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It took thirty minutes for their heats to start. In the meantime, the crowd had been set loose on the hunting ground.
Shen Jiu had looked for a place to hide, not trusting any of the others and wary of the alphas that were to come after him. Among the lot, he knew, would be Qiu Jianluo. The alpha had been handsy recently, in addition to his regular beatings, as if he knew that the marriage hunt would come for both of them, as if he’d already made a decision which omega he would be running for.
That was, to put it lightly, the very last thing Shen Jiu could have ever wanted in all his life. If he truly considered his own place, as well, it didn’t make sense to him that Qiu Jianluo might come to claim him. What could be gained, after all, from chasing one’s own slave that one could easily lord over without pretense? There were plenty of young noble omegas among the group, Shen Jiu had seen them, and known them better prospects than he could ever make.
From his place within a cave, hidden back in a press of rocks and water, Shen Jiu could feel the roiling beginnings of his heat prick at him. His heart beat quicker, affected by it, and he could feel in his heart the urge to curl up, and yet to go and seek some of the other omegas. A few of them had been older, he wanted to rest among them, but he kept himself in the cave, still aware of his actions, not yet at odds with himself. He was young enough still that the heat was just a discomfort, young enough still that his heat didn’t make him want alpha company. Just other omegas, just some sort of familial comfort to tide him through until the end of it. In a couple years, he knew, the tide would change, and he feared it. He had seen young omegas, both on the streets and within Qiu manor, who had begged for alpha company when they were out of it. He had seen bruises left on their bodies, bite marks on their throats. Like wild beasts, nipping at warm flesh for a meal.
He curled up, sitting in his corner and closed his eyes, focusing on listening to the wilderness outside. Waiting to hear steps outside. He was well prepared to fight back if he needed to, with his nails, with his teeth. Marriage hunts, after all, implied claiming, and claiming implied mounting. He wasn’t naïve. He knew that was part of his lot as an omega, but he was young. Too young. Only fourteen. He breathed in, knowing alphas of all ages were just about to be sent out to hunt. He didn’t want to be found, didn’t want to be sniffed out, didn’t want to know the kind of alpha that would smell his scent still sweetened with the milk scent of adolescence on the wind and follow it. He had met alphas like that, and he didn’t want to be bound to one.
It was all his concentration to listen, to be alert. Outside of his cave, he could hear some movement, but he could also smell the drifting and flaring scents of other omegas, all sweet and floral, coaxing through the air like lullabies that called to him, felt almost matronly to him. In the Qiu household, when the older servant omegas had their heats and didn’t want to risk pregnancy, they would seek out him and his milk scent, curl up with him in their arms and channel their energy into cuddling and grooming a youngling. It was good for them, he suspected, to not risk bringing a child into the Qiu household and to remind their cycles that there were already children around, little ones to pamper and clean and coat in one’s scent. It was also calming for him, and he could feel his nerves gentling at the smell of others.
No. He steeled himself. No, he couldn’t allow himself to go soft.
The hunt had to have started by now; he could hear sluggish movements outside, of those particularly affected by their heats. Their snapping in the undergrowth and their breathing on the wind. They weren’t even trying to be quiet like he was, it was like they were trying to bring the alphas to them.
Indeed, he could hear them, too. The crash through the forest of many feet that didn’t care what they crushed. They were not hiding themselves. They were not sneaking up on anyone. They were crashing through the underbrush like animals. Every snap of a twig, as the sweet scent floated away and was replaced with the wet of the woods and the harsh of an alpha’s woodsy and metallic tang, sent a shiver down his spine, sent him further into his dark corner, where they could not see him.
He made himself be quiet, bit down the wanting whimpers that were threatening to claw out of his throat. Dared himself to never be found until the hunt was over, everyone else was claimed, and he could return to the Qiu manor, waiting for his Qi-ge to return with that blazing host he had promised.
If his Qi-ge were a part of this horde of alphas, he may have found a way to sneak him into his cave without being caught by anyone else, but he was not. Qi-ge was long gone, getting stronger, finding his place in the army. Shen Jiu understood that it would take time, but he would reach for him, if given the chance.
