Taras let out a breathy sound of agreement. In the air now, a faint trace of fear mixed into Le An's pheromones. From where he lay, Le An slowly turned toward him, pushing himself up on an elbow and resting his head against the headboard for support.
He hadn't even tried to pull his wrist free from Taras's grasp the entire time he struggled to get his body into a halfway decent position. Only when he finally managed it did a new wave of awareness wash over him, and he shivered under Taras's eyes. The whole room was saturated with his pheromones now. And Taras no longer just knew he was an omega; he knew exactly how he smelled when he was defenseless like this.
"My pheromones…" Le An couldn't form a whole sentence. He didn't know what he could say, what he was supposed to say. Taras, now leaning his own shoulder back against the headboard, simply watched him in silence, and that only made everything feel even more dangerous.
Taras… He could bite him. Mark him. Hurt his glands, just for revenge, just because of the hate he knew Le An carried for him. Would he do that?
It was the eyes that frightened him the most: eyes that didn't reveal a single thought, not even a flicker of emotion. Le An instinctively pulled his wrist back, but Taras only smirked, keeping hold of it as he let his other hand fall onto Le An's pillow. He knew exactly what Le An was afraid of.
"You're the one who left the door open for me. Are you scared now?" Taras asked.
Le An suddenly remembered the moment he'd asked Theo to leave the door ajar. Now, seeing Taras here in his room, in his bed, that request felt insane. "It's… not like that," Le An mumbled, his voice cracking.
"Then why did you leave it open?"
It took Le An a few seconds to meet his eyes. "In case maybe… you needed guiding."
Taras tilted his head slowly, but his expression said he didn't believe a word of it. Le An's mind was too clouded by heat to pick apart the emotion in those dark eyes, but he could feel the doubt radiating off him.
"I'm not lying-" Le An began, but Taras's grip on his wrist tightened, making him flinch. He tried again to pull away, but Taras only sighed, pressing his thumb over the rapid pulse in his wrist.
"Calm down. Nothing's going to happen." His thumb pressed lightly, feeling the frantic beat. "Your pulse is racing. It'll only cloud your mind even more."
Right then, Le An remembered what he'd meant to tell him. He took a shaky breath, feeling his own heartbeat beneath Taras's touch. "Listen… Y-you see, I can't-"
"I know." Taras's voice was low. "I can see you're in heat."
Taras's eyes flicked over to Le An's pupils, wide and flickering under the dim light. He could tell his mind wasn't entirely here. No alpha could walk into this room, take a single breath, and not know exactly what this omega was going through.
"Yes. Uhm…" Le An's finger absently traced the vein running up Taras's forearm, his mind floating somewhere else. He bobbed his head in a frantic little nod. "If I don't guide you today… would that be okay?"
Taras didn't answer immediately. His silence only made Le An's nerves coil tighter inside him. This was the side of Le An that Taras rarely saw: talkative, desperate to explain himself before he fell apart.
"You know now that I'm in heat and… when I'm like this, I can't control the guiding energy properly. A-and it drains me, so much…" Le An pressed on, his breathless words tumbling over each other before he could stop himself. "So, if it's alright- like, I'm just saying- if I didn't guide you for a few days, would that be a problem? Hu…"
It was pathetic, Taras thought, how hard he was trying to keep himself together when his mind was this hazy. But at the same time, it wasn't an act. It was the same thing Taras had realized the first time he found the treasure's jacket, soaked in the scent of half a dozen different alphas. On the outside, Le An always seemed untouchable. But alone? He dropped the act and crumbled.
Now, sitting here, Le An's new battle was to stay upright, to look strong, to try to bargain with him, even when he could barely keep his eyes from drifting shut. It was no performance. But Taras couldn't help but wonder: or was it?
"Hey…" Le An's voice pulled him back. There was a note of concern in it that Taras had never heard before. "Wait- or are you hurt again? Like last night?"
Le An's brows drew together as he tried to check Taras's body for wounds, ignoring the way his own heartbeat slowed under the alpha's calm touch. Taras loosened his grip, letting Le An's wrist drop free.
Le An didn't even realize how close they'd gotten. He inched forward, trembling, as if drawn in by some invisible pull. Thoughts flickered through his mind, wrong, reckless thoughts. He wished, foolishly, that maybe their foreheads could touch for a moment. That Taras wouldn't say anything about it.
When his head cleared just a fraction, the shame hit him like a cold slap. This was the same alpha who could kill him if he ever crossed a line. He straightened up, blinking, and scanned Taras's body for any sign of a wound.
"I'm not hurt," Taras said calmly.
Le An's eyes flicked to his face, realization dawning. "You don't have black strings on your face." He murmured, peering at Taras's forehead, chin, and mouth.
"Black strings?" Taras echoed, puzzled.
"Yes. Those strings you use to hide your face." Le An traced his own cheek with his fingers, like describing something invisible.
"That's a shadow spell." Taras's voice stayed flat. Black strings? If anyone else had called it that, he might have laughed, maybe it was only this so-called treasure who could say something so ridiculous and somehow make it sound innocent.
"Yeah. I guessed that. Black shadow strings." Le An insisted on his made-up name for it, voice soft. His eyes dropped back to Taras's torso, his brows pinched with concern. "Did you get your stomach… treated?"
Taras nodded. "Yeah."
"Can I look at… it?"
Taras hated when the lines blurred like this; he stared at Le An for a moment. He really looked out of it. Then, Taras sighed and nodded again.