Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Nine years later

The pebble rips through air and punctures the small, paper target in the center of its red circle. Tallara whoops and takes off to get a closer look at her conquest, slingshot dangling from her right hand. 

Max watches all of this from the top of the sand dune, only reaching up to adjust his spectacles so he can witness his eldest tear down the target and grin as she admires her work. Bloody good shot , he thinks and raises a thumb when she looks at him for confirmation. Bloody good shot, beauty. Thankfully, she inherited Arthur’s sharp-shooting abilities, a very valuable skill on the wastelands.

“Dead center!” she shouts, running back, the paper target fluttering in the breeze behind her. “That means I can ride with you soon!”

She’s been pestering him for ages about joining the alphas on a supply run to Bartertown, and Max has been more or less avoiding the topic. “Slingshot’s not a gun,” he shorthands, gathering the apparatus from her, and knowing Tallara will be able to interpret his words. She speaks Max, after all. 

She races after him on the way back to the village. “So teach me to shoot!” she yelps, jumping up at him, trying to grab first his arm and then leg. She’s wild, sometimes. Most of the time. Tallara plays rough and has been known to draw blood when jostling the other children of the village.

“No,” he mutters, and then seeing the raw outrage in her eyes, adds: “Not yet.”

“When?!”

Max doesn’t speak because he doesn’t have a real answer. How old does a child need to be to be trusted with a rifle? There’s no established answer. This world where children live long enough to learn to shoot is new. Peace is new. Could Tallara be capable of shooting? Most certainly, but Max doesn’t know for sure and so he’s been entirely avoiding the topic.

“Go find Arvo,” he says instead. He needs to talk to Arthur. He needs time to think.

Tallara punches the back of his thigh and runs off towards the huts.

It hurts more than Max cares to admit.

***

“You’re back early,” Arthur remarks when Max ducks into their hut. It’s one of the newer ones in the village, built by Max and the other alphas about a year ago, wider and taller than the original models to accommodate their growing families.

Arthur notices him limping — and not to nurture his bad leg with the brace — but the good one. He pieces together what happens fairly quickly and smirks: “She gave you hell, hm?”

“She’s bad and you never punish her,” Kiah mutters from her area of the hut, sitting on the ground as she roughly folds linens. 

The wearing of linens is rarer these days — most of their clothing comes from the underground malls — but they still have their use as bedding and bandages, so the tribe omegas continue to wash and care for them. The newer clothing is normally unisex and utilitarian: shirts that billow on the smaller frames of the omegas, slacks with drawstrings to fit the varying hips sizes of the tribe members, but Arthur prefers the trousers with multiple, deep pockets. Max imagines this is because he’s been denied the right to carry tools and weapons for so long.

“We punish her,” Arthur dismisses. Kiah regularly points out tribal injustices, such as Tallara’s path of destruction, which she perceives as being unmitigated and undisciplined. “I took away her doll yesterday,” he adds. Ah, see? Proof!

“She just took mine instead!” Kiah shouts, throwing down the linen.

The noise wakes Dog and the white-faced beast slowly stands, grunting with exertion, rotates once, and lays back down. He tosses a tired look Max’s way and Max immediately identifies and commiserates with the feeling.

All the commotion sets off baby Jedda, who is seated on the nest of linens that comprises their bed. She first whimpers, fidgeting as she casts a helpless look his way. It’s a warning, her eyes already brimming with tears. Max’s eyes. The exact same shade. Eerie business. The slightest bit of upheaval makes her bray. Probably an omega , he thinks, not for the first time. The quick tears have always reminded him of Conch.

The Many Mothers have blessed Max with four children — all girls. The youngest is the baby Mia, who blissfully slumbers in her crib, which is not a crib, but instead more soft sheets. Arthur crawls over to make sure she’s still resting. She is, her thick lashes dark smudges on fat cheeks. Dark hair, amber eyes, just like Arthur.

“Quiet,” Arthur hisses at Kiah, the underlying threat enough to silence her. The threat of disappointing Arthur is oftentimes enough to quiet their children, and not for the first time, he thanks Walhalla for sending him his stubborn omega bride as a mate.

Kiah switches strategies and looks to him instead of Arthur. 

“You take her to practice targets and never me.”

“She’s older. She’s the big sister,” Arthur answers for him, but Kiah’s gaze is unrelenting as she glares at him, awaiting an answer. Max’s fingers fidget at his side. Now, all his awake daughters and Arthur are looking at him, waiting for him to rule. What to say? What to say ?

“Go find Arvo,” he says.

***

Kiah storms from the hut, slapping and then kicking the hide behind her. It barely makes a noise and hardly ruffles the leather. Ineffective, at best. She’s breathing hard and kicks up clouds of dirt as she storms towards Arvo’s hut. 

She’s so angry that she doesn’t notice Gurumarra until he’s a dark smudge in her peripheral and a sharp shoulder in her side. “Ow,” she greets.

“Where’re you going?” he asks, smirking down at her. Gur’s hair is dark and wild, his eyes intense. He’s a tall alpha child, the tallest of their litter — that first wave of children in the village that The Dag calls the Miracle: five children all born healthy in the middle of the desert. No miscarriages. The Many Mothers favor them, surely. 

“Arvo,” she simply answers.

He hums in recognition, identifying her destination for what it is — a dismissal, a redirection of chaotic energy into friendly territory. “I broke Alpa’s spyglass,” he replies, an abbreviation for admitting he’s disobeyed the rules as well and is therefore being sent to Arvo’s hut to give his parents, The Dag and Gadget, time to recover.

When they reach the hut, she can hear Tallara shrieking inside. Kiah frowns, wearing her best scowl, as they dip inside. Arvo is seated on the floor, bits of charcoal and paper spread out before him, one of which Tallara is cradling like a precious gem. 

“Arvo drew me!” she announces, showing the other children the likeness that Kiah begrudgingly admits (only to herself) looks very much like her sister.

They’ve seen themselves, of course, but only glimpses in the lake’s placid reflection. Seeing one’s self embedded on parchment is different. It’s permanent, or feels permanent, even though paper can burn. So maybe not permanent , but...worshipful. Kiah feels jealous and scared, for some reason. Maybe because she thinks no one will ever want to draw her, not even Arvo, who loves all the children as if they were his own.

He notices her flushed cheeks, the rapid rise and fall of her flat chest. Arvo pats the ground beside him. “Come sit,” he offers, and clears the papers. “What’s the sentence?” he teases as she sits.

“It’s not fair!” Kiah erupts, surprising them all, “They love Tallara more than me!”

“I punched Alpa,” Tallara interrupts, swept up by the spirit of confession. 

She may not have been listening to Kiah at all. Or maybe it’s a compulsive need to one-up her sister. She then pauses to reconsider, “But he told me to come here before I punched him.”

“What did you do before?” asks Arvo.

Tallara furrows her brow, thinking. Sometimes she forgets her acts while on the war path. This angers Kiah even more. “You don’t think!” is all she can manage to shriek.

“Okay…” Arvo soothes, appeasing them, smiling. It’s a nice face. Open, friendly. The eyes are bright, the nose large.

Thanks to the calendar, a hand-painted gift from Toast, they have been able to track the days and years, and so they know Arvo is nineteen — that he came to the village nine years ago after escaping the Rock Rider Chief. Those are the only details Kiah knows and she can’t imagine their village without the beta. It would be like trying to imagine the earth without the sun.

He’s large for a beta, oftentimes mistaken for an alpha on the rare occasions when foreigners have visited their village. Sometimes, when spotting him on the horizon, she confuses his back for Gadget’s such is his height and the width of his shoulders. The giveaway is always the limp, about which she knows almost nothing, other than it was given to him by the Rock Rider Chief, and he was an evil man whom she thanks the Many Mothers every night for smiting.

The Chief and Joe were devils and it’s good they’re gone. Of this, Kiah is certain, even though she’s mostly only heard of these men in the tales Gadget tells them by the fire at night. In Kiah’s mind, these evil men are huge, like gods, but the alphas of her village and Furiosa are strong and work together to kill them.

“I broke Alpa’s spyglass,” Gur tells Arvo, tearing Kiah from her waking dream.

Arvo hums, processing this grave information. “Better sit in here for a bit.”

Which, of course, is what they want to hear. The children gather giddily at his feet as he draws them one-by-one, even Kiah, who feels enormous relief when she gazes down at her likeness. Secretly, she thinks maybe Tallara’s likeness is more beautiful, but Gur leans over and looks at the drawing and says, “Your eyes are right,” which makes her happy because she thinks they look lovely in the sketch. 

Alpa always claims they both look like Ompa, but Kiah doesn’t think it’s true. Or maybe Tallara got all of Arthur’s fair features: his eyes, his smile, and Kiah got all of the leftover genetic scraps. She doesn’t know the answer or mathematical equation, but she knows she is not as beautiful as her sister, not that anyone would ever mistake Tallara as being beautiful while she storms about, wreaking havoc.

“Thank you,” she whispers, which makes Arvo smile, and she forgets to be mad for a little while.

Just then, the hides part and the brood of Conch and Daku: Rabi, Bindi, and Yarran are standing in the hut’s entrance, the two boys dwarfing their flaxen-haired sister. This time, Arvo doesn’t bother to ask about crimes committed. A large hand simply waves them inside.

“Plenty of room.”

***

The truth is this: The children did nothing wrong, and Conch is almost sick with guilt, as is his inclination, until Daku pins him against the hut’s wall and kisses and nips the side of his throat. A large hand shoves down the front of his trousers, fingers exploring the hot, wet heat between his thighs as Conch pants and grabs fistfuls of his hair in between casting helpless looks at the sleeping bundle of Alira.

She’s still asleep, praise Walhalla, their youngest of four. They would have had more — would have had one hundred children based on their rutting habits — were it not for the birth control that periodically comes from the underground shops. Conch is grateful for the medicine that allows them to feed the whole village with their available crops, and for keeping his body in a condition that can accomodate Daku when he is like this: burning hot, forceful, rough in a way that leaves Conch breathless and whimpering.

They don’t make it to the linens. Daku yanks the trousers from his legs and suddenly he is in the air, legs wrapped around Daku’s waist, barely registering that Daku’s trousers are open and he’s so hard that it hurts when his cock jabs his thigh, searching, and then—

“Ah!” Conch cries, jostling hard against the wall as Daku thrusts. 

His vision swims before his eyes entirely close and he thumps against the hut’s wall, gasping and moaning. Best of all are the sounds emanating from Daku: animalistic grunts, the throaty moans. Conch is desperate, grabbing for him, wanting to coax more of the noises from his mate. Daku’s face is flushed from exertion, veins all raised and saluting at the surface of his perspiring skin. His beautiful rage.

Daku eventually sets him down and turns the omega before Conch obediently bends over, forearms braced against the wall and head bowed, as the alpha knots him, tenderly cupping a breast, the calloused thumb pad grazing a nipple and pinching.

They collapse on the bedding afterwards, Conch having the presence of mind to pull a sheet over their partially naked forms. The children have not exactly been subtle the few times they’ve walked in on their parents naked post-coitus. Loud shrieking is not a soothing way to wake up after a firm rutting.

“We shouldn’t have sent them away,” Conch sighs, Daku’s broad chest burning hot against his back. He happily moans when the alpha wraps a strong arm around his waist and shifts his hips.

“They’ll be fine,” Daku replies, kissing the back of his neck and burying his face in Conch’s thick hair, breathing deeply. He shakes out his arm, the fingers flexing and wriggling.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, frowning.

“Safe,” the alpha quickly answers, playfully biting his shoulder and Conch laughs, forgetting to feel worried for at least a little while.

They sleep long enough for the knot to soften, until Alira wakes and fearfully whimpers when she temporarily thinks she’s alone. Conch sighs and climbs to his feet, finding a linen to wrap around his waist before he tends to his daughter and lifts her gently to his breast. He sits on the ground, carefully stroking the down of her hot little crown, and glances back to Daku.

The alpha is laying on his back, extending and flexing the same arm, frowning as he looks at his fingers. When he sees Conch looking at him, Daku folds the arm behind his head and smirks.

“We should send them to Arvo’s more often.”

Conch smirks and shakes his head. His mate is incorrigible.

They’re dressed and innocently seated side-by-side by the time the sprogs return from Arvo’s hut and yet their eldest still offers a knowing look when he enters. Rabi is taller than his siblings and darker in complexion, the remnants of Joe, although the boy doesn’t know this. To him, Daku is his biological father.

“How is Arvo?” Conch asks, brows blamelessly raised.

Rabi rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer, simply returning to the task he had been toiling over pre-exhilement: carving small toys for some of the younger children, which Conch suspects is simply an excuse to hold a knife. Like many of the older boys in the village, Rabi is hungry to hunt and attend supply runs with the alphas, and he may suspect proving he is adept with a knife will attract Daku’s attention.

Daku, however, is distracted this evening. His brow is furrowed, gaze far off. As Bindi and Yarran immediately begin to fight over one of Rabi’s carved treasures, Conch catches his gaze and implores with his own.

“Think I’ll skip dinner tonight,” says Daku, “I need to rest.”

Conch nods slowly. “I’ll bring you a plate.”

Later, once they’ve returned from supper and the sprogs are curled up in their respective spots to slumber, Daku’s embrace is fierce, his kisses a little urgent. Conch tries not to feel afraid and to simply accept them with the usual pleasure and gratitude.

“I love you,” Daku whispers against his lips.

“I love you.”

From the darkness, Yarran makes a loud retching noise and Daku picks up one of the wooden toys to toss at him as Conch hides his laughter in the sheets.

***

Gadget keeps the pieces of his spyglass. At first, he believed he could fix the small telescope, and the truth is, he could if he wanted to. Gadget prides himself on being able to fix anything , but he refuses to fix the spyglass because he wants Gur to appreciate the enormity of his mistake.

“Throw it away,” says Dag, hunched over her box of seeds, carefully — so carefully — and painstakingly sorting them. 

As if an obsessive can’t understand the thinking of another obsessive.

The Mothers have a strange sense of humor to gift a man who fixes everything with a son who seems solely capable of destruction.

From outside their hut, he hears the barking of Dog and can already see in his mind’s eye the old beast hurrying to keep up with the children: Definitely Gur and probably his siblings: Entity, named after the founder of Bartertown (or so the story goes), and Waru, a name that could have only manifested in the head of his beloved mate. 

Gadget and The Dag’s children are tall and strong and prone to breaking things and finding trouble and it makes him nervous. Gone are the days where he fears exilement, but he feels guilt stemming from a sense of obligation. His job is to fix, to build, and yet his children…

From outside, a loud crack and one of the children crying: “Gur!”

His gaze must be exasperated because The Dag stands and says, “I’ll go” before she dips outside and gives a little cry of surprise when Daku is standing in her way. 

The other alpha awkwardly loiters before he mumbles, “Gadget?” and he dips down a bit so Daku can see him.

“In here, brother.” He swiftly hides the broken spyglass. No need to share the news that his eldest is rebelling against his father’s very nature. Maybe they’ll always be diametrically opposed. Maybe Gur will kill him one day in his sleep. He offers a sunny smile. “How goes it?”

Daku is pale, his face grave, which causes the smile to melt from his face.

“Something…” He glances at the hut’s closed flaps. “Something happened. Last night.” 

The statement is so vague that Gadget simply looks at him, brow furrowed. Daku sighs, frustrated, and Gadget knows him well enough to understand his aggravation is with himself and not Gadget. He simply can’t find the words. No , Gadget recalculates. He has the words but he’s afraid to utter them aloud. This enormously interests him because he can count on one hand the times he’s seen Daku afraid in thousands of days of knowing the man.

“My fingers…” Here he shows them to Gadget, but they look fine and so he looks back to Daku, confused. “They went numb. My whole arm…” he trails off, gaze sliding to the base of the hut and shakes his head. And still Gadget doesn’t understand until he finishes: “It’s my heart, I think. Some of the men, the older men, in Bullet Town had the same thing happen and the Many Mothers took them soon after.”

Everything suddenly goes very quiet. Gadget can’t even hear the children. Have they stopped playing? Maybe not. It’s hard to think.

“Still?”

“No, it passed. This time, it passed.”

