L*st and Death

When Ted Stone finally came to his senses after the storm of his rut cycle, a pale dawn was drifting outside the window. Each breath of damp air filled his lungs with the stench of sweat, semen, blood, and pheromones, all clinging to the room like a thick fog.

Next to him lay a corpse. The man’s limbs had stiffened, dead for hours now, and around his anus semen and blood had dried into a hardened clay.

“Shame. He was just my type.”

Clicking his tongue with regret, Ted studied the man’s face.

Their connection went back to Baggers City. Long ago, Ted had picked up the man, a prostitute working Summers Park, and taken him to a motel. After rough sex with the drugged-out man, Ted left him torn apart on the bed and walked away. But the motel owner reported it, and the hallway CCTV footage ended up in police hands. His father, the police commissioner of Baggers City, saw it too. Disgraced, Ted was packed off to Lemon Island in the Caribbean, where he later reunited with the same whore.

Injected with artificial pheromones and pushed into heightened ecstasy with NeoPeak, the man had been prepared as Ted’s perfect sacrifice. An Eta for rut release. That was why Ted had been willing to stay on a remote island ringed by open sea.

“I didn’t mean to kill him. Ian’s gonna throw a fit.”

On Lemon Island, the rule was simple: you clean up your own shit.

“Ugh. Wish someone else would clean it up.”

Yawning lazily, he rose from the bed. Groping through the dimness, he pressed the switch. Nothing. He pressed again. Still no light. He tried the bathroom faucet, but no water came.

“Damn it. Power outage.”

It wasn’t new—blackouts happened all the time. Ted stripped the sheet off the bed and wrapped the stiff corpse, thinking he’d just toss it into the sea. His mood was foul.

He loaded the shrouded body onto an electric cart, chewing on an energy bar as he set out. The sky was clear, flawless blue. Yet something was wrong. The island was strangely silent. Not a trace of life. Against the piercingly vivid landscape, only the cart wheels and his own movement broke the quiet.

“There were piles of corpses everywhere. Mountains of them. Can you imagine how disgusting that was for me?”

Ted was brimming with bluster as he spoke, dragging the whole cake pan toward himself, carving off a hunk with his fork, and shoving it into his mouth. Wiping cream from his lips with his thumb and licking it, he went on about the horrific scene he’d witnessed.

“The whole island stank of death. Never smelled anything that vile in my life. The dining hall, especially—fuck, it was hell itself.”

Even as he licked his fork clean of cream, a shiver ran through him at the memory of that stench. His words were grim, but his manner was light, as though he were complaining about tangled earphones, not death.

Across from him, Dylan quietly set down his teacup and spoke in his slow, calm way.

“Your brothers are dead, and the only thing you feel is disgust at the smell?”

“...What?”

Ted glared at Dylan’s vampiric violet lips, his face twisting with menace. He had never expected Dylan—usually calm and reserved—to rebuke him so sharply.

He wanted to flip the table and smash his fist into Dylan’s pale face, but he didn’t move. His father’s warning not to provoke Dylan echoed in his head.

Besides, there was something oppressive in Dylan’s blank expression. Ted lost his appetite, tossing the fork onto the table and folding his arms in irritation.

The bastard couldn’t even step on my shadow when we were kids.

Ted scowled around the office. This was Hybris’s Baggers City Chapter Headquarters. That a mere twenty-seven-year-old held an administrator’s office with its own reception room chafed him.

Still, Dylan was one of the few people Ted was forced to tolerate. Dylan’s father, once mayor of Baggers City, was now governor of Helsota. Ted’s father, as police commissioner, held his position at the governor’s appointment. That was why his father bowed even to Dylan.

“What happened to your ears?”

“Some doctor escaped the island. Blew them off. Now everything sounds flat.”

“Lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Ted snapped, but Dylan’s calm face didn’t change.

“Your head could have been blown off. You lost only your ears. And you’re the only one who survived that island. Be grateful you’re alive.”

Ted snorted. Silence fell again, broken only by the quiet clink of Dylan’s cup. Ted wanted to storm out, but remembered his father had ordered him to come here. If he angered Dylan, his father might cut off his credit cards. And when his father had said it, his face had been softer than usual—like Ted had finally become useful. So here he was, meeting Dylan Brown.

