me ”, with the O in “don’t” replaced by the sign of an Omega. Brown and red specks flecked her shoes, up her sleeves, made all them more striking by the white coat. She pressed a piece of gauze to her cheek, no doubt nursing a wound. Well, maybe not nursing. The cost read more like a doctor than a nurse. In any case, her cellmate’s getup wasn’t the normal look or the aftermath of bar hopping.
“What the heck happened to you?” Utahime asked. The words tangled on her tongue, not tripping over, but at least tumbling, as she spoke. “Lemme guess. Fist fight at the MRI? If that’s how you look, how bad’s the other girl?”
“You shouldn’t guess,” her cellmate answered, so hushed, Utahime barely heard her.
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah,” the cell mate agreed. “You’re that bad at guessing.”
The accusation made Utahime push back from the wall. She smacked her hand again, all but knocking herself upright. “No, I’m not!”
“You’re wrong.”
“No. I’m Utahime!” The new slur in Utahime’s insistence came along with a sway. She tilted to one side, struggling to stand more than she expected. She shook her foot. If it was on purpose, she wasn’t sure.
However the world around her seemed to shift under her feet, the other woman answered just as level. “Princess or not, you’re not right.”
“Not Princess. That’s my name. I’m Utahime,” she said. “A drink or three won't change that!”
“Three?”
Utahime leaned forward, nodding. At least, it would have been a nod if her footing was steadier. She nearly tripped over her feet, then caught herself on the wall.
The other woman’s eyes sank, skeptical. “How big was the glass?”
Utahime could hear the question. She wasn’t quite sure what it meant. She squinted through her blur, searching for some kind of clue before slurring back. “Bottles? I’m normal. Who’re you?”
The other woman’s stare seemed to imply what they both knew. Whatever Utahime might say about herself, the state she was in was a far cry from her normal. Whatever kind of cry it might be, the other woman answered it with a nod.
“I’m Shoko.”
“Utahime.”
“I know. You said that.”
At the end of her confusion, Utahime leaned close enough to see what Shoko’s hand was covering. Her palm pressed across a wound, holding it tight.
“Do you need water?” Utahime asked. “That looks deep.”
Shoko lowered her gaze. “It’s facial. They’re more susceptible to bleed. It’s fine. I can tend it.”
“That you can doesn’t mean you have to.”
Whatever daze Utahime could have been in, the sight of the wound was sobering. She felt her heels steady.
Someone stomped down the hall. Utahime didn’t look for who it was. She just shouted.
“Get first aid! She needs help!”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, get it anyway!”
Utahime peered through the bars. She craned her neck to sneak a glimpse at who was there. She couldn’t see anyone specific, just the blue pressed pants of an officer, strolling past them. Utahime smacked her hand against the bars. The metal rattled.
“Someone should help her!” Utahime snapped as they passed by. The officer didn’t look. She huffed “…unless you’re an asshole!”
The officer’s footsteps stopped. They hadn’t looked, specifically, but it was more than enough cause for Utahime to keep shouting.
“Yeah, you! I see you!” Utahime snapped. She waited until they’d started to walk off before adding, just as exasperated, “it’s not even a good ass!”
Utahime hadn’t looked closely enough to be sure of that, but the accusation felt right, regardless.
The accusation didn’t help her point. The officer walked past her, and not with the implication they’d come back right away with fresh gauze and antiseptic. If anything, the march was an avoidant shuffle to pretend anyone behind those bars didn’t exist.
The woman on the other side of the cell didn’t budge. Her eyes seemed sunken, both resigned and exhausted. “It’s fine.”
Whether or not she had the pain tolerance, she shouldn’t have had to handle anything, especially not her own wound. Or this, whatever this happened to be.
Shoko’s face was bright pink, and turning darker. A gloss of sweat stuck to her cheeks, then her hair. The matted strands clung to her neck, wrapping her in soggy tendrils of her hair. The woman had been hot to start with, sure, but the wrong kind of hot was taking over, and it was clearly getting worse.
“You don’t look well,” Utahime said, all too aware it was pointing out the obvious.
Shoko groaned. “Get back. It’s,” her breath staggered as she forced her head to tip up. She looked ahead just long enough to hold contact with Utahime’s stare. Their eyes locked, gloss meeting gloss, at the cusp of understanding. She flopped forward, exhausted. “Ugh.” The timing of it all made Utahime lean closer.
“What do you mean, ugh?”
The snap didn’t draw any focus. Shoko pulled herself in towards her knees. A shudder of offense ran down Utahime’s back.
“Don’t ‘ugh’ at my face! It’s a good face!” Utahime pointed back at herself. Shoko didn’t budge. Utahime stomped. “Come on! It’s one scar!”
