It was amazing what fucking an omega through his heat could do for your energy. Lidon hated to admit it but Enar had been right. He had needed to blow off steam and release hormones. In that case, needy Vieno had been perfect for him, ‘cause the little omega had sucked every last drop from his body.

Lidon had been hungry for days afterward, but he’d felt better than he had in months. Even his partner had commented on it, noting Lidon’s changed energy level and, as he worded it, lack of crabbiness. Apparently, he’d been somewhat of an ass. He’d laughed it off, but it had been embarrassing as fuck. His stubborn refusal to fuck hadn’t been the best idea, in hindsight.

Two weeks later, he hadn't heard a peep from Vieno or Palani. Not that he’d expected flowers or a fucking gift basket, but a short acknowledgment of some sort would have been nice. Especially since he wouldn’t mind a repeat when Vieno’s next heat arrived. 

He hesitated to approach them himself. First, because of the power differential and a double one in his case, being both an alpha and a cop. He didn’t want them to feel beholden or obligated. The relationship between Palani and Vieno made him reluctant to interfere as well. No matter what they called it, they loved each other, and Lidon had no intention of breaking couples up.

He thought about Vieno often, though. The sex had been…amazing, but it had been more than that. Lidon genuinely liked him and that formed a complication he had no easy answer to. He’d connected with Vieno on a deeper level than mere sex, but it felt inappropriate considering his relationship with Palani. As an alpha, he outranked him, so unless they were married—and they weren’t, he’d checked in the public records—Palani stood no chance against an alpha if Lidon pursued Vieno. Not that he had any intention of doing so. He loathed home wreckers and had zero desire to become one. His weird fascination with Vieno and Palani would fade over time. 

He could ask Enar to reach out to them. They’d spoken to each other since but not about this. It would be as good a reason as any to call his friend and hang out, maybe help Enar out while they were at it. The last time they'd met like that was, what, two months ago? The man must be aching by now.

He also wanted to talk to Palani about the threats against him. If what Vieno said was true—and the little omega couldn’t lie worth shit, if Lidon had to appraise his skills at deception—he’d have to find out who was behind it. Palani’s exposé had been brutal, though thoroughly fact-checked, and Lidon hadn’t doubted the truth about the four specific officers he had named.

The suggestion that these four weren't isolated incidents but pointed toward a much bigger problem, one deeply ingrained in the system and culture of the force, had gotten his back up. He’d been on the force for ten years now, and while he knew bad apples still sat amongst many good officers, he refused to believe the problem was as widespread as Palani suggested.

That being said, if fellow boys in blue resorted to intimidation and threats, even vandalism to scare Palani into shutting up, Lidon would not stand for it. He had to find out if it was true, and if so, who was behind it. Most likely, the cops involved were related to the four cops named in the article who all had been suspended first, then fired. Did they have family on the force? Or partners? 

It was on his mental to-do list to perform a little discreet digging with Palani, which also happened to be a great excuse to see if Vieno would be open for a repeat. His alpha approved of that plan, humming his pleasure inside him.

First, he wanted to do a follow up on the Excellon case. He’d dropped it with white-collar but received nothing but deafening silence as a response. Time for a friendly visit, so he headed over to the desk of Charlene, one of the few females on that team. She wasn’t an actual detective—as a female omega that was impossible—but she possessed strong analytic skills, excelled at collecting and organizing information, and Lidon liked her instincts in reading people. She’d proven to be rarely wrong when assessing motives.

“Hi Charlene,” he greeted her, folding himself in the desk chair of her absent co-worker. “How are the girls doing?”

She had three daughters, and she had not let up until she’d married all three of them off to officers. Granted, they were pretty girls, but since Lidon didn’t lean that way, he’d escaped her matchmaking efforts.

“All three are pregnant,” Charlene said, her face beaming. “There must have been something in the air.”

“Congratulations,” Lidon said. “Well done, Mama.”

“That’s Gramma now but thank you. What can I do for you, sexy?”