He tried not to think too long on Qi-ge, worried that the absent mindedness might affect his scent, make him more trackable, more findable for the alphas raging in the woods. Outside, he heard a cry, some omega woman who had been caught, and he could muster, in the depths of his being, some pity for her. That couldn’t be him. That wasn’t going to be him. He didn’t want to be pressed down into the dirt and claimed like that. He’d wait years, until he was old enough that the thought of having children didn’t feel like a death sentence, and then he would ask to be claimed in a bed. Like a person. He just wanted to be treated like a person.
He did not sleep through the first night, nor did he sleep through the second. His heat was still raging in his blood, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t venture out into the woods from which he could still hear screams. Sometimes they were close enough that he could hear them devolve into the other, more animal sounds that came of the claiming and the mounting and the fucking on the dirt floor of the forest. He knew, by now, numbers were dwindling. He just hoped he could outlast it all, maintain his personhood, maintain all the dignity and pride he had left in his body, which was admittedly waning, thanks to the attentions those parts of him got from the young master.
He was, however, inherently a spirited thing, even if that spirit sometimes morphed into claws and fangs. He bristled, listening to footsteps drawing closer to his cave. Running, someone was running toward him, someone was coming for him, following a scent of fear to the hidden mouth of his cave, back behind the rocks and the creek. He could hear those steps transition from striking sticks and leaves and underbrush to striking against stone. He could hear them splash through the water. No, he pleaded with the heavens and everything therein. No, please, no.
The scent, as it got closer, as it filled the air, was familiar, too. Qiu Jianluo. And maybe he smelled Shen Jiu, his roiling heat, maybe he wanted to stop for a moment before he went out seeking his real prey.
“Aiya,” came his voice. “That’s something.”
Shen Jiu could see his silhouette near the mouth of the cave now.
“It’s a good thing you’re hiding, Xiao Jiu,” he said, voice bitter as it always was when they were alone. “No one will want you anyway. You’ll get tied up with some beggar who entered on a lark, and the manor will finally be rid of you. Mark my words.”
Silence, like he was letting his words seep in, like he was waiting for them to truly bruise like his fingers often did.
“You know,” he said. “They drugged all of us, too. Right before they told us they weren’t letting anyone leave without a mate. And you know what that means for you? Little omega with no where to go, it means I wasted money on you. Means you’re going to be taken away by one of the many alphas I met before coming in here. I’m sure you’ll be the very last one chosen, fucking creature like you.”
He moved, as though he’d crept closer.
“What if I went in there and fucked you? What could you do to me? Heats turn omegas into mewling swine; you’d turn over for me in an instant, even though I know you’d look at me with that hatred. What could you even do about it, even if I claimed you?” He whistled. “Oh, it’s tempting, Xiao Jiu, but you’re not worth anything. And I’d rather find some prize than little slave Xiao Jiu who can’t even come home.”
Shen Jiu could hear his fist rap on the mouth of the cave, before he walked away. Finally, he could breathe again. Like nothing before Qiu Jianluo plugged the mouth of the cave with his stink, with his posturing. He’d spread his smell all through the air, like a rotten wood, settling through the cave, into its stone and moss.
It wasn’t until day four that Shen Jiu, at the waning end of his heat cycle, heard someone else approach his hideaway. He knew he was still vulnerable, even more now that hunger was nipping at him, but he still didn’t leave this small shelter of safety that he had found. There was running water, and that was it, but it was enough to make do. Just for a little longer, just until the end of the hunt.
The footsteps approached slowly, carefully, before stopping. Shen Jiu couldn’t yet see the person, but he could smell them. Unlike Qiu Jianluo’s rotting wood in nearly every way, it was a fragrant beechwood scent. Something clean settling about in the air.
“Hello?” A gentle voice called out. “Is someone there?”
Shen Jiu didn’t dare to speak. He willed this alpha away too. He wanted nothing to do with any of it, only to withstand all of this.
“Are you okay in there?” This alpha must have been trying some kind of scheme, but he couldn’t diagnose it. He hadn’t slept in days; he hadn’t eaten in days. Sleep and food, in his regular life, were often to be taken in bits and pieces, but he hadn’t been able to have anything at all.