Sure, the slash took up most of Utahime’s face, but she didn’t like being self-conscious about that. If anything, being an alpha, a battle scar was a source of pride. It was less so as a woman, as far as society saw it, but Utahime didn’t give what care she had towards that. At least, not normally.
“Not the scar,” Shoko uttered. The way her gaze lost focus, it started to mirror Utahime’s own. Her lips parted, first to breathe, then to speak. “You got a light?”
“Like, a flashlight?” Utahime asked.
Shoko shook her head. “No. Lighter. It helps to smoke.”
“Helps what? Smoke’s disgusting. It’s not good for you. Plus, it covers everything. You can’t tell what someone’s pheromones are. It’s all tobacco.”
To some people, it was an expression of hypocrisy for a drunk to condemn a smoker, but it was true. Alcohol didn’t impact someone’s scent beyond their breath. Hell, it wasn’t unheard of for some alphas to have their natural scents include bourbon or whiskey. Any distortions to pheromones were limited to someone’s breath.
It wasn’t until Utahime had finished complaining that she caught a whiff of the other woman. Her cellmate smelled like smoke. It was better than at least one alternative, from the look of her. At least it wasn’t blood.
Whether it was the stray insult, or the circumstance, Shoko looked worse by the second. Her lips parted, straining for breath. Strokes of red stained her face in a different way than Utahime’s. Where Utahime was pink with booze, Shoko’s was less even, more strained. Either she was in far more agony than even the cut on her face would imply, or—
“You’re in heat.”
Utahime uttered the words in realization. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t sound sure. What Utahime was sure of was that, if she was wrong, the other woman would correct her.
“It’s artificial.”
“You mean, like, induced?” It wasn’t quite a correction, but it was close enough to make Utahime wonder. “Who would do this?”
“I was protesting. It’s crowd dispersal, from the police. Pheromone bombing.”
The way the woman spoke, she sounded calm. The idea didn’t feel like it should be. Utshime never heard of the idea before, but the way the other woman spoke gave her no reason not to believe it.
A blush rose up the woman’s neck, her scent swelling. “Stay back,” she said. “I know what to do.”
“They’ve done this before?”
Shoko nodded. Utahime didn’t move. She just watched, knowing.
“That’s messed up.”
“Smoking helps. Masks the scent, if you have one.”
“I wouldn’t have that.”
“A scent? Why not? You on blockers?”
“No. Not a scent. Cigarettes. I had booze, but they took it.”
“Didn’t know where to smuggle it?”
“Didn’t think I’d have to. Drinking’s legal.”
“You could’ve slipped it in your sash. Shrine maiden robes look flowy. They could be good for that. Hiding things.”
“Not really. They don’t have pockets.”
“You could sew them.”
“Do I look like I sew?”
Utahime turned enough to lock eyes with Shoko. She gazed back into the brown, until she could see an array of other colors start slipping. Whatever warmth there could have been in a mocha colored stare, it was eclipsed by the black in Shoko’s eyes.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem like it mattered if Utahime looked like she could press a seam. No matter what she was or wasn’t, Shoko was burning. She pressed her back against the cold cement wall, her lips parted in nauseous strain, at the cusp of a groan.
Another officer walked by the cell. His nostrils flared, his eyes dilating as he passed by. If the lighting were any clearer, Utahime could have sworn she saw a fang. The pulse of his breath tainted with a snarl. Utahime’s senses snapped with it.
The sweat off the other woman wasn’t just drenching her. It was hard to ignore. Faint and natural, the way the tip of a honeysuckle flower stolen out of someone else’s garden was sweet, but sweet all the same. Not even the smell of tobacco could mask the floral, vanilla musk.
It wasn’t the scent Utahime was used to. It was stronger, more earthy, like getting lost in a garden after a thunderstorm. Her own instincts kicked in just the same.
An omega. Shoko was an omega. The red was her heat, and that officer must have been thinking about territory.
The near feral gaze of the corrections officer skimmed through the bars, angled down towards the omega. Utahime stretched out her arm. She wrapped herself around the omega, trapping her between Utahime and the wall—and blocking her from the officer’s sight in the process.
Utahime bared her own fangs. She snapped with a bark of her own.
“You wanna stare at something pretty? Find a museum! Buzz off, buster!”
The ferocity with which Utahime snapped clashed with the words. The officer lowered their gaze, looking down, like a warning. It was a warning Utahime ignored. She kept her stare narrow and sour, guarding Shoko like a stray cat would a meal.
The officer’s footsteps trudged along, passing the cage. Shoko’s lip curled. However strained she was with the heat, it didn’t keep her from teasing.
“Buster? What’s he busting?”
Utahime let out a huff. “Apparently, me.”
