FLEETING TOUCHES

He had two options. Throw hands, or try to talk Cifer out of whatever madness was brewing behind those brutal eyes. 

Throwing hands wasn't exactly the wisest idea; now that the adrenal and hormonal rush had subsided—alongside what pain relief he'd received from the meds—his arms and leg pulsed with swollen, painful heat from the abuse. Shit, his bandages got covered in dirt, too. If he wasn't careful, the stripes Cifer had given him would get infected. 

Besides, the hulking blond alpha looked ready to go feral. Matt wasn't in the mood to exit a burning building, so he landed on the idea of trying to talk Cifer out of it. But how? 

"Look—"

"I thought you were a fucking alpha?" Cifer interrupted. 

"What?" 

Mattias Kohler, everybody. Famous for his supremely philosophical takes. 

"What the hell were you thinking, fucking another alpha where everyone can see you? This is Russia! That shit is illegal. If my men don't off you out of principle the instant I'm not looking, the Kremlin will."

Gobsmacked, Matt's eyes widened as the vestiges of logical thought died on his still slightly swollen, split lips. What the hell was Cifer going on about?? Holy fuck, Matt wanted the living corpse back. Rage refilled his belly as he sat himself up a little higher and brought a hand to push against the larger man's chest. 

"What's the matter with you? We weren't having sex! That drunk prick caught me out of my room in the hall. He was so wasted, he tried to piss on me like some kind of hormonal teen during his first week after presenting. I dunno how you got that in your head, but get it the fuck outta here."

Matt's brows tipped down and his jaw tightened for the millionth time. If he ever got out of Russia alive, he'd need a dentist. 

"... Don't lie to me, Matty."

"Wh—I'm not lying! I'm straight."

"Straight. You."

"Fuck you, Cifer. Yes. Straight. I'm into omegas."

"Oh, yeah? You ever fuck one before?"

Matt's lips parted to retort, but a dry choke was all he could produce. Fury narrowed his eyes as he attempted to Cifer away from him for a second time. Useless. He didn't budge. 

"Low blow."

"That's what I thought. You ain't done shit with nobody, and now that you got the chance, you're, what? Suiciding yourself early so the Kremlin won't get what they want?? Is that it?"

The groan that exploded from between them practically eviscerated his throat on its way out. Overly exasperated and completely done with Cifer's bullshit, Matt fell back against the filthy sheets and ran a hand down his face. 

"... I'm not even gonna entertain this conversation, Cif—"

"That's not my fucking name!"

It was Matt's turn for his eyes to turn surly. "Then what is it?!"

Cifer fell silent. Hard lines formed on his face as he glowered up at the blond who was hovering over him, but as he searched the traitor for hints of reason, he caught something else. A strangeness that relaxed the rancor in his features and softened them some. 

It looked like Cifer was fighting with himself; as though he desperately wanted to tell Matt something, but he was choking on a physical obstacle and couldn't utter a single word.

"... Bogdanov, right?" he asked. Spite prompted him to ignore how much Cifer's scent spiked. That increasingly strong, burnt marshmallow smell made him want to wrinkle his nose. The younger alpha focused all his efforts on watching how Cifer reacted instead, peering up at him with an unwavering determination as he did.

"Yeah," Cifer choked out the word as though it had been stuck in his throat the whole time, "Bogdanov."

"That's a last name. So far, you've given me a title and a last name. Then you keep bitching about me calling you by your actual name."

A massive, fiery hand tangled itself into Matt's locks. "Because you're not fucking listening!"

Matt stiffened up and forced himself to remain as still as was possible. His alpha instincts were getting harder to restrain by the day, but the small part of Matt that wanted to unravel whatever the fuck made Cifer betray him all those years ago had officially gone high alert.

"... Okay. You're right. I wasn't listening. But I am now." 

That threw Cifer for a loop. For a while, Cifer's warmth chased away the horrible cold in the room, lingering between them like some aching, unspoken secret. The longer Matt peered into Cifer's blues, the less he understood about this traitor and his demons. 

"Zakhar." 

"... Zakhar?"

"What are you, a gay parrot?"

Fuck, Matt laughed. Not because it was genuinely funny, but because the absurdity of such a casual comment during an obviously tense situation was driving him batshit crazy. 

"Okay. Zakhar. Sounds dumb, but whatev—"

Cifer snarled and wrenched Matt's head to the side, stealing what precious life giving air he had in his body. Perhaps far too late; the dark-haired alpha realized the position they were in. Once again, Cifer had him pinned, body pressed against his almost intimately. 

And now his neck is exposed all over again. It was dizzying. Breath quickened in his chest as a faint memory of soft, warm lips grazing the crook of his neck got his heart pumping; Matt tried to steel himself. Subconsciously, he gave a warning sound; quiet, non-threatening, but it originated in that deep part of his throat all the same. 

When Cifer heard it, his knee pressed itself harder between his legs, reminding Matt it was there. 

"... And you call me gay."

"I'm not a fucking faggot!" 

"Whatever you say, Cif—"

"Zakhar."

"... Whatever you say." 

Matt wasn't willing to call him by the name Cifer adopted after becoming his enemy, but he didn't want to piss him off, either. This felt like progress. However, a newfound rage blossomed on Cifer and face regardless of his intentions, it seemed. 

"I'm dead serious, Princess. You can't throw that shit around like it's not a big deal. If you fuck up my reputation, I'll make you feel things you've never felt before, and you'll be begging me to forgive you instead."

That… left him speechless and hitched the air into his lungs. All it did was make his heart beat faster in his chest and make him more keenly aware of just how fucking big Cifer was. 

