Chapter 201

Around midnight, a light rain began to fall, and the three of them moved inside the building. They lit candles to push back the darkness, then lay side by side on the cramped, lukewarm wooden floor, trying to sleep in preparation for tomorrow. In the dawn stillness, even the insect sounds had ceased; all that remained was the hushed sound of steady breathing as they waited for sleep that refused to come.

“Siron.”

Baekgyeong broke the silence of the night, calling his name.

“Mm?”

“Have you practiced enough at hiding your pheromones?”

“Why would you suddenly ask that in the middle of the night?”

“I’m anxious. Can you control them?”

“Well... I don’t know if my body will follow through, but I know what I’m supposed to do.”

Baekgyeong let out a long sigh.

“That won’t do. Test it.”

Siron sat up abruptly, grumbling.

“Do we really have to do this now?”

Sliding closer to Baekgyeong, Siron whispered under his breath, mindful of Isaac.

“I hate when my underwear gets soaked.”

“Haah, Yoon Siron. Stop talking nonsense.”

Before his words had even finished, Baekgyeong’s pheromones poured out in a sharp, smoky wave. The heavy scent filled the narrow room, and Siron’s breath immediately broke into a ragged gasp.

“You can’t just do this out of nowhere. I—I need some—hhaa—time to prepare—mmph—”

Baekgyeong grabbed Siron around the waist, hoisting him up and down onto his thigh. In an instant, Siron was sitting in his lap, facing the same direction, locked in his arms. His head was pulled back at an unnatural angle as a kiss forced itself onto his lips, deepening until Siron was gasping for air. All the while he could feel Isaac’s gaze stabbing at him like arrows. As Baekgyeong bit down on his lower lip, Siron darted a glance sideways at Isaac.

Isaac was slouched against the wall, watching them kiss. The weight of that unblinking stare made Siron jolt in unease, and when their lips broke apart, Baekgyeong muttered:

“Yoon Siron, your pheromones are still coming out. You’re not concentrating.”

“I—I am, hhh, trying, it’s just—too sudden a—stimulus—hhaa—”

“This world is dangerous as hell. If you get turned on every time an alpha releases pheromones, how the fuck are you going to survive?”

Baekgyeong barked the words with a grim expression. His realistic rebuke drove a fresh wave of worry through Siron, but just as sweat cannot be stopped by will alone, so too his pheromones spilled like nervous sweat—beyond his control. The vibrations of pleasure stirred up by Baekgyeong’s pheromones swelled under his skin.

His initial resolve to suppress them blurred as time went on. The lustful fragrance seeping into his body with every breath pulled him down like gravity itself. Siron slumped against Baekgyeong, panting feverishly like a man tormented by thirst.

Baekgyeong’s own actions grew increasingly steeped in desire. Kissing Siron’s cheek, his hands slipped beneath his shirt. They traced slowly down his lean stomach, then slid into his underwear. Siron whimpered, curling his shoulders inward.

“D-don’t—haa—do that.”

“Does it feel erotic?”

“Don’t ask when you know the answer!”

At that moment, Isaac moved. Like a predator in the dark, he had been holding his breath, watching. Without a word, he wedged a knee between Siron’s legs and leaned forward, bracing a hand on the floor. Siron felt the hot, heavy breath at his face and his eyes flew open wide.

“Y-you don’t need to get involved—hhmmph!”

Isaac cut him off by sealing his mouth, sucking at him like a starving beast. Even when Siron turned his head away, trying to evade the kiss, Isaac pursued relentlessly, clamping his cheek in one hand, giving him no room to escape as he ravaged his lips.

“Ah, fuck... that’s a bit much.”

Baekgyeong grimaced, repulsed by the mingling of three men’s saliva. Isaac, by contrast, betrayed no discomfort, kissing as if the very notion of disgust had never existed.

“Mmhp—hhp—...haa—”

At that moment, Siron’s pheromones burst forth in a wave more sensual than before. The thick air enveloped them, suffocating in its erotic weight. Baekgyeong, as though to punish Siron for giving in to Isaac’s kiss, pressed his palm against Siron’s underwear and rubbed firmly.

“Uhh! Mmm! Hhhhmp!”

Each time Isaac’s tongue plundered his mouth, Baekgyeong’s chest went cold. Right before his eyes, Siron was gasping and trembling from another man’s kiss.

“...Haa. This feels fucking wrong.”