Utahime crossed her arms. She joined Shoko against the wall. However much the cement stung, Utahime didn’t speak. She winced forward.
“What’re you in for?” Shoko asked, her words rasping from the strain. “Not protesting, clearly.”
“Hey. I could’ve been. I protest.”
The fact Utahime tried to argue showed she was protesting right now. Shoko shook her head regardless.
“You weren’t. I would’ve remembered you.”
The statement was striking enough that Utahime didn’t argue. Whatever warmth she felt, it doused just as quickly when Shoko added. “The robes. Not subtle.”
“Who said subtle’s good, huh? Protests should be loud. I’m loud!”
“…Sure are.”
The delay in Shoko’s agreement didn’t sound much like agreement. It was closer to placation.
Utahime grabbed Shoko by both shoulders, pulling her closer. “I mean it! I’m an arguer!”
Shoko’s head flopped to one side. “I can tell.”
“Then, tell it while looking at me!”
The guard shuffled away, either deciding Utahime was right, or that he didn’t get paid enough to bother with this. In either case, the snapping successfully scared the guard off—and any hope of outside help with it.
Utahime hadn’t looked at Shoko for long. It was long enough to tell she was getting worse. Sweat spotted through her t-shirt. Damp points caught on her collar. Utahime couldn’t see the wound, but, from the rest of the state Shoko was in, she couldn’t Imagine it was much better than the rest of her.
“Can I look?” Utahime asked.
Shoko breathed before she answered. “Aren’t you already looking?”
It was a fair point. Utahime didn’t admit to it. She looked, anyway.
Shoko’s eyes seemed to dilate, the black of her pupils eclipsing any color that could have been there. Red spots rose in patches, flushing her cheeks, her neck, and down. Her shoulders scrunched, a tremor shaking down her spine as she wrapped her arms around herself.”
Utahime hadn’t seen someone in this state in a while. Still, she remembered how it worked. An unexpected heat needed cover and comfort, not concrete and steel benches that were screwed straight onto the wall. Without a partner, a heat could get painful, and quickly.
“Shouldn’t you nest? You should hold something.”
“I’m fine,” Shoko answered, the words lagging enough to prove they weren’t true.
Utahime leaned back. “I’m not your mate, but you could borrow my shirt. Use someone else’s smell.”
“I’ll get through it,” Shoko said. “They train us to expect it.” Despite the strain, she spoke firmly enough Utahime could believe her. What she didn’t know was why.
“What ‘they’?”
“Other protesters,” Shoko said. Her words slowed down, weighted with the strain. “This can happen.”
“How?”
What could have been a simple question didn’t fall from her lips like it was.
There was a smell on Shoko’s breath, then off her skin. Her fangs started to protrude, her body warping in the throes of something she had no way to control.
“Damn it.” Utahime cursed herself. She slipped out of her shirt, tugging the sleeves off one at a time, before crumpling it into a wad. She thrust the fabric clump towards Shoko’s chest.
“Here. Hold this,” Utahime told her, not a suggestion, but an order. “Let me help. I’m trained, too.”
It wasn’t protest training. It certainly wasn’t heat endurance assistance training. Utahime knew what questions Shoko could reasonably raise, and didn’t know her answer. She didn’t have to.
Reluctant as she was, Shoko took it. “…Thanks.”
Shoko wrapped herself around the wad of Utahime’s clothing, huddling around it—and a little too well. Shoko’s grip was so secure, Utahime couldn’t reach around Shoko to free her from her shirt. Without any way to get the shirt off, Utahime focused lower. She unhooked the button from Shoko’s pants, then slipped them off, instead.
By the time Utahime shimmied Shoko’s pants down to her thighs, it was blatantly apparent that Shoko was a mess. Her underwear soaked through until the stain ran off into the crotch of her scrubs. The plume of Shoko’s pheromones eclipsed even the smoke, sticking to everything, including Utahime, herself. Utahime didn’t recognize that she was sinking in towards Shoko until she’d already licked her lips.
The tap of more footsteps carried down the hall. Utahime didn’t bother to look. She just growled.
The scent of the nearest guard registered before the sight of him. The earthy mix of moss and hot coffee, that would otherwise have been tolerable, if not her type, made her sneer, “out!”
The guard moved back. He nearly dropped the tray. The grayish slop that passed for food, and may or may not have been oatmeal, dribbled over the side of the bowl.
Whatever issues Utahime had with the staff, that specific guard did listen. He took the food with him. Even if her stomach was empty, Utahime didn’t mind.
“What are you—“
“An alpha,” Utahime answered before Shoko could finish. “I’m an alpha.” And she could already picture finishing Shoko, too.
From the way Shoko huffed, she would have meant something else. Utahime drew closer, regardless. Her hand lingered on Shoko, still close enough to cover her.
