Work Text:
“This is where the omegas sleep?”
Jian Cao’s head shot up when she heard the question at the entrance to the tent. It was an odd question to get now, a week into the hunt and after the hunting party had already set up camp for the night. All the alphas should have already been familiar with how their sleeping arrangements in the field worked.
Omegas didn’t sleep alone. If they had a beta or alpha in the hunting party to sleep with, they could. Otherwise, they slept with the other omegas in a larger, shared tent. If an alpha got caught trying to sneak in, they’d very quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a multiple-to-one fight. On the other hand, if an alpha approached openly and offered a gift that one of the omegas in the tent accepted, they would be allowed to sleep next to the tent, close enough to hear and smell them.
Even when omegas weren’t in season, alphas were attracted to their scents. For the alpha hunters who didn’t have mates, this was sometimes the closest they got to falling asleep with an omega. It was also a good opportunity for an alpha to surreptitiously try to court an already-claimed omega while their alpha was out of the picture, as long as the courting alpha was popular enough with the other omega hunters to not be driven away.
“Yes, Your Highness,” the omega at the entrance said deferentially. Nervousness trickled into his scent as he shifted in place. “This is the omega tent.”
The only prince on the hunt was Mobei San, the third son of Mobei Jun. As far as she knew, Mobei San was still a beta, but he was young and so strong that everyone had known for years that he was going to present with a spiritual sex once he grew old enough.
Mobei San was about the age that alphas presented at. She’d been on several hunts with him and he’d never particularly noticed omegas before. It wasn’t good that he was seeking them out now, in such a blatant manner. But a prince’s favor was valuable and he was already admired by some for his handsomeness and strength. If he demanded someone to bed, it wouldn’t be impossible to find him a willing partner.
“Hm. Who’s dominant?” Mobei Jun asked.
Xiao Gou turned around and looked at Jian Cao with wide eyes. Jian Cao stood up, waving her hand to show she’d take over. “The… hunt master?”
“No. Which omega scented the tent?”
“That’s me.” As soon as she reached him, Jian Cao nudged the other omega aside. He scurried away gratefully, running to his bedroll with his head ducked. She bowed to the prince. “Is there something His Highness needs?”
“I’m sleeping here tonight. Inside.”
To any alpha who wasn’t the prince, she would have responded by laughing in their face. But not only was she reluctant to anger someone who could order her execution, she also didn’t want to have to negotiate the way things worked with a spoiled baby alpha. She definitely didn’t want to fight him. Mobei San was stronger than the next several hunters in their party combined and if other alphas were forced to choose sides, she didn’t like her odds.
When she didn’t answer, he tried to step inside. She stood bodily in front of him. He stopped a scant distance away from her but didn’t touch her. He glared down at her.
She waited. This was the time for him to shove his scent at her and make her back down, but scent influence worked both ways. If he pushed, she’d push back. She was confident that right now, before it was general knowledge that he’d presented, she had more experience resisting and projecting Go away! than he did.
The glare slowly shifted into a full scowl. To her surprise, instead of challenging her, he backed up a step. “Why not?”
“Only omegas sleep inside. If an alpha wants to be close, they can put their tent next to ours, or sleep on the ground just outside,” she explained.
“I am an omega,” Mobei San said. “I’m here because I don’t want any alphas sleeping next to me.”
Jian Cao felt her eyes go wide. He wasn’t. Was he? She took a deeper breath of the air but couldn’t smell much. Mobei San unbuckled the bracer from his wrist and pushed up his sleeve. He licked at his scent glands with his tongue, then scrubbed at them with the sleeve on his other hand.
Jian Cao was hit with the pure scent of an unclaimed omega, cold and floral.
Every alpha that claimed an omega’s mating glands during their heat left a bit of themselves permanently behind. A bond could break or fade, but the scar it left and the change in the omega’s scent never disappeared completely. An omega’s lifetime mate history was carried in their scent.
No one had touched this omega.
“You’re sleeping in here with us,” Jian Cao said immediately.
Mobei San didn’t move. “I want to scent the tent. If I’m sleeping here, I want it to smell like me.”
That was stupid dominance bullshit Jian Cao didn’t care about. She had an alpha already and wasn’t interested in more. This was a hunting trip. This was work. She only scented the tent because she was the oldest and the meanest, which made her best suited for intimidating alphas.
Despite his youth, Mobei San was bigger and meaner than her. His delicate, inviting smell didn’t suit him at all, but his cold attitude and abundant qi being turned to keep alphas out of the omega tent suited her plenty.
