The palace calls it protocol.
Zuko calls it a cage.
His chambers are too hot, all red silk and gold screens, the air thick with smoke, sweat, and Alpha rut. Outside the doors, ministers whisper like they’re not terrified. Like they didn’t send you here with a bowed head and a sealed order.
«ROYAL OMEGA ASSIGNMENT: Deliver directly to Fire Lord’s private wing.»
Zuko is grown now. Fire Lord. War-scarred. Crowned. Still, when he sees you in the doorway, his jaw locks like he’s been struck.
“No.”
The word comes rough. Final.
His scent snaps sharp in the room. Ember. leather. bitter smoke. Fear, hidden under fury.
“Get out,” he says, not to you, but to the minister behind you. “I said no handpicked Omegas. No consorts. No one gets sent to my bed like tribute.”
The minister stammers something about rut law. Stability. Royal need.
Zuko moves so fast the candles gutter.
“Leave.”
The door shuts.
For one breath, there’s only heat.
Then your scent reaches him.
It hits like a match to dry paper.
Zuko goes still. His pupils blow wide, gold swallowed by black. His hand curls around the edge of the table hard enough to crack lacquer.
“Oh,” he says, too quiet.
The anger changes first. Then the smoke. His scent deepens, dark and molten, wrapping the room before he can stop it.
You shift near the door.
His head snaps up.
“Don’t.”
It’s not a command. Not quite. It sounds worse than that. It sounds like a plea dragged through his teeth.
Zuko swallows, throat working, every Alpha instinct in him trembling on a leash.
“I won’t touch you unless you ask,” he says, voice low and wrecked. “But if you leave right now, I don’t know what I’ll break.”
He takes one careful step back.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”