Chapter 44

Hu Yetao grinned at him, relieved that at least one of them found that as amusing as he did. "I know, right? I thought it was going to be something French that I wouldn't have a hope of pronouncing-"

"But Hu Yetao," Jing-Long interrupted, trying to recapture his attention. "What about the things you're not supposed to tell people?"

Hu Yetao tilted his head to one side, puzzled. "You mean like his favorite position?"

"Hu Yetao no, why would you want to know that?" Zhang Xinyao demanded, appalled.

Jing Long closed his eyes with a sigh and rubbed his temple. "No, that's not what I… I meant important secrets."

"But Jing Long, if it's a secret then I can't tell you," Hu Yetao said slowly, as though explaining what a secret was to a two-year-old.

Hu Yetao frowned and shared a look of bewilderment with Zhang Xinyao when Jing-Long made a loud noise of exasperation and dropped his face into her hands.

A shadow fell over their table then and Hu Yetao looked up to see Oscar standing at the end of their booth, staring coldly at Jing Long's bowed head.

Hu Yetao lowered his gaze guiltily. "I'm sorry Oscar, I told them… I told them about the shepherd's pie thing."

Oscar's lips pressed together into a thin line when Jing-Long raised his head and met his frigid gaze. He replied - without taking his eyes off of him. "That's okay Hu Yetao; I don't think that was the information he was after." He paused and leaned towards Jing-Long threateningly. "Firewhiskey is not Veritaserum," he said sharply, severely. "If you want to know something, just ask him."

Jing Long straightened in his seat, quickly recovering his wilted courage. "I've tried speaking to him; he either doesn't have the time or avoids the subject of what's wrong with him altogether," he said with quiet anger. "He used to confide in me. He hasn't been happy, and he refuses to tell me why."

"What?" Hu Yetao blinked out of his stupor and lifted his chin defiantly. "I'm happy. Wang makes me happy - don't you Oscar?"

"Yes, Hu Yetao." Oscar's gaze warmed noticeably as he turned to Hu Yetao. "Come on, I think it's time we took our leave."

"See ya later Hu Yetao!" Zhang Xinyao called out with a cheerful smile, as though nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. "Good game tonight."

"Yeah… you too." Hu Yetao smiled uncertainly at his two friends as he carefully slid out of the booth, sure that there was an underlying tension between them but unable to remember why. He fervently hoped that it wasn't something he'd said…

He stumbled to his feet and Oscar had to grab ahold of his arms to steady him when the room spun. Hu Yetao groaned and feverishly hoped his stomach contents would stop spinning too and not end up all over the pub's floor.

Oscar looked murderous as he helped his mate on with his coat. Once buttoned up and safely tucked into Oscar's side, Hu Yetao stared listlessly at the floor while Oscar turned to glare at Jing Long, who was now biting his lip and looking slightly uncomfortable.

"I hope it was worth it Jing Long," he said quietly, sneering. "He's going to be ill all night and into the morning. Chen Zihan won't give out Sobriety Potions to students and I don't happen to have any on hand."

"Mrs. Amber-"

"Would do her nut if she found out Hu Yetao was intoxicated," Oscar replied sharply, causing Fu Sichao to snort in his sleep.

Hu Yetao swallowed, too light-headed and off-kilter to care that people were talking about him as though he wasn't there. "Can we go now Oscar?" he asked miserably.

Oscar's expression became immediately concerned. "Of course."

Hu Yetao kept his head down as Oscar led him from the warm, noisy pub without another word and out into the cool evening air. A sudden breeze washed over Hu Yetao's heated skin and he closed his eyes with a sigh as some of the cobwebs cleared and his nausea subsided. The quiet of the town also helped to lessen the tightness behind his eyes.

"Better?" Oscar asked as they continued to slowly walk down the high street together, his arm still secured around Hu Yetao's shoulders to help support him.

"Yeah." Hu Yetao took a deep breath and let it out. His balance was still a little skewed and his vision fuzzy around the edges, but the somber mood of inside quickly vanished and a bubble of giddy, drunken happiness returned and fizzled inside him. He smiled and leaned into his mate. "Thanks, Oscar. You take good care of me."

Oscar grunted and looked ahead. "Not good enough," he uttered darkly. "What did Jing-Long ask you?"

Hu Yetao scrunched up his face as he tried to remember, but that entire conversation was a bit of a blur; like the remaining fragments of a dream quickly receding the harder you tried to think about it. "Erm, something about… your… favorite food. I think."

"My favorite food?" Oscar repeated dubiously then turned thoughtful. "So she was asking about me?"