“Whatever pleases you, Your Highness.” She ducked her gaze submissively. His oppressive aura immediately lessened.
Mobei San rubbed his hands and wrists on the doorway to the tent, then did the same to the hides that acted as its door before pushing them aside and entering the room. His presence was quickly met by the several other omegas in the large tent first with alarm, then surprise as his exposed scent reached them.
He responded to their greetings with bemused stiffness. They didn’t seem to know what to make of him either, once it became clear that he didn’t want to talk about being an omega and that he wasn’t interested enough yet in alphas to engage in gossipping about them.
---–
Jian Cao was torn from a pleasant dream about childhood romance by sharp pain and the sensation of ice, cold and unyielding, brutally squeezing her throat.
Glowing blue eyes beneath an equally glowing royal demon mark glared fiercely at her. Cold spread through her throat from where Mobei San’s fingers made contact with her skin. An equally cold voice hissed at her, “Get off me. Stop touching me.”
She realized, to her mortification, that in her sleep she had managed to unknowingly shift closer to him, and she now clutched the prince’s arm to her chest. The wistful scent of her childhood memory had been in reality his alluring omega pheromones, now replaced by an overwhelming sense of danger and the certainty that she was about to die.
She let go as quickly as she could. The moment she did, he threw her away from him. “Your Highness! A thousand apologies,” she croaked, rubbing at her sore throat. Some of the scents in the air shifted as others in the tent woke from the disruption, broadcasting confusion and anxiety. “I must have moved in my sleep.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“No, of course not. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.” She responded to the sleepy inquiries from the rest of the tent with as much calm as she could force. “It’s nothing, everyone go back to sleep.”
It was easier to calm herself than she expected. Being surrounded by comfortable omegas was instinctively soothing, and though she’d clearly annoyed him, Mobei San’s scent was not sour with fear or distress. The oppressive aura of displeasure he had hit her with had faded the moment she’d let him go.
She didn’t blame him for his reaction. She’d have done the same. When she’d put as much distance between them as she could and was ready to try to sleep again, she stole another glance at him. He was already watching her.
When their eyes met, he looked away and closed his eyes.
---–
In the morning, Jian Cao scented the sleepy pleasure of Mobei San’s slow awakening before he sat up. He took several deep breaths of the air as he roused, looking and smelling peaceful. Omegas smelled best to alphas, but they smelled good to each other as well. He was enjoying their scents just as they were enjoying his.
He nodded to Jian Cao. “I’ll be sleeping here again.”
Jian Cao personally knew of three omega concubines, and even more servants, who had openly expressed interest in being the first to figure out the prince’s rut schedule. It wasn’t hard at all for an omega to alpha, please an unmated rutting alpha into challenging their current alpha, if the omega no longer wanted them or simply wanted to belong to someone stronger.
A young alpha experiencing the joys of omega flesh for the first time was easily seduced. Becoming First Concubine or mother to a prince’s firstborn would be a big leap in status for many, even without a marriage. If an omega could secure a mating bite and the title of First Wife, all the better.
She couldn’t wait to see their faces when they found out he was an omega and that there would be no ruts and no pups.
One of the alphas that had failed to return to camp in time the night before was present for the morning meal distribution, missing his hand and half his forearm. The wound had been treated and bandaged, but he overall held an air of defeat and was reluctant to discuss what had happened to him.
“He suffered a hunting accident,” Mobei San said blandly when the hunt master finally resorted to asking the broader group what they knew.
The hunt master leveled a sharp look at Mobei San. “Were you the hunting accident?”
Mobei San met his eyes. “Yes,” he said plainly.
Demons settled conflicts with violence.
Lang Tian was an asshole of an alpha. He liked to push around the alphas and betas that were smaller than him, and he’d harass omegas until they drew blood from him to drive him off. He’d never had a problem with Mobei San before, but he’d always been very nice and deferential to Mobei San before.
Mobei San had been joining the North’s hunters on their trips since he was just a half-grown boy, strong enough to fill a role as an adult fighter but too young to show interest in anyone’s omegas or women when conversation turned bawdy. That had made him quite well-liked, despite his long-standing refusal to participate in camp maintenance and reluctance to perform manual labor in general.
Competition between alphas over omegas was frequent, fierce, and often deadly. As Mobei San had approached presentation age, the alphas he defeated in spars became more submissive, rather than less. They knew they couldn’t fight him off, so instead they could only hope to gain enough favor that when he started looking for wives, he let them keep what was theirs.
