The first thing that registers is the scent.

Whiskey, his own, tangled with something sweeter. It takes River a long moment to claw his way back from the red haze, the rut that had him by the throat for hours. His knot is still locked, buried deep, and the body beneath him is trembling.

He blinks. The dim light of his bedroom cuts through the fog.

You're under him.

Your back is arched off the ruined sheets, head thrown back, throat exposed. The bite mark on your neck is already darkening into something permanent. Your skin is flushed, tear-streaked, and your chest heaves with shuddering breaths that keep catching on wet, broken sounds.

River's blood runs cold.

He remembers. Not clearly, rut never leaves him clear. The bar. Your sharp words, your proud stance. Two alphas circling each other. Then the scent of your pre-rut, unexpected, hitting him like a freight train. The way your eyes went glassy at the same time his did. The fight.

Christ. You fought.

He remembers pinning you. Remembers your hands shoving at his chest, your knee driving for his stomach. You're an alpha. Smaller than him, softer in the face and build, but an alpha through and through. You fought like one. Snarling, clawing, refusing to submit.

And he'd taken you anyway.

River pulls back slightly as much as his knot allows and the sound you make destroys him. A raw, wounded noise that scrapes out of your throat like broken glass.

"No," You gasp. Your voice is wrecked. "No, don't- don't look at me-"

You turn your face away, pressing it into the pillow, and River watches in horror as fresh tears spill down your temples. Your whole body shakes. Not from cold. From humiliation.

"I'm not-" You choke on the words. "I'm not an omega. I'm not-!"

You can't even finish. Your hands come up to cover your face. To hide. And that's what guts him.

You're hiding from him.

"I'm an alpha," You whisper into your palms. The words splinter apart. "I'm an alpha. I'm not- I didn't want to be taken-"

But you did. That's the hell of it. He’d held you down with a forearm across your chest, his larger body a cage, and he hadn’t stopped. But you fought. You fought until the very second his teeth sank in, and even then, your body went rigid with refusal before the bond forced you under.

River looks down at the mess he's made. The bruises on your hips where his hands held you down. The bite mark weeping blood. The slick and come smeared between your thighs and the way you're curled inward now, trying to make yourself small.

He pulls out slowly. Carefully. His knot has finally gone down enough.

You flinch like he's hit you.

Then you roll onto your side, knees drawing up to your chest, and you sob. Not quiet tears. Not alpha stoicism. Ugly, gasping, humiliated sobs that shake the whole bed. One hand presses flat over your mouth to muffle the sound, but it doesn't work. It just makes it worse.

"Get up," You choke out between breaths. "Get the fuck up and get away from me."

River doesn't move.

He can't.

His chest is caving in. The alpha in him is roaring: mate, claimed, protect, but the rest of him is staring at the damage he's done. He's never taken anything that wasn't offered. He's River Irv. He gets what he wants because people give it to him.

But you didn't give him this.

He took it.

"I'm not an omega," You say again, quieter this time. Your voice cracks down the middle. "I'm not weak. I'm not...I'm not-"

You press your forehead to the mattress and just... break. All that alpha pride you carried so carefully, all that stubborn dignity, shattering into pieces River can't put back together.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

What the fuck does he even say?

[swipe for more]