Yoon Siron belonged to him. To Baekgyeong, that truth was not up for debate. He had never once prepared himself to compete for Siron against anyone else, never even allowed himself the thought of feeling jealousy.

If he could, he would isolate Siron from the world altogether—just as he had once done before, using his own diseased mind as the tool to control him.

The well-shaped back of Isaac’s head, dyed a dark brown, was an eyesore. Too neat, too ordered, it looked like a bullseye, and Baekgyeong had the urge to throw a dart right at the center.

Siron’s underwear had been soaked through with heat, and the thought that it had all begun because of Isaac’s kiss stirred Baekgyeong’s mood into a bitter churn once more. No matter how much he tried to push the scene away, it clung to his mind like a foul afterimage, gnawing at his nerves.

At least one thing came out of it.

Through last night’s dangerous little experiment, they learned two important truths. The first: Siron’s pheromones were highly volatile. Though they had filled the room to bursting, within three or four hours they were completely gone. Isaac speculated, “The molecular structure must be small and light—like lemon scent. It spreads quickly, but doesn’t linger in the air.” By contrast, Baekgyeong’s alpha pheromones were distinctly different—heavier, slower to evaporate, and lasting much longer.

The second discovery: the pheromone compounds that triggered sexual arousal faded even before the scent itself. Long after Baekgyeong had stopped releasing his pheromones, the scent still hung in the air, yet Siron no longer showed signs of arousal.

Now they were on an airplane. Daniel had rented an eighteen-seat charter jet under Siron’s fake identity through an agency. There were no flight attendants, but alcohol and catering had been prepared, and all the seats were recliners.

Baekgyeong was drinking wine from the minibar. Siron was catching up on lost sleep. Isaac sat with his laptop, reviewing documents—records left behind by his informant, concerning Joseph Elliott and Inigo Mendoza.

While Siron and Baekgyeong had been tangled in heat, Isaac had been risking his life, fighting and eluding Hybris trackers. A few days ago he had recounted the story with extreme restraint, as if summarizing the plot of a film.

And Baekgyeong realized with a jolt that in that narrative, he was nothing more than a background extra, at best a nuisance character whose only role was to get in the way.

He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t strong enough now to flaunt his pride. And he knew: the moment he lost his “use,” Isaac would dispose of him without hesitation. Which meant he had to endure. Even if it was humiliating, he had to remain useful.

“Isaac was a boy you could never see into. He never went through the adolescence others his age did. He simply watched others calmly. Though he was a subject of research, he also recorded the researchers and everyone around him like CCTV. That composure—so cold for his age—would send chills through me.”

Baekgyeong thought of Dr. Tigri, the physician who had come every weekend to the closed ward to examine him and talk about the hidden truths of alpha and omega traits. She was a middle-aged woman of plain appearance, always wearing her black hair braided loosely over one shoulder.

She had met Isaac Bazelli during the national security project AX-66, which sought to use the alpha subspecies for military ends. Remembering those times, she would sometimes recount to Baekgyeong stories of what had happened at the research facility. Books& Literature

After his one year in protective custody, he had spent three years in the closed ward, facing endless solitude. Dr. Tigri had been the one to build a bridge to reality for him, helping him adapt to the world outside. And then she had passed away, lost after a long illness.

Thinking of how he had been unable to attend the funerals of either of the two women who had meant so much in his life, Baekgyeong swallowed down the surge of emotion rising in his throat.

His gaze, heavy with gloom, drifted to the window. Their plane was leaving Belzoras behind, flying over the Gulf of Mexico. Their destination was Hel Sota State, but they had chosen Dallas International Airport in Texas as their port of entry, not Hel Sota’s Acker International Airport. The odds were too high that observers lay in wait there to catch sight of Isaac and the two Asian men with him.

After reviewing thousands of airports across the U.S., they had concluded that Dallas offered the best conditions—far enough from Hel Sota, crowded enough to blend into. They would spend one night in Texas before moving on to Baggers City.

Their first stop in Baggers City was the McCarthy siblings’ house. They needed to secure the rut suppressants left there. Isaac’s rut cycle was due in about ten days, but with Siron nearby, it was entirely possible his rut could be triggered earlier.

If the rut arrived, Isaac would turn into a beast swept up by instinct. With pursuers on their tail, if Siron were exposed and dragged into Isaac’s frenzy, the consequences would be unpredictable.

If Siron’s true identity were revealed in this situation... it would be a disaster.