“I won’t touch you,” Utahime said, like an assurance. Whether Utahime meant it or not, she wasn’t sure.
Shoko didn’t argue openly. All she did was roll her shoulder. Her chest moved under Utahime’s touch, drawing attention to the fact that she was already touching her.
If Utahime had her senses, that should have been a signal to pull away. She didn’t.
“Not like that,” Utahime corrected herself. “I mean, I won’t touch you that way, directly. It’s not my cycle. Ruts don’t trigger that quickly.”
It would have taken days of exposure to an omega’s unchecked heat to draw Utahime into a full rut, even if she was close enough to smell them easily. As long as this didn’t go on through the next day, Utahime would have self-control–at least, in theory. How well she could use it when she was tipsy to start with, she didn’t know.
Whatever protest was still in her, Shoko didn’t argue. She turned, exhausted, to rest her cheek on Utahime’s hand. She craned, flexing her neck, her bare scent glands far too close to ignore.
“…Sure,” Shoko uttered, clearly cracking. “If you want that.”
There was such a haze around Shoko, it practically made a cloud. The pheromones in her breath were almost thick enough to see.
This was close to be to a stranger. Closer, still, for an alpha to be to an omega. But, Utahime’s wife would understand. This wasn’t about claiming someone. It was a favor to a stranger—or, someone who would have been a stranger, if Utahime hadn’t asked her name. It was cruel to leave an omega like this, no matter who they were. Even a beta like Utahime’s wife understood that. Utahime told herself that. She put her hand on Shoko’s stomach.
The instant Utahime touched Shoko, Shoko arched back. She clutched Utahime’s tunic tight, bunching it at the shoulders. The angle she took blocked Utahime from being able to pull Shoko’s t-shirt over her arms. The best Utahime could do was bunch the fabric up, then reach around Shoko’s back to unhook her bra for some release. The lift alone made Shoko groan–something faint, but continuous, just short of breathing.
What the sound meant specifically, Utahime couldn’t know. Her gut turned, and her mind tumbled with it, finding the meanings she wanted to take.
Utahime’s touch kept straying. One hand rose, her fingers massaging past and under the wires in Shoko’s bra. She cupped her hand over Shoko’s breast. Her thumb brushed across the bud of Shoko’s nipple, guiding the omega to gentle submission.
It wasn’t just the sound of her. The closer Utahime drew, the less she could escape the cloud. The scent of Shoko’s pheromones broke through the smoke and antiseptic. The traces of harsh scents turned ever fainter, eclipsed by lemon and lavender, something too soothing not to breathe in.
Utahime’s hand steadied, except for her fingers. Her touch shifted, strumming Shoko until Shoko let out new moans. They weren’t words, exactly, but Utahime could imagine the meaning. ‘Take me’.
No matter what caused it, an omega in heat needed to be taken care of. Plucked, and played with, and adored enough that whatever pain was left inside her, she couldn’t notice the burn. Utahime could hear it. She answered.
“I won’t knot you,” Utahime said, another assurance she might not manage to keep.
This could be quick. Non-committal. Hell, they weren’t even in a closed room. If a guard walked by, they’d see everything. No matter the circumstance, Utahime didn’t want to put someone else through that potential shame, not unless they wanted that with a clear head.
There was no such thing as a clear head in heat. A rut worked just the same. The longer this went on, unchecked, the more Utahime put herself at risk of the latter.
Utahime wrapped herself close to Shoko, both straddling and covering her at once. She cornered Shoko between the bench and the wall, where only Utahime could see her prize.
The floor was cold, rough and dusty, covered in cracks where cracks shouldn’t be. It wasn’t the kind of place a human being belonged in, let alone an omega. Let alone someone with dignity.
With how her drenched hair framed her face, Shoko may not have had much left in dignity. What she had was a mane. A soggy one. She had color, a brilliant red rising under her skin. She had a scent, so sweet and pervasive that Utahime could almost lick it from the air. The beauty mark under her eye dotted another spot to kiss.
A state this close to ruin wasn’t something any omega deserved, especially not this one. She didn’t deserve to be writhing, wracked with cold and pain, not when Utahime could take her.
The thought was so sudden, Utahime couldn’t blink it out. She had half a mind to smack herself. The longer she stared, the more Utahime realized it was the only half of her mind she still had.
There wasn’t much of a choice, unless Utahime wanted Shoko to suffer. If that thought was a backwards justification for what her instincts said to do, she couldn’t be sure. She just had to trust those instincts were right.
It would be better than a guard, in any case. The way those other alphas looked at Shoko, like waiting prey, they were brutes. Utahime hadn’t been with an omega in a while, but she knew how to take care of one. It was her nature. Right?
