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Mo Xuanyu had pursued Lan Zhan with a patience that bordered on obsession. It wasn’t love that drove him…it was envy.
Xuanyu was an Omega, as was Wei Ying and yet the difference between them was unmistakable. Wei Ying received Lan Zhan’s devotion effortlessly. The quiet loyalty, the unwavering attention, the reverence that Lan Zhan showed to no one else. Xuanyu wanted that, he wanted to take it. He wanted to feel the ardent needs of an Alpha as handsome and as strong as Lan Zhan.
Lan Zhan was an Alpha of uncommon restraint. Disciplined. Controlled. His bond with Wei Ying was built on trust, on choice, on an intimacy that went far beyond instinct. And Xuanyu despised that most of all, he hated Wei Ying for getting Lan Zhan’s devotion and unwavering love.
So he teased, he provoked Lan Zhan…He brushed too close, lingered too long, scented himself just enough to test the Alpha’s control. Each encounter was calculated, a slow erosion of boundaries meant to see if Lan Zhan could truly remain unmoved.
And of course Wei Ying noticed…
He noticed the way Xuanyu watched Lan Zhan, the subtle provocations disguised as harmless flirtation. And despite trusting Lan Zhan completely, unease settled in his chest. Xuanyu was beautiful, relentless and desperate. Wei Ying knew the truth of their world that even the strongest Alpha could snap if pushed at the wrong moment.
*****
That moment came on the night of Nie Mingjue’s birthday.
Wei Ying was away on a business trip. Lan Zhan had hesitated to attend without him, but Nie Mingjue was his brother-in-law, Lan Xichen’s husband. It was only right to be there.
The party was loud, crowded, scented with too many alphas and omegas in close quarters. Lan Zhan remained distant, polite, untouched until Xuanyu handed him a drink.
The rut inducer worked silently.
By the time Lan Zhan felt the first wave of dizziness, the wrongness curling beneath his skin, it was already too late. Xuanyu pretended to be concerned and offered to take Lan Zhan home.
Lan Xichen noticed that something was wrong from the tension in his brother’s posture, the tightness around his eyes. He wanted to excused himself to take Lan Zhan home but Xuanyu’s brother Meng Yao smiled easily and told Xichen that Xuanyu can drop Lan Zhan home and assured him that everything will be fine, Xuanyu will take good care of Lan Zhan.
*****
When they reached the home he built with Wei Ying, Lan Zhan knew that he had been drugged and he did not trust the way his body betrayed him as soon as the door to his home closed behind them. His rut ignited violently, unnaturally fast. Pheromones spilled into the air as smell of deep musk and sandalwood, thick and overwhelming filled the four walls. Xuanyu inhaled sharply. This was what he had been waiting for…
He locked the door. He shed his restraint and released his heat, letting it flooded the room.
“Go away,” Lan Zhan growled, his voice torn between instinct and reason. “Stay away.”
He clung to Wei Ying’s name like an anchor. To memory. To choice.
Xuanyu touched him despite Lan Zhan pushing him away. He slowly coaxing and deliberately trying to convince him to let go, to surrender. Lan Zhan tore himself free and slammed the bedroom door shut, locking it behind him. With shaking hands, he called Wei Ying.
His voice was fractured and strained and with trembling voice, Lan Zhan pleaded on the phone “Wei Ying…something’s wrong. I…I think in have been drugged, I am going into my rut. I can’t control it…” Wei Ying listened, dread sharpening with every word. Lan Zhan’s rut wasn’t due not even close. Something was wrong. Someone had interfered.
Through the phone, Wei Ying heard the pounding on the door. Heard someone calling, pleading, provoking.
Lan Zhan was unraveling.
He needed release. His body demanded it. The rut burned through him, erasing logic, eroding restraint. When the door finally splintered open, instinct overtook reason.
The phone fell.
The room filled with pheromones. And everything collapsed into heat and chaos.
*****
Lan Zhan woke hours later, clarity returned and he saw Xuanyu lying beside him, sleeping peacefully and sated. The room smells of musky sandalwood mixed with the sweet cloying scent of honey caramel.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway.
Wei Ying.
The door flew open.
Wei Ying took in the scene in a single glance…naked skin, tangled sheets, the scent of a rut long passed. His world shattered silently.
Wei Ying didn’t scream at first.
He stood frozen in the doorway with the room heavy with the stale remnants of a rut…wrong, invasive, clinging to his lungs. His eyes moved slowly, unwillingly, taking in the tangled sheets, the marks on Lan Zhan’s skin, the Omega curled beside him.
Something inside Wei Ying went eerily still.
Then he moved.
“Get up.”
Xuanyu stirred, blinking sleepily, confusion flickering across his face before it twisted into something smug, something satisfied.
Wei Ying was on him in an instant.
He grabbed a fistful of Xuanyu’s hair and yanked him upright so hard his neck snapped back. Xuanyu cried out, hands scrambling, but Wei Ying didn’t loosen his grip.
“You planned this,” Wei Ying said, his voice shaking, not loud, but sharp enough to cut. “You drugged him.”
Xuanyu gasped, trying to pry Wei Ying’s fingers away. “Wei Ying just listen”
The slap echoed through the room.
“Don’t you dare say my name,” Wei Ying snarled.
He shoved Xuanyu off the bed, dragging him across the floor, fury pouring out raw, unrestrained.
“You couldn’t stand that he chose me,” Wei Ying spat. “So you stole his choice. You broke his control. You turned his instincts against him because you were too pathetic, too desperate to be wanted by anyone honestly.”