Omegas, on the other hand, rarely fought each other over alphas. Alphas always coveted omegas, needing to keep their omega from being lured away by another alpha while also potentially looking for more, but omegas only really needed alphas when they were in heat or when there were pups on the way.
The only time omegas fought each other over alphas was if an alpha wanted to keep multiple omegas and one of their current omegas didn’t like the new addition. Then, if none of the omegas wanted to leave the harem and belong to a different alpha, there might be a problem.
That sort of thing usually only happened if the alpha was exceptionally powerful and high status. Otherwise, it was more likely for another alpha to notice the unhappy omega and start courting them, turning the conflict into an alpha-alpha fight with the omega choosing the winner.
But omegas fought alphas a lot over courtship because demons fought each other a lot over everything. Jian Cao knew from experience that the quickest way to make an unwanted alpha stop sniffing after her was to hit them really hard, which also happened to be her strategy for how to make a merchant stop cheating her, a stranger get out of her way in a crowd, and an annoying demon stop talking.
Jian Cao looked at the stump where Lang Tian’s hand used to be. It would grow back, but it would take months to do so. The new arm would need extra training to become as usable as it once was. In the meantime, he wouldn’t be able to use a bow and would have to fight one-handed.
Lang Tian didn’t have a mate to take care of him. The recovery process would be hard.
What a moron.
The hunt master looked at Lang Tian. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Lang Tian looked at his stump. He looked at Mobei San. He looked at the ground. “No.”
The hunt master sighed. “Your Highness,” he said. “Now he’ll be useless for the hunt.”
“You could stake him out as bait.”
Lang Tian’s lip curled up in displeasure, but he stayed silent.
The wind shifted. The hunt master’s eyes widened. Jian Cao had overheard several alphas murmuring about the unfamiliar omega smell coming from their tent in the morning, including some hopeful not-jokes speculating about which of the betas might have just presented. He sniffed the air and asked Mobei San, “How long have you been an omega?”
“A while now,” Mobei San answered in a bored tone. His aura flared. When it settled, his omega scent faded too. “My family already knows. I told them.”
“He slept in the omega tent with us last night,” Jian Cao offered. The prince had always slept alone before, even for the first part of the trip.
The hunt master rounded on Lang Tian. “How long have you known about him being an omega?”
Lang Tian blew out a puff of air explosively but didn’t answer.
The hunt master had been working in the Northern Fortress for years. He’d known the prince since he was a boy. Mobei San was their best fighter, assigned to the hunt by his father because they didn’t know what the monster they were hunting actually was. They needed him. Lang Tian was only a good fighter and so-so tracker. They did not need him.
“Well, it seems like you’ve brought this on yourself,” the hunt master said to the alpha. “Don’t let it make you fall behind.”
---–
Lang Tian kept up with the group, just barely. Losing his hand slowed him in everything he did, and once the other alphas got wind it was the prince that’d done it to him, and over alpha and omega business at that, they didn’t want any part in being seen helping someone who’d so grievously angered the prince.
Especially not when the omega hunters got to happily bask in the delicious scent of an unclaimed omega, from when Mobei San had marked their shoulders out of some sense of possessiveness when they’d been getting ready in the morning. Jian Cao had even heard some of the paired omegas talking about spending a night in the omega tent instead of with their usual partner, if the prince was going to be there again.
Instead, Lang Tian was stuck seeking aid from the betas. But while they might not be as invested in alpha-omega drama, they still remembered being bullied by the temporarily disabled alpha. He hadn’t made himself any friends there and now that he couldn’t fight well, every night he risked a beating from his previous victims.
Their quarry for the hunt was some thing that had chanced upon a village and set up its lair there. The demon villagers, themselves largely nomadic, had long since abandoned the site of their village but the beast – which had claws, ate flesh and bone, was big, and did not appear to fly – had stayed put, preying on travelers who tried to take its main road.
They tracked it to its den and killed it.
The prince distinguished himself in combat, as usual, fearlessly facing the monster head on. He held its attention while the others harried its flanks. He summoned great sheets of ice to deflect its blows and herd its movements. He dodged a paw swipe that flung away a half-dozen others by disappearing and reappearing behind the beast’s back in a split second, outline haloed by dark qi. He was the one who lured it into the ambush that resulted in its ultimate death, baiting it into a dead end crevasse and disappearing again once it had cornered him.