The woman could have been his mother, but she still flirted with him and he loved her for it. As a long-time married woman—and married to one of the highest-ranking officers on the force—she got away with it.

“Have you heard anything from Ryland about an investigation into bribery around birth control meds?” he asked lowering his voice. Little in this division got past Charlene.

Her playful expression morphed into a serious one. “No. Should I have?”

He sighed. He’d known it had been a long shot. “I alerted him to a possible case a week or three ago, after an arrest I made.”

“He hasn’t asked me to research anything and I’m the first step in any investigative process here. Who are the key players?”

“There’s a medicine called Excellon, a new birth control method for male omegas that, according to my sources, is far more effective than the three existing ones. My suspect was arrested for illegal distribution of said meds, but he claims insurance companies are putting pressure on doctors to not prescribe it, since it’s expensive. He suggested bribes may be involved as well.”

She tapped her front teeth with her pencil. “If that’s the case, I would expect competitors to be a part of it, since they stand to lose a lot of money if they lose their market share.”

“Yeah, that's what I figured, and I told Ryland as much.”

Something flashed over her face. “Ryland has…other priorities at the moment,” she then said. 

Lidon pursed his lips. “Whose attention do I need to bring it to so it gets priority?”

“You just did.”

They shared a look that spoke volumes. 

“But Lidon, you’ll want to be extremely careful around Ryland. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

His stomach swirled uneasy. Charlene was not a gossiper, so this gave her words a ton of meaning. “Loud and clear,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I’ll find you,” Charlene said. “Now shoo, sexy. I have work to do.”

Lidon thought it over as he headed back to his own desk. What was Ryland involved in that made Charlene so worried? His first thought was Palani's article. The four cops he’d exposed were from a different division, but white collar would offer a prime investment for certain companies, wouldn’t it? If you bought a cop or two there, you’d either not get investigated for shit you pulled, or get a timely heads up.  

That line of thinking made his stomach roll even more. It was a sad day when you couldn’t trust your brothers in blue anymore. It kept simmering in the back of his head till the end of his shift when he got a call on his personal cell from Enar. Few people possessed that number, so he always had it turned on to be reachable by the people that mattered most to him.

“What’s up?” he greeted his friend.

It took a little while before Enar spoke, but that silence alerted Lidon already to what followed. “Yellow.”

His voice sounded muffled, emotional. “Okay,” Lidon said. “I got you. My shift ends in an hour. Wanna meet at my house?”

“Yeah. I’ll wait for you.”

“Good. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He’d known this was coming, he mused as he drove home after finishing up paperwork from an arrest he’d made earlier that day. It had been a while since they’d met like this. He tried to pinpoint the date. Two months? Maybe even be closer to three.

The last time had been a middle of the night call after Enar performed an emergency surgery on the victim of a brutal rape. Cases like that always hit him hard, and he’d needed the release. Lidon suspected something similar had triggered tonight’s code yellow. Enar would stubbornly hang on until something tipped the balance, and he’d call Lidon. 

Lidon’s house—if you could even still call it that, considering it was more of a mansion—sat on a hill, overlooking a hundred acres of land surrounding the house and the various other buildings. The property was fenced off with the white fence common to the area, but the house itself was protected by a much larger closed fence with a main gate that required a code to get in.

It had been the Hayes family estate for generations, Lidon’s father had explained to him when he turned eighteen. Lidon wasn’t sure what his family had done in the past to be able to afford it and he’d never gotten the chance to ask his fathers. Lidon had still been in college when a drunk driver hit his parents’ car head on as they were on their way back from a concert. As an only child, he’d inherited everything from them, including this estate. He still missed them but was happy to live in a home that held many warm, loving memories for him. 

That being said, the house was ridiculously big for him. He’d closed off a good portion of the main house, only using the few rooms he needed. Once upon a time, he had hoped to fill the house with his kids, but first Matteo’s death and then Rodrick’s betrayal had ended that dream. He’d considered selling it, but the thought had left such a bad taste in his mouth he had pushed it aside.

