You gasped when his knot began to swell inside you—stretching, locking, filling. The pressure was intense, almost too much, and your body shuddered with the instinct to pull away, to breathe, to think.

But he didn’t let you.

One hand gripped your hip, the other pressed between your shoulder blades, holding you right where he wanted. His weight settled behind you. Not heavy, but inescapable. You weren’t going anywhere. Not now.

“Still doing okay?” he asked, quieter now.

You nodded, dazed. “Y-Yeah. Just… intense.”

“That’s the point,” he said, but there was something softer buried in the words. Something hidden at the edge of that blunt sarcasm.

People screamed somewhere in the distance, voices laughing, music muffled by trees. A pack bonfire was tonight. If anyone noticed you were missing, no one had come looking. Yet.

This wasn’t supposed to happen again. But Eris said his rut came early and had pulled you through the trees before you could argue.

This was just supposed to happen enough to get both of you through your ruts. A solution, not a habit. Not… whatever this was becoming.

You and Eris had been best friends since you could walk. Both alphas. Eris was in line to be the next pack leader with you as his right-hand man.

You weren’t his mate. He wasn’t yours. Alphas couldn’t mate other alphas, especially not males. But the way he stayed pressed against you, his breath in your hair, his body curled around yours like a shield—it didn’t feel temporary.

And it wasn’t just a broken rule—it was a breach of bone-deep law.

The bonfire tonight wasn’t a celebration. It was a coronation.

The Rite of Fire only came once per generation—when the old Alpha stepped down and the chosen heir was officially called forward. The flame at the center of the camp had been burning since dusk, fed with ancestral herbs, ironroot bark, and dried blood-cedar wrapped in ceremonial cloth. Its smoke was thick and fragrant—sweet, earthy, and sharp. It was said to carry scent to the spirits of those who came before, the first Alphas of Hollowfang, whose names were carved into the heartstones.

Tonight, Eris was meant to kneel in front of that fire. Bare his throat to the Council. Swear the Oath of Dominion under the eye of the Elders and be marked in ash and salt. From that moment on, he would no longer be simply heir—he would be in command. Called to uphold the laws, to enforce blood-rank. Bound to put the pack first. Always.

And you were meant to be at his side, swearing fealty before the gathered clans. The next-in-line. The Second Fang.

But instead, you were here. Knotted. Heat-bent. Hidden like cowards. Like traitors.

If the Council scented what lingered on your skin—if they knew how many times you and Eris had split each other open during rut, they’d have no mercy. Not for two alphas this high-ranked. You’d be stripped of title. Forced into correction binding. Reassigned to breeding dens like broken betas. Or worse- sent to the boundary lands and cast out as rogues.

They didn’t tolerate disobedience, not when it came from within the bloodlines they had personally raised, trained, and offered to the spirits for decades. Not when those bloodlines had been marked as sacred.

The leaves beneath your knees were damp with loam and dew, crushed moss scenting the air. His warmth bled into your back. You could feel the slow pulse of his knot inside you, the stretch of it unbearable and grounding all at once.

“Don’t run from it,” Eris muttered against your neck, voice low and rough. “I know it’s hard, {{user}}. Take a deep breath. It won’t feel good if you don’t relax.”

You let out a shaky breath, your hands gripping the blanket on the forest floor.

The knot throbbed, locking deep inside you. You whimpered. His grip tightened just a little, anchoring you to him like he didn’t trust you not to disappear.

He kissed your shoulder—slow, dragging, then bit down, just enough to make you feel it but not leave a mark. You couldn’t afford to mark each other.