Hu Yetao nodded, turning his head to inhale Oscar's scent from the thick woolen coat he was wearing. Oscar always smelt really good, and the scent always helped calm him. Or awaken his arousal.

"What else did he want to know about me?"

"You smell good," Hu Yetao murmured distractedly before replying, "secrets, he asked about your secrets."

Oscar stopped and turned to him, glancing around before speaking. "Did he know something or was he just suspicious?"

Hu Yetao stepped in close and slid his arms around Oscar's waist, pressing into him. "Mmm… he wanted to know your favorite position - but I wouldn't tell her. That's our secret."

Oscar couldn't help but smile as Hu Yetao leaned in and kissed the side of his neck, diligently working his warm lips up to Oscar's ear. "From what I overheard, it didn't sound as though he'd gleaned anything of value," Oscar said absently, leaning his head away in encouragement. "Perhaps I'll ask you tomorrow when you're making a little more sense."

Hu Yetao grinned and pointedly rolled his hips into him. "Yes," he breathed into his ear. "Less talking and more… doing."

Oscar chuckled and stepped into a turn, Disapparating the two of them back to the front gates at Hogwart's. From there, they made their way up the drive and into the castle, heading straight for their private rooms, pausing every so often to thoroughly enjoy a few heated snogs in dark corners along the way.

Hu Yetao was too aroused and off his trolley to care if anyone saw them. He also felt drunk on power, nearly giggling into Oscar's mouth at the smugness he felt. His mate, normally so reserved and controlled in public, was so turned on by Hu Yetao's arousal and Omega scent that he'd lost all sense of propriety.

Oscar had him shoved up against their bedroom wall as soon as the door shut and locked behind them.

Hu Yetao's head spun with a heady mix of delight and Firewhiskey as he kissed him, one leg coming up to hook behind his mate and pull him in tight in all the right places.

Oscar moaned into Hu Yetao's mouth and thrust against him, causing Hu Yetao's eyes to roll back in his head and a gasp of pleasure to rip out of his throat as Oscar continued to rut against him through their trousers. Hu Yetao felt hot and frantic, body strung tight with arousal as he met Oscar thrust for thrust.

Oscar moved his lips from Hu Yetao's panting mouth and began to kiss and lick his way down over his jaw and throat, breath warm against his skin.

Hu Yetao let his head fall back against the stone wall with a 'thunk', the lingering Firewhiskey dulling any pain. He loved the feel of Oscar's erection, hard and long under his clothing, pressed against the length of his arousal.

"Oscar," he gasped, suddenly remembering something in his drink-addled state. "I forgot… your prize…"

Oscar's lips smirked against his skin without pausing in their onslaught. "Another time Taotao," he replied, sucking on his skin and inhaling Hu Yetao's scent through his nose. Oscar moaned under his breath, the vibrations causing Hu Yetao to shiver. "Mine…" Oscar breathed mindlessly.

Hu Yetao groaned as his eyes fell shut again. "Yes… yours…" he gasped, head spinning, not even knowing what he was saying, lost in a fog of heat and arousal and alcohol. "Mark me. Claim me… please."

Oscar immediately stopped what he was doing and pulled back to look into Hu Yetao's face. "What did you say?"

Hu Yetao frowned at the loss of warm lips on his throat and the sudden discontinuance of insistent hips frotting against him. "Make me yours Oscar. I want you to. Claim me. Please…"

Hu Yetao watched as Oscar's eyes fluttered closed, as though his words were too much for him to handle. Hu Yetao instantly loved that look on his mate's face and bumped his throbbing erection up against him insistently. "Bite me, Oscar, I want you to so much… please… Make me yours. Make me yours so everybody knows," he mumbled deliriously.

Oscar let out a low noise, almost like a whine, as he lowered his lips to Hu Yetao's neck.

"Yes…" Hu Yetao hissed, leaning his head away and to the right, exposing the long column of his throat to his mate. Hu Yetao felt the scrape of teeth over his flushed skin, moving purposefully to the soft juncture of where the neck meets the shoulder.

He gasped as the intense anticipation and too many sensations suddenly overwhelmed his shuddering body. He gave himself over to it and was lost…

. . . .

Hu Yetao woke with a start, eyes flying open to stare at the ceiling over their bed. The room was warm and the smell of sex was still thick in the air.

He winced as the pounding in his head suddenly made its presence known and he reached up with one hand to sluggishly rub at his temple.

It all came flooding back to him then: winning the game, the Hog's Head, the creepy bloke at the bar, Zhou Keyu, Firewhiskey, Jing Long's strange questioning, Oscar taking him home, snogging, being so turned on that…

Hu Yetao gasped and sat up, moaning when the world spun around him. He ignored nausea in favor of clapping a hand over his neck - and was surprised to feel nothing; not a cut or bite or even a bruise of any kind mark his skin.