I thought you would live forever . The thought is so stupid, so childish, so unforgivably petulant that he will never say them aloud. Everything burns, everyone dies. It is written. And the limitless scope of Gadget’s love won’t change that certainty.

And yet, the idea of Daku being dead one day is so strange. He is Gadget’s oldest living friend, the toughest man he's ever known, and to be told that he will die one day is as if someone told Gadget the law of gravity no longer applies. No, no , he would say. That can’t be right.

“Maybe it won’t happen again.”

Daku offers an exhausted look. “It will. And then you. And then Max.”

He says the order with such conviction that it’s almost as if he’s seen these events unfold. And of course Gadget knows he’s aging. The stress of how hard they’ve fought for their land has aged them all. The three alphas are all graying, all move a bit slower than they did all those years ago when they first founded the village.

“We have our children,” he says, feeling a surge of hope. Future generations have been secured. Their children will live in the village and have children and those children will reproduce on and on ad infinitum. Their children will care for them someday when they are too old to fight or be useful, but in all likelihood they’ll die before that can ever happen. 

“Our children are still young,” says Daku, “Gur and Rabi won’t be able to fight for many more years.”

That’s true. No matter how determined Gur is to prove himself a man, his little hands can barely cradle a rifle and he’s still too small to handle a motorcycle the weight of three grown men. Left on their own, they would die within seven days.

Gadget doesn’t know why Daku is telling him these things and he offers a helpless look. Is there no hope?

“We need more alphas,” says Daku. “Younger than us, to close the gap between us and our children. To give them time to grow. And if we want to convince young alphas to live here, we need young omegas to serve as mates.”

The hut flaps open and The Dag begins to walk inside, but Gadget holds up a hand to indicate they need more time alone. She sneers at the gesture. 

“That’s a fine way to lose a finger,” she warns, but turns and leaves the hut. He’ll pay for that moment of oblivious thoughtlessness later.

Normally, Daku would give him hell for that interaction, but he’s distracted by his own thoughts. His eyes alight with the idea. 

“We could go to Bartertown and recruit some alphas. Trusted alphas. Alphas you know.”

This is flagrant flattery. Bribery. Daku knows that Gadget is a proud Bartertown native and would only ever trust alphas that come from his former community. A small part of him thinks that Daku may also trust his judgment — believing that, if Gadget vouches for them, they must be quality alphas.

“We need to ask Max,” Gadget replies, and Daku is surely thinking the same thing because he’s already heading for the hut’s entrance.

***

Fortunately, pulling Max from his hut is a relatively easy task given that, from the chaotic sounds ricocheting about inside, his girls are raging and Arthur is fighting to keep order. He emerges from the hut with a heavy sigh and immediately walks towards the pen. 

They cross the grass that hugs the perimeter of the lake, always growing and spreading so that it almost reaches their huts now. And the crops: rows and rows of beautiful vegetables and fruits sprouting bright and wondrous from the earth, their green vines winding up wooden poles. 

Every time Gadget sees the crops, he feels a surge of pride, and today he makes a mental note to apologize later to The Dag for being rude. Although, knowing his mate, he won’t get the words out before she’s upon him (not always in an entirely unpleasant way).

Inside the pen there are three goats (the original Goat passed years ago and Gadget is not too proud to admit he almost shed a tear while they ate the roasted beast’s body by the fire), and Max picks up the bucket of feed under the guise of needing to nourish the animals. In reality, feeding the goats is Arvo’s job, but Max will occasionally use the task as an excuse to speak with the other alphas when they need to address village matters out of range from the snooping ears of omegas.

He tosses a handful of grass at a black billy and stares at the men, waiting.

Daku swiftly recaps what has happened and Max slowly nods, leaning against the sloped fence. “We need to trust them,” he finally says, pointedly looking at Gadget, waiting for him to catch up and understand his words.

“Yes,” he agrees, “I know men. Some I’ve known for years, since I was a pup,” he says, reflecting on his years spent growing up in the bustling city and the plethora of Bartertown visits he’s made throughout the years, calling to mind their various faces, builds, the trivia of skills they possess that could make them useful to the village. He picks up, like stray coins, tidbits of information about these alphas, wondering if he trusts any of them enough to sleep in their presence, as he trusts Max and Daku.

But trust is built with time; time they don’t have.

The goats bleat and the men watch them. Finally, Max nods and claps his hands together, wiping the debris and soil away. “Okay,” he says and Gadget knows the matter is settled. They’ll scout Bartertown for young, fit alphas and omegas at the first opportunity. 

Gadget assumes this trip will happen in a month, perhaps two, but fate has a strange sense of humor.

***

Max whispers the news to Arthur when the girls are asleep and the dying light of the dinner fire timidly peeks into their hut. His mate listens intensely before sighing, his breath warm against Max’s throat and chest.

“Poor Daku.”

It’s not the response he’s expecting and Max hates how it makes him feel. There’s a pain in his chest, not like the warning of heart failure Daku described earlier. Something different. Something that makes him feel a bit wild and frightened. He wants to find his gun and hold it to feel its weight. He wants to gather his girls and hide them behind his body to shield them from….what, exactly? The world. Uncertainty.

His throat is tight and he shakes his head, fighting against this strange surge inside of him. He’s not dead, dammit . This was a warning, a divine message, like Max with his prescient dreams. Something to give them time: to plan, to make considerations. This world almost never provides warnings, so he should feel grateful. He should fall to his knees and pray in thanks.

“If…” 

He can’t say the rest. If — he wants to say — anything happens to me, I want you to find a new mate. I want you to find someone to care for you and the girls and I never want you to mourn a single day when I’m gone. It would kill me all over again if I knew my death caused you a moment of pain. And I know the pain is inevitable, but I want you to do everything in your power to make yourself and the girls happy again someday.

Arthur cradles his face and presses their lips together. “I know…” 

Soft whimpering pierces the darkness and Max is the one to collect Jedda and bring her to them. The babe is a wriggling, hot bundle between them and Max cannot see but he knows in that moment that Arthur is smiling as she chants “Pa...pa...A’pa.” 

He’s just gotten situated on his back when a voice manifests in his right ear.

“Can I sleep with you?” 

Max extends his arms in response so Kiah knows to crawl onto him. She’ll sleep there, splayed across his chest and stomach, and Max will focus on the thump of her small, triumphant heart.

***

Max kneels in the sand and takes a moment to adjust his glasses. He extends his hand and Gadget delivers the rifle. These days, when he looks through the sight, the red circle stares back, clear and sharp, and when he squeezes the trigger, he knows the bullet will pierce the target.

“Nice shot, brother.”

Arvo quietly tolerates this shooting session, occasionally covering his ears to shut out the loud bangs. The alphas, of course, notice this small protest, but they allow it. Arvo has always hated guns, but tolerates their presence just as he good-naturedly accepts the rest of his roles in the village.

Once, out of politeness, Gadget extends the gun to him. A silent inquiry. Arvo shakes his head and no one is surprised.

No harm done. Defending the village is the alphas’ jobs.

Even on his best day, Max can’t outshoot the other two alphas. If he shoots nothing but bullseyes, their clustering is tighter. If his clustering is tighter, then Gadget or Daku shoots faster, or from further away. They are always better, but these days he draws comfort from this reality. His mate and children will be cared for, even if he is gone.

He watches the back of Daku’s head as he shoots. The man seems...normal. Like he was before. Unfazed. And while Max knows that can’t possibly be the case — how could anyone be unshaken by the prospect of their own death? — he’s grateful for this return to familiarity. 

The only truly oblivious player is Arvo, who occasionally stares up at the hot sun in the cloudless sky and sighs, wordlessly wondering when the alphas will finish and he can go back to the village. 

When they’re done shooting, he helps carry the guns and ammo. He may be a beta, but he’s a strong lad — easily mistaken as one of them from afar — and Max has been grateful for his presence more than once, whether they need help carrying back supplies from Bartertown, digging new latrines, or wrestling some of the alpha children so they’ll be tired in time for supper.

Gadget and Arvo walk ahead of them and Max watches the men with their similar height and cut, the only difference in their gait Arvo’s limp. A casual observer could confuse them as father and son, a mistake Max knows that Arvo would relish. The lad deeply admires Gadget and used to sleep inside their hut on the nights he had terrible nightmares as a boy.

“Did I ever tell you I once saw a man catch a bullet with his teeth?” Gadget casually asks.

“That’s not true,” Arvo replies, but Max can see that his eyes are wide and knows in his bones that a long story will follow — long enough to lead them straight back to the village and cause the walk to pass in the blink of an eye.

He uses the cover of Gadget’s voice and colorful story to glance at Daku’s profile. His brow is furrowed, gaze ever intense.

“How’s…?” Max begins, nodding at his arm.

“Fine,” Daku gruffly replies, softening only when he sees Max swiftly look away. “Maybe it was all in my head.” Which is such a ridiculous notion that Max can only snort. Daku is not a hypochondriac. He’s the opposite of a hypochondriac. He’s seen the man sprain and break limbs without uttering a peep. “Yeah…” Daku agrees. 

It was not just in his head.

From ahead, Gadget’s voice raises: “I said I’ll bet my bike! I know he can do it! I’ve seen him do it before!”

“Your bike?!” Arvo replies disbelievingly, and without question, admiringly.

Their boots trudge through the sand and Max watches the grains dirty his leather and laces until he says: “We’ll take care of Conch and your boys. And Bindi.” He doesn’t know why he says Bindi’s name, or lists her separately. But it feels important: We’ll give extra care for your most helpless child .

Daku grips and squeezes his shoulder and his fingers are like a vise. Max can’t imagine his organs ever failing, but also knows curiouser things have happened.

“Thank you, Max.”

He’s always known Gadget is a gifted storyteller, but he’s surprised by the sound effects of engines utilized to heighten the tale. They’re bloody realistic. 

Then he sees Gadget’s startled face looking over his shoulder before he and Arvo take off running for the village, and then he realizes: It’s been hundreds of days, but visitors have come to their home.

***

It’s an entire caravan, and without hesitation Gadget throws a rifle to Arvo and loads another one for himself. The beta catches and pumps the rifle, placing it against his shoulder and fiercely staring at the foreign alphas as they dismount their bikes and covered wagon rolling in their wake, pulled along by thick ropes extending from bike-back.

Max and Daku are armed and ready as well, and he can’t help the surge of pride he feels when Arvo responds so readily. He hates guns, but he’ll remorselessly kill to protect their home. 

Gadget whistles and waves the end of his rifle at an alpha kneeling by the water, pausing just before he clearly intended to dip his canteen into the lake. 

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to ask before taking someone’s property?” he shouts, and now the rest of the village is stirring because of the commotion.

Max forgets to breathe when he sees Tallara and Gur race from their respective huts, but before he can so much as open his mouth, Daku roars: “Back inside! Now!” And the children are so frightened they immediately turn and sprint back to safety. 

Now Gadget is closer to the men, the rifle raised the whole time, the rest of the alphas and the beta trailing behind him.

“What’s going on here?”

Walhalla, give me strength . He glances over his shoulder and sees Arthur standing outside the hut. 

“Go back inside,” he snaps. 

Arthur stares at him with raised brows before he simply strides past Max and stands directly beside Gadget at the front of the pack. 

“ Arthur ,” he growls and moves quickly to stand beside him.

“Who is in charge of these men?” Arthur asks, ignoring him. He isn’t even carrying a gun and seems completely unbothered that they’ve just been invaded by eight...nine alphas. Max can’t be sure. There may be more men inside the wagon. He focuses on taking deep, steady breaths so his hands don’t shake. 

A voice comes from inside the wagon: “I am.” 

An alpha smoothly dismounts. He’s dressed as a War Boy, plus white shirt. And he has his hair: A thick, dark mop on his head and full, bushy beard. A former War Boy, left to wander the desert for...how long? 

“Who are you?” Gadget demands, the sight now fixed on the head of the strange alpha, ready to pop it like a ripe tomato.

The man smiles, unhurried and unbothered, by the four guns trained on him. Click . Max glances behind him and sees The Dag slowly approaching, also carrying a rifle. Five guns, then .

“You can call me The Provider,” he announces and his men chuckle in response. 

A little joke, then. Not his real name. Max doubts they’ll ever get a real name from this one. He instantly hates him and wants him gone, but getting into a shootout with this many alphas could be disastrous. Multiple casualties. Arthur could die. Their children could die. Max reflexively takes his finger off the trigger. 

The bearded alpha kicks at a rock, laughing to himself. 

He declares: “I’m here to steal from the rich and give to the poor.”

“No riches here, friend,” Gadget replies, and Max is deeply grateful he’s poised enough to speak, “We’ve no gold. No jewels.”

The alpha stops kicking the rock and pointedly looks at their lake: “You look plenty rich to me.”

Max swallows thickly and dares to glance at Daku. If the other man is nervous, his stoic expression doesn’t betray him. A few beats of silence follow before he shouts: “What do you want?”

The alpha holds up his hands and smiles. “A fair trade.”

And while he seems unarmed, Max is seized by fear. He remembers the Rock Rider Chief and Arthur’s deal with him. It had worked, for a little while. Until it hadn’t. Until he almost crushed the life from Arthur with his bare hands.

“What do you suggest?” Arthur asks and it takes every sliver of self-restraint by Max not to reach up and drag him back to the hut by his hair roots. Stop bloody talking to him , he wants to growl, but doesn’t want to present their tribe as being divided.

“Access...to your little pond here,” he says, waving to the water while he walks over to a large, flat rock and helps himself to a seat. Max watches in disbelief as he kicks off his shoes and crosses his legs, ankle to knee, and rubs the knob of his ankle. “Nothing too long term. We’re heading west. We need to fill up now and when we’re coming back.”

“It’s a lake.”

Everyone glances to Arvo in disbelief and Gadget’s gaze screams shut up so aggressively that Max can hear the lad’s jaw close as a punctuation to his thought.

The alpha laughs. “Apologies. Your lake.” 

He gazes at Arvo a moment longer and the beta shifts under the weight of his gaze, the back of his neck burning when the others notice the alpha’s sudden interest in him.

“A beta, hm?” He chuckles, shaking his head, as if Arvo’s appearance and brazenness is false advertising, “My days…”

“What do we get?” Arthur interrupts, and Max is beside himself with the level of recalcitrant behavior on display here. A mouthy omega and an undisciplined beta. 

For his part, the bearded alpha, this Provider , looks amused.

He leans forward and whispers with theatrical effect, “I’m so glad you finally ask.”

The man leans back and shouts at his men in a language he doesn’t know, a rare occurrence for Max, who has trained himself to be conversational in almost every language he’s encountered on the plain. He can tell, in the fractional glances he casts to Gadget and Daku, that they also don’t know what he’s said. For none of them to understand what he’s saying...it’s almost unprecedented.

Their confusion gives way to amazement when the back of the wagon parts and an alpha extends his hand to help someone descend to the ground. The figure is thin and veiled in white lace and the whole production is so extravagant and unexpected that first Gadget lowers his weapon, as does Arvo and Daku, and finally Max. 

This creature, this ghost, glides forward toward The Provider’s extended hand and they stand there together for a moment before the alpha kisses his knuckles and presents him to the village by the lake: “The Vision.”

 ***

Arvo only lowers his rifle because Gadget does so first. He’s not sure what’s going to happen next, and he should be afraid because he’s standing at the front of their group, closest to these strange men. If they shoot, he’ll be hit first.

And yet, he relaxes once the man starts speaking and then curiosity and amazement overwhelm him when the creature emerges. The Vision . Arvo barely has time to get his thoughts in order when the alpha leader pulls away the flimsy veil to reveal an omega.

The rifle falls from his hand and mercifully doesn’t fire when it collides with the ground. Such is their surprise that no one chasitises Arvo for his negligent behavior.

He is, without question, the most beautiful omega he’s ever seen: pale skin, framed by dark, wild hair. His eyes are strange — green, perhaps blue, perhaps amber. Fine features, sloping cheekbones, long limbs, a pink mouth. A Vision . The name is fitting. And while Arvo has been known to fall in love (secretly, only within the safe confines of his own head) with every omega he meets, he is sure this is the most profoundly he’s felt after simply looking upon the fairest sect.

“Perhaps one of you would like a second mate?” asks The Provider.

