Kai – After the Fight
The locker room was
hot and dark, metal walls surrounding a cage even after the fight had ended.
Kai rested against the weathered wooden bench, the sound of the crowd still ringing softly beyond the walls of concrete. His breathing was shallow. Not from exhaustion — he'd fought harder matches. It was something else.
Something under the surface.
His fingers trembled as he unwrapped the blood-soaked bandages from his knuckles. He caught the smell of his own sweat mixed with something bitter — his own body like going into heat.
That wasn't possible.
"Not yet."
"Not without warning."
He'd doubled the suppressant patch for the week. He'd be okay.
But from the moment his eyes met the Alpha behind the glass, something had started to unravel.
He hadn't meant to look up. He never looked at the VIP box — only Syndicate elites watched from there, Alphas with enough money and cruelty to buy lives like his with a glance. But this one… this one hadn't looked like the others.
He'd stayed motionless. Gazing. Unblinking, as if a hunter who didn't need to hunt.
Dark hair. Silver-blue eyes. A presence so cold it burned.
Kai had seen a thousand Alphas. He'd survived them, fought them, escaped them. But this one had looked straight through him — not like prey, but like a match he was meant to burn with.
And that stare… it had felt like hands on his skin.
His core tightened, slick starting to gather low in his body, uninvited. Heat flushed up his neck and ears. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand.
No one could ever see him like this.
He grabbed his hoodie, tugged it on fast, and left the locker room before his scent could spread.
The hallway was tight, crowded, and humid — the sharp smell of testosterone, blood, and damp clothes clinging to the walls. He moved fast, shoulders tight, ignoring the calls from other fighters as he pushed through the back exit.
Rain was falling outside, cold and heavy, but it didn't cool him down. The heat was coming from the inside now — curling around his spine, licking at the edge of control.
He took alley after alley, slipping between shadows, moving deeper into the bones of Zone Nine. Trash fires flickered in corners. Neon lights buzzed over cracked pavement. This part of the city was forgotten, feral. Just like him.
But even here, he felt it.
He was being watched.
Not by the street rats or the enforcers. Not by the usual Syndicate thugs who liked to harassing stray omegas. This was something different.
This presence didn't hide.
It followed.
His skin prickled as he walked faster. Not fear — instinct. The kind that was deeply in omega blood. The kind that warned when something ancient had locked onto you.
And gods, he still felt those eyes.
That Alpha was not just wealthy. He was not simply dangerous.
He was wrong in all the right ways.
Kai reached the narrow stairwell of his building and climbed fast, taking two steps at a time. His room was at the top — barely four walls, a mattress, and a broken lock.
But it was his.
He shut the door and locked it. He stood against it, gasping.
The sink mirror was cracked. In the warped glass, he saw himself: red face, wide eyes, hair stuck to his forehead. His hoodie was soggy with sweat and rain.
And his scent — it was rising.
He tore off the hoodie, let it fall to the floor.
His shirt was soaked through. His skin burned with awareness .His nipples were hard beneath the fabric, and every shift of his hips made his thighs clench tighter.
"No, no, not now," he whispered.
He ripped the patch from his neck and with shaking hands, slapped a fresh one on from his drawer in a matter of seconds. It was too late, though. His body was already reacting.
Not just to the bond.
To him.
That man — that Alpha — had left something behind with just a look.
Kai's hand fell to his lower belly, pressing against the pain that resided there, as he attempted to will it away. His breathing was in short, uneven gasps.
He couldn't go into heat. Not here. Not alone.
And definitely not with him watching from the dark.
But even as he cursed under his breath and tried to ground himself, his mind returned to that moment in the pit.
The way their eyes locked.
The way time had bent between them.
The way his body — his very nature — had recognized something it had never touched before.
Not lust.
Claim.
Something ancient and primal had cracked open inside him.
And it wanted out.