“Why’d you suddenly invite me after ignoring me for years?”

Ted scratched the rough scar tissue where his ears had been, his tone sour. Dylan seemed to weigh the question, then asked instead:

“Do you think betas are the same species as us?”

Ted gave him a flat look.

“Of course not. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Then do you admit alphas are the completion of evolution?”

Ted chuckled dryly, as though he’d heard something absurd.

“Ha. Got yourself a chair, now you’re a philosopher?”

Dylan regarded his sarcasm without reaction, then sighed and set down his cup. Slowly, he rose.

“Follow me.”

Ted bristled at the command but obeyed, trailing behind. They rode the elevator to the top floor, climbed another flight of stairs, and stepped out onto the rooftop.

A glossy black helicopter stood on the helipad under the blazing sun. The pilot sat ready in the cockpit, murmuring into his headset, while the side door stood open, waiting.

Ted’s eyes widened.

“What the hell is this?”

“I can’t understand His design. But the Architect wants you.”

“The Architect?”

Ted’s eyes went wide. At that moment, footsteps pounded behind them. Metal railings clanged as men rushed up the stairs, boots hammering.

They burst through the door, truncheons in hand, and surrounded Ted. Without a word, they slammed him down and beat him.

“Wait, what—ugh!”

No time for words. Blows crashed against his skull, his ribs, every joint, until pain burst like fireworks and his breath jammed in his throat. He blacked out under the rain of strikes.

He woke to agony, his body feeling pulped, as though crushed in a giant mortar. Worse than pain was the stench.

It was as if dozens of alphas in rut surrounded him, their aggressive pheromones pouring out in choking waves. He felt like his face was being shoved into a slimy, reeking sediment of pheromones. He vomited violently onto the floor.

Even emptied out, the nausea didn’t subside. His whole body prickled, his head throbbed unbearably. He blacked out again.

When he next woke, the headache still raged, but hunger now gnawed at him. He felt as if he hadn’t eaten or drunk in three days. His wounds had mostly closed while he was unconscious.

Clutching his stomach, he staggered up—and realized where he was. A cage of thick iron pillars, close-set on three sides, leaving only narrow finger-wide gaps.

He remembered hearing once of a cheap service that exploited alphas in rut: throw them into narrow pits or cages, force them through the heat without sedation, without sex, no escape.

An alpha had to endure alone. With no outlet, stress and desire gnawed at the body, driving them to madness. And afterward, only one option remained—Hybris’s “one-on-one personalized medical care.” Outwardly a treatment program, in truth a prostitution service in a controlled environment. However moral an alpha might have been before, after a rut spent in that hell, they always surrendered.

“My rut ended ten days ago. ...What the fuck is this?”

Despair overwhelmed him. His mind was too shallow to grasp why he was here. He clutched the bars and shouted.

“Dylan! You bastard! Enough with the games!”

He slammed his fists against the iron. Only the ringing echo came back, mixed with distant groans. Spitting curses into the void, Ted finally slumped to the ground.

“Why me....”

“Because you sinned.”

A voice. Strange, unfamiliar. Ted’s skin crawled. It came from the next cell.

He hadn’t realized anyone was there—the bars were too thick, the gap too narrow to see unless you pressed close.

“Sinned?”

He barked back, incredulous.

“You’re saying I sinned?”

“Most likely.”

The calm answer rattled him more than rage would have. Pressing his face to the bars, Ted peered through. On the other side, under dim light, knelt a man, his red back covered in whip marks, golden hair matted with blood.

“I didn’t sin! I did nothing wrong!”

“Your desires are too selfish.”

“Desires are supposed to be selfish! Who the fuck are you?”

“I am—”

The man lifted himself slowly and turned. Green eyes glimmered like glass, piercing Ted. Blood-soaked blond hair hung heavy over his brow, his gaunt body broken and cut—but his presence was unshaken, calm, radiating the gravity of a priest whose soul had not been defiled.

His low, soft voice carried a metallic edge as it split the silence of the cage.

“I am the one who repents.”

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