A lengthy, conspicuous silence. Arvo isn’t sure what’s happening so he looks at Gadget, who is staring back at Max. They seem to be having a silent conversation.

“We have been...considering expanding our tribe,” says Gadget, which is news to Arvo. He looks at Gadget in surprise, but the man doesn’t notice. Or maybe he doesn’t care. The alphas don’t always tell Arvo what’s going on.

The Provider laughs loudly and claps his hands. The Vision flinches at the noise. 

“Perfect! Serendipitous! A fine acquisition for your beautiful village by the pond—” he pauses, pointing at Arvo with a large smile plastered across his face, “By the lake , hm? My friends, this is a wondrous deal. Wondrous! Men have offered me rare artifacts and entire arsenals for The Vision. For just an hour with him! Oh, and he is a virgin. Have no fear. He is unsullied.”

Arvo watches the young man. He must be...sixteen, perhaps. His gaze is downcast, submissive, like a perfect omega. He doesn’t react to The Provider’s speech, maybe because he’s heard it all before. How many times has this man tried to sell him to foreign tribes?

“And I have declined these generous offers,” The Provider continues, “Until I could be certain he would be used as destiny desires. Only the strongest, fiercest alpha are permitted to lay with him. I won’t sell him otherwise.”

“We want some guns, too,” says Arthur.

The Provider laughs again: “How many?”

Here, Arthur furrows his brow, and Arvo knows he’s making silent calculations. “Three. And we’ll provide some fruit for your return.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you….?” He leaves the question dangerously dangling, like a piano from a rope.

“Larrikin.” 

“ Larrikin . Beautiful, beautiful. Such lovely omegas in your village! The Vision will fit in here nicely.”

Arvo looks around and for the first time notices that The Dag still has her weapon raised. She’s the only one to still make her armed status known. Further back, Conch stands outside the hut, timidly watching what’s happening. Arvo raises his hand, fingers slowly extending in an apprehensive wave to show all is well. Conch flashes a weak smile.

“All right then,” Gadget says, casting a meaningful look to Max.

Max approaches the man and extends his hand. The Provider considers his fingers, reaches for them, and then draws back his hand before Max can grip it. The man’s grin is all teeth—more a snarl—as he leans close to him.

“You understand my meaning? He is my prized possession. I could have rutted him a thousand times, but I saved him for when we would need to trade him the most. I want to hear you say it…”

Max warily eyes this man—the lunatic gleam in his eyes.

“I swear it. Only the finest alpha will have him.”

They finally shake hands and the deal is done. The men cheer and descend upon the lake to fill every container they can find with their water. The Dag follows them, keeping the men in the sight of her gun until Gadget approaches her and physically lowers the weapon. 

“All right, my love,” he soothes, offering a reassuring smile.

“You let them in,” she growls accusingly.

“We’re expanding the tribe?” Arvo blurts. He knows village decisions are none of his business, but he can’t help feeling a little hurt that the men didn’t tell him about these plans.

Inundated from all angles, Gadget sighs in aggravation. “Bloody hell. Yes, all right? We need more alphas and omegas.” He pauses, glancing at Daku. “We need help. With labor.”

“What labor?” The Dag drills, eyeing him suspiciously, “You’ve never mentioned this before.”

One of the men falls into the lake with a laughing splash and The Dag growls.

“We discussed it,” Arthur interrupts. “I’m sorry we didn’t mention it. We only spoke about it yesterday.”

This seems to relax The Dag slightly, or at least distract her long enough so Gadget can redirect the discussion. He grips Arvo’s shoulder and instructs: “You’re responsible for The Vision. Show him around. Get him settled in. We’ll leave for Bartertown as soon as we can to find him a mate.”

“Um…” Arvo replies, but no one pays him any mind. 

Such is his existence in the village: He is a beta, meant to support and follow orders. And he’s quite good at his job. The alphas and omegas trust him with their children, the highest of compliments, and now they trust him with this. 

They’ve forgotten Arvo, dispersing to either return to the huts or to approach the wagon to negotiate their weaponry acquisition. Or, in Gadget’s case, to monitor the pillaging of their lake. Arvo slowly walks over to his rifle and picks it up. The Vision is standing nearby watching him, dressed only in a linen wrapped around his waist. 

“Are you cold?” he asks and the young omega furrows his brow as if he doesn’t understand the question. A thought occurs to Arvo. “Do you understand me?”

Something glimmers in his eyes. “I understand,” he replies.

Oh . “Uh, okay. Come on, then,” he says, leading the way to...where? Instructions unclear. To his hut? The thought makes his palms itch, so he leads the way to Daku and Conch’s hut instead. 

Conch. His first love, a true fact that he’s never uttered aloud. Arvo has never invested much importance in his romantic fixations because, well, he has loved every elder omega in their little village. 

There have been times when he harbored infatuations for Arthur and The Dag too. His heart does not discriminate. And yet, these are not silly, meaningless fixations. When he falls in love, Arvo loves with his whole heart. He remembers feeling so afraid when the critters spread through the village and Conch was forced to cut all the beautiful hair from his head. He was afraid, not because he truly feared castration by Daku or one of the other alphas (though that was a distant concern), but because he thought Conch might hate him forever. And that he could not bear.

They approach the hut and Arvo offers a look that he hopes conveys please save me and Conch flashes a subtle, sweet smile because he is an angel who no alpha or mortal deserves. In Arvo’s personal opinion.

“Hello,” he says, peeking around Arvo to address The Vision, “I’m Conch.”

Arvo finds it difficult to look at the younger omega. Where to look? To look at the eyes begs to look at the mouth, which would be rude to his throat. A very graceful neck. Yes, he’d have to look there too. And then his clavicle and the curves of his shoulders….Better to look at his own boots, which he does.

“The Vision. You can call me V,” he says. There’s an accent. Arvo can’t place it. It’s beautiful, like music.

“This one is Arvo,” Conch says on his behalf and he’s never felt more grateful.

“Arvo,” V replies in his strange accent and his face burns in answer.

“You’ll help with the cooking tonight and watching the little ones,” Conch continues, his heel lifting the hides of the hut a bit so he can peek inside, no doubt checking on the little ones. “We have eleven children in the village….so far,” he adds, a little conspiratorially. 

“Bless,” V replies, harmlessly, and yet every utterance amazes and fascinates Arvo. 

His fingers twitch involuntarily. He wants to sketch V’s face before he forgets, and then immediately feels shame at the impulse. Drawing someone he doesn’t know very well, without their knowledge, feels dirty and perverted. He is a beta and V is not for him. He’s been promised to...someone. Some alpha somewhere he hasn’t even met yet. Some undeserving brute who has no idea he’s about to receive the most precious gift.

Conch steals V away for the pre-supper chores, and it’s a good thing too because Arvo can’t hurry away to his hut fast enough.

***

“V is lovely,” Conch sighs and Daku stays quiet because he knows a trap when he hears one.

He’s cleaning the guns acquired from the men, who have since left the village. Conch is tidying up their hut in the wake of their children, who have run outside to play before dinner. 

The guns are in good condition, although he’ll have to tweak the sight of one of the rifles. An easy fix. 

Unbeknownst to Daku, his silence has been misinterpreted as confessional by Conch, and by the time he looks up, the omega is silently weeping, crouched on the ground as he cradles a pair of Rabi’s shoes.

“Oh, for Walhalla’s—” Daku stands, laughing, and stoops to sweep up Conch into his arms. “Why are you weeping?” he cries, dropping the omega onto the bedding and climbing atop him. Conch laughs, sniffling and wiping at his face.

“Tell me, and be truthful: why is he here? Do you want another mate?”

“No,” he replies, without hesitation. V is lovely, but Daku has never loved anyone as much as he loves Conch. 

“Then why is he here?”

Daku sighs and collapses to the sheets, burying his face and hiding for a moment. How much should he share? Conch will never have another peaceful night’s sleep if he mentions his heart. He’ll stay awake all night watching the rise and fall of Daku’s chest until driven mad by fatigue. 

“We’re being smart…” he begins, delicately. “We need young alphas and omegas to help until our pups are old enough to survive on their own.”

“I’m still young,” Conch replies, offended.

Daku smiles. “Ay, and beautiful. But I am not young. Nor is Gadget or Max. You’ve surrounded yourself with elder alphas, my love.”

The omega’s cool fingers run through his hair and stroke his brow, tracing the lines of his face, which are deeper these days. 

“You can’t leave me. I don’t want another alpha.”

“I won’t leave you.” 

Not willingly , he thinks. 

Death will come for Daku and he will fight him with every fiber of his being. Death will have to drag him to Walhalla and the Many Mothers will greet Death and he will be bleeding from the mouth and say: This one, here. This one wanted to live .

Placated (for the time being), Conch leans up to sweetly kiss him and Daku is no fool so he sighs into the omega’s mouth and presses into his prone figure until he draws a delighted gasp.

***

They don’t leave for Bartertown right away to find V a mate. Arvo doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, but he gathers it has something to do with Daku. For all his positive qualities, Gadget is not good at being subtle and Arvo has observed him trying to carry Daku’s gear back from sharpshooting or insisting on covering his latrine-digging duties, and it has occured to Arvo that they’re waiting for something — almost as if Daku is recovering from an invisible injury. 

Maybe he’s sick. Maybe they’re afraid Daku, the eldest alpha, will die soon.

Usually, if Arvo notices this kind of strange behavior, he waits until one of the other alphas observes and addresses it and it is his role to look surprised, perhaps a little impressed at their astute assessment. But curiously, this time neither Max nor Gadget say anything. Most worryingly of all, Arthur has stayed mute about the whole strange business, which tells Arvo he is correct in assuming a giant conspiracy is at play.

Seven precarious days pass in which Arvo desperately tries to stay outside of V’s orbit. Although, he’s forced to interact with him when they build him temporary shelter — a sort of rough hut until they have time to build him a more permanent shelter. But once that is complete, he thinks he’s in the clear.

Alas, for some terrible reason, the omega has been seeking him out more than anyone else, perhaps because his only options for companionship are a herd of children or older omegas and alphas who are distracted harboring their secret. 

There’s also the beta factor. He thinks maybe V considers him a safe option for socializing. Friendly. Non-threatening. V probably sees him limping around the village and thinks Arvo isn’t capable of hurting anyone . The idea used to make him feel happy, even oddly proud, because Arvo likes that he makes people feel safe in his company, but these days that reality makes him depressed. 

Safe is the opposite of exciting, isn’t it?

So he’s been hiding in his hut, constantly using the excuse of watching the pups for why he can’t go on walks with V or sit with him by the lake. 

The truth is he tried to be a friendly host the first few days, but it turns out the traveling caravan never gave lessons in modesty because it took exactly zero cajoling for V to immediately strip out of his coverings and plunge into the lake for an afternoon swim, and then Arvo didn’t know where to look so he ended up staring at his feet for the better part of an hour. 

Still, his eyes are traitorous and he couldn’t help but steal a few glances when V came splashing out of the water and traipsed up onto the bank. And then once he saw the shimmering curves of his body, those images were burned into his brain and sent lightning bolts to his fingertips until he raced back to his hut and found the bits of charcoal and paper and sketched everything he could remember. 

He must have drawn thirty….forty portraits of V: his angelic face, the wonderful curve of his neck, the dip in his lower back right above his rear. Afterwards, Arvo sat surrounded by the crude images and felt awful. He should burn them, but that would attract the attention of the other villagers. He could bury them in the desert, but one of the children might see. His only option was to shove the images under his bedding and pray none of the pups snooped later.

Unfortunately, trouble has always had a way of finding Arvo even when he’s doing his best to avoid it and mind his own business. He’s just woken for the day, dressed, and dips down low to exit his hut when he nearly collides with V.

“Oh, good morning,” V says, maddeningly beautiful this early in the morning. In the direct sunlight, Arvo can see a dusting of freckles on his nose and auburn streaks in his hair.

“Um,” Arvo replies, and then mentally berates himself until he says more: “Morning.”

Better than nothing. Didn’t he used to know how to talk? Maybe he’s been in Max’s company for too long.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Arvo casts a desperate, helpless look around the camp. No one is outside. It’s still too early. Gur and Tallara are always the first to awake and make trouble, but not even they will be awake for a little while. Arvo is utterly alone.

“Sorry, I’ve been with the little ones.”

It’s not a lie. Arvo is constantly swarmed by the children, not that he minds or considers it a burden. It’s just how things work in the village. Truthfully, he loves his job. His was a miserable childhood and it warms his heart to know that every day he’s helping make happy memories for the pups. No broken bones or permanent limps for any of them.

“I noticed. You’re quite good with them.”

Arvo hums and touches the back of his neck, the fingers sliding up to rub at the back of his head as he tries to figure out what to do next. His hair is shorn close to his head, as is the custom of their village. None of the men wear their hair too long as to be mistaken for road warriors, nor are they bald in the fashion of the former War Boys. 

He supposes shouting for help is out of the question.

“If I’m bothering you, I can go.”

Bugger . 

“No, no, no…” he says, smiling in relief when he sees the teasing gleam in V’s gaze. 

Right . He’s joking. He supposes no one has ever told V to go away. They’d have to be mad to do something like that. 

“I’m just off to do some chores. You’re welcome to join, but it’ll be quite boring.”

“I like boring.”

Arvo has to turn away immediately so V won’t see his blush. He didn’t mean to be suggestive by his comment, Arvo knows, but V has a way of speaking that makes even the most innocuous statements sound alluring. 

They walk over to the goat pen and Arvo feeds the animals while V watches. He’s still dressed in linens and Arvo wonders if anyone has offered him clothes yet, or if V prefers the old ways.

V sticks his hand through the fence and the black billy runs right up to delicately sniff his fingers, perhaps looking for food, or maybe inhaling the omega’s scent. Watching this play out, Arvo realizes he’s jealous of a goat.

“I like this place,” V suddenly says, gazing around the village. “So many omegas. And a beta too,” he adds, tossing a teasing glance his way.

“Just the one,” he replies, chuckling. He tosses another handful of feed and then sets down the bucket to fetch some hay the goats can munch on throughout the day. 

“Do you mind being the only beta?”

When he looks up, V is leaning against the fence, chin resting on his forearm. Arvo furrows his brow and lifts the hay, carrying it to the pen and dumping it inside. The goats run over, enormously interested even though this has been their routine for years. 

“What do you mean?”

V shrugs and lifts his head. “Isn’t it lonely?”

Arvo stares out over the lake. He loves it here in the morning when the sunlight shimmers on the water and the only noise is the braying of the goats. 

“I’m too busy to be lonely.”

He doesn’t mean it as a joke but V laughs. “Better too many omegas than alphas.”

When Arvo looks back to him, V’s face has darkened, but only for a moment. When he realizes Arvo is staring, he smiles again. 

Small feet pound the earth and a shriek pierces the air when Gur rushes Arvo from behind but he grabs the boy, tosses him over his hip, and cradles his head before it can strike the earth. The whole thing happens so fast that V only utters a soft “Oh” once Gur is already sprawled on the ground, laughing.

“You’re too loud. I can hear you coming from the Citadel,” Arvo says, smiling.

Gur grins, bearing all his teeth and leaps to his feet and then onto Arvo’s back, pretending to maul his neck. Arvo laughs as he carries around the boy, who barely weighs as much as a wool coat after a wash in the lake. V watches, laughing as Arvo repeats, “Sorry, sorry,” over and again because their tour is now over and they both know it.

V raises his hand in forgiveness and Arvo looks at him a moment longer, practically shimmering in the morning sun, until another cry fills the air and he knows in a moment that Tallara will descend upon him.

***

Gadget wakes when Entity is sprawled across his face, uttering “Alpa” over and over until he groggily opens his eyes and sees his precious daughter’s torso stretched in front of his eyes. He tries to respond, Ay? but it comes out muffled. 

“Can we go play with Gur?”

The Dag drags her off and when he looks up, he sees her grinning like mad and cuddling their daughter, her long flaxen hair a veil as she goes in for tickles and nips at her blonde head. Entity shrieks with laughter.

When he glances around the hut, Waru is already dressed and seated by the entrance, awaiting permission, which Gadget supposes is some kind of improvement. Not too long ago, Waru would have charged outside after his brother and not waited for approval of any kind.

