“Please hurry.”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can, Rian. Just stay in the back seat.” 

Rian let the phone fall from his hand as he gripped the headrest of his driver’s seat, resisting the desire to climb into the front and unlock the doors. He had been too late. 

He thought he had enough time. It hadn’t been 48 hours yet since his eyes turned gold, since he called Ysemna and booked his appointments. It wasn’t supposed to hit this fast, and yet here he was, stranded on some road he didn’t know the name of, locked in his own damn car, because the alternative was worse. He was worse.

“Fuck!” Rian punched the roof of his car, internally relieved that it was custom designed to handle him at his worst. Of course his rut had to hit right after Christmas, right after he had finally decided to take the holiday off to spend time with his parents. Of course his body had to ruin that too.

Rian did his best to relax, to ignore the urge to scrunch, to just… be still for a moment. He could still think. He wasn’t lost yet. As long as he could think, he wasn’t fully rutting yet. No delta could think during their ruts. They weren’t afforded that luxury like normal alphas. 

Rian tried to trick himself into stillness, breathing in through his nose and out through clenched teeth. He braced his hands against the leather seats, grounding himself in the texture, the temperature, anything tactile that might delay what was coming. He had minutes at most. Fifteen if he was lucky. Less if he wasn't.

“It’s okay,” Rian spoke, hoping hearing his own voice would help ground him. “It’s okay. Ysemna is coming. She’ll help. She always helps.”

He felt the tears slide hot and fast down his cheeks before he could stop them. He didn’t try to wipe them away. Crying wasn’t shameful, not now, not here. Not when he was clawing for control over something that had never once answered him. His forehead dropped to the back of the driver’s seat, sweat already beading along his brow as the wave crested higher. His back ached with the pressure of it, muscles shifting like they didn’t belong to him anymore. The interior of the car felt impossibly small. 

A coffin. A cage.

A sanctuary.

“Just wait,” he whispered to himself, knuckles white around the edge of the headrest. “Just… she’s coming. You won’t remember. You never remember. But she won’t let you hurt anyone. They never do.”

The phone buzzed once where it had fallen, vibrating against the floor mat between his shoes. He stared down at it without moving, not trusting what he might do if he released his hold on the seat in front of him. Every second he could feel himself slipping; the urge to scrunch, to breed, to free himself from the car and find an omega to take. Even though he knew it wouldn’t help, wouldn’t calm the fire building in him, his body craved it. Needed it.

“Fuck,” Rian panted, his breath coming shorter, shallower, as though his own lungs were conspiring against him now. His pulse was loud in his ears. That deep, thudding rhythm was the only music his body knew now, a war drum calling out across every inch of his skin: move, mate, take.

Rian didn’t move.

He couldn’t move. His pants felt too tight and if he caused the slightest amount of friction, it would set him off. His member throbbed in its prison, screaming for what he couldn’t risk. He pressed his forehead harder to the seat, a pathetic whine escaping his lips. Why had he waited? Had his eyes changed sooner than he thought? 

It was always hard to be sure when he woke up to changed eyes. When he had gone to sleep blue and woken up gold. He should have left the night before, before his rut could sink its teeth into him. 

A pounding ache bloomed at the base of his skull, dull and rhythmic, as though some part of him were already preparing to shut down. Delta ruts took things in stages; first his sense of time, then his memory, then his will. He would not remember, no one ever did. Just like the delta omegas who had to be restrained so they didn’t hurt the alphas trying to help, he needed to be restrained. He needed to be locked down so he didn’t hurt anyone. 

He shoved his hips back against the seat, trying to keep still, trying to stop the wave from overtaking him. His body was betraying him faster than he could manage it. He could smell the slick now, faint and phantom, but it was there—his mind conjuring every ghost-memory it could find. The scent of someone once close, the memory of touch, warmth, permission. He reached down to his pants, pivoting at the last minute to grip the seat instead.

“Don’t,” Rian gritted, forcing the word out through clenched teeth. “Not yet. You have to hold it.”

