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Will almost missed the scent drifting towards his nose one night at dinner.
It was surprisingly sweet, with a note of something darker that brought the image of blood to Will’s mind. Without thinking, Will darted his tongue out, wetting his lips. Hannibal—despite his longstanding assumptions—was beginning heat. He dared to look at Hannibal, sitting without a hair out of place. If it wasn’t for Will’s healthy sense of smell—growing stronger now with each moment that passed them by—Will never would’ve guessed what Hannibal was going through.
Omegas at Hannibal’s age rarely had heats and often had them erratically. That was the most likely explanation…and yet, he didn’t think that was the full story.
He cleared his throat, putting down his fork with a glance at his half finished dinner. “Should I excuse myself?”
If it had been any other Omega, he would’ve dropped everything and left the room already—being near an Omega in heat was a test for his willpower, and more importantly, he had never met anyone that he wanted to sleep with in the middle of heat. Heat brought complications and attachments that repelled Will. Hannibal, as he observed in their friendship, stood in a class of his own.
Hannibal’s lips lifted in what could almost be called a smile. “Unexpected choices come to us every day.” He inclined his head, the unspoken deafening between them. “What is your choice, Will? We can let this fade into nothing if you decide to leave.”
He pictured himself pushing back his chair and striding for the door, putting an early end to their night. In the morning he could call and ask if Hannibal was doing fine recovering from his heat.
Or, he thought to himself, he could get out of this chair and show Hannibal the things that were running across his mind since the moment his mind grabbed onto the thought that Hannibal was an Omega.
He really should be leaving. There were so many reasons why it was a bad idea.
Will pushed back the chair, and approached Hannibal. Hannibal smiled, a hunter successful at his hunt. He answered Hannibal’s question with a deep kiss. Unfortunately, it seemed that bad ideas always had a way of finding him.