Gur no longer asks for any such permission. He considers himself on the cusp of manhood even though he is only ten. At thirteen, they’ll build him his own hut so he can begin to have some independence, and Gadget knows it is that promise that has led him to wander away from his family hut more frequently these days. 

Perhaps he has also noticed how his build and coloring differ from his younger brother and sister. They might not have mirrors in the village, but Gadget has seen Gur gaze at his reflection in the lake, and at the likenesses Arvo has drawn, and he knows his eldest must notice the differences. Gur doesn’t look like Gadget or The Dag. He is almost an exact copy of Joe, including the dark, intense eyes and heavy brow.

“What’s your strategy for advancement?” he asks, yawning.

Waru immediately stands and straightens his spine, like a little soldier. “Approach from the east.”

“Oh, ay?” Gadget replies, moving onto his elbows to get a better look at his youngest. 

Unlike his brother, Waru is almost an exact copy of Gadget, which never ceases to amuse The Dag. Sometimes, she holds up the boy when he’s throwing a tantrum and says Control your tiny demon , and he knows The Dag assumes he has some special way to communicate with Waru because...well...shouldn’t he have a direct line to a small version of himself? 

“The area with no cover and the longest route around the lake so Arvo will have plenty of time to see you coming?” he asks, brows raised for emphasis.

He can see Waru recalculating in real time. “From the west, around the huts.”

Gadget frowns, impressed, as if he didn’t lead Waru by the hand to that exact conclusion. 

“That could work.”

The words are no sooner out of his mouth than Waru charges outside and Entity scrambles so aggressively that she kicks him in the chest once...twice...three times before she can get her footing and race after her brother. 

Gadget moans in pain, probably playing into it too much because as soon as the children are gone The Dag repeats back his own whingeing in a mocking tone, grinning as she leans over him and bites his shoulder, then chest, all the while repeating “Ow” back to him like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.

“Ow...ow...ow,” she cackles, so Gadget grabs her and pulls her on top of him and she goes willingly, straddling his lap. 

He gives her rear a firm swat and smirks. “I’m glad my pain amuses you.”

The Dag rolls her hips and he gasps, every other witty retort sailing from his brain. She’s bare under the linens and all her wondrous heat is separated from him by a thin layer of cotton. She leans down to kiss him and he cradles her face, pooling the long hair in his hands and gently pulling in the way she likes, increasing the pressure until she hisses and bites his lip and Gadget knows it’s time.

She yanks hard at his trousers and they easily fall away and then it is his job to hold on for sacred life as she grabs his length, aligns his cock, and drops down.

“Fuck!” he shouts a second before a hand slaps against his mouth and she rides him hard. 

He grabs her hips, dragging her down purely for emphasis, but never guiding. The Dag knows her body best and he would be an arrogant alpha to try and dictate her clearest path to ecstasy.

They’ve known each other long enough now for Gadget to know when he’s needed. When The Dag sits up straight and tosses her head back, he knows it’s time to slide his hands upwards to cup her breasts and firmly squeeze; When she rolls her hips and gasps, it’s time to grip between her legs and press his thumb to the bud, rubbing and flicking. And when she begins to shake, it is up to him to surge upwards and cradle the back of her head as they tip over onto the bedding so he can thrust until she hides her cries in his mouth or into the meat of his shoulder where he will sport a bite-sized bruise the rest of the day.

He forgets to arrange them in a comfortable position, so he ends up splayed atop The Dag during the knot, though he does his best to shift his weight so as to not crush her. Strangely, The Dag doesn’t complain, and when he looks at her face, she’s staring thoughtfully at the hut’s domed ceiling.

“V is trouble.”

Gadget watches her a moment longer until their gazes meet and his brow quirks. Say more, my beloved. I can’t always decipher your riddles.

She sighs and rolls her eyes, dragging her hips this way and that, pulling his prick along with her the whole time, until Gadget hisses a “Fuckfuckfuck,” and grips her face, smirking down at her. 

Stop that.

“If you can’t see it, you don't know,” she smirks.

“We’ll be able to bring a good, strong alpha to the village because of him.”

The Dag laughs and he doesn’t know why.

“Is he dangerous?”

“Not in the way you think.”

There’s no point in asking more questions. Experience has taught him that the answers will only grow more vague and confusing going forward, and he’s come to learn that The Dag isn’t trying to deliberately obfuscate her meaning. This is just how she communicates. Maybe their shared language simply doesn't allow her to explain what she’s seeing and feeling.

She leans up to nip at his scarred ear, along the white line that marks where a soldier buried deep in the earth’s belly nearly shot off his head all those years ago. The Dag is obsessed with the discoloration and sometimes touches it when she thinks he’s asleep, tenderly stroking it like a small pet.

***

Arvo has waged a successful campaign of entirely avoiding V the rest of the day — that is, until dinner, whereupon avoiding V becomes impossible. Fortunately, the entire village is also at supper, which provides enough chaos and distractions for Arvo to find all sorts of reasons to avoid having to directly speak with him.

While the fire and food are being set up, Arvo is swarmed by the little ones, who he takes turns wrestling and play-fighting until the omegas announce that roughhousing time is over and it’s time to eat. 

The sun sinks behind the dunes and Gadget fetches a couple bottles from his hut. They are filled with liquid that makes Arvo’s eyes burn when he takes a sip (and only one sip). He has to take at least one sip or Daku and Gadget will mercilessly tease him. Then the drums come out and Conch runs to the piano and it’s a proper late night — one where the sprogs finally get so tired that they pass out by the fire and the adults dance until they too are too exhausted to stand. 

Arvo laughs, watching the elders grow tipsy, smiling and stumbling about. 

Finally, Gadget sits down on a log and asks them what story they want to hear. At this proclamation, Entity awakes and shouts: “Planet Erf!”

The adults all groan because of course Entity wants to hear about Planet Erf. It’s her number one request at story time, but Gadget can never deny his child anything, so he launches into the tale of Savannah Nix and Planet Erf, a society run by children and teenagers who descended from the survivors of a plane crash. Gadget doesn’t get very far into the story, however, before he’s sidetracked.

“Tell a story about a plane!” Waru demands.

“Ah,” Gadget rubs at his chin, “Planes were before my time, I’m afraid. I think my parents probably rode one, though.”

Tallara leaps to her feet. “Planes!” she declares, suddenly presenting the very concept to the group. “They were big birds you could ride on the back of all over the world!”

“Essentially,” Daku drolls, chuckling when Conch throws a sharp elbow into his side.

“Did all the big birds die?” Waru asks.

“They weren’t really birds, idgit,” Gur says.

Gadget shoots his eldest a harsh look. “They were machines. Big machines that could fly.”

Waru squints, considering this. “How?”

Gadget takes a deep breath and looks to the group for a little help. Is he really going to have to explain a plane engine to a bunch of half-asleep children? He looks at Daku and holds his hands up, looking for support.

Daku smirks around the lip of the bottle. He’s trying to find another swig, but it’s definitely empty. He sets it down in the sand.

“Did we ever tell you about when we fought a whole mess of soldiers in the desert?” Daku asks.

Mayhem. The children erupt, especially the alphas, jumping to their feet and screaming for details.

“Mate…” Gadget warns, half-heartedly. 

They’ve been selective in what they tell the children about the founding of the village—about the world before they arrived. All the stories are heavily edited to erase the rapes, brutal deaths, pillaging, forced marriages, and the like. All they know is Arthur, Conch, and The Dag lived with their aunties in The Citadel and that Joe was a bad man who is gone now.

Gadget hasn’t mentioned the buried shops because he’s partly afraid the idea of them will fascinate the younger alphas and one day they’ll run off to go explore them. The children think all of their clothing comes from Bartertown and he’d prefer to keep it that way.

Daku is no fool, so he only provides the vaguest of details: soldiers, in the desert, who took himself and Max hostage for a period of time. When Max’s name is mentioned, Tallara and Kiah stare at him with wide eyes.

“Were you scared?” Tallara asks, shifting her weight from foot-to-foot as if waiting for the answer is tantamount to torture.

Max shifts on the log, uncomfortable with the sudden attention. He opens his mouth to speak but thankfully doesn’t get the chance.

“The soldiers almost shot off Gadget’s head,” Daku continues.

More screaming. The children race over to Gadget, demanding to see evidence. He laughs and dips down so they can see his ear. “Almost took it clean off,” he explains, weathering the poking and prodding of the sprogs as they examine the evidence.

“How did you get away?” Bindi asks Daku, with wide blue eyes.

“Arvo saved us,” Daku simply replies, leaning over to snatch away Gadget’s bottle so he can continue to drink.

This is clearly not what the children were expecting to hear. Seven pairs of huge eyes turn toward him, but he’s most aware of V who is standing by the fire to warm himself. The light from the fire passes through the sheet, revealing the outlines of his slender legs.

Gadget straightens now that he is no longer under the scrutiny of the children and nods. 

“He snuck in to free them. Our little spy.” He grins and Arvo slowly smiles, a warmth spreading across his face when the alphas each offer their version of a proud look. “And... “ he adds, for emphasis, the sprogs looking at him, “He was about your age now when he did it.” He nods in the direction of Rabi, Tallara, and Gur.

“You lie,” gasps Rabi.

“No, mate. It’s true,” says Gadget, grinning, knowing he’s baiting the children.

Arvo had lived an entire life by the age of ten. He prays Gadget won’t talk about the Rock Rider Chief. He doesn’t mention it, but he still has nightmares about the alpha grabbing him by the scruff and throwing him off the side of the canyon. In his nightmare, he’s falling...falling forever, knowing that when he collides with the earth his leg will shatter and never properly heal.

“But I can’t even have my own hut,” mutters Gur.

Sensing a rebellion in the works, Daku leans forward. “Wanna see my scar?”

And of course, the children cry out they do and he shows them the line that runs from his forehead to about the center of his skull. “Cracked it wide open,” he announces as the children gather to examine his crown. Conch picks up Bindi and places her on his lap so she can get a close look. Normally, such a story would frighten her, but it seems as though she’s swept up by the enthusiasm of the other children.

“Why?” is the only question she can muster.

“They wanted to know where our water was and I wouldn’t tell them,” he says.

“That’s right,” says Arthur, interrupting. “What do we do when people want to know where our water is?” The children place a finger to their lips and Shhh until they break down in a fit of giggles. Arthur offers a benevolent smile. “Very good. You don’t say anything. That’s right.”

Arthur soon announces it’s time for bed and Arvo helps carry some of the younger children to their huts. He knows Gadget has had too much to drink because he helps the alpha carry Waru to bed and then Gadget follows him back outside and grips his face while telling him he’s a “good lad” until The Dag comes to collect him.

Arvo chuckles, shaking his head as he makes his way back to his hut, limping a bit more than usual from sitting on the log for so long. He’s focused on his bum leg, which is why he doesn’t see V standing outside his hut until they’re nearly nose-to-nose.

“Oh..” he declares.

“I’m sorry. I can’t sleep and…” V glances across the pitch blackness of the village, at the lake, which is not visible. You would walk right into the water if you didn’t already know it was there and how to avoid it following a memorized map.

Arvo nods. “Nightmares?”

V looks infinitely relieved that he doesn’t have to say it. “You’ve all been so kind. I don’t want to seem ungrateful…”

He can tell this is going to be a long conversation so he dips into his hut and lights some candles. V tentatively enters and sits on the ground by the entrance, Arvo notes, where he can quickly escape if need be.

“You don’t like being around the alphas,” he says, thinking it’s best to help V along.

The youth pauses and smiles thinly. “It’s obvious?”

“You stand by the fire and don’t like to sit by them. I’ve never seen you talk to any of them privately.” He shrugs and looks at the dirt under his fingernails. They're just some things he’s noticed. Arvo is probably the only one who picked up on it. “I didn’t like alphas either before I started living here.”

“They forced me,” V suddenly blurts and Arvo looks up, horrified to see V’s eyes shimmering with unshed tears. And then the confession comes rapidly: “I know what he told you all: that I’m a virgin. It’s not true.” 

V tells him everything: How he was trapped with nine alphas in the desert for years; how they experimented with the very definition of virginity so they could have their fun and also reap a generous reward for selling a pure omega; how they forced themselves into his mouth and hands and sometimes thrust between his thighs while they moaned their dead mates’ names; how The Provider in particular seemed to delight in violating him while publicly claiming he was not; how the man oftentimes lied to his face that anything had happened at all; how V felt utterly mad until the man would once again force his mouth onto his crotch and he knew it was real — the endless nightmare of it was real.

“I’m sorry,” V chokes, now weeping. Arvo can’t stand it and crawls to him, folding the omega in an embrace. “I’m not worth anything. No alpha will want me.” His face is hot and wet against his shoulder.

Arvo hushes him. He doesn’t want to discuss the art of haggling when it comes to V. He’s sure a clever alpha like Gadget could still negotiate a good price, and attract a fine alpha to their village, but the thought of forcing V to mate with an alpha sickens him. What will they do...pretend they don’t hear him weeping from his hut with his new mate?

“Alphas will want you,” he says, trying to reassure him.

“I don’t want them ,” V whimpers, dissolving into tears again, and all Arvo can do is hold him because he can’t think of anything to say that will make this better. Right . V has spent years being raped by a pack of cruel men and now they’re going to take him to Bartertown to parade him in front of lecherous alphas, some of whom may want to hurt him.

“I’ll be there, in Bartertown,” he offers, “I won’t leave you alone with them.”

V leans back, face gleaming, nose perfectly red. Arvo can’t help but look at his wet mouth.

“Really?”

He smiles and fetches a rag to gently dab at V’s face. “Yes, I’ll be there the whole time.”

What neither of them want to address is what happens afterwards, when Arvo cannot be there to stand guard against all the evilness of their world; when V must be alone with his new mate and do exactly what the alpha demands. 

He’s unprepared for V grabbing his hand and kissing the palm, just as he’s ill-equipped to process the way the sensation shoots straight down and stirs between his legs. 

Arvo stands and announces: “I’ll walk you back to your hut.”

They walk in silent darkness until they’re at his shanty and V says: “I’m sorry, if I…”

“No, no. It’s just late,” he says dismissively, hoping V can hear that he’s smiling—that he isn’t angry. He thinks of the mountain of sketches beneath his bed and feels terribly guilty.

He wants to do something to make this transaction fair. He gets to gaze at V whenever he wants, draw his likeness, imagine what would happen if he curled his fingers in his linens and gently pulled, and all V has is worry and fear that he’s overstepped a boundary that was never there in the first place.

Arvo lifts V’s hand to his lips and kisses the knuckles. See? We’re even now. Both laid out, both exposed. A kiss for a kiss. A fair trade.

V smiles and Arvo is thankful the moon is bright enough to see him. They gaze at one another a moment longer before V slips inside and Arvo begins the walk back to his hut, not for the first time very badly wishing he was an alpha.

***

Gadget and Daku are arguing over who gets to take which bike and Arvo stands to the side, arms full of supplies for their trip to Bartertown. 

He casts a helpless look at Max who clears his throat and says, “Okay. You…” He points at Gadget and then the smaller of the two bikes. Gadget frowns, shoulders slumping slightly until Max hands him the village’s best rifle because, after all, “You’re the best shot.”

Gadget offers Daku a smug smile and Arvo recognizes the conflict has been resolved. And as he watches the alphas return to their respective tasks, he’s once again reminded that Max was a father before he had any children.

“You’re okay on a bike?” Gadget asks, straddling his motorcycle. 

Arvo nods as Max takes some of the supplies from his arms to pack them on the backs of their bikes. “Mhmm,” he confirms, not feeling entirely confident. He’s ridden bikes with the alphas, but only when they play on the dunes, chasing and fleeing. He’s fallen a few times, but luckily never crushed any limbs. But horseplay on soft sand is not the same as traveling for days across unforgiving terrain.

Gadget nods, maybe not entirely convinced. “V can ride with me.”

Arvo glances back to the omega, who is wrapped in linens, including a long strip that frames his fair face. He can tell the second Gadget utters the idea that it’s going to be an issue. The alphas are too preoccupied checking their gear and supplies to see V’s eyes widen. 