Right.
Utahime wrapped herself around Shoko, guiding Shoko’s body against her own. The sweat Shoko had already shed made her harder to grasp, yet all the sweeter for it. The shroud of an omega’s pheromones crossed through the mask of her cigarettes, like embracing a garden.
It took more strength than normal to lead Shoko to the bench, though only half the strength Utahime had. She set one hand on Shoko’s shoulder and the other on her back, to keep her pinned against the wall.
If Utahime wanted to think of it kindly, pinned didn’t have to be the right word. No, Shoko wasn’t trapped. Utahime was supporting her.
Utahime held Shoko in place, propping her chest up by leaning in with her own. She felt the way the air passed through Shoko’s lungs, and heaved with her.
“Like this,” Utahime said softly. “They can’t see you. Just me. No one else sees you, except me.”
Utahime meant it as a promise—to scrape together some faint shreds of modesty inside an open cage.
Shoko leaned away from the wall. The direction she bobbed in placed her directly in Utahime’s embrace. Shoko’s grip reached down Utahime’s arms, the arcs of her nails scraping her.
“You won’t knot?” Shoko asked.
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
The closer Utahime leaned, the more she could all but feel the heat off Shoko’s back. She hadn’t touched her, yet the steam all but radiated from her newly freed skin. The aura of her scent alone made Utahime swell. However much that pressure mattered, it was nothing compared to the way Shoko poured for her. Utahime barely brushed her, yet Shoko swayed, molding herself to the direction Utahime meant for her to go.
It took no effort at all for Utahime to bring Shoko’s hips towards her own. She slid into place, straddled open on the bench, balanced at the verge of a fall. Shoko gripped onto the bench. Her lips parted open in more ways than one. The lips Utahime could see gasped, nearly shaking for breath. The ones she could feel drenched with slick, flooding the cell with the welcome plume of Shoko’s pheromones, calling Utahime in.
Shoko balanced on the bench, one hand on each side. Utahime let one hand press Shoko’s shoulder. The other trailed between her legs. She palmed over Shoko’s opening, one finger crossing in, then two. Shoko hovered in the touch, her breath starting shallow. By the third staggered stroke, she rose, rolling to rub against Utahime’s chest and chase her closer in. The faint friction alone was enough to make Utahime drool.
There wasn’t a good reason for Utahime to respond. Her own cycle wasn’t synced to this. She shouldn’t have had a rut for weeks. In the absence of a good reason, Utahime took the bad one and brought Shoko closer. She lapped her tongue across Shoko’s neck, savoring the ridges of Shoko’s scent glands until the scent was a taste, too.
The welcome of Utahime’s tongue made Shoko bend all the more. The lips Utahime was looking for opened in a moan. Shoko’s other lips did the same.
Utahime listened through the sound. At the end of the croak, she pulled her kiss aside, and whispered. “Utahime. That’s my name.”
Shoko’s eyes barely opened. Her sweat tangled in her lashes like tears. “I know–”
Utahime hooked her fingers. Her palm rocked in place, guiding Shoko from inside. “Say it.”
The order was enough for Shoko to open her lips further. Utahime’s touch didn’t leave room for the words. The sound Shoko meant to make didn’t cross her lips clearly, distorting to a gasp and nothing more.
Just when it could have, Utahime changed her pace. She slowed her palm, then her fingers, until every inch of Shoko she could reach was agonizingly, deliberately, inescapably warm.
Shoko’s mouth opened further. Her lips parted, her jaw wide. She started to find the sound.
While Shoko tried to speak, Utahime took the rest of her. She kept her hands against Shoko, to hold her exactly where Shoko’s twitches seemed to ask Utahime to do.
Shoko spread further. Her tongue left her lips, openly gasping, breaking into the shortest shivers that pleasure could cause. She spilled out onto Utahime’s hand, her squirt all but drenching Utahime in sweet, floral slick.
“If I brought condoms, I’d fill you,” Utahime uttered in admiration—not that it was a likely thought to need something like that, here. Whatever else Shoko was, she was an anomaly.
It was such a passing thought, Utahime never expected to hear, “do it.”
“But—“ Utahime silenced herself, first, instantly baffled by what she heard at all. “What do you—“
“Do it,” Shoko said, far louder than before—an order of her own to “fill me.”
Utahime’s hand shifted, her touch lingering. She didn’t know how to say no to someone asking like that.
So, she didn’t say no.
Utahime let her touch stray. She slid her hand away from Shoko, leaving the spot between her legs to press her palm over her stomach. Shoko twitched in the emptiness. She fell back, like the absence would break her.
“Don’t stop,” Shoko uttered, barely croaking the words.
