# 8
The purple eyes looking up at Sion looming over him sank coldly. They were calm before a violent storm’s surge.
With their positions reversed, now looking up at Sion, Ash asked in a low voice:
“…What do you think you’re doing?”
“What are you doing yourself?”
The captured wrist was tightly squeezed. Ash’s brow furrowed slightly. He hadn’t noticed when seeing Sion always fully dressed in formal attire, but physically confronting him revealed that Sion was considerably larger than himself. Their strength differed accordingly.
“Let go first. …Stop acting so vulgarly, like some beast in heat.”
“You’re the one who approached me first while I was sleeping, dripping pheromones everywhere.”
“…Me?”
Ha… Ash let out a derisive laugh in disbelief. But the laugh was only momentary. His face grew cold as frost as he shook off the grip on his wrist.
“How would I know about that?”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Do you do this with other alphas too? Or is this a remnant of your promiscuous habits, leaking everywhere you go?”
Crash! Sion’s body was forcefully pushed back. A table collided with his large frame, toppling over with a loud noise.
“Pheromones or whatever, I don’t understand that stuff,” said Ash, rotating his throbbing wrist a few times. “But even if my pheromones were flooding this room, it absolutely does not mean I want to have sex with you. Don’t cling to me. It’s disgusting.”
Bang! Crash! This time it was the sofa that got pushed aside. The heavy sofa, large enough for two adults to lie on comfortably, instantly slid away as the two entangled men collided with it.
“Ah!”
The carpet on the floor crumpled in various directions. The two bodies, caught between the table and sofa, grappled with each other, pulling and pushing frantically. Due to the reflexes unprepared for the sudden situation and the difference in physique, Ash’s body quickly ended up beneath Sion.
Sion’s voice, excited to the point where his usual elegance was nowhere to be found, trembled with anger.
“How dare you say such things?”
“Ugh…”
His throat was choked by the hand gripping his collar. Ash frowned as his breath was cut off, firmly grasping Sion’s wrist.
“You told me not to call a doctor. Not to tell anyone? If you were going to be this repulsed, you shouldn’t have begged with those eyes!”
With a thud, Sion’s head turned to the side.
“Don’t blame me. I admit I was a fool, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to marry you.”
“…”
“After all, you did this because of your own greed, Sion.”
Suddenly, he remembered that terrible night. Hands touching his body at will, his body—disgustingly, contrary to his will—heating up and responding pleasurably to those touches.
Of course, it was Ash who desperately dissuaded Sion from calling a doctor initially, and Sion simply needed a political alliance partner.
Though he intellectually understood that this tragedy resulted from their different desires, Ash couldn’t completely remove his hatred toward Sion.
At the time, he didn’t even know exactly what actions constituted manifestation. The manifestation formed with Sion, without any knowledge, was like a bolt from the blue for Ash.
Ash couldn’t see Sion’s expression as he turned his head slightly and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his fingertip. The inside of Sion’s cheek bulged out and then receded as his tongue swept over the burst area inside his mouth.
After those few seconds of silence, the two became entangled again.
“Ugh… mph.”
In the quiet bedroom, with no curses or shouting exchanged, only the sounds of bodies pushing and grappling, occasional moans, the table rolling on the floor, and the carpet being dragged could be heard.
“You, you shameless… Ah!”
When Ash pinned Sion down, the situation quickly reversed. The two bodies, yielding not an inch, desperately tried to subdue each other, tumbling back and forth.
The neatly tied cravat was torn away by Sion’s hand, and the shirt, buttoned up to the neck, burst open with buttons flying in all directions.
Taking advantage of the loosened grip on his collar, Ash raised his upper body and massaged his throbbing knuckles. Having rarely hit anyone before, his punch had gone astray. Perhaps scraped by Sion’s teeth, there was a shallow wound on his finger joints.
No matter how he thought about it, such undignified behavior should have ended in his teens.
Though Ash was robust enough to not be inferior to any alpha, he was still the young master of a Duke’s family, raised preciously. The Northern style of swordsmanship he learned as a child was not helpful in this practical situation where both were obsessed with landing even one more hit on the other.
“Did you misunderstand something because I was nice to you in the past?”
Ash spoke in a low voice as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fist, still with a slight tremor. His burst lip felt hot and painful.
“Perhaps you savages have strong stomachs and go into heat for anyone, man or woman, as long as there are pheromones, but I’m not like that.”