Xuanyu was crying now, panic mixing with humiliation. “But he responded, he wanted it”
Wei Ying struck him again, harder.
“He didn’t want you,” Wei Ying said, voice cracking. “You poisoned him. You violated him. You used his rut like a weapon.”
Xuanyu collapsed, sobbing, but Wei Ying wasn’t done.
“You don’t get to call what happened is love,” Wei Ying hissed. “All you did was prove that no one would ever choose you without force.”
Wei Ying released him with a shove, disgust curling through his body. He turned away, breathing hard then finally looked at Lan Zhan.
Lan Zhan was sitting up now.
Bare. Shaking.
His eyes were red-rimmed, hollow, filled with something far worse than fear.
Shame.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Zhan whispered.
The words shattered Wei Ying completely.
Lan Zhan didn’t reach for him. He didn’t move closer. Instead, he folded inward, arms wrapping around himself as if trying to hold his own body together.
“I should have known,” Lan Zhan said hoarsely. “I should have left the moment I felt wrong. I failed you.”
Wei Ying crossed the room slowly, every step heavy.
“You were drugged,” Wei Ying said, voice raw. “You were manipulated.”
Lan Zhan shook his head, violently. “I still lost control. I still…” His voice broke. “I let instinct win.”
His hands trembled as he pressed them to his face. “I disgusted myself.”
Wei Ying knelt in front of him.
“Lan Zhan, baobei” he said softly now, heartbreak bleeding into every words. “Look at me.”
Lan Zhan couldn’t.
“I hurt you,” Lan Zhan whispered. “I broke the one thing I promised you that I would always choose you.”
Wei Ying swallowed hard.
“You didn’t choose him,” Wei Ying said. “You were trapped.”
“But my body betrayed me, Wei Ying”
“Is not your morality,” Wei Ying snapped, tears finally spilling. “ Your will was stolen.”
Lan Zhan’s shoulders shook as he finally looked up, eyes filled with self-loathing.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said.
That was when Wei Ying broke.
He pulled Lan Zhan into his arms fiercely, gripping him like he might disappear, forehead pressed to his.
“Don’t you take this blame onto yourself,” Wei Ying said through tears. “Not when someone else push you to your fall. Not when you fought until the very end to call me.”
He held Lan Zhan as the Alpha finally collapsed, guilt tearing through him, sobs silent and devastating.
Outside the room, Xuanyu lay crumpled and forgotten.
*****
Wei Ying did not leave Lan Zhan’s side.
Not once.
He stayed through the shaking, through the Alpha’s rigid silence, through the hours where Lan Zhan refused food, refused rest, refused even to look at his own hands as if they no longer belonged to him.
It was Wei Ying who finally broke the stillness.
“You’re not allowed to punish yourself for someone else’s crime,” he said quietly.
Lan Zhan flinched.
“I failed,” Lan Zhan said, voice stripped bare. “An Alpha’s control is his responsibility. I was weak.”
Wei Ying turned to him then, eyes fierce, blazing with something unyielding.
“No,” he said. “You were drugged. You were hunted. And you fought long enough to call me.”
He reached out, slow, deliberate, giving Lan Zhan time to pull away.
Lan Zhan didn’t.
Wei Ying took Lan Zhan’s hands, still trembling and pressed them flat against his own chest.
“You chose me,” Wei Ying said. “Even when your body was screaming otherwise. Even when you were breaking.”
Lan Zhan’s breath hitched.
“You came for me,” Lan Zhan whispered.
“Always,” Wei Ying replied. “That’s the bond. Not instinct. Not biology. Choice.”
Something in Lan Zhan finally cracked but it is not restraint this time, but the wall of self-loathing he had wrapped around himself like penance. He bowed his head, forehead resting against Wei Ying’s shoulder, and breathed him in. Familiar. Safe. Home.
The bond didn’t weaken.
It knit itself tighter, reinforced by truth and survival.
*****
Xuanyu’s punishment did not come from fists.
It came from exposure.
Wei Ying made sure the facts were undeniable. The rut inducer traced, the dosage confirmed, witnesses questioned. Meng Yao’s reassurances unraveled under scrutiny. Lan Xichen’s silence turned glacial when the truth surfaced.
Nie Mingjue was merciless.
“You used coercion,” he said flatly. “You violated an Alpha and attempted to destroy a bonded pair.”
Xuanyu cried. Pleaded. Claimed desperation, love, loneliness.
No one listened.
In modern Omegaverse society, consent violations were unforgivable…especially ones involving chemical manipulation.
Xuanyu lost everything.
His reputation. His social standing. His access to omega protections he had abused. Doors closed. Invitations vanished. Whispers followed him wherever he went, sharp and unrelenting.
Worst of all?
Lan Zhan never looked at him again.
Not with anger.
Not with hatred.
With nothing.
*****
Weeks later, Lan Zhan stood on the balcony with Wei Ying, night air cool against their skin. The city hummed below them…alive, indifferent, moving on.
“I still feel it sometimes,” Lan Zhan admitted softly. “The fear. The shame.”
Wei Ying leaned into him, fingers lacing with his.
“Scars don’t mean broken,” he said. “They mean survived.”
Lan Zhan kissed Wei Ying’s temple gently, with reverent.
“I will spend my life proving this,” Lan Zhan said. “Not to the world but to you.”
Wei Ying smiled his captivating smile that stirred Lan Zhan’s heart the first time he saw Wei Ying.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why we’re still standing.”
Their bond did not fracture.
It hardened into something unbreakable…forged not by instinct, but by loyalty, truth and love that refused to be stolen.