When he turned his car into the driveway to the main house, the lights inside were already on. Good. That meant Enar had let himself in with his key, which was exactly what the purpose of having a key was. Enar loved coming here because of the privacy Lidon’s house provided compared to Enar’s own modest townhouse. Lidon had offered his friend to move in on more than one occasion, but Enar had always refused without giving a clear reason, so Lidon had let it go.

When he walked in from the garage, he heard Enar moving around in the kitchen. “Beer?” his friend called out.

“Coke,” he shouted back. He dumped his bag in the hallway and kicked off his shoes. He put his gun in the gun safe in his office before walking into the kitchen, unbuttoning his uniform shirt. “And you’d better not be drinking either. You know I don’t want to mix alcohol with this.”

Enar held up his can of Selzer. “I know, sorry.”

Damn, he looked like death warmed over. He always had a tan, but his skin was pale and dark circles betrayed his exhaustion. Lidon took a few appreciative gulps of his Coke before he spoke. “What happened?”

Enar shook his head. “I can’t. Maybe later. After.”

“Okay. You on call?”

His friend shook his head. “No. My phone is off. You?”

“Nope. Just came off my sixth consecutive day. I’m off for two now.”

Enar looked around the kitchen, then smiled a little. “About time. This place is a pigsty, man.”

Dirty dishes were stacked high on the counter next to foil wrappers from microwave meals, and a ton of empty cans. Lidon was well aware his fridge stocked a few questionable food items and his freezer was almost entirely covered in frost. “Yeah.”

“You need a housekeeper.”

“You know why I don’t have one.”

“Is your privacy worth that much?”

Lidon lifted an eyebrow. “You wanna ask me that again when you sneak out tomorrow morning?”

“Touché,” Enar admitted. 

Lidon took the last few gulps of his Coke. “Let’s shower.”

“I haven’t finished my drink yet,” Enar protested, as he always did. It was like he needed this reminder, this bit of force to be able to let go.

“I wasn’t asking, Enar,” Lidon said, his voice deceptively friendly. Then he allowed his alpha to come through full force. “Shower. Now.”

* * *

Lidon’s alpha power rolled through him, making it impossible to resist. It was ten kinds of fucked up, but Enar let go. He needed this, craved it to find some semblance of peace in his head. 

He followed Lidon into his bedroom where he stripped without saying another word and then turned on the shower. He waited till it reached the right temperature, then stood patiently till Lidon had stepped under the double shower head and indicated he could come in. This was all part of the ritual he needed, and he could already feel his anxiety retreat. 

They washed themselves, Lidon studying him with those assessing brown eyes. Eyes that could be as warm and kind as a Labrador dog, but also as cold and calculating as a hawk. He missed little, and his brain always tried to find patterns, reasons, explanations. Those analytical skills made him such an excellent cop.

“You done?” Lidon asked after a few minutes. His long, dark hair stuck against his head, curling in his neck. He needed a haircut, Enar thought. It was way past the norm for cops—not that Lidon worried about sticking to those norms. 

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

They both knew what his words meant beyond the fact he was done showering. He wanted this, but as always, Lidon would give him several opportunities to change his mind. In all those years, he never had, but that didn’t stop his best friend from checking. 

They both toweled off, Enar taking a moment to admire Lidon’s body. He possessed an innate grace to his movements, every motion fluid and controlled. Broad shoulders connected to strong arms, a well-developed chest. His legs stood long, his hips lean and his ass firm and tight. It was hard to say what his best feature was, because he had many. That aristocratic face, maybe, that hinted of Slavic forefathers, at some point? Personally, Enar was partial to his cock, which stood thick and long and split him open in the best way. 

“Come,” Lidon said and the simple word caused Enar to shiver and break out in goosebumps. 

He hung up his towel and walked into the bedroom, to the unmade king size bed. Housekeeping was not Lidon’s forte. Not that Enar cared, not even in the least. He loved smelling his strong alpha scent in the sheets as Lidon fucked him till he had nothing left to give. The thought alone made him tremble.