He quickly walks over to him and whispers, “It’s all right.”

“I don’t want to ride with him,” V quietly replies.

He doesn’t know what to say. Without question, Gadget is one of the kindest men he’s ever met. The alpha frequently stayed up at night stroking his warm head as he wept from the nightmares when he was a boy. He has never once feared, for example, Gadget would pick him up by the scruff of his neck and throw him off a mountain. If V is afraid of Gadget, of all alphas, how in the world will he behave when forced to socialize with strange Bartertown alphas?

“I want to ride with you,” V adds, chin lifted defiantly.

Ah, well . It’s not like Arvo has ever had a choice in anything that’s ever happened to him. Why should things change now? 

He could tell the other alphas everything: V’s past, why he’s been so skittish around the alphas, but doing so would be a violation of V’s trust. And a small part of him fears the alphas might send him away. The village’s alphas are kind, but they can be ruthlessly efficient when dealing with outsiders, and V is still an outsider. He will remain so until he has pups.

“V will ride with me,” he says, only because he’s already straddling the bike and the alphas have noticed the omega climbing onto the back and wrapping his arms around Arvo’s waist. He prays his expression stays neutral.

Gadget nods slowly, “You’re sure?”

He isn’t sure who the alpha is addressing but V answers: “Yes.”

Then comes the ceremonial farewell: the youngest seated on white linens, the waving of fabrics in the air, some final embraces between mates. Arvo awkwardly looks down, gazing at V’s hands. They’re not moving yet, but he’s preemptively gripping Arvo in anticipation. 

Suddenly, a small yellow flower enters his vision. Bindi is holding it up to him. “Watch Alpa,” she says.

Ever since learning that Arvo was the one who saved her father and Max from the underground soldiers, she’s looked at him as some kind of hero figure. Which of course, Arvo is not.

“I will,” he promises, accepting the flower and putting it into his jacket pocket.

***

Riding with V attached as precious cargo is nerve wracking business and he’s constantly aware of the other alphas glancing his way, offering a thumbs up in question until Arvo responds with a raised thumb. V’s grip is crushing his waist and he can feel the omega trembling in fear the first few hours. 

Then, almost miraculously, V calms. He stops quivering. The alphas stop looking his way every thirty seconds. They fan out and let him open up the bike, tearing along the plain, feeling suddenly relaxed and confident in his riding abilities. 

Only when the sun is low in the sky does Gadget speed past him and signal that it’s time to stop for the night. As they set up camp, Gadget makes adjustments to their bikes and refills them from the gasoline container, while Daku sets up the tents and Max builds a fire.

Max removes his jacket, makes a little nest on the ground, and points at it. “There,” he says to V and the omega cautiously approaches it and sits while they work.

Arvo can tell from the way V is gripping and smoothing his linens that he’s feeling anxious, probably from the presence of the three men — being alone with strange alphas, once again, in the desert. He doesn’t know these men as Arvo knows them, and no amount of vouching on his behalf will erase the years of trauma from his brain.

All he can do is finish unpacking and sit by V in quiet solidarity. Nothing bad will happen while I’m here . V glances at him and smiles slightly. It’s a weak reassurance, but apparently it’s enough. V stops pulling at his linens for a while.

They’ve packed a bit of food (mostly roasted veggies and rat) and are picking at it around the fire as Gadget recounts some of his more colorful episodes while growing up in Bartertown. 

“Where do you hail from?” Gadget asks, innocently, not seeing the landmine until it’s too late.

Arvo is close enough to him to see the light fade from his eyes. “I….” V begins, brow furrowed as he thinks and then looks to Arvo for support. He doesn’t remember. How young was he when the alphas took him? Arvo can’t imagine what it must be like to not know where one comes from. As terrible as his early life was, he knows he hails from the canyon folk. His roots are humble, but they are entirely his own. But V has no property, no bodily autonomy. Not even his story belongs to him.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly, flashing a smile, “The Rock Rider Chief broke my leg, did I ever tell you?” 

He doesn’t realize he is mimicking Gadget’s strategy of diversion via story. Nor does he realize he’s mirroring the same strategy’s purpose: to distract someone he cares for from pain, from fear, from all the terrible darkness that surrounds them. 

V is surprised, and all at once, calm. He wants to know more, so he tells them about the beatings, how the Chief made him a spy — how he kept being a spy even when he joined the village, but this time on behalf of people he loves. The alphas know some of this, perhaps even most of it, but certainly not the full story. They’re quiet for a while afterwards and finally Daku speaks:

“They build the Canyon folk strong, hm?”

It is the highest of compliments from a man like Daku and Arvo feels a little overwhelmed by his words so he shakes his head. “I’m lucky...lucky Larrikin came. I’d be dead otherwise.”

Max decides it’s time for sleep after that and Arvo is grateful. He’s shared too much and feels exhausted, but at least V isn’t crying when they curl up in their tent. He doesn’t remember making an agreement to share the tent with the omega, but V had crawled inside and curled up against him and he thought, well, what’s the harm of one night?

The next day’s ride is hard on him. The sun is brutal and he can feel his exposed skin cooking. All the adrenaline of having conquered riding the bike has left him, replaced by the monotony of the ride and his aching body. His leg throbs the entire way and it takes all of his power not to complain when they set up camp for the night again. The kickstand embeds in the earth and he slowly climbs off only after V has dismounted, and he must cringe or wince because V hurries to set up the alphas’ jackets as a form of seating and escorts him to sit down.

“Safe?” Gadget asks, casting a concerned look.

“Fine,” he answers at once. His leg is an angry animal, howling, howling …

Daku rummages in his bag and pulls out a small bottle and tosses it to him. “That will make all the pain a beautiful dream,” he says and while Arvo doesn’t for a moment believe that, he yanks the cork out with his teeth and takes several swigs.

The alcohol helps...a bit. It certainly makes everything nicer to look at, especially V. He lays back and gazes at the omega, who looks down at him and smiles and then looks back to Max, watching as he sets up the fire. Everything about him is so soft. Arvo’s fingers dig into the sand and he imagines touching the omega’s shiny hair, his velveteen skin. 

An epiphany: He’s drunk.

Arvo braces on his forearms and looks around. “We’ll reach Bartertown tomorrow?” he asks.

Gadget nods. He’s whittling something and Arvo realizes he’s carving up another rat for dinner. “Late tomorrow. We’ll find somewhere to sleep and then begin the search the following morning.”

The search being code for finding V a mate. He looks over at Daku, searching for any sign of distress. The man looks as he’s always looked to Arvo — that is to say, a mountain of a man. Solid. Unmoving. Unconquerable. He wants to ask: Do we need to do this? Maybe Daku will be fine! Maybe this is all silly and alarmist and V will never need to lay with an alpha ever, ever, ever. And Arvo can keep him safe…

He wakes late in the morning. Actually, Max’s boot nudges him awake. “Up, boy,” he commands.

When he picks up his head, he sees Gadget and Daku are already on their bikes. V stands just behind Max, watching Arvo with something like mild concern. He must have been passed out for hours.

“Arise, you drunk!” Gadget shouts, laughing.

Arvo scrambles to his feet and grabs his things, missing the four of them snickering at his expense.

***

He’s been to Bartertown a handful of times in his lifetime and still he isn’t braced for the sudden onslaught of noises and smells: a cacophony of voices, burning meat, revving motors, pungent manure, hammering, heavy wheels crunching gravel, flowery perfume, the cries from the brothel. The merchants descend on them immediately as they push their bikes into town, attempting to sell all of them their small wares, but they especially focus on V, believing he must be one of their mates.

“Beautiful omega, beautiful omega!” they cry, thrusting all sorts of shiny objects into his face, assuming he’s looking for pretty things to buy.

“Put on your veil,” Daku advises.

V covers himself with the sheer fabric that transforms his face into a whisper, the mere suggestion of a face, leaving only the faintest outlines of his features. This calms the hysteria, but only a little. Now, V draws curious stares from onlookers and the omega grabs his arm as they walk through the town. “I hate this,” he whispers to Arvo.

“I know,” he responds sympathetically, reaching to pat his hand.

Gadget secures them lodging, of sorts. It’s really a shanty with a single cot that they agree V will take. The rest of them will sleep on the rickety floor, practically on top of each other. The idea is to set up a base of operations and schedule some interviews with potential suitors that V will meet throughout the week.

V sits on the cot and it immediately slants under his weight.

“It’s only for a bit,” Gadget cheerily declares. “We’ll find you a nice mate, hm?”

He either fails to see or ignores V’s complete lack of enthusiasm.

The first scheduled meeting is with a man named Oluchi whom Gadget knows from his days of working in the repair pits. His first indication that things are going to end badly is when he inquires if the man is kind and Gadget hesitates before answering: “He’s big. He’s built like a bear. I once saw him lift a truck without using a jack.”

The alphas are impressed by the feat of strength, but all Arvo can focus on is how Gadget dodged his character inquiry.

They give V a bit of privacy to clean up and when he says it’s okay to come back inside, Arvo sees he’s fashioned his linens into a tunic tied over a single shoulder. A simple outfit, but Arvo thinks he looks lovely. Certainly the most beautiful omega in Bartertown and he is once again reminded that they’ll have to keep V away from the brothel as the Mister Johns will try to steal him away.

Oluchi has to dip down in order to clear the door. As promised, he’s huge. Taller than Gadget and sporting quite a bit of additional muscle. His hair hangs long in unwashed waves around his square jaw.

“This is the one?” he grunts, looking at V. 

“This is The Vision,” Gadget introduces.

The alpha hums, considering him. “Come here,” Oluchi commands.

Arvo sees Max glance to Gadget, and he already knows what the look means. They’ve decided to be collectively unsure about this man, this Oluchi, as a suitor for their V. And that’s how he thinks of him now: our V. 

My V.

V approaches him and Arvo stops breathing when he’s standing directly before him, utterly dwarfed by the hulking man. “Pretty,” Oluchi summarizes, dipping down to sniff at the curve of his neck. V sharply inhales, but holds up his hand when Daku and Arvo move toward him. It’s all right. V wants it to be alright. 

He wants the deal to work because it’s what’s best for the village.

No one knows what to do and there’s a moment of hesitation and confusion that Oluchi exploits when he suddenly and quickly — so quickly — grabs V and yanks up his linens, his massive paws cupping and pawing at his rear. V shouts, desperately squirming to free himself, and the alphas are instantly upon Oluchi, shoving and yelling, and the alpha laughs, lasciviously smelling his fingers to let it be known that he touched between V’s legs and is enjoying his scent.

“Out! Out!” Max commands, pushing and shoving until they’ve chased away Oluchi.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry ,” Gadget pleads once the door slams shut behind him. “I knew him in my youth. But he was not that man. He wasn’t.”

“Yes, he was,” Daku growls. “You’re different now. Not him.”

“I never—” Gadget chokes, outraged by the implication. “I’ve never in my life treated an omega that way.”

The alphas and Arvo are all breathing heavily, still recovering from the tossle. Poor V looks close to tears so Arvo goes to him and wraps an arm around his shoulders. 

“I know that, mate,” Daku sighs, flopping onto the cot, which reflexively tilts. He casts an annoyed look at the bed’s frame, “That’s not what I meant.”

“I swear, the other men are good men. I swear it,” he says, pleading with V. “I’m truly sorry, little one.”

V’s gaze is soft and Arvo can already tell he will forgive Gadget and meet the other men in the subsequent days. Because he wants to fit in and he wants to belong to the village. Arvo knows that feeling very well.

“I believe you,” he finally says, his eyes still shimmering with tears.

“We can go back to the village,” Max says and Arvo feels a surge of hope, but it’s quickly dashed.

“No,” says V, “I want to keep trying.”

He has seen the road ahead and knows his only chance at fitting in is by finding a mate and having babies. That will be his only way of staying with the villagers.

***

Gadget briefly humors tracking down Oluchi and removing his teeth with pliers, but Max and Daku talk him out of it. No need to cause a commotion that will result in them being chased from Bartertown without a mate for little V. 

Ekon is next, another mechanic from Gadget’s glory days. He’s not nearly as tall as Oluchi, but apparently he’s quite smart, capable of fixing things that not even Gadget can fix. 

“He makes engines from scratch,” the native brags.

When the man arrives, he looks...normal, Arvo thinks. Roughly Max’s height, dark eyes and olive skin. He glances around the room in a curious, but not overtly hostile way. He nods once in V’s direction, but does not say anything overtly crude, which earns him points in Arvo’s book. 

They make small talk about the changes in Bartertown and some of their old memories together. Ekon doesn’t look old enough to have run with Gadget’s tribe, but Arvo can tell they used to be friends. Or friendly. The man has come straight from the pits and is wearing his work jumpsuit, complete with grease stains. 

He sees the alphas glance at his soiled attire and smiles faintly: “Sorry…work,” he says, by way of explanation.

“No need to apologize,” Gadget replies.

Ekon grins and nods, glad that he isn’t being judged. He takes a breath and says: “To speak truth? I’m not going to leave my home and travel to Walhalla-knows-where with you lot to mate an omega I haven’t even spoken to in private. If we’re doing this, I want to converse one-on-one,” he says to V.

“No,” Arvo blurts, surprising everyone, but especially Ekon who may not have been entirely aware of his presence until that moment. 

Ekon squints, looking to the dark corner of the room where Arvo has been standing. “Sorry, those are my conditions.”

“It’s okay,” V says, smiling faintly, and to placate Arvo he adds, “Can we stay right outside?”

“Right outside,” Ekon promises.

“No, you stay here,” says Daku, “We’ll leave.”

Daku pointedly looks at first Max and then Gadget, and Arvo knows his thinking: Ekon could run off with V if he leaves their shack, but they can trap him if they’re posted outside. The men stand and Arvo follows them outside. 

He’s anxious for the next several minutes, straining to listen—to hear anything above the ubiquitous noise of Bartertown. A woman is screaming about discounted boots. The kindest to yer pocket in all kingdomhood!! 

The sun beats down on them and Arvo feels a little faint, but he doesn't know if it’s from the heat, crowds, noise, or raw fear of what’s happening to V inside. 

“Should we…?” he begins, but the men ignore him.

“Gonna check on the bikes,” Gadget murmurs and leaves them. A pointless little errand. They’ve chained the bikes to the side of the shack and surely they would have heard someone using a saw to free them, but it gives the alpha something to do as they wait...and wait.

And suddenly the door flies open and Ekon steps outside. He squints into the sun and then looks to the side when Gadgets walks from around the side of the shack. Arvo peeks behind him and sees V sitting on the cot, staring dejectedly at his hands. Whatever happened, it wasn’t good. 

Arvo feels a sudden urge of anger and is about to open his mouth when Ekon says to Gadget: “What the bloody hell is wrong with you, mate?”

Gadget stops mid-stride, wiping his hands with a rag. He must have done a bit of maintenance while checking on the bikes. He glances at the other men, nervous, unsure of what is happening. 

“What?”

Ekon seems to remember where he is and who is present because he closes the rattling shack’s door behind him and stalks closer to Gadget, though there isn’t much privacy standing outside like this.

“What’s the story he told you all? That he’s a virgin?”

Panic grips Arvo. No, no, no . V, what have you done? He stares helplessly at the sheet metal shack door. How did Ekon get the truth out of him so quickly? 

Gadget casts a wary look at the other alphas and Daku clears his throat. “If you’re unhappy with the arrangement, we can make….certain accommodations.”

“A new bike, perhaps,” Gadget offers, agreeing with his comrade.

So this is something the men have previously considered in one of their secret meetings that Arvo is not privy to. They knew it was a possibility that The Provider had lied and taken advantage of V at some point. Arvo is stunned and then angry with himself that he’s surprised at all. Of course they don't tell you everything. You’re just a beta. They’re alphas.

“I’m not talking about the bloody arrangement,” Ekon scoffs, which seems to confuse the alphas. “Are you seriously going to make that poor boy mate with an alpha after what he’s been through?”

No one knows how to respond to this question. A small child clips Arvo as he passes by on a blue cart with rattling wheels. A herd of dogs pulls it along as he yells, “Move!” He doesn’t respond, however, because he’s too busy staring at Ekon and thinking he’s misjudged the man.