“Ha…”
A sigh escaped from Sion’s slightly parted lips. His gentle, sun-like features twisted ferociously.
“Ugh…!”
Ash let out a short groan as his breath was cut off by the hand suddenly squeezing his throat.
“Are you sure? That you’re not a savage?”
Between the rapidly rising and falling breaths as he tried to secure insufficient air, a thick scent seeped in. An invisible noose, like burning an entire bottle of fragrance, seemed to fill his lungs and invade his brain.
“Ha, ugh…”
When the unwelcome scent filled his lungs, his breath was instantly cut off. It felt like being buried in a pile of orange peels inside a greenhouse. The sticky scent, as if soaked in moist humidity, entwined around Ash’s senses moment by moment like vines.
Ash, tightly gripping Sion’s wrist, raised his nails and scratched at his skin.
“Hng, stop…”
A lukewarm palm touched him through the open shirt. Ash’s body, with nerves sharpened by the thick pheromones, jumped as if burned.
“You, …shameless bas—, hk.”
His eyes turned red from the pressure rushing to his head. The pheromones, dominating his lungs like thick smoke, coiled around his body like a snake, making his vision blur.
“Haa, ugh…”
His eyes welled with moisture. Once again, the past nightmare was recreated.
That hateful sensation of another’s scent forcibly drawing out instincts hidden deep within his body, stirring up a hot, feverish heat regardless of his will.
Every body hair stood on end sensitively. Ash stared directly at Sion, who was glaring at him as if ready to tear him apart. Unlike the face that seemed to be choking him, the touch he felt was infused with obvious desire, making it utterly revolting.
“Ah…!”
The hand wandering around his side firmly pressed against his collarbone.
“Congratulations.”
A suppressed voice, as if grinding out curses, fell upon the bridge of his nose.
“Now you’re an omega too, Ash.”
“Hngh, ugh…!”
Ash pushed away the body pressing him down with all his might.
“Stop it!”
Unexpectedly easily pushed away, Sion leaned against the sofa to steady his staggering body and withdrew his pheromones.
“Huk, haa… haa…”
Finally, he could breathe again. Ash gasped, gulping down the air that rushed in. His body tingled from the alpha pheromones that had invaded at will. With every breath in and out, the scent lingering in the bedroom scraped his throat hotly.
With trembling hands, he closed his opened shirt and caught his breath while supporting himself on the floor. The heat concentrated between his legs was visibly bulging above his waistband.
“…I think we both chose the best option.”
The calm voice that reached him made his anger rise again. The best option? Maybe for Sion, but not for him.
“With another alpha, it wouldn’t have ended with just manifestation.”
Toward Ash, who still had no energy to respond while catching his breath, the calm voice continued:
“You would have had to spread your legs all night until your lower parts were torn apart.”
Just hearing those words made his whole body tremble. That day, Sion hadn’t done such things to him. If there was a line he had crossed, it was making him climax in his hand several times.
If he had encountered someone other than Sion that day…
“You can think of me as a scoundrel, curse me as shameless, and I won’t have anything to say, but… I’d like you to understand that it was the best choice for me, Ash.”
Sion’s attitude suddenly became calm, as if the disheveled scene had never happened, and Ash’s inflated anger lost its momentum in an instant.
Ignorance cannot excuse one’s actions. By now, Ash had to admit that blaming someone was nothing more than a meaningless venting of anger.
From the beginning, Sion’s best and his best could never align. Sion simply chose what was best for him, which happened to bring about the worst situation for Ash.
It was time to take responsibility for their choices, leaving their irreconcilable positions as they were.
“…I understand.”
Finally, Ash spoke.
“I understand what you’re saying, …and I’ll carry your child. Then you’ll divorce me.”
His hand on the floor clenched into a fist. The bluish veins writhed on the back of his hand where shallow scratches had been made.
“Right now, I don’t have the mental capacity to endure, …so don’t carelessly fool around and wait quietly until my next heat cycle.”
It felt like finally facing head-on the reality he had been avoiding all this time.
“Let’s do this once, quickly and decisively.”
He would give Sion an heir, and he would escape this cursed marriage.
Ash suddenly wondered—even if he divorced, could his life return to its original path? Could he date casually and pleasantly, meet someone nice, take a suitable wife… Could he live like that?
It seemed like a simple matter, but Ash knew well that it wouldn’t be easy. Sex with a man, pregnancy and childbirth—things he had always considered not his lot in life… After experiencing all of that, could he truly be the same as before?
For now, it was impossible to know.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