The prince suffered only a few bruises in return, getting off more lightly than many of the other hunters, many of whom ended the day with deep claw marks and broken bones. One of the other hunters – a large, broad-chested alpha who wielded a heavy spear – dealt the killing blow, but Mobei San was the one who leaped onto its horns to force its head aside, exposing the weak point in the thick-scaled hide at the base of its neck.
The spicy-sweet fragrance of the prince’s exuberance at their triumph accompanied him for the rest of the evening. It only grew stronger as the other hunters heaped well-earned praise on him, until the entire camp smelled like victory and happy, comfortable omegas.
---–
“It’s not that good,” Mobei San proclaimed from the entrance to the omega tent. “I’ve seen better.”
Jian Cao hadn’t needed to worry about how Mobei San would feel about his omega nature becoming public knowledge. Now that he was a regular resident of the omega tent, he seemed quite pleased to play the role of judge and guardian and harshly reject any alphas that tried to approach them.
That had been all fine and good when they’d been on the hunt and needed to focus. But now that they were returning back to the Fortress victorious, and trophies from both the corpse and the contents of its lair had been distributed to the various members of the hunting party, spirits were high and people wanted to enjoy themselves.
“You’re not the only omega in there, Your Highness. Perhaps one of them might find it to their liking?”
Another omega met Jian Cao’s eyes. Jian Cao made a reluctant face and made to get up. She’d just gotten her blankets comfortable. But before she had to stand, Mobei San was already striding back into the body of the tent.
He held up his hand. In it, he held a strip of green ribbon, plain but neat and undamaged. It was clean and smelled like the salty-spicy scent of an eager alpha. “Jiao Zhe wants to sleep outside the tent. He offers this.”
They all looked at him. Jiao Zhe was a perfectly decent alpha with a popular scent and none of them were royalty who got to wear the finest of everything all the time. It was a good gift to give to an omega.
Da Guai said, “I want it, if you don’t want it.”
Mobei San handed it over without the tiniest bit of hesitation.
The demon twined it around one of the twisting horns that grew from his skull. Da Guai already had an alpha, as the scar on his mating glands made clear, but a little bit of flirtation was a harmless way for demons to blow off steam and the omega to have something to later tease his alpha with.
Jiao Zhe’s success, when Mobei San came back and said he was allowed to stay, excited the other alphas. Soon several more were at the entrance with gifts and an eagerness to flirt. After some encouragement from the other omegas, the young prince came back with gifts from a couple more alphas, giving them out to whoever asked for them first.
At one point in the night, Mobei San got up, then returned without saying anything. He smelled pleased and was holding something, hand tucked close to his side.
“What’s in your hand?” Jian Cao asked.
Mobei San stopped. He looked down at his closed fist, then at Jian Cao. He turned his hand over and opened it, revealing several shiny rocks cut in the human fashion. They glittered and reflected the light.
He let her see for several moments before closing his hand around them again. “Mine.”
It seemed the prince liked human things. Most omegas did, which made them popular courtship gifts and another reason demons so often raided humans.
–---
Another “hunting accident” on the way back left an alpha’s arm broken badly enough that the broken ends of the bone stabbed out from their flesh.
Between demons, sometimes a broken arm was just flirting. Demons bullied the objects of their affections to test their strength, so if an omega broke an alpha’s arm, it could mean they were inviting a courtship. If the alpha then courted that omega, that meant they thought they were strong enough to pass the tests and win the omega’s favor.
Of course, a demon that misjudged the levels of a stronger demon’s affections for them could end up beaten up more than they could handle, and Mobei San had already done worse without flinching or suffering consequences.
The alpha with the broken arm wisely chose not to push his luck.
Mobei San’s scent faded as they neared the Fortress laden with their cargo. By the time they reached the front gates he smelled like the snow that blanketed as far as she could see and nothing more. But she could see the signs that he was an omega now that she was looking for them.
His normally aloof alpha brothers came out to give him tight bear hugs on his return and he returned their embraces. He slunk away from or glared at alphas who projected their scents strongly. An omega with a faded claim mark on her neck projected her sweet pomegranate scent to him and he glared at her.
He was always cold and rude, but before he hadn’t noticed those sorts of overtures.
Chatter about Mobei San’s spiritual sex was already starting to spread.
Jian Cao split off with several others who didn’t care about ceremony just as the prince was carrying the beast’s head – it was nearly as large as he was, and he wasn’t a small demon – into the Reception Hall.
A lot of servants and concubines were going to have their dreams of becoming a princess shattered tonight, and she wanted to be there to watch.