“I don’t know what you mean,” says Gadget.

Ekon scoffs again. “None of you asked what happened to him?”

“I knew,” Arvo says, head hanging a bit when the alphas look at him, “He told me.”

“Right, so the beta knows, but none of you? Fuuuucking hell. Well, mate, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no alpha will be able to mate with him short of rape, so unless that’s what you’re selling—”

“Fuck off,” Gadget snarls. “I had no idea. I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know because you didn’t ask. None of you asked. Did you seriously think an omega who looks like him was traveling with a band of alphas for bloody thousands of days and they didn’t touch him? Come-the fuck-off it,” says Ekon, finally stepping away from the shack, his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

Arvo decides he likes this man very much, which is unfortunate because he’s also sure he’s never going to see him again.

Max’s face is set in an expression that Arvo knows means trouble.

“What did they do to him?”

Ekon walks from the shack, shaking his head. “Use your sodding imagination. Gadget, I’m out, mate. No disrespect.”

“Ay….” Gadget weakly replies, watching him leave.

Then the three alphas turn and look at him.

“What did he say to you?” Daku asks.

Arvo shifts his weight and considers the dirt. What can he say without violating V’s trust? His boots are covered in mud, as are the bottoms of his slacks. Every inch of him is covered in grime from the road and their journey.

“What Ekon said, mostly. Something happened. They violated him.”

No need to supply the graphic details that are not his to tell. It’s enough that they know something happened and mating V with an alpha will be very difficult.

“And you didn’t think to tell us?” asks Gadget.

Arvo extends his hands, palm-up, in what he hopes is a suitably submissive, helpless gesture. “He’s scared you’ll banish him from the village unless he mates with an alpha.”

“Well, did you tell him we won’t bloody do that?” Daku growls.

Arvo doesn’t know how to say he wasn’t sure if that was the case, so he says nothing at all. He’s still not sure Daku’s words are really true. Yes, they would allow V to stay in the village if he was mateless and childless, but for how long? A month, perhaps. But not for years.

“It’s not your fault,” Max says suddenly, surprising the other two men, not least of which because Max has uttered maybe ten words in their entire trip. “We should have known.” He nods at the door, “Go talk to V.”

The permission — the deference — surprises him. Here is Max admitting that Arvo, the beta, is most suited to soothe their omega guest. No one objects when he climbs up onto the makeshift stoop, nor when he opens the door, or even when he closes it behind him. By the time he looks to the cot, V is crying, knowing he’s ruined their plans.

Arvo immediately walks to him and sits upon the hay-stuffed mattress. He wishes he could open a window and let some fresh air and light into the room, but the windows are boarded and dust particles float in the air.

“I ruined it,” V whispers.

“No,” Arvo gasps, hugging him to his side, “No one is cross. They feel stupid for not having realized.”

“Arvo, they’ve been so kind to me. What if they send me away?” V weeps into his shoulder. 

“I won’t let them. I won’t let them ever send you away.”

They sit there in the relative dark for a while, Arvo’s hand cradling his wet cheek, V utterly unsatiated by his words.

Eventually, the men return to the shack and no one speaks of what happened. V sleeps on the cot and the alphas and Arvo curl up on the floor on their jackets and minimal bedding to sleep a few fitful hours. 

***

Arvo wakes, fully expecting to see the alphas packing their gear, but instead he sees V sitting on the cot, readying himself for another day.

By the time he sits up, he sees Gadget sliding into his jacket. “One more suitor,” he explains, “I wasn’t able to reach him to cancel. I offered…”

“It’s okay,” says V. “I’ll meet him.”

Max is seated against the wall because he never wants to have his back to the door. He rubs the tips of his thumb and fingers together, watching Gadget and V. 

It’s mad to continue. It’s wrong to continue, and yet....

They pack their gear and wait and when the sun is at the high point in the sky there comes a rap at the door. A stupid moment of indecision where Gadget looks at Max and Daku and they look back at him. 

Well, away they go…

He opens the door and a young alpha is standing outside. Another jumpsuit from the pit, but this man is tanned with dark hair. There is a witch’s kiss on his right cheek and another just below his left eye. Handsome. A bit taller than Max and Daku, but shorter than Gadget and Arvo. Muscular, veiny forearms. Strong. 

He looks around the room before entering. Wise. Making assessments. 

“Wyatt,” Gadget introduces. 

Arvo notes a bulge at his ankle. A holster. Wyatt. Sure. He recalls some stories from Gadget—tales about a quick-draw and cocksure young man named Wyatt, who pulled him free from quite a few hairy situations. 

“Hello, my love,” he greets, grinning. “You don’t write? I have to hear from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone that Gadget is back in town, and he wants to see little ol’ me in his boudoir?”

Daku scoffs and Wyatt looks over to him, nodding once as Gadget makes all necessary introductions, leaving V for last, of course. V stands from the bed so Wyatt can see all of him. No need to put on airs. Everyone knows why he’s here.

Wyatt considers him for a moment and nods again. “Very nice. How’re you, dear?”

“I’m well, thank you,” V quietly replies, the picture of politeness. Arvo wants to drape his jacket over his shoulders and rush him to a bike and then straight home to the safety of their village.

“This is V,” Gadget offers.

“Walhalla save, Gadget. Where’d you find him?”

Gadget gives him the necessary details about the caravan and then stops suddenly, unsure how to continue. And Arvo is just beginning to think he’ll need to fill in the story’s gaps when V’s voice floods the room.

“They treated me badly. They told everyone I’m a virgin, but that’s not strictly true...if you understand my meaning.” 

The light splits at the boarded windows and one of the rays cuts across V’s face. He’s exquisite, Arvo thinks. And strong. And appears fearless. He feels impossibly fond of him at that moment. How frightened he must be, and yet he isn’t shaking or running.

“I understand,” Wyatt quietly replies.

“And I want to be upfront about that because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m misrepresenting myself,” says V. “I also want to tell you that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to mate with an alpha. I think it’s only fair you know that before you travel all the way to the village.”

Daku bows his head as the young omega speaks, practically burning their agreement before their very eyes. They allowed an enemy tribe to drink their water for nothing. They traveled for three days to anger a bunch of Bartertown alphas for no reason.

“Well…” Wyatt begins with a sigh, “I’m very sorry that happened to you.” V watches him with surprised, if not cautious, eyes. Wyatt squints as he considers the room. “May I sit?”

General murmuring acquiescence as he sits on the floor, back to the wall, legs crossed before him. Arvo notes he’s wearing fancy boots—the kind men used to wear in old books and drawings, with the tribal etchings burnt into the leather.

“And I’m sorry about Oluchi. I heard in the pits what happened, and I want you to know that his actions in no way represent the alphas of Bartertown.”

Gadget looks greatly relieved as he nods in agreement.

Wyatt adds: “We’ll deal with him later.” And when V begins to object — to say there’s no need for retribution, he quietly ends their dialogue by repeating: “We will deal with him.”

Arvo can’t recall ever hearing the other alphas this quiet, this enraptured by a guest. Wyatt is holding court and Arvo can’t even feel jealous because he’s so curious what the man will say next.

The back of his head rests on the wall and he considers V again. “My-oh-my, you are a picture, aren’t you?” No one says anything and V looks a bit lost, unsure how to respond. No matter, for Wyatt continues, “If I went with you to offer my labor, and little V here decides I’m not his mate, what happens to me?”

A perfectly reasonable question. Arvo watches Gadget and Daku exchange a glance before they both look to Max. Right . That is a problem isn’t it? Once Wyatt knows the location of their village and the water, he can’t ever leave the tribe or he becomes a threat. The options are: full assimilation or death.

“If you join us,” Max begins…”We’ll find you a mate. If not V, then someone else. We can find you another omega. You have my word.”

A precarious moment of uncertainty. Wyatt squints, considering him. Pretty words, but does he believe them?

Interesting . They’ve never discussed this possibility. Max could be bluffing, could be hoping that V will magically change his mind about mating with Wyatt once they are in the privacy of their own hut. Otherwise, he wonders, what would the point of harboring V be?

Though this plan is entirely new, Gadget nods immediately. “We swear it. You’ll be looked after.”

“Because I can’t come back here, Gadget,” he says, brows raised. Arvo watches him closely and believes the man is genuine. He seems spooked, maybe a bit desperate. “I owe someone. Bad fellow.”

“Gambling?” Gadget asks and Wyatt winces, but nods. 

Debt. Much died with the old world, but the concept of debt has persevered. 

“From when I was a pup...years ago. He may never come back; may not even recognize me, but….” What’s left unsaid: If he ever did recognize Wyatt, his death would be swift.

“Will you work hard?” Daku asks. Wyatt nods, so he continues: “Obey without question? Harm no one unless we ask you to harm them?”

“Ay,” Wyatt agrees.

The alphas stand and so Wyatt and Arvo also scramble to their feet and he watches as they shake hands. It’s done, then. He looks to V to watch his reaction, but the omega’s face is blank as the men seal the deal.

***

Wyatt leaves his bike at Bartertown to buy them more time before anyone notices he’s gone. They meet outside the main archway before dawn the following day and leave, the newest addition to their tribe riding on the back of Gadget’s motorcycle. 

When they break to make camp, Daku confesses they don’t have enough room for another alpha in the tents and Wyatt dismisses him with a wave of his hand. 

“I like to sleep under the stars.”

Max grunts in recognition and they set about building a fire. V insists on helping even though Gadget keeps telling him to sit down, that they can manage on their own. Wyatt sits with his back braced against some rocks and watches him move about.

“You’re very graceful,” he notes. “Dancer?”

V smiles for the first time in...Well, Arvo thinks maybe he smiled a few times in his company, but he still feels a spike of envy. He roughly arranges his jacket on the ground, but neither V or Wyatt pay him any heed. 

“Yes, there was an omega who traveled in our caravan for a while, and she taught me. Ballet.”

“Oh, I can tell. You can always spot a dancer, can’t you, Gadget?”

Gadget hums in agreement as he sparks the flint and ignites their kindling. 

“There was a three-legged dancer in Gas Town after the fall,” he remarks, casually, as if discussing the weather. He notices everyone staring at him and adds: “From the radiation.” As if there could be any confusion about the cause of such a phenomenon in nature. “The third leg didn’t really work. It just...flopped around a bit.”

Wyatt is the first to laugh, followed by Daku and V. Even Max smiles slightly, but clears his throat soon after and says: “Get the fire going, dammit. I’m hungry.”

Only Arvo scowls into the dark because V is a dancer and he didn’t know.

***

Their mates and children pour from the huts in waves when the roaring engines of the motorcycles descend from the dunes. Gadget has barely dismounted his bike when Entity and Waru latch to his legs, screaming inquiries about what he’s brought back from Bartertown. He laughs and crouches down to yank open the leather bag strapped to his bike and fetch the small wooden guns. 

Waru snatches his toy and then appears to see Wyatt for the first time. “Who is he?”

“Wyatt of Bartertown,” Gadget officially announces to the tribe.

The alpha dismounts the bike and smooths back his hair, nodding to their omega mates. “Pleasure,” he remarks.

Arthur steps forward to address him. “Welcome, Wyatt of Bartertown. You’re an engine man?”

Max frowns, leaving his supplies and gifts strapped to his bike so he can stand by Arthur. Bloody Arthur. Always too familiar and fresh with new alphas. Max wants to make it perfectly clear that Arthur is his mate on the off chance Wyatt’s nose is stuffed or he fails to recognize the child in Arthur’s arms, or the ones gathered around his legs, as their children.

“Ay, Ompa,” he responds, using the formal title for an Omega father. The deference makes Max relax...slightly. “Among other things.”

“He can build huts,” Gadget offers, still roughly untying bags from his bike. He must have purchased a large knife for his beloved because The Dag is currently examining the blade and smiling wickedly.

Wyatt nods, as if just reminded, “Ay, huts, and I was the medic for the pit for a while.”

Arthur perks right up. “You know medicine?”

“Some, Ompa.”

“ Wonderful ,” Arthur coos, smiling at Max. 

He looks so relieved and happy that Max forgets to feel jealous. The idea of access to urgent medical care has been something of an obsession for his mate. What if Tallara breaks her arm? What if Kiah burns herself in the fire? An endless parade of terrible scenarios that they would have no way of addressing in the middle of the desert tundra. Transporting an agonized child to the Citadel is out of the question, and though Capable rules the Canyon these days, they’re also short-handed when it comes to medical care.

“A good shot too,” Gadget continues, in case anyone else needs convincing. He fishes a wooden token from his pocket, one guaranteeing fifty percent off on a shot of water in Bartertown, and flips it so high into the air that Max loses sight of it in the sun. Gadget whistles and Wyatt draws fast, his hand a blur as it rips the gun at his ankle from its holster, and swiftly fires. 

The coin falls to the earth and Tallara is the first to grab it and hold it up. There’s a hole right in the center and she squeals, “He hit it!” She runs to Arthur and presents the proof, “Still warm!” Tallara pulls out her slingshot from her pocket and shows it to Wyatt. “I can do that too!”

“I’ll bet you can, little miss,” he replies, smiling, and Max begrudgingly, silently acknowledges he is quite handsome.

The village murmurs in recognition and Arthur smiles, seeking V out and nodding to him.

“And you like this one?”

With so many eyes upon him, V smiles nervously, “Ay, he has not offended me yet.”

Tittering laughter, but Max thinks it’s been enough talk and so he takes Jedda from Arthur’s arms and she immediately bats at his face. “Where’s Mia?”

“Sleeping. Say hello to your mate,” he smirks, voice lowered so only Max can hear him.

“Hello,” he grunts, dipping down to kiss him. He tastes sweet. Must have been nibbling some fruit earlier. 

He desperately wants to be alone with Arthur, but that isn’t a possibility right now. Privacy is a precious commodity in the village, and they’ve had to get creative about where they can be intimate. On the warmer nights, Max and Arthur have snuck into the lake more than a few times for a quick, private rut, the omega biting and moaning into his forearm as Max takes him from behind.

“Did you meet any pirates?” Tallara wants to know.

“Just your uncles,” Max mutters, only half-joking. Every time he learns more about Gadget and Daku, he’s deeply grateful these men are his allies and not his enemies.

“ They’re not pirates,” Tallara sighs, as if her father is the dumbest alpha she’s ever met. 

No need to tell her that’s not entirely accurate. In their former lives, Max supposes they all dabbled in piracy. “Oh, that’s right,” he growls, handing Jedda back to Arthur so he can scoop up a shrieking Tallara. 

He carries her into the hut, Arthur with the baby and Kiah trailing after him.

***

Gadget, Daku, and Wyatt don’t wait for Max to delegate the construction of the hut. They’ll need more shelter immediately, and so Gadget takes the bike to collect driftwood, palm leafs, whatever the desert will offer. He returns from a few trips with a strange amalgam of booty: wood, but also plastic siding, rocks, and moss.

“This is good,” Wyatt confirms, nodding at the mountain of debris. 

Arvo imagines the ceiling caving in on the alpha’s head, but then remembers V will be living with him and feels sorry for the ugly fantasy.

Only when they’re getting the hut’s frame constructed does Max emerge to assist in the planning. For his part, Arvo does what he’s told: lift this, hammer that, saw over there. He’s built enough huts to know how this goes, and the men work quietly for much of the afternoon. They get the frame and shell up before the sun falls low in the sky.

“That should be fine, for a first night,” Wyatt says, mopping at his brow and leaving a streak of dirt across his forehead. 

They’re all filthy from the Bartertown trip and being on the road for so many days. Arvo wants to strip out of his skin, or submerge forever in the lake.

“We can add another layer of clay and mud tomorrow, let it bake the whole day. Get her nice and solid,” he says, patting the palms and plastic siding. The structure is sound beneath his hands, and Arvo thinks it already looks plenty solid, but then again he’s not an engineer or architect. V watches him from his seat on the grassy bank by the lake. Wyatt sees him and gestures to the hut. “Do you approve of your castle?”

V smiles slowly and nods.

Arvo stands up the moment he hears a baby, someone’s baby, crying. “I have to go see about that,” he says, walking away, already knowing the alphas won’t question him. Baby business is Arvo’s domain. No one notices that he is actually walking back to his hut. 

