The heat came back with vengeance.
Aurean tried everything—cold baths, heavy salves, crushed bitterroot smuggled from the infirmary. But none of it slowed the growing fire inside him. It curled deeper into his marrow, drawing tight every breath, sharpening his senses until even the sound of a soldier sharpening a blade felt unbearable.
He barely slept. Barely ate.
And still, Rythe kept him in sight.
The hounds grew restless. One had to be tied to a stake after nearly mauling a lieutenant who walked too close to Aurean. Whispers began—ugly things, soaked in fear and loathing. Omegas in heat were considered dangerous. Tainted. Especially those who refused to yield.
Especially Aurean.
When he nearly collapsed during training, Rythe made his decision.
No words. No questions. Just a firm hand on Aurean's arm as he ordered a horse and supplies. He didn't explain to his captains. He didn't answer the glares. He only rode hard, with Aurean behind him, into the edge of the forest—where no patrols ran and no ears lingered.
They made camp under dark pines.
Aurean sat beside the fire, body taut with tension, limbs twitching with restrained energy. He didn't speak. He couldn't.
Rythe paced.
"Why didn't you tell me it had gotten this bad?" he demanded.
Aurean's voice was hoarse. "Would it have changed anything?"
Rythe looked at him. At the sheen of sweat on his skin. The way his hands fisted in the fabric of his trousers. The way his pupils dilated at the scent of pine sap and sweat and… him.
Rythe knelt before him.
"You're burning up," he muttered.
"I know," Aurean hissed.
A long, brittle silence stretched between them. Then Aurean lifted his gaze, full of defiance.
"Do it. You brought me here. So do it. Claim me. Use me. Like they think you will."
Rythe didn't move.
His hand rose—slowly, uncertainly—and touched Aurean's cheek.
"You think I want to be another wound on your body?" he asked, voice low.
"I don't care what you want," Aurean whispered, trembling. "I just need this to stop."
The words broke something.
What followed wasn't gentle.
But it wasn't cruel.
It was fire meeting fire—two storms clashing in a space that was neither safe nor sacred, a raw, aching collision of need and fury and silence. There were no vows. No names. Just hands, mouths, and the breathless confession of bodies that had resisted for far too long.
It ended only when Aurean fell into unconscious sleep, the heat spent, his body still trembling.
They returned to camp before dawn two days later.
Aurean walked beside Rythe, shoulders square, jaw set, the scent of heat still faint but fading. The hounds trailed behind, quiet but alert. Soldiers watched them pass, eyes heavy with questions no one dared voice aloud.
But Rythe—Rythe didn't look at him.
Not once.
He gave orders. He spoke to captains. He inspected tents and scouted with patrols. But when Aurean lingered near, he turned away. And when Aurean entered the command tent with a report, Rythe sent him out again without so much as meeting his gaze.
It was like something sacred had cracked between them.
And Aurean felt it like a knife twisting in his ribs.
Was it disgust?
Shame?
Or just the cold reminder that whatever had happened in the forest meant nothing outside it?
He returned to his quarters that night, curled beside Varnak's warm body, and stared at the ceiling for hours.
Alone.
Again.
Aurean was returning from the supply shed near the far tents when the voices began. At first, whispers—then a wall of bodies blocked his path.
Soldiers.
Guards.
Scouts and junior officers.
He stopped.
Their stares were knives. Their breath carried smoke and suspicion.
"You were gone for two nights," one barked. "With the Commander."
"You came back different," another added. "We all saw it. The scent… the way the hounds behave around you."
"You think we're fools?" a woman spat. "You bedded him, didn't you?"
Aurean stood straight, expression unreadable. His pulse roared in his ears, but his eyes remained steady.
He could feel the moment pressing down on him. The truth—what it would mean. What it would do to Rythe's standing. To his command. To everything they were trying to hold together.
He could destroy him with one breath.
So instead, he smiled bitterly.
"You really want to know what happened?"
A hush fell.
He took a step forward. The wind curled around him, but his voice rang sharp and clear.
"He tied me to a tree."
Shock rippled through the crowd.
"Told me to touch myself," Aurean said, gaze cutting through them like glass. "Said it would teach me discipline. Said if I was going to act like a filthy omega, I should do it alone."
He paused. "He doused me in cold water. Buckets. Until I was shivering and raw. Said it would 'cool the heat from my blood.'"
He let the silence stretch. No one spoke.
Then someone—young, incredulous—murmured, "He didn't touch you?"
Aurean tilted his head, voice dropping like a blade.
"Do you think a man like Rythe would lower himself like that?" he asked. "To someone like me?"
A slow, venomous smile. "We all know what I am. I wear it like a chain."
The soldiers didn't laugh.
They didn't mock.
They believed him.
Because it sounded like Rythe. Because Aurean's words were laced with bitter humiliation and cold, clinical cruelty—and because no one wanted to admit they'd imagined otherwise.
Aurean bowed slightly and walked past them without a backward glance.
Rythe leaned against a tree, breath slow, hands curled into fists.
He'd heard.
Of course he had.
The rumors had traveled fast. But he didn't need gossip to know the lie. He saw it in the way no one questioned his authority. In the quiet, almost reverent distance they gave him. In the fact that Aurean hadn't been punished—because no one pitied someone who had already been humiliated.
He exhaled sharply.
And stared at the horizon through the trees.
He should have felt grateful.
Instead, all he felt was furious.
Furious that Aurean had done it.
Furious that it had worked.
Furious at himself for letting it come to this.
And beneath it all—burning low, bitter—was something worse.
Guilt.
Because Aurean had protected him.
And in doing so, he'd carved another wound into himself.
One Rythe had no idea how to heal.