The alpha came closer to the mouth of the cave, and the light shined at his back. He was not big. If need be, Shen Jiu was confident he could win a fight. He’d fought much bigger out on the streets, and he’d won. There was a lot to be said for being unafraid to get one’s hands dirty, to being unafraid to bite and tear and draw blood. The bigger boys that he had fought certainly hadn’t had any compunctions about beating him down into the dirt, therefore he never worried about biting down, locking his jaw, and ripping at the skin. Like a taboo feast.
The alpha, approaching, couldn’t be aware such thoughts were ripping through his head, but the moment he tried to move, he was hit with a wave of dizziness, as he came to learn just how weak his body had become while he was waiting for the hunt to be over. He looked, with fear, back toward the shadow. The alpha was coming closer, in through the mouth of the cave, into his sanctuary.
When he appeared, in the shadows where Shen Jiu could finally see him, he saw his rounded eyes and his clean robes. They weren’t high class, nothing quite that special, but they were far better than Shen Jiu’s own ragged set. He approached slowly, with his hand slowly stretching outward as he came, he seemed to have found Shen Jiu in the darkness quite quickly, no doubt using his nose to guide him.
“It’s okay,” he attempted to mollify. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Shen Jiu bit out. “Stay away from me.”
“Have you been in here the whole time?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Stay away from me. Don’t come near me.”
“I’m, uh… in the town, I’m apprenticed under a physician,” said the alpha. “If you need help, I can help you. You… I’m sorry to say this, but you smell distressed. I can help you.”
“I want nothing from you.” Shen Jiu tried to ply his voice with all of the vitriol he felt in his chest. The words came out like knives. “I want nothing from any of you. I’m not leaving with anyone.”
“I’m not trying to mate you,” said the alpha, as though he could get Shen Jiu to lower his guard so easily. “I’m trying to help you. Can I come closer?”
His scent bloomed, a blanket of peace coating the surfaces of the cave, and Shen Jiu, almost, wanted to relax, wanted to drink down the smell like it could change his mind, but he didn’t. He bared his teeth against it and did not blink. He was certain he smelled even more distressed than before now, or if he had his way, like a danger.
“I won’t come closer,” said the alpha, this physician’s apprentice. He still held his hands up, a sign of peace, almost universally, but one Shen Jiu was presently ignoring. “What do you mean by not leaving with anyone?”
“I’m not mating,” Shen Jiu clarified, as though to an idiot.
“I don’t know if they’ll let you leave if you don’t,” said the apprentice.
A cruel mirror to what Qiu Jianluo had said as well. The logical part of Shen Jiu’s mind, nearly swallowed up by heat and fear, made him suspect the truth of it, but every other part of him was screaming that it was a trap, that it was a trick to get him to let down his guard and overtake him.
“How do you know?” he seethed.
“It’s what they told us.” The air, along with the scent attempting to disarm, was tinged with some awkwardness, some embarrassment. “After they had us drink the tea, that we all needed a mate or they wouldn’t let us leave the grounds.”
“You’re tricking me.”
The comforting smell redoubled. “No, no, I know how it sounds. Please. I promise you. I know a way around it. You don’t have to mate.”
“I don’t want to,” Shen Jiu said. “I’m not going over there. You tell me your way around it if you care so much.”
“You can be claimed without mating,” said the alpha. “I’ve seen it before. The effect is somewhat lessened, but it still holds. They’d let you leave.”
“And go where?” He thought back to Qiu Jianluo’s words. Thought about what he’d said. “Go with some alpha?” Who would treat him like a slave, like a broodmare. He felt the fear in his throat like living iron.
“What about your home?”
“I don’t have one,” he said, keeping the fear he felt from spilling into his words with careful practice. “I have no where to go after this. And I can’t leave without… like you said.” Like Qiu Jianluo had said. And what if, like Qiu Jianluo had said, no one would want to take him. What if it were him and some alpha and he clawed open their throat and left them bleeding in the woods so no one could have him. They would have to let him go, and if he weren’t welcome at the Qiu manor because they thought they’d lost him to a mating, then he would be free. Free to find his Qi-ge, wherever he went off to.
He looked up, over at this physician’s assistant. Who had found him, who could probably overpower him because he looked well-fed and well-rested, as opposed to Shen Jiu’s state, but was standing back. Was standing away from him like he was trying to respect Shen Jiu or something. Something unprecedented, for certain.