Or so he thinks, probably because he never glances back over his shoulder to see V watching his retreat.

***

V thinks maybe he’s offended or angered Arvo somehow, maybe by carrying on in Bartertown after the assault. His once closest ally has been avoiding him and barely makes eye contact during supper. V wishes they could speak as they used to and he’s so nervous that he barely touches his food. 

Wyatt is a charming man and has not done anything to upset or intimidate him, and yet the idea of being alone with an alpha makes his hands tremble.

Supper is a raucous affair — the children screaming, laughing, running; Gadget usually telling a story; perhaps music; sometimes dancing; Dog barking and begging for scraps, oftentimes all at the same time. A wonderful racket. 

This evening it is Tallara putting on some kind of play about a snake (he thinks, otherwise she keeps hissing for some other reason) with Rabi, Bindi, and a very reluctant Kiah. The adults are playing the parts of attentive audience members, so he notices when Arvo leaves the firepit and walks down to the lake, and V slips away to quickly follow him.

The beta is staring into the black water. He must have washed up earlier because he’s dressed in a fresh shirt and dark utility slacks. It’s warm enough to be outside without a jacket, and besides, his leather is probably filthy from the road.

“What’s your review?” he teases, sidling up beside him. Arvo blinks and looks at him. He thinks maybe the beta hadn’t heard him approaching. “Of the play…”

“Oh, yes…” he says, glancing back to the gentle orange glow, “It’s good. Tallara is smart as a whip.”

Conversation between them has never been this: stilted, awkward, difficult. V takes a deep breath and crosses his arms over his chest, wrapping the linens tighter. He’s cold, but it’s more than exposure to the elements. He’s frightened.

“Are you cross with me?”

Arvo frowns. “No, why would you think that?”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me and then after Bartertown we barely spoke.”

The beta won’t look at him, which enormously aggravates V. Arvo is a large man, so it’s not as though he can grab him by the shoulders and force him to. He gazes up at his profile—at the angry set of his jaw; how the muscle of his cheek spasms. He knows in his bones that Arvo is furious, but not with him. Then who?

“I’m going to try...with Wyatt.” Finally, Arvo looks at him and V feels a surge of hope. Could that be what this is about? Arvo is afraid V will fail at his mission and be exiled from the village? 

Arvo is quiet, but at least he’s looking at him now and V notes that his eyes are blue — very blue — much bluer than he appreciated before, maybe because the presence of the lake diminished them, or he had previously taken Arvo’s attention for granted.

“If…” he begins and V leans forward a bit, afraid of missing something, anything, any clue to what caused this rift between them that he doesn’t understand. “If he does anything: offends you, hurts you, you come and find me, hm?”

He smiles slowly, touched by the gesture. Were V to ever find himself in distress , wouldn’t it be wiser to enlist the help of an alpha? But he realizes in that moment that, yes, he would call for Arvo. An alpha may fight with twice as much strength, but Arvo would fight with his entire heart.

V imagines, anyway.

He’s no fool. He knows his purpose in this village is to mate with an alpha and birth more alphas and omegas. Genetic diversity. A young omega has attracted the strength and usefulness of a young alpha. A good match. All is right in the world.

“I will.”

Arvo nods. Up the small embankment, by the glow of their fire, Tallara emits a war cry and the adults laugh, clapping in appreciation. Sounds like a finale.

“You’ll have beautiful babies,” Arvo softly reassures, but he sounds sad, and V can only imagine it’s because he believes deep in his heart that V will fail.

He’s determined to prove him wrong.

***

V enters the hut and is surprised to see Wyatt crouched at the back. The man is shoving some hay between linens that have been stitched together. He looks up and nods at the nest, “Temporary. Until I can make us a proper bed.”

Us. Bed. V nods, knowing he’s holding himself too rigidly and that his silence is conspicuous. Wyatt considers him with a furrowed brow and then stands, closing the space between them with a single stride.

“Here, may I?” he asks and cups V’s face, stooping down to kiss him chastly on the lips, “There. That’s out of the way now.” The alpha smiles, coaxing the smallest of grins from V. His large hands are warm as fingertips caress his face. “You are a looker, aren’t you?”

Without saying anything, V reaches down and unties with quivering fingers the linens at his waist, allowing them to fall away. He wishes this part felt different, or special, but it doesn’t. The Provider would wrestle him from his clothes, and kiss his mouth, reminding him that the only reason he had linens at all was because of him , and he could take them away at any time.

A sharp intake of air from Wyatt, and when he looks up the man is gazing at him with something like reverence. That part is new. But why doesn’t it feel better?

He’s not your mate...yet .

He presses against him and surges up to roughly kiss him, fingertips furling into the man’s hair, dragging him forward and down.

“Ah, fuck. Okay... okay ,” Wyatt laughs, prying his hands off to shed his shirt and slacks. 

V watches, interested in a detached (but curious) way. The rest of Wyatt’s body is as he expected: toned, muscular, the flesh tanned from many years spent working outdoors. His chest is dotted with tattoos that look like they are the product of bored men who spent too many hours loitering.

He takes a deep breath and tries to focus on Wyatt’s face and not his body — a body that is interchangeable with the ones of men who pinned him to cold earth and violated him with their fingers, all the while laughing.

Wyatt grabs his wrist and pulls him forward and V gasps when he falls to the bed, barely having time to scramble onto his forearms before the man is lying across his back, crushing the breath from his lungs. His heart is hammering and yet he can’t find the strength to move.

He feels the man grope between his legs, pressing a finger in, exploring, readying him as he’s supposed to. And yet, he thinks back to caravan campfires, and pinches his eyes closed as he feels again The Provider pressed against his naked back, hot breath stinking from drink puffing against his neck, as he ground his hard prick against him until he burst across V’s exposed rear.

“Okay?” Wyatt asks, and he can feel the man’s heart hammering against his back. His hips shift and the rigid cock presses to his rear. He withdraws his fingers and turns V’s face to kiss him again, slower and deeper this time, teeth snagging his lip and nipping.

Despite the hurricane of thoughts and memories, V is an omega and his body is programmed to respond to such attention. He sighs when Wyatt’s hand returns, sliding fingers into him, curling until his thighs shake and wetness coats them. This is good. This is how it’s supposed to be between an alpha and his mate. V is just beginning to believe he can do this when Wyatt pushes into him. 

It hurts, but his cock fits. They moan in unison, a ragged edge of pain in V’s voice, and the man bites his neck, rolling his hips slowly to draw back...and in again, pressing a choked cry from V’s throat.

It should feel like a monumental shift in his life. There was “virgin” V and now there is this version of V—the one pinned down to the bed as an alpha rides him from behind. And yet his mind drifts from the hut and hovers above the lake, watching as Arvo walks away and the cut of his back, the breadth of his shoulders, the long stretch of his neck leading up to the shaved head.

“Stop,” he grunts, too quietly, and then louder: “Stop!”

Wyatt is so surprised that he falls off the bedding and lands in a sweaty pile on the floor. V gives a small, involuntary gasp when the man’s hard length slips out of his body. Wyatt is breathing heavily, still hard. “Fuck, what happened? Safe?” he gasps, scrambling to his knees to look at V, probably assuming he’s somehow hurt him.

“Yes,” he says, rolling onto his back and sitting up. Wyatt’s eyes are huge and fairly terrified, “I’m sorry. Can we...I need a moment.”

A moment . Wyatt looks so immensely relieved that V feels felonious. A moment is manageable: needing a moment is no crime. A moment is not irreversible damage. A moment is not an offense that will result in anyone’s public execution.

Wyatt sits beside him on the bed, still attempting to catch his breath. “Did I…?”

“No,” V answers quickly, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” The man looks so shaken that he adds: “We can try again. In a bit.”

And they do try three separate times during the course of the night. Sometimes V is on top, another time they try with V on his back and Wyatt writhing between his legs. Always, he weathers the first push, the slow undulation, and his body responds as expected, wetting the bedding, greeting Wyatt like an old friend.

It’s his brain that sabotages everything: Flashes of an alpha with dark hair and a peppery beard laughing as he forces his face between V’s bruised thighs and his comrades pin his wrists about his head; another alpha threatening to shove a hammer’s handle inside of him were it not likely to “lower his price,”; a huge alpha named Decrepit catching him alone on his way to the latrine and wrestling him to the ground so violently that his head cracked the earth and he later awoke to the man choking him on his length.

And then he sees Arvo’s kind face: his smile, the gentle, idle touches of his fingertips. He feels the beta’s lips touching his hand...

An absurd idea overwhelms him: Wyatt is not his mate. This is wrong. What they’re doing is wrong. Stopstopstopstop. His fingers curl into the sheets and he kicks. Wyatt thinks he’s asking for it rougher and grabs his hair, shoving his face into the sheets, so V kicks again and again until Wyatt loudly swears and falls off him.

There is no knot. They sleep fitfully side-by-side, Wyatt resentfully staring at the ceiling and V curled away from him.

When they emerge clothed from the hut the next morning, everyone assumes they’ve mated. They even smell like they have. Gadget laughs upon seeing them as he readies breakfast’s fire. 

“Good morning, brother! Did you have a merry time last evening?”

Panic seizes V as he takes a seat on one of the logs. Wyatt will tell them everything: He’s broken, the pact is nullified, V should be sent away into the desert to die alone as a misfit omega.

“Ay, quite a merry time,” Wyatt smiles and winks at the other alpha, effortlessly lying. His hair is tousled, his jaw lined with stubble. He looks very much like a man who thoroughly enjoyed himself last night, even if V happens to know the act is a charade. V watches him silently, stunned as he continues: “My little mate is quite the host.”

He’s speechless when he realizes Wyatt intends to help him. He’s covering, spinning some yarn about them being the perfect match. He doesn’t know whether to feel grateful or cry, but Gadget is looking at him so he shyly smiles, which apparently the other alpha takes as confirmation because he laughs and claps his hands together.

Gadget’s mistake comes next when he crouches by the fire and takes his eyes off Wyatt. The mad dog leaps on the taller alpha, so suddenly that V is frozen in place because he believes it must be an attack, until of course Gadget tosses him clean over his shoulder and is upon him, laughing and punching — each strike pulled just enough to still hurt, but in the way alphas merely play at murdering each other.

The Dag walks from their hut, leading Entity and Waru by each hand. She stops and watches the men, then looks at V for an explanation. Wyatt has been the village’s guest for a day, but she has not received a formal introduction yet, and here he is: slapping and punching her mate—and before breakfast, too. 

He shrugs and waves a hand through the air that he hopes convey the spirit of: Alphas. Is there anything to be done?

Waru watches the men roll about with wide eyes. “Alpa, are you killing him?”

Gadget looks over to his brood and laughs, climbing to his feet and wiping his hands on his desert camouflage fatigues. “No, mouse. We’re playing. Wyatt, these are my cubs: Entity and Waru. This is my beautiful mate, The Dag, and…” he glances around, “Where is Gur?”

The Dag rolls her eyes and shrugs and Gadget simply nods, as if Gur not being around is no great surprise.

Wyatt accepts Gadget’s extended hand so he can stand only to bow with a flourish. “Ah, The Dag. I’ve heard tales of your beauty, and I’m pleased to say they have not been exaggerated.”

The Dag glares. “You knew Gadget when he was a Bartertown sprog.”

He smiles and brushes off his pants, his palms, his arms. They’re both covered in dirt. 

“I did indeed.”

She hums, unamused, and escorts the children to sit down, and V is surprised when the children sit on either side of him. The village’s children seem to be a very trusting sort, perhaps because they’ve never had anything bad happen to them. 

Entity looks at him for a moment before she says: “You’re pretty.”

“Oh…” V smiles, glancing at The Dag who watches the interaction with a smirk. “Thank you.”

Entity folds her hands on her lap and continues to look at him, patiently waiting for something. It takes a few moments for him to realize what she’s after: “You’re very pretty too.”

She straightens up and sunnily smiles: “Thanks!”

“ Sleep well?” The Dag asks, leering and leaning forward to conspiratorially grin. The edge of her long hair dusts his thighs. 

He doesn’t have to fake the blush that breaks out across his cheeks. “Um..yes..” V tries to smile, to present as a thoroughly rutted omega even though that is not the case, and he has no prior knowledge to draw from to make the act convincing.

The Dag grips his jaw and turns his face this way and that before releasing him. Her brow is furrowed and for a moment he wonders if there’s something on his face. Maybe Wyatt accidentally bruised him?

He never gets an answer because it seems as though the whole village descends just then, and it’s only when he smells the meat roasting on the spicket that he understands: breakfast has called the whole tribe to the pit.

Entity and Waru race off, and there goes Tallara and Kiah. Hide after hide bursts open, revealing the grinning faces of all the village’s children, who seem to be responding to a silent call to action. They’re running towards the lake — no — towards Arvo, who cries out and collapses to the ground, rolling around as the older alphas pile onto him, and then all at once he explodes to his feet, children seemingly hanging from every limb.

He roars, strugglingly to walk, and this sends the children into a frenzy. They squeal laughing, desperately trying to drag Arvo to the ground again.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Arthur laughs, waving the children over, “Leave poor Arvo alone.”

Arthur is dressed in a loose shirt the color of milk, the V-neck cut low to reveal his clavicle where he spots a bruise or two. Linen slacks cling to his hips, and his hair is windswept, his feet bare. He looks tired. No, not tired. Satiated. Max approaches to fix a plate and quickly dips close to him to nip at his neck. Arthur smirks and smacks his arm, pretending to shoo him away and to direct his energy into eating and enjoying the food.

V looks away, overcome with jealousy and sadness. No matter how committed he and Wyatt are to pretending, they are not that. They will never be that.

Arvo sheds the children like a tree moulting leaves. They drop off one-by-one and run to their parents to accept their breakfast plates.

Conch holds out the plates for Rabi, Bindi, and Yarran, but pulls them back before they can snatch them so he can chide: “Give Arvo some peace.”

“I don’t mind.” 

V’s head snaps up. Arvo is standing right by him, and he’s once again baffled that the man before him is a beta. He’s impressively built, which V forgets sometimes because of his sweet demeanor and occasional limp, but standing here now: it’s impossible to ignore. He’s very handsome with his bright eyes and proud nose. V wonders if any of the omegas ever truly noticed him and recognized his unique beauty as he walked among them. They must have—

The log rocks when Wyatt takes a heavy seat beside him. “Morning!” he calls to Arvo, saluting the beta. He will later realize that this boisterous entrance was deliberate, meant to yank V from his reverie, to stop him from being so bloody obvious with all of his pathetic staring.

“Morning,” Arvo nods, looking at V a moment longer, but V’s head is bowed, his fingers lazily pushing the food around on his plate, and he doesn’t notice.

“I am famished !” Wyatt cries, stealing food from V’s plate as if they’re already the happy couple. He blinks and stares at the man, who leans over to kiss him. A quick gesture. V barely has time to register it and it’s over, but he’s aware of Arvo quickly walking away, like he’s been electrocuted.

The beta sits on the edge of the log harboring Gadget and The Dag’s brood, and V notices his gaze remains fixed on his plate. Arvo is deliberately ignoring him again.

A flurry in his peripheral. Arthur and Max are seated beside him. Max is trying to supervise Tallara and Kiah’s breakfast while Arthur seats Jedda on his lap and smashes some of the roasted potatoes for her to suck off his fingers. Their youngest, the babe — Mia, his brain supplies — is curled up on some linens at his feet. The baby reaches for Arthur, opening and closing her little hands, probably pining for the omega’s breasts.

“She’s beautiful,” V says, handing his plate to Wyatt. The man is going to eat all of his breakfast anyway. Why pretend otherwise?

Arthur smiles, chuffed and deservedly proud. “Thank you. You’ll have your own soon. Lots of little omegas and alphas running around.”

Unlikely . For starters, pregnancy requires a knot, and he and Wyatt never reached that stage last night, not for want of effort on Wyatt’s part, either. V has felt much pain in his young life, but he’s never felt anything as horrifically wrong as trying to rut with Wyatt. And it wasn’t bad form on the alpha’s part. All of Wyatt’s bits work properly and the man clearly knows how to use them.

He’s not my mate.