Utahime kept that hand in place, stroking her. Supporting her. She leaned over Shoko, cloaking the omega with herself as she balanced.
“I won’t,” Utahime promised. “I’m not stopping. I’m adjusting.”
Utahime’s touch left Shoko’s stomach. The outline of a handprint lingered where Utahime left her bare. As quickly as she could, Utahime untied the sash of her robes. The last piece of her clothing fell to gravity, her hakama dripping to the floor. She stripped Shoko just the same, unwrapping her until the only thing left Shoko could wear on her thighs was Utahime.
Utahime changed her touch. She stretched Shoko, one hand holding each thigh, to open the omega as far as she could. Shoko legs spread like the wings of a butterfly, wide and fluttering. Utahime crossed the space she’d made. She pressed a kiss to Shoko’s collar, a promise she didn’t have to speak. The sweat that leaked from Shoko’s scent glands, nearly hidden by her hair, tasted sweetest. Utahime lapped it away. If Utahime hadn’t been drinking before, the pheromones alone could’ve intoxicated her. Maybe, they still had.
Utahime savored that taste. Shoko rose to meet her, relaxing into that touch. Between breaths, when new silence found her and the shaking seemed to still, Utahime shifted in, knot and all.
The sudden sting made Shoko gasp. Utahime would have, too, if someone’s flesh wasn’t so close to her. Her open mouth pressed to Shoko’s skin, sucking her in.
Once it started, there wouldn’t be an end. At least, not quickly. Utahime was tied in Shoko, caught inside her, hard and raw. She couldn’t leave until the omega ran her dry.
Utahime kept her kiss in place. She breathed against Shoko, finding a tide in her, thrusting to match it. The heat off Shoko’s chest carried over through her, too.
Utahime couldn’t blame the booze. She was tipsy, not drunk, more than sober enough to be hard. She couldn’t blame a rut. Her mind felt too clear. The haze around her was an omega’s ache alone—and what an ache it was.
Shoko didn’t speak. Not completely. The most she could do was grunt and squeal. The sounds of her strain weren’t true agony, only a song of rising urgency as her hips rocked and shifted to grind Utahime to come.
It was the kind of song Utahime didn’t know the words to. It didn’t stop her from singing along. She followed the lead, wrapped her arms around Shoko, and kept thrusting to take her. Even when her ears filled, and her senses lapsed to flickers of gray, Utahime didn’t stop. She knew not to stop.
Shoko bent underneath her, not collapsing, but trusting, until the weight of her body left her consciousness to become Utahime’s and Utahime’s alone. Utahime kept hold, thrusting in, until she felt the omega outpour and heard her chorus.
“Come—“ Shoko chanted, desperate. “Come! Come—“
Utahime didn’t comply. Not yet. Tempting as it was, she slowed herself down, to hold Shoko in the plea. Shoko’s own pace quickened, her body twitching too fast to be deliberate—a thoughtless instinct, coaxing and begging through her hips when her mouth couldn’t do it. A new gush of slick rushed down her, the waterfall inside her making new room for Utahime to take. Utahime pushed deeper to the squeeze, taking the invitation to have Shoko’s cunt consume her.
The fall slowed, but didn’t stop. Shoko hovered in her pleasure, her only bit of strength left used to come, and keep coming. The smell of Shoko’s skin filled the cell, a hotbox of her pheromones as her body bloomed and begged for more.
Whatever there was of Utahime to give, she poured it out into Shoko. She needed it. Wanted it. And she was too pretty a flower not to leave full.
A mix of sweat Utahime knew wasn’t her own alone dripped down her. Utahime slid, her focus lapsing, as her own hunger took hold. It didn’t matter that they were in a holding cell, where any passing guard could see. She only had to hold Shoko, everyone else be damned. This moment was hers. This omega was hers.
She was so consumed by her possession, Utahime almost didn’t hear.
“Iori!” An officer’s voice echoed off the walls. “Iori, you’re getting out! Your—“
Utahime pulled herself up, and hitched Shoko to her in the process. She latched to each side of Shoko’s hips, embedding herself around the Omega even more as she snapped over her shoulder. “Can’t you smell? We’re busy—!”
The haze broke. The officer stood still, half obscured by the bars. They stared in open awe.
If Utahime wasn’t so deep in Shoko, she would have cared about the staring. There wasn’t room to. All the room she had inside her was full of the need to stay in, no matter who saw.
If the officer was impressed with Shoko’s flushed, mangled beauty, it didn’t matter half as much. He would only ever get to see, not to feel her. Only Utahime had that prize.
A low growl passed Utahime’s lips, her fangs drawing in possession. Shoko’s hips rose, twitching to summon her. Utahime thrust along, answering Shoko’s rhythm with her own.