“You have somewhere to go?” he asked this alpha, who nodded.
“Of course I do. My master is waiting for me.”
“And if you came back with someone else?”
It wasn’t like they had a choice about their participation in this event, but the question remained. If Shen Jiu could secure himself a bed, maybe he could spend all of his other time searching for Qi-ge.
“Well, we have to, don’t we?” he said. “I wasn’t planning on it, but since they told us after we were drugged, we have to…”
“How old are you?” Shen Jiu asked, though his voice had dropped to a whisper. The physician’s assistant came closer, and he could see parts of his face now. Almost handsome.
“Too young to be here, that’s for sure,” he said, with grim humor. “Ah. I’m willing to leave with you. If that would make you feel better.”
A hand reached out through the darkness, and Shen Jiu choked back the urge to bite it. The back of a hand landed against his forehead, feeling his temperature, which he knew was low.
“I don’t want to be mated,” Shen Jiu said to him, as though confessing a crime. “I didn’t want to come here, but anyone who was unmated in my master’s house was brought here. You can smell it. I shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t. We shouldn’t.”
“We can leave together…” Shen Jiu didn’t want to, but he looked at this alpha, this other boy, and thought he saw a ray of light shining through the mouth of the cave for but a moment. “And we don’t have to mate.”
“No…” The boy’s almost handsome face looked a little uncomfortable. “But I would have to claim you. Bite you… Are you okay with that?”
Shen Jiu didn’t move for a moment; there was no other option, wasn’t there? Why was he asking for permission?
“What do you mean?” he asked the other.
“I’m asking your permission,” said the boy. “You know, like you’re supposed to. I can’t just push this sort of thing onto you.”
Shen Jiu frowned. “It’s being pushed onto both of us.”
An audible swallow. “Yes. It is.”
“If you claimed me, would I have to mate you?”
The boy shook his head. “Not unless you wanted to, but I would never make you do that. I promise.”
Shen Jiu had had quite enough of promises. They never amounted to anything, and they often led to some degree of disappointment. That was why he needed to find his Qi-ge, even though he knew he could wait, could bear any amount of fists and chains in waiting, but he was worried, constantly, that at the end of it there would only be more grief.
“But you could do it anyway.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You could. I couldn’t stop you.” He was only an omega after all. Especially right now when he was weak.
“I’d let you stop me,” said the boy. “Bitten claims don’t mean anything if they’re taken or forced. I… I had wanted to find someone, maybe, some day. It’s too early for both of us, but we don’t have to rush into anything right now. That much I promise you. No, I see you’re scoffing. I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve said this already. I want to help you. I’ll always want to help you.”
Shen Jiu was hesitant, but even in the dim light of the cave, through the light shining on the boy from behind and reflected in the water, he could see his sincerity.
“Fine,” he said waspishly. “Claim me, then.”
Life can be a quiet thing, of harvested herbs and chickens nesting in the coop outside. With never-ending eggs keeping them fed through the most of the year and old, dried stores keeping them through winter. Time can be a slow thing, crawling along. A physician’s assistant can become a physician; names can be whispered after a bite in a cave and come to weigh as heavily as the world on the shoulders of the ones who received them.
Shen Jiu, twenty-four, considered the decade he had spent in the house of his mate, proper mate. The boy who had once been Mu Kang, then Mu Qingfang after his master had given him his courtesy name, who was now a man, respected in their community. He considered the soft and easy mornings spent waking up at his side, the sometimes mad rush of it. He considered the calmness that Mu Kang had always approached him with. The softness in his gaze, his seemingly endless capability for understanding. He held it all on his shoulders, weighing less than air, as easy to withstand as breathing. How much easier it had been to follow this stranger out of the cave than it was to go back to the manor.
He never saw that place again, all he had were the chickens, all he had was the strong herb scent that clinged to his mate’s robes. He had, since the beginning he realized, been seen as a human being. As he wanted. As he so desperately wanted, and was gifted through Mu Qingfang’s concern and deference.
His mate approached the house now, his clean scent of beech drifting through the air, preceding him. Shen Jiu waited for him at the door, watching him approach and not feeling scared at all. What was there to be scared of? His Mu would never harm him.