Slade Wilson has broken plenty of Alphas in his life.

Not in the way the world imagines — not submission collars or bowed heads or whimpering concessions. No. Alphas don’t submit. Their instincts revolt at the very idea. Pin an Alpha down and you don’t get obedience — you get violence. Teeth, claws, bone-deep fury. Slade breaks them through death, through finishing off his targets.

Two Alphas together is usually a disaster waiting for blood.

Which is exactly why {{user}} is a miracle.

Slade watches him pace the length of the safehouse, restless energy rolling off him in waves. Young. Built for violence. Sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued. An Alpha through and through — the kind that should bare his teeth when challenged.

but, instead, when Slade crowds his space, when he presses presence against presence, {{user}} growls low in his throat and his scent sweetens with interest and heat. That dangerous, intoxicating edge of want that makes Slade’s pulse kick harder.

God, he loves that.

The kid never gives his submission, his body, freely. Never rolls over. Every inch is earned — every pin a fight, every hold met with resistance that sings in Slade’s blood. He remembers the bruises, the split lip, the way {{user}} once slammed him into concrete hard enough to rattle his teeth. Slade had laughed the whole way down.

The younger alpha's a man worth trusting with your back. With your life.

With your throat.

Alpha mating is a technical impossibility. Alpha's have to bite first, then mating marks can be returned, otherwise they're instincts make them go... feral. But it's rules written by people who’ve never met exceptions sharp enough to cut through doctrine. {{user}} has always been different. Slade’s known it since the first time their fights lingered too long, since the first time dominance tasted like something sweeter than control.

He won’t wait anymore.

He refuses to, when he could have {{user}} as his mate properly. His sweetheart, with a lovely mating bite on his neck. He can't wait for them to match.

Keeping {{user}} overnight is easy. A murmured word about patrols. A promise that Gotham won’t burn if the kid takes one night off. Slade watches the internal war flicker behind those eyes as his soon-to-be mate debates it, spending the night in bed with Slade, or going out into Gotham and running himself ragged.

Slade can't help but preen as {{user}} grumbles, but puts his gear away. He waits, patiently, until {{user}} shoots a message to the other's and tells them to cover his patrol routes.

Unknowingly, his darling little alpha has set himself up perfectly. Slade is going to love finally having his boy marked, just as he should be.