This part was a ritual, too. Him planting himself face down on the mattress, burying his head in Lidon’s pillow so he wouldn’t have to see, to talk. They included no kissing, nothing romantic. He needed a hard fuck, and he was damn lucky he had a trustworthy friend willing to provide it. If anyone found out what they did, his career would be over.

It was one thing for Lidon to fuck another alpha. As an alpha, you could get away with that because you were supposed to be the dominating partner. No, it would be Enar who would be vilified for letting another alpha take him.  For an alpha, it was about the worst thing that could be said about you. It was unnatural, people said, against the very core of who he was supposed to be.

For Enar, it was very much who he was…hell, what kept him sane, the ability to surrender to Lidon every now and then and let himself be taken, instead of being the aggressor, the dominant one. He was so damn lucky that Lidon agreed to take care of him, time and again. What they did constituted the ultimate pity fuck, and yet there had to be something in it for his best friend, because he’d been undeniably hard every single time and never had trouble reaching a climax.

A lubed finger tapped his hole, and he relaxed to let him in. Unlike omegas, he had no natural lubrication and his channel was a lot less flexible, so Lidon had to prep him well, which he always did. The finger fucking made a sloshing sound and Enar sought friction with his cock against the sheets. 

“You’d better not come before me,” Lidon warned him in that deceptively mild tone of his. It was fucking deadly, because people tended to underestimate how serious he was. Boy, did they find out when they ignored that first mild order. An angry Lidon was a frightening sight.

“I know,” Enar mumbled into the pillow, letting out a small groan when a second finger demanded entry. 

It took a few minutes before he was loose enough. He never rushed Lidon. No one told Lidon what to do. He was the epitome of an alpha, unlike Enar who demonstrated at this very moment what a sorry excuse for an alpha he was, at least according to society.

He pulled up his legs, spreading himself wide open for the taking. His skin prickled with anticipation, like a low charge dancing across his body. His breath rushed out when Lidon pushed in and breached that first line of defense. He didn’t wait, but steadily entered him, inch by inch, splitting him open in that indescribable mix of pain and pleasure.

“S-so good,” he said through clenched teeth. 

“I know,” was the calm answer.

Lidon didn’t wait for Enar to adjust, because that was exactly the point. It wasn’t about him, about his pleasure—it was about being taken for Lidon’s enjoyment and fulfillment. And so the alpha took him with slow, deep thrusts that made his eyes water at first and his breath come out in puffs. Then Lidon sped up and sank deep inside him, that powerful body filling him completely.

“You are so damn tight,” Lidon said, underlining his statement with a powerful thrust. 

Enar moaned, finally closing his eyes, causing two tears to start their descent down his cheeks. His body burned, his ass throbbing in the best way and his dick leaking with pleasure. He ached like he'd grown too big for his skin, like it could rip open at any second, making him explode. 

“What do you say to your alpha when he compliments you?”

He should fight this dominance, should battle Lidon for it, but why would he when he craved it all along? So he surrendered, his body relaxing, even as Lidon fucked him deep. “Thank you, alpha.”

Lidon let out an appreciative rumble, the sound echoing through the room. He sped up, his thrusts coming faster now, an indication he was about to blow his first load. Enar held on to the sheets, his head still buried in the pillow. He didn’t dare to move, not when he was so close to coming himself. He couldn’t, not in this situation, not when he acted like a beta. Alphas came first, that’s how it worked. Besides, he didn’t even want to climax first. That was not what this was about.

“Ugh!” Lidon shouted as his cock inside Enar spasmed, then released warm liquid. God, he loved the sensation of being filled with spunk. It was so wrong, yet so wonderfully filthy and right. 

Lidon’s whole body trembled before he sighed with contentment. “Damn, that was good.”

He kept fucking him lazily, his cock still hard. The man had serious stamina, even with another alpha. He wouldn’t knot him, though technically he could if he wanted to. Younger alphas had little control over their knot, as it was usually triggered by sex with an omega, but more experienced ones like Lidon could knot when they wanted to, regardless of their partner. Few alphas ever did it with betas since their channels weren’t as flexible as omegas'. But if you had a partner who got off on a bit of pain, knotting was supposed to feel exquisite. Maybe, some day. 