He hissed, breath fogging the reinforced windows, which weren’t made to open anyway. The heat was unbearable now, and not from the outside. He could’ve been parked in the middle of a glacier and it wouldn’t have cooled him down. The heat was internal, cellular, suffusing his blood and bone. A firestorm in his marrow, and the burn spread with every tick of the clock.

Ten minutes left. Maybe less.

Probably less.

A low growl escaped his throat without his permission. He didn’t remember making the sound, but it was there, buzzing in the air like a wasp trapped between his teeth. He banged his forehead gently against the headrest, just enough to feel it. Pain was better than the hunger. Pain kept him tethered. 

The phone buzzed again, louder this time in the silence. He didn’t dare look. If it wasn’t her, it would only splinter him further. His hands started shaking. A cold sweat broke out across his chest. His mouth flooded with saliva, as if anticipating a meal. His rut mind was surfacing, dragging the rest of him down with it. He grit his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

“Still thinking,” he whispered, not sure if it was true anymore. “Still… still me. Still Rian.”

He clawed at the edge of the driver’s seat, fingers cramping around the cushion. The skin of his arms felt too tight, muscles twitching without rhythm. His hips bucked involuntarily once, and the friction set his whole brain on fire. His hips moved again, twice, and he swore, ragged, barely audible as he kicked his seat, anything to get his body to stop moving.

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

This was the difference between deltas and everyone else. Not just the extended cycles that only came every few years. Not the malfunctioning NPPs. They were hardwired to need, and the body didn’t care if it was safe or right or moral. It would devour anything to get what it wanted.

“Ysemna,” he groaned, barely able to shape her name. “Come on, please, come on…”

A sound.

Someone running. Rian tried to think. Where was his car, where had he pulled over? He was fairly certain it wasn’t near a park. Somewhere quiet and definitely not somewhere someone should be running alone this early in the morning. 

Rian nearly jumped as the person collided with his car, so shocked he released the driver seat again. Then he heard them reaching for the handle and even though he knew they couldn’t open it, no one but Ysemna could, his panic rose. If his body thought for a second he could get free–

“Stop! Please, go–”

The door opened. 

A body tumbled in. 

The door closed. 

Red hair, vibrant like red silk tumbled all over Rian as he fell back on the back seat of his car, the weight of the person throwing themselves forcing him to fall over. Rian started to pick them up, determined to throw them out before he could hurt them when the scent hit him like a freight train. 

Jasmine and Vanilla.

Omega,

His hand moved faster than his mind. One moment, he was planning to push them back out, and within seconds, he had the omega pinned underneath him. He grinded himself into their body, his rut rapidly overtaking his logic. This was not safe; he could kill them accidentally. He could hurt them. He could–

“Mark me. Please.”

A voice. Pleading, Rian couldn’t really hear it anymore. His mind had already begun to shred itself apart, folding under the sheer pressure of instinct crashing in waves too large to outrun. They weren’t fighting. Weren’t trying to run. It was enough. 

His lips crashed against the omega's as his hips rolled down again, grinding into the cradle of warmth under him. As soon as he did, he felt their body melt and the smell of heat began to mix with the smell of his rut. Deep in his mind, Rian knew this was bad. If kissing the omega had triggered their heat, they were unpaired. This was dangerous, this was… fine. Right. Good. His.

Sweat streaked from his temple to the base of his throat, his skin flushed and feverish. The omega smelled like surrender, smelled like the end of all resistance, and that scent burrowed so deep into him that it tore the name from his mouth like prayer. They wanted him, needed him. He needed them.

“Mine.”

He didn’t remember removing their clothes. Didn’t remember digging his fingers into the omega’s hips, holding them down as if they might vanish if he didn’t press them into the car’s upholstery hard enough. The sound the omega made was too soft to be heard and too loud to ignore, a broken whimper that seared straight through Rian’s cortex. 

Not that he had one anymore. The thing that had once been Rian was slipping, washing out in thick clots of static. He was drowning, tumbling down and down and down into that gnawing biological imperative that had no language, only instinct.