"Hu Yetao? What are you doing? Come back to sleep."

He turned at the sleepily slurred words and his heart surged with such sudden and intense love for his mate that he thought it should be exploding out through his toes and fingertips like beams of pure light, like magic. Oscar still had his eyes closed, pale blond hair splayed out and tousled on the pillow beneath his head, quilt dropped to his waist, exposing his pale torso and leanly muscled arms.

Hu Yetao leaned down, half draping himself over his mate but keeping his weight off of him, staring down into Oscar's face as his gaze tracked over lowered short lashes, high cheekbones, pointed chin, and parted lips.

"I love you, you know."

Oscar's eyes opened slowly and turned to look at him; a soft, questioning smile in his gaze. "What brought that on?"

"You didn't do it; you didn't claim me last night, even though I asked you to."

Oscar blinked the sleep from his eyes and turned over onto his back, looking up at him. "Of course not Taotao, you were half out of your mind on Firewhiskey." His pink lips quirked up into a half-smile. "I do have a limit to my self-interest you know."

Hu Yetao grinned and ignored the pounding of his head and the dryness of his mouth as he lay back down beside his mate and turned onto his side towards him. "Which only impedes you to a certain extent because my arse is quite sore this morning."

Oscar smirked, looking quite satisfied. "I deserve something for my troubles; I did lose out on my prize last night after all."

"How about a new prize?" Hu Yetao offered, cocking his head to one side, a gleam in his eye.

"Better than a blow job in an alley?"

Hu Yetao laughed and shifted closer. "Now that I'm completely and utterly lucid - I still want you to claim me."

Oscar's expression instantly lost its amusement and his brow furrowed with unease. He leaned up on one elbow and looked down at him. "It will hurt."

Hu Yetao snorted. "I'm not afraid of a little pain."

Oscar frowned as he absently tucked a lock of dark hair behind Hu Yetao's ear. "When one of our kind performs a claiming bite, it's different to normal Alphas, it releases a kind of venom through our teeth which will forever remain in your body Hu Yetao."

"What does the venom do?" Hu Yetao asked, curiously undaunted.

Oscar's expression relaxed a little. "The venom allows me to track you when I'm in my other form," he explained quietly. "It can also be scented by others of my kind so that they know, beyond just a physical bite mark, that you've been claimed."

Hu Yetao nodded, absorbing the information, and trying to figure out why he suddenly felt a little ball of tension in his gut. "The… the tracking thing…"

Oscar looked at him knowingly. "Bothers you, doesn't it?"

Hu Yetao sighed and shook his head, stubborn. "Yeah, I guess so, but… I still want you to do it." Hu Yetao thought about the bloke at the pub, and about what Zhou Keyu had said; that Hu Yetao's being unclaimed cast doubt on whether Hu Yetao did only want Oscar or that their mateship wasn't as strong as it should be.

"There's no rush Taotao," Oscar said softly, stroking his cheek and breaking him out of his thoughts. "I know you've always been hesitant about it, that the inquiry forced you to say you wanted it when you weren't even sure if you did or not. Why don't you take another week to think about it?"

Hu Yetao bit his lip, considering. Putting it off was like backing down from a challenge - and he hated that feeling. He knew he wasn't going to change his mind about it though. He knew, deep down, that he wanted Oscar's mark on him. He just didn't think he'd be able to convince his mate of that just yet. This tracking venom thing felt a little demoralizing… but he just needed to get over his issues with being the 'Omega' in the relationship. A part of him still thrilled at the thought of his mate taking care of him, watching over him, protecting him, yet that part of him was still at war with his inherently independent nature.

"Okay," he finally relented, meeting Oscar's gaze and finding comfort there. "I want it done before the party though."

"All right," Oscar agreed, studying him at length. "If you still want me to do it next Saturday morning, then I will."

Hu Yetao nodded, placated, and Oscar flopped back down beside him with a sigh.

"Can we please go back to sleep now?" he said, disrupting the serious atmosphere.

Hu Yetao smiled, relieved, and tucked into his side, Oscar's arm automatically coming up to wrap around him as he closed his eyes. It hadn't escaped his notice that Oscar hadn't said 'I love you back, but he wasn't worried; the past twenty-four hours demonstrated just how much Oscar cared for him. Hu Yetao knew he would say it when he felt it when he was ready.

He tried not to grimace as he thought about the aforementioned party at Wang Manor; being claimed was going to be the least of his worries that day.

One thing he knew for sure; he didn't care what the Purebloods thought of him, he was not going to drink anymore Firewhiskey.