For now, Enar was happy with whatever Lidon chose to share with him, knowing that what he requested of his friend was anything but ordinary. Lidon had never turned him down when he’d reached his yellow, his own perceived edge of sanity. 

Enar’s hole made sloppy sounds now that Lidon pushed his cum out of it, a big gush dripping down Enar’s crack. It was fucking hot, this sound, this sensation. His body tightened, his balls pulled flush against his body. He balled his fists, fighting back the orgasm that had already started to build inside him. He wouldn’t let go, not until…

Enar waited for it, the words that would set him free, release his pent-up frustration and anxiety and stress. 

Lidon waited a minute before he spoke, thrusting in deep all that time. “Come for me.”

Enar threw his head back and came without ever touching his cock.

They took another shower after they had both come a second time. There was no touching, no lingering intimacy. In many ways, this was kind of a business deal where they both got what they needed. 

“You look like crap,” Lidon said when they got dressed again.

Enar couldn’t help but laugh. “Always the charmer, aren’t you?”

Lidon shrugged. “There’s no need for me to charm you.”

That, at least, was true. They’d known each other since kindergarten. They’d stayed friends in high school, then attended the same university, playing football together—though Enar’s career on the team had been short-lived, since he lacked the necessary aggression for that sport. He and Lidon had remained friends since, though friends didn't capture their complicated relationship. Lidon was one of the very few people who knew Enar’s secret.

“I’ve been working a lot,” Enar explained.

“What happened today that got you so upset?”  

Enar had known he wouldn’t let go. Lidon was willing to provide the release, but he always wanted the whole picture. “I lost a patient. A regular.”

Lidon turned toward him as he pulled up clean jeans. “How?”

“He…he bled out after giving birth to his fifth child.”

“Fifth?” Lidon’s eyes grew big. 

“Yeah. I told him after the second he was high risk, but his alpha… He only had daughters and he wanted a son. An alpha or beta, preferably.”

Lidon shook his head, his face tight. “Did the baby make it?”

“Yeah.” Enar swallowed back bile that rose up in his throat. “It’s a boy. A healthy alpha boy. His omega daddy is dead, but apparently, that was a price his alpha father was willing to pay.”

Lidon’s anger showed in the brusque gesture with which he pulled a clean T-shirt over his head. “Selfish bastard.”

With tired movements, Enar lowered himself on the bed, wincing when his ass reminded him of his activities minutes before. “We’re failing them, Lidon,” he said, putting on his socks. “We’re failing omegas, especially the men. I see the results every day.”

He put his feet back on the floor. Lidon was fully dressed now, leaning against the wall. 

“They don’t have the access to the same medical care we do. Omegas need permission for treatments crucial to their health from their parents or partners, and that’s not even taking into consideration all other decisions they can’t legally make. They’re third rate citizens, as Palani worded it, and he’s right. We’re failing them on every level.”

“I hear what you’re saying and it’s not that I don’t agree with you, but aside from trying to do better ourselves, what can we do? This is the law that’s in place. You and I, we can’t change that,” Lidon said. 

“If we keep saying that, nothing will ever change. Someone has to take the first step, and it has to be more than doing something on a personal level.”

“Like what?” Lidon wasn’t attacking him. He was trying to understand, to gather the facts, like he always did.

“I have no idea,” he said, his shoulders dropping. “I wanna do more but no clue where to start.”

“Enar, no one else does as much for omegas as you do, and you do it all for free. I don’t know how you could possibly do more without completely losing yourself. You’re already spreading yourself thin, my friend.”

“I know,” Enar said, miserable. “I feel so powerless, but there has got to be something we can do, something that other more progressive alphas can do. If only I could figure out what.”

Lidon, ever the pragmatist, said, “If you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime, why don’t you give me a hand in somewhat sanitizing my kitchen before we throw some steaks on the grill?”