A high heel clicked on the cement. In each rush of blood, Utahime barely heard it. She watched Shoko’s back, and drank her in.
The shadow of another woman crossed the officer’s shoulder. The pleat of her braid was angled so far ahead of her, her snowy hair draped over one eye. She brushed her hand over his jacket, smoothing creases from his shoulder.
“It’s fine,” said Mei Mei. “I’ll take the other one, too. When they’re finished, of course.”
“Huh—“
The officer’s attention didn’t leave the cell. Transfixed as he was, he didn’t notice when Mei Mei took a wad of cash from his pocket. She twisted it between her fingers before tucking it soundly in her own.
“Finder’s fee,” Mei Mei purred, satisfied. “…And a spectator’s fee, for my wife. It’s only fair, right? Since you like the show.”
The officer was speechless. His mouth stayed open, watching what he could of the two women in his cell. He was too stunned to argue.
Mei Mei didn’t pay that mind. She crossed one leg over the other, flexing the heel on her boot, and settled on a bench across the hall, enjoying the spectacle, too.
If Utahime wasn’t so far inside Shoko, she should have noticed. She didn’t. She couldn’t. As long as her knot was still swollen, Utahime couldn’t let go.
Utahime’s fingers wrapped around Shoko’s hair, pulling Shoko to bend closer. The strands rose, taught, tense, leaning Shoko close enough that Utahime could keep the gap bridged.
“Stay,” Utahime gasped. “Nest. I’m your nest.”
Whatever desperation leaked through Utahime, she didn’t hear an answer. The most Shoko managed was to heave. Her body shook, her pulse rattling with her senses, at the cusp of pain, yet not quite crossing over.
Utahime kept one hand on her hair. The other held Shoko’s stomach, supporting Shoko’s weight along with her own. She rocked inside her, trading Shoko’s grunts and gasps for her own. It was too late to change this. The intentions didn’t matter. Their bodies took charge, wrapping and trapping each other in the arms and insides of someone they hadn’t known.
Utahime’s head tilted. Her nose buried in the arc of Shoko’s shoulder, her tongue inches from her collar, and the raw, leaking scent glands directly in her bite’s reach. Utahime didn’t snap. She kept thrusting.
“Sorry,” Utahime started to say. The word broke halfway down.
“Go,” Shoko said, not a rebuttal, but an order. Permission.
“O—k—,” Utahime managed to stutter, to break her own fervor enough to form a sound. It didn’t last past her own panting.
Utahime’s knot stayed steady. Where her lips weren’t working, she let her hips keep calling. Over and over, her cock called through Shoko, keeping the omega in her throes.
It wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t go on long enough. The tears in her eyes, that tried to signal pain, didn’t come with hurt. It was the overwhelming presence of joining in with someone else, making unity out of nothing, where their instincts took control.
Utahime opened further. She drew Shoko to do the same. Utahime sucked along Shoko’s neck, her teeth not crossing, only scratching, as she found more skin to taste. Her fangs scratched the surface, the threat of a bite she knew not to give.
“Come,” Utahime whispered. Shoko answered with a whimper. Her slick dribbled down, her entirety shaking in compliance as a new orgasm broke through. The rush of it made Utahime swell. She arched up, nearly separating, before pushing in more.
“Come! Come—!” Utahime gasped the order. She was so consumed by the force of it, she almost didn’t hear her wife purr.
“That’s my girl…”
“Fuck—!”
Utahime’s senses snapped back in place, knotted, yet suddenly sober. Her back arched, her neck stretching as she noticed. “Mei—“ She didn't make it to the second syllable until Shoko squeezed her back. The vice grip of the omega’s walls strangled Utahime from inside. Whatever thought Utahime could have formed broke into a grunt, bending into instinct. Shoko thrust against her, encircling her, to match her pelvis to her own and sink, hip to hip, into the only thing left they could do. Utahime collapsed into the call, and came.
The bench squeaked beneath her. Shoko did the same. The hitch of breaking breath and shaking metal barely broke through the muffled buzz, rising in Utahime’s ears. In the parts she couldn’t hear, Utahime felt the pressure. She pressed back, holding in place, to keep an echo of her pleasure for as long as she could hold it.
Her own squeaks synced up. The bench kept shaking. Between the bars, when Utahime could squint past her own sweat, she caught a glimpse of Mei Mei, standing in the gap.
Utahime slowed her thrusts, her hips rolling. However hard she fought for her senses, her knot was still too swollen to let go. Her eyes fixed on Mei Mei, at the half of her face that Mei Mei’s braid let her see. She fought through Shoko’s presence to gasp. “Mei–”
“Ah, ah,” Mei Mei tipped her hand. Her fingers grazed the cage, only to settle on the guard’s shoulder. “Don’t stare. Watching’s extra.” The honey in her tone was so thick, it practically merged with Mei Mei’s pheromones.
