Luan wasn’t quite sure what prompted Finn to pull from their kiss, his gaze apologetic, and brush his fingers along Luan’s jaw, but he found whatever it was, he didn’t care for it, biting down a whimper as he tried to reel Finn back in. 

An emotion only confirmed as, softly, Finn said, “Before the heat flares again, we should talk. About earlier. About the condom.”

Luan’s face ignited in an instant, vibrant hues of reds and pinks painting him in clear embarrassed horror, his brown skin glowing with the shame as he buried his face into his arms, propped atop his mate’s wide chest.

“Luan,” Finn prompted gently, tenderly running his hand along his mate’s back as if to soothe him, yet the omega did not answer. Rather, an undignified, appalled sort of sound escaped him, his spine quaking beneath his lover’s touch as he buried further away, aching to sink into his mate’s skin to hide forevermore. Perhaps, if he hid far enough away, the very ground itself would open up and swallow him whole, so this conversation would have no hope of continuing. 

That, he thought, would truly be the best option for them all. 

His mate, however, seemed to have other plans, other thoughts on the matter, repeating Luan’s in a soft, sing-songy sort of voice that was at once bright with adoration, and twined with a sort of cajoling insistence. 

“C’mon, baby,” Finn continued, voice bordering almost on annoyance to Luan’s ears. The omega stiffened, brows furrowing furiously, and could not help the panging fear that his mate would grow tired of him, would turn him away at last, realizing he could do so much better than the floundering, anxious creature he was fated to. 

But, rather than leave or anything close to the matter, Finn gently eased his hand up Luan’s back once more before following the arch of his neck, the curve of his jaw, with tender, soothing touches, only to firmly grip Luan’s chin in hand. He then lifted Luan from his barrier of skin and bone, blond brows lifted.

Only to fall immediately at the sight of Luan’s wet, reddened eyes that pointedly avoided his own, and the deep divot taking firm residence between the omega’s dark brows. 

“Sweetheart,” Finn said, shifting them both until they were sitting upright, and Luan was tucked securely beneath Finn’s chin. Warm, soothing pheromones poured off of the alpha as he gently smoothed that wrinkle from between Luan’s brow with a steady swipe of his thumb. “Baby, I’m not upset with you. We just need to talk about it, I promise. But this is something that needs to be discussed. This is serious. Talk to me, love. Don’t you realize how dangerous going without a condom would be? The conception rate between alphas and omegas during a cycle is nearly ninety-five percent. And that’s the statistic without taking fated pairs into account. We have no clue how much higher our risk would be. Do you really want to take that chance to satiate your instincts?” 

Luan didn’t reply at first, choking down the words that barrelled to his lips, sour and astringent where they coated his tongue in stinging insistence. However, whether from those soothing, consuming pheromones pouring from his mate’s skin, or the smoldering fire in his belly that was steadily reigniting within the alpha’s embrace, the words became too much to swallow.
Tumbling from his mouth in a muttered, faint, “I have an implant. Specifically for omegas. It would have been fine.”

But, perhaps it was the wrong thing to say, maybe he should have choked it down after all. For the moment the words left his lips, his alpha went still, taut and stiff beneath him, fingers tightening around his bones with a nearly bruising grip that had a gasp shuddering up his throat. 

“What was that?” Finn demanded in a rough sort of voice that had a shiver racing furiously down Luan’s spine, quaking him in his mate’s embrace, and before he could blink, his alpha’s fingers were on his chin again, tilting his head back. “What did you just say?” 

The roiling storm of gold twined amongst the tilled-earth of Finn’s gaze was so furious it had an entirely different sort of shudder racing along Luan’s skin, one that quaked and ached every inch of the omega in shivering response to the glowing sight. 

Instinct prompted his own gaze to lower as, faintly, hesitantly, he repeated, “I-I have an im…plant?” 

Finn’s grip tightened ever so slightly in response, betraying an emotion Luan didn’t quite understand, before he spoke once more. 

“Which one?” he inquired in that same rough, rasping voice that did bizarre, tingling things to Luan’s skin. 

And perhaps it was that sensation, or maybe it was the need he felt pulsing down the bond they shared, as furiously racing as a second heartbeat, that had the word spilling from his lips before he could even consider its implications. 

“Iona.”

There was a single beat that passed in tense silence in which Finn didn’t respond at all. In fact, it seemed as though the alpha didn’t seem to even dare breathe too deeply, as if he were battling some silent war within himself. 

Before, abruptly, it all came crashing down around them in a fiery, instinct flaring haze. 

It began when Finn’s grip tightened around Luan’s chin once more, cinching nearly to the point of pain, raising a gasp to Luan’s lips. His eyes snapped towards his mate, at last, only to find the alpha already watching him, the beautiful dark brown of his eyes consumed, completely and utterly lost beneath the glowing chaos of that instinctual gaze. Finn’s eyes slitted just as a deluge of those warm, bonfire and spice pheromones of his flooded Luan, thick with the heated heft of his rut, for once the alpha’s cycle triggered before his mate’s.
Luan was given just a moment, a single, trembling beat in the infinite, to remember his mate was a doctor, that he likely knew the full extent of the science behind Luan’s implant better than the omega ever could, before his alpha’s fingers slid easily into the mess of dark curls at the back of Luan’s head. 

Only to snatch him up into a hard, rough kiss that was all teeth and tongue and flashing, consuming pheromones that screamed mine to every inhuman part of them both. 

It was nothing like the soft, loving, implicating kiss they’d shared mere moments prior. 

This was a kiss of chaos, one of rough instinct and sharp need that only grew in frenzy with every wet, clashing collision. Finn’s teeth pinched at Luan’s lower lip, sharp canines pulling until blood beaded on the swollen skin, only to be immediately soothed away by a slow, sensual lick along its curve. 

A whimper careened up Luan’s throat as the fire within his belly turned to a conflagration, condemning him for the thin fabric that separated him from his mate, that kept him unfilled and unsated.
And so, dark brows pinched and tongue twined with his mate’s, Luan shifted. Clawed frantically at the sheet between them until his mate huffed a laugh, smiling into his mouth with a sort of dripping adoration so at odds with the frenzied, heated chaos of their shared consumption. 

The alpha’s massive, warm palm cupped the side of Luan’s head, cradling him tenderly in hand as the other shifted lower, running the length of Luan’s side and thigh, only to close about the omega’s leg, right above his knee, and tug it around the alpha’s hips. 

Then, before Luan could blink, he was tipped backwards, dumped onto the bedding with his mate atop them and the sheet nowhere to be found. 

The hard length of Finn’s cock pressed into Luan’s belly, sending that fiery emptiness within him clenching with an ache. He let out a low, whimpering moan, intending to shift, to grind against his mate and hopefully send the alpha even a fraction as wild as he felt.