"... You're—" no, if he said Cifer wasn't helping his own case, it'd just make things worse. "Yeah, okay. I get it. Ease off already."

There was a slight deflation in Cifer's raised hackles, but the other man did no such thing. He remained intimately pressed against Matt's knot, and the dark-haired alpha was running very short on patience.

"... If you're the master, who's Lev?" he asked. 

Cifer grew statuesque. Concerningly so. However, Matt knew better than to force anything out of the other man whilst the situation was already teetering off the edge enough as it was. 

"... He's not important. Ignore him. You do what I say, got that?"

Matt's eyes fell shut as the energy drained from his very essence. "... This is fucked up, Cifer."

He'd said the man's name without thinking. Force of habit. But the other alpha's quiet, forced words were the opposite of what Matt expected—

"I know."

His mind went blank. For a few delicate beats, Matt felt vulnerable with Cifer in a way he thought he never would be again. Bruised digits rose yet again, but instead of shoving harshly at the man, his shaking hand came to slip itself under the man's fur coat. Ever so slowly, as though the man hovering over him would vanish into the aether if he moved too quickly, Matt splayed his icy fingers over where he knew Cifer's heart to be.

The blond's eyes lidded with a softness that seemed impossibly foreign to his usually bereft features. It had Matt sucking in a sharp, mesmerized breath as he felt the man's heart beat faster under his touch.

"Why'd you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You know damn well."

"No. I don't."

"Fine. Keep pretending the war never happened. If you won't tell me that, at least tell me why you take orders from that snake, Lev—"

The snarl that left Cifer was more monster than man. He flexed roughly, holding his breath as Cifer gripped him and flipped their positions so Matt was lying on the bed properly now. Trapped in a renewed wrestling match against the blatant man-handling out of pure instinct, Matt snarled back, though it held only a fraction of the power he was aiming for. 

He clawed down the other man's fur-lined back as he got thrown down again. "Fuck, get off me!"

But Cifer didn't listen. No, instead of leaving well enough alone, the two men grappled with bruising, flesh cutting force, and before Matt knew it, he's too tangled up in the sheets and Cifer Calaway to fight back properly. He found his legs spread wide and his hips lifted into the air just as the massive, nearly feral alpha nestled himself between them like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Rancid panic rose in his stomach and lined his throat with bile—Cifer wasn't seriously trying to dominate him right now, was he? 

"Hey, get your shit together!" 

"No."

With a curse that tasted of humiliation and repressed anger, Matt tried to detangle himself enough to move. 

"Seriously. This is f—"

Matt's hair was once again gripped and his head forced to the side, but this time, Cifer wasn't even trying to hide it. Hot teeth grazed flesh that shouldn't have been as sensitive as it was. All at once, Matt arched up against the man and stopped moving altogether. Don't get him wrong; his instincts wanted him to lean down and rip a chuck of flesh and fur out of Cifer's clothed shoulder, but he also just realized something. 

The more he fought Cifer, the worse things got. And this? Matt didn't know how this could get more twisted up than it already was, but he held zero intentions of finding out. There was a wet, rapidly growing heat against that spot on his neck and a tightness in his body that had his muscles rolling with unease under his skin.

"... Fine. Fine, you aren't taking orders from anyone. Your name is Zakhar. You're a Bogdanov. Shit, you're the king of England. Just… breathe. Or something. Anything, as long as it's not this!" 

Flat hissing through his teeth becoming the norm for him these days, Mattias fell into a tense, uncertain, loaded silence. The more he felt soft fur brushing across exposed parts of his skin, alongside the heat and solid muscle of his childhood friend, the further gone he was. Cifer had pressed against him in a fashion that was beyond legal and utterly barbaric. As the moment he felt their bodies slipping across one another dragged on, each ragged breath in felt feverishly stimulating and criminally raw. 

He could feel it. Something thick, hard and impossibly hot pressed against his upturned ass. The whole affair infuriated him just as easily as it rendered him breathless. Not to mention it made his hips ache, considering he's an alpha, and he's definitely not built for this.

"Are you done ye—"

"No. Stay. Just… a little longer. Please."

Please. 

Cifer just said the word please. 

Sanity fled him. The blond man never said please, or a sincere thank you, or anything polite of the sort, for that matter. But here he was, breathing his scent down Matt's neck and sliding his fingers through his hair like he was his… 

No. No, Cifer has to be drunk. That's it. A hundred percent. Fury melting away to form something complicated and indescribable inside his core, Mattias shut his mouth and attempted to relax as best he could. It was hard, though, having an alpha pressing something obscene against his ass. That, and the wet, slick feeling of the tip of a tongue darting out to tickle his skin, only made things heavier between them. Gasping a little too loudly, Matt hissed at himself and clamped a hand over his mouth. 

Cifer chuckled—puffs of hot, tantalizing air filling the surrounding space with melted marshmallows and the candied delicacy of caramel. Without realizing it, Mattias' pupils blew wide. Dementedly, despite them both being alphas, it almost seemed like the smaller man's body was drinking in Cifer's scent like some kind of greedy omega slut. On the one hand, he knew that couldn't possibly be true. 

But on the other hand, Matt remained just as he was, allowing another alpha to mouth at his neck in a way that made his cock stir with an inconceivable interest. He stayed there for a long while, turning into a statue of black marble as the larger blond man continued his taboo, private actions. Things that brought nothing but confusion and self hatred to himself. If the pair got caught doing something so wrong, they'd be executed for doing something so disgustingly unnatural as to go against the new world order.

Yet Matt found himself increasingly breathless and dazed as the seconds ticked by.

Lord, help him.