“Extra?” Utahime strained to ask. “Extra what?”
Before Mei Mei had spoken, Utahime heard her breathe. The contentment was so thick, even when she exhaled, it practically seemed like a purr, “pay.”
A thought fought through the haze, fast enough that Utahime could spit it out. The officer next to Utahime’s wife was the same one who’d first brought her in. The look on his face was as clear as the bulge in his pants. Neither one of them gave Utahime any comfort–but the way Mei Mei stood beside him gave Utahime a suspicion.
“Did you do this?” Utahime asked, her focus narrowing on Mei Mei.
However shocked a spouse would have been to catch their partner’s infidelity, Mei Mei didn’t have it in the slightest. If anything, she looked amused. Her red painted lips curled up like a rose in bloom. “Did I tame an omega? Of course not. You’re the alpha. That job’s for you.”
The denial didn’t matter. The fan of bills in Mei Mei’s hand said plenty.
“You did! You set me up!” Utahime gasped. “ Again!”
The guard started to lurch toward the cage, staring plainly. Mei Mei nudged her hip against theirs, knocking them aside. She fanned the dollar bills over her mouth, chuckling into them. “You’re too gorgeous not to share. I can’t be selfish, can I?”
It would’ve been a sweet sentiment, if it had come from anyone else. Utahime knew better.
“You’re only selfish!” Utahime snapped. “You’re pimping me out!”
Mei Mei waved the bills in front of her face. Her eye shifted to the officer. “If it matters, I take tips. I promise, it matters.”
The officer’s shoulders raised. He didn’t speak. The beat was long enough for Mei Mei to add, far more flatly. “From you, not those tips. Just cash.”
Utahime’s blood rose and boiled, burning in more spots than one. However her rage rose, it wasn’t enough to release her knot. Whether or not Shoko was still up to speaking—a fact which her silence implied was very much a no—Utahime wasn’t done. Utahime tried to stop trying. Her front draped to Shoko’s back, sliding in their sweat and all the slick she’d drained from her.
The bench kept squeaking. Utahime tried to breathe. She tried to slow. She tried tens of things she couldn’t manage, and one she did.
“Sorry,” Utahime gasped, barely managing the words. “I can’t—“
However much it took for Utahime to speak, when Shoko did, it barely sounded like words at all. The rasp was closer to a moan than words. “Fine…”
Mei Mei leaned against the bars. Her shoulder pressed into the gap, her shadow crossing through. “She’s better than fine. She’s my wife.”
Whatever haze Utahime was in, she still managed to shove up to shout at Mei Mei. “This wasn’t about you!”
Mei Mei laughed. “But it could be.” Mei Mei swayed in place, clearly knowing. “If you opened the door, I could join. …Though, I don’t know who’d watch the cash, then. I’d best not.”
“Oh my God.” The way Utahime spoke, she couldn’t mask the shock. Her tone stopped halfway through, dissolving to her own breathlessness.
Shoko’s body wrapped so perfectly to Utahime’s, it seemed almost like she’d melted. She fell onto Utahime, gasping, gaping.“More,” Shoko pleaded, the words as soft as her touch. “Don’t let go.”
“I can’t,” Utahime gasped. The sound broke before the rest of her. “I’d have to try–”
“Don’t try. Don’t. Don’t—“
From her thighs to her knot, Utahime’s bones ached. She fell into Shoko that much more, latched and trapped in an embrace she had no choice to leave. Shoko was too close. Her walls were too tight, all but waving in a reminder that Shoko’s heat hadn’t left her. Through the pressure and the current, Utahime stayed. Her thrusts lingered, turning languid, dropping into the gravity between them that forced both of them together.
At the lowest point of burrowing into her, Utahime pressed a hand on Shoko’s neck. She raked her hair over her shoulder, the sweat drenched tips sticking to her scent glands and the mark Utahime hadn’t made. She could still taste it. The scent could almost make her stomach growl. The sound carried through her throat, instead.
Where Utahime could have made a promise, she whispered. “You’re beautiful.”
Utahime couldn’t see Shoko flush or blush. She could, however, see her arch in compliance. Utshime nuzzled closer. When she was close enough to find the outline of her ear, she whispered in, “You’re mine.”
“No.”
The shake through Shoko’s body slowed, less a convulsion than a chuckle.
Shoko breathed like a whisper, just loud enough that Utahime could hear, too. She treasured the word, and the smell, until her knot could bury inside Shoko, and the rest of her could hear the end.
“No, I’m my own. My body. My heat. It’s not yours,” Shoko told her, sweet and sure. “You just borrowed me.”