He realizes Arthur is watching him closely so he smiles, as if the idea of babies with Wyatt greatly pleases him. “I hope so,” he says and Arthur watches him a moment longer before finally smiling and patting his hand.

***

At nightfall, V is splayed across their bedding and Wyatt enters, hands on hips, and announces: “I want to try and fuck you again.”

V sets down the small rock he had been examining and sighs loudly.

Perhaps anticipating this response, the alpha dramatically kneels before him and lifts one of his feet to his mouth, kissing the arch until V laughs and shoves him away with his other foot.

“What’s the point, Wyatt? We don’t fit…”

“I recall fitting into you perfectly, my dear.”

The omega smirks and glares at him: “You know what I speak of.”

He sighs and collapses back onto his heels. Wyatt rubs the back of his neck and nods. “I know. But let me try, hm?”

“Why is it life or death? You can go back to Bartertown—”

“I can’t,” Wyatt interrupts, surprising him with his intensity, “And I don’t want to because—” He stops, squinting at the entrance of their hut, as if expecting a guest at any moment. “I owe a very bad man and he can’t know where I am. And I want to stay here ...for my own reasons. I like the village. Don’t you like it here?”

V sighs and sits up, cupping Wyatt’s face. It’s perhaps worse that he doesn’t hate the alpha. If he was being honest with himself, he’d admit that he likes Wyatt — maybe even cares for him. The man lied to protect himself, but his lies shelter V too.

He lays back, pulling off his linens and smirks when Wyatt scrambles to shed his attire. The man kneels again and pushes open his leg, burying his face between V’s thighs. He sprawls back and sighs, arching his back, hands cradling Wyatt’s hot head as he licks and sucks his heat. 

He tries to conjure peaceful imagery: the placid lake, white clouds, the wind gently rippling sand. 

It feels good, but he finds himself drifting from his body again...up...up...straight through the dome of the hut, over the lake, searching for something.

He drops back into his body when Wyatt’s tongue enters him. Now, it feels strange, occasionally bordering (but never straying into) pleasure.

“Wyatt, stop. I’m sorry...stop, please.”

The alpha lifts his head and sighs. “Not madly in love with me yet?”

He’s disheveled: his hair a mess, his mouth wet from all his effort. V feels a rush of tenderness for him. Wyatt is a good man. He’s never hurt V, never lashed out in frustration to punish a difficult omega. 

V reaches for him and tucks some hair behind his ear. “Do I feel like your mate?”

The alpha sighs, leaning into his hand. “No, which is mad because...look at you,” he smirks.

Look at you , he wants to say. But I feel the same.

“We can keep pretending. You can knot me when it feels right. We can still have babies even if we’re not mates,” V says, lifting his hips so he can wrap the linen around his waist and tie it.

Wyatt collapses beside him with a heavy sigh. “Do you really want to have babies with a man who you don’t love?”

“We could love each other. In our own way. We could take care of each other.”

“V…” Wyatt sighs, “I don’t want that. I want someone who loves me.” Perhaps sensing his panic, he adds: “I’m no traitor. I won’t tell the others what’s going on until you want me to. But you deserve someone who drives you wild, my dear.”

Something clicks in his head and he sits bolt upright so quickly that Wyatt grabs his revolver and cocks it, believing the omega has heard something indicating danger.

“Oh...” he says and races from the hut, ignoring Wyatt’s pleas for more information.

Outside is much darker than he anticipated and V trips and falls almost immediately, mercifully tumbling into a drift of sand and grass and not onto any sharp rocks. 

Where are you going?! Wyatt demands, head poking from their hut, and V says something — he’s not sure what, some reassurance that he’ll return shortly — whatever it is, it’s enough to stop the alpha from racing after him, perhaps out of fear of attracting the entire village to a wild, odd confrontation between them when they are ostensibly playing the parts of loving mates.

V picks himself back up and races around what he thinks is the perimeter of the lake. He can smell the water and moss and that is almost enough to guide him throughout the journey and keep his feet dry. Almost . He strays too close once or twice and dips a toe in wet sand, but finally clears the water and knows he’s on the other side. V strays further up land, arms extended, reaching, until yes , his palm collides with a frond and he knows this is Arvo’s hut.

It’s so eerily quiet that he assumes the beta may be asleep, but when he pulls back the hides, there are dozens of candles flickering inside and the village’s children are sprawled out all over the hut — on the floor, on Arvo’s bedding, Gur is standing on something..a crate, is it? Tallara is resting on her belly right by the beta, who has sheets of paper surrounding him upon which he’s drawn all sorts of fantastical beings. 

He’s clearly interrupted some kind of village storytime for the children, and there follows an utterly foolish moment where he stands there, breathing hard from the sprint, the sprogs staring back at him, awaiting an explanation.

“You’re dirty,” says Tallara.

V looks down and sees his linens and knees are covered in dirt from the fall. “I’m sorry, I thought…”

“It’s okay,” says Arvo, flashing a smile. “Come inside. Sit, we’re almost done.”

He shouldn’t have said that. The children groan in disappointment and he laughs. “You need to sleep, you little devils. All right, one more story, yes?”

V takes his seat by the entrance — the only open area in the place — and smiles when the children cheer. 

Arvo hums and gathers the papers, sorting and rearranging them, pausing only to lift his brows and send V a comical look as if to say, What can I do? I am but their servant , and proceeds to tell a tale of three trolls who lived in these very dunes, and of course he showcases accompanying illustrations that the children pass around. Yarran holds his illustration too close to one of the candles and Gur shouts, “Careful, idgit!” before the boy gasps and pulls it back, offering a guilty look to Arvo.

Rabi socks his brother in the arm as Arvo soothes, “All is well. Mind the candles,” and continues his story: 

The three trolls hide under the sand, emerging only when an unsuspecting caravan passes by.

“Like the one that brought V here,” Bindi offers, the sweet child smiling at him, wanting to include him in storytime.

“That’s right. The one that brought our V here,” says Arvo, pausing for a moment, gazing down at the papers. “Uh, and these three little beasts, they always want something…”

One troll wants water, the other food, and the final troll wants the caravan’s secrets.

“What good are secrets?” Kiah asks.

“Idgit, secrets are worth all the gold!” Tallara responds, “Right, uncle?”

Arvo responds with an affirmative hum. “Very valuable.”

“Did you know people’s secrets when you were a spy?” Rabi asks. 

All the children have taken a new, special interest in Arvo since Gadget divulged his past.

“I knew some,” Arvo modestly responds. 

He continues the story: The first troll springs out and apprehends a caravan! Here Arvo cries out in an unexpected roar and the children scream, causing V to laugh in surprise. Arvo looks at him and grins, an expression V has never seen on his face before. He’s excited, the hut crackling with all the energy of his tale, allowing V to see for a moment the spirit of the boy who was willing to descend into an underground society all those years ago.

The troll robs the caravan of all their water, but that night a sandstorm rips across the dunes and the troll is blown away. Ah, I knew that storm was coming because the birds of the Citadel’s highest tower told me the sand clouds were on the horizon , says the troll with all the wasteland’s secrets at his disposal.

The second troll uses the mighty drifts left from the storm to trap the next carvan’s wheels. He leaps out , demanding every scrap of food from the wandering tribe, and they give it to him, but that night wolves burrow into the troll’s hidden cave, eat up all the food, and kill him.

The third troll is safely hidden away because a tribe of old women had told him of the wolves ages ago and he dug his cave a little deeper to avoid them.

Finally, it’s time for the third troll to leap out and snare his own caravan. He hears the wheels rumbling above and knows it’s time. He jumps out! And an arrow rips through his throat.

The children and V gasp when the sound of an arrow ripping through the air comes from Arvo’s mouth and he whips out an arrow seemingly from thin air and braces it against the back of his throat. From their vantage point, it looks as though the arrowhead is sticking out from the back of his head and the quiver juts out in front. Arvo’s tongue sticks out in a mock-death pose.

Squealing laughter and V covers his face, smiling and shaking his head. He’s met a few gifted storytellers during his time on the road, but none as good as Arvo — and those other storytellers weren’t trying to secure and hold the attention of a herd of children.

“Who killed him?!” Waru cries, standing and bouncing a bit because he’s so excited by the tale.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Arvo asks. 

The caravan driver dismounts the wagon and rips the arrow from the troll’s throat. He crouches by their tormenter and says, “I knew you’d be here because your troll friends told all asunder of your hiding spot, so you see, dear sir: The only thing that can vanquish a troll who trades in secrets is a more ferocious secret.”

Yarran hands V the illustrations so he can see the characters, and there they are: beasts drawn in beautiful detail. 

There’s the first troll with flowers blooming from his head and back from all the water he’s consumed from the caravans; the second troll with a fat belly and curled horns. V smiles, looking at him, and turns to the next page. The Secrets troll is smaller than V had imagined and keeps his head tilted to the sky where his big ears hear all the world’s intimacies whispered in the wind.

“What does the story mean?” asks Arvo.

Tallara gasps and shoots her arm up, reaching and reaching until Arvo laughs and calls on her. She leads to her feet and addresses the children.

“Secrets are important and you should never tell them if the person you’re telling them to can hurt you!”

“Very good,” Arvo nods, “And do we tell people where home is?”

No! The children cry, dissolving into giggles, even as Arvo smiles and picks up a nearby candle to blow it out. “No, we don’t. All right, sprogs, time for bed.”

He and Arvo stand outside the hut, sending each child on their way with a candle to light the way. The older children guide the younger ones by the hand, leading the trip home.

“When they were smaller, I walked with them,” Arvo explains, pausing to wave when Kiah waves back to him. “But they’re older now, so…”

V can tell not walking with them bothers Arvo, so he says, “You’re quite good with them. Your storytelling was top-form.”

“Oh..” he smiles, quick to dismiss the compliment, or rather reallocate it to someone else: “I learned all that from Gadget.” As if it’s only just occurred to him that V’s late-night visit is odd, he furrows his brow and looks out over the dark lake, in the general direction of V and Wyatt’s hut. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” V responds at once, arms crossed, fingers rubbing the bare flesh. He’s cold and it was foolish to run out of the hut without adding more layers for warmth. 

Arvo nods, though he looks unconvinced, but then he notices the chill travel through V’s body and holds back the hide to his hut, “Come.” 

V ducks inside and looks around at the few candles still burning. He likes Arvo’s hut more than Wyatt’s. It’s bigger, with more personal touches — some rugs, a beautiful oil lamp, stacks of books, even a shelf with colorful paints. An artist’s home.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

It’s funny how a small, additional inquiry can cause an entire elaborate lie to fall apart.

V bursts out crying, and once the dam bursts, he can’t stop it. Nor can he breathe. It’s not his fault — it was that bloody story about the dangers of secrets. He feels alone and incredibly vulnerable, even though this tribe has been kind and welcoming. That almost makes it worse because he’s so terrified of the idea that he could be excommunicated if the truth ever came to light. He sobs, turning away from Arvo, horrified at his weakness and the damage inflicted by his lack of discipline.

Arvo’s heavy at his back, holding him, trying to soothe the omega into giving a rational account of what’s happening. And all he can do is apologize over and over.

Finally, he stops crying and pitifully wipes at his face. Arvo slowly turns him around and he sniffs before summoning the courage to gaze up at the beta. His kind eyes are filled with worry and V sighs, hating himself even more.

“I don’t love Wyatt,” he whispers.

The magnitude of this particular secret is confirmed for him when Arvo’s eyes widen a bit. 

“Does Wyatt love you?”

“No. We tried. And now we’re afraid the alphas will send us away when they know we’re not useful.”

“You’re useful. I’m useful here and I was a half-dead beta when they took me in,” Arvo encourages, gripping his arms gently, which is when V becomes aware that he’s trembling and Arvo is still trying to calm him.

“I could be useful. We could have babies, but…” 

He doesn’t know how to phrase the nightmare possibility of being forever linked to a man for whom he doesn’t hold deeper feelings. That kind of unending purgatory — not a hell, like being trapped with The Provider or an Immortan, but a different sort of torture. And the fact that being with Wyatt isn’t the horror of being sexually tormented on a daily basis makes him feel tremendously guilty. So many have it worse than him, and he is a petulant child for complaining at all.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need to finish the thought because Arvo says, “No, it’s not right. It’s not right for you and that’s all the matters.”

His words give V pause. No one has ever prioritized his feelings when making larger calculations before. But Arvo is special. The village’s alphas might not be so considerate. 

“Please don’t tell them.”

“Never.”

V exhales, smiling slightly as relief washes over him. He doesn’t know why, but something deep in his heart tells him that he can trust Arvo. And he doesn’t know how much time this will buy him — not much, surely — but it’s something. It's guaranteed that, for at least the next few weeks, he will be able to live in this place, this magical village by the lake, and no one will send him away or hurt him here.

“I don’t want to sleep with him tonight.”

Before he can finish the thought, Arvo is moving around, pulling linens and rearranging them into seperate sleeping areas. He points at his old spot, undoubtedly the better sleeping area, and says, “You take that.”

“Oh, no, really…” He feels terrible, riddled with guilt, first that he’s invaded Arvo’s home and now that he’s pushing him from his own bed. He moves to the bedding to stop Arvo from removing more sheets and picks up the linens a bit.

“No,” Arvo gasps, but too late.

He feels the papers and reflexively pulls them out. 

His brain can’t make sense of what he’s seeing for a moment, and ridiculously his first thought is that the young man in the drawings looks like him. But of course then he realizes it is him — beautiful sketches of him laying on the grass and stepping from the water. V has only seen his reflection a handful of times, and he’s been told that he’s lovely from many leering alphas and well-meaning omegas, but Arvo’s depiction of him is flattering beyond such superficial compliments— too much to look at without fiercely blushing, which he does when he flips to the isolated studies of his eyes and mouth.

These are not like the innocent illustrations of the trolls from his story. These are tender portrayals, almost worshipful. 

“I’m sorry…” Arvo whispers, brow creased as if the extraction of this particular secret is too much for him to bear, like V reached into him and pulled out a rib as a souvenir. “I’m no cretin, I swear it. I just wanted to….I’ve no excuse, I’m sorry, V. There’s something wrong with me.”

He turns the pages and holds up an image of his naked back. 

“I like this one. How do you make it so lifelike?”

The response surprises Arvo and he simply shakes his head a bit. I don’t know . Geniuses never know how they do it, V supposes, flipping past a sketch of his feet.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he whispers, moving to sit on the bedding and Arvo follows, perhaps grateful that V didn’t immediately scream for the alphas to come save him.

The beta sits beside him, quietly weathering the humiliation of V painstakingly flipping through his drawings, drawings V knows he assumed would never see the light of day. 

“Do you draw the other omegas?”

“No...Well, I used to. Not now. Not for a long time. Please, please don’t tell Max. He won’t understand.”

No, he supposes explaining art to a man like Max is a bit of a fool’s errand. Arvo would probably not even get the word muse out of his mouth before the alpha strangled him to death. He continues to slowly leaf through them, and it has not escaped his attention that Arvo has not kept any of the drawings of the other omegas. Only his illustrations have been hidden away. 

“I’ll burn them,” Arvo offers.

V answers at once: “No.”

The idea of burning such beautiful drawings makes him deeply sad. He touches an image of himself smiling — no, laughing . This he has never seen before: a frozen laugh, the lines around his eyes, how his nose crunches and his lips pull back to reveal teeth. 

“I shouldn’t have…” the beta quietly concludes, sounding so sad and disappointed in himself that it makes V’s heart painfully contract.

He thinks Arvo is magic — how else to explain a man who can preserve something like a laugh on paper for eternity? Why shouldn’t Arvo be allowed to do such things? Perhaps, some might say, because it is the deepest gesture of intimacy, reserved only for one’s mate, and Arvo is not his mate so should not think of him in such ways. But V tries to imagine Wyatt quietly worshipping him from afar like this and he cannot. 

Alphas are good for tearing off linens to make their point, but not subtle romancing.

If Wyatt is not his mate; if the alpha would not do something like this ever —  ever — and Arvo has; if he never thinks of Wyatt when the man has left his field of vision, but Arvo speaking less to him drove him mad for days; if Arvo seems like he would remove limbs to make V happy, whereas Wyatt wants to use their situation to save his own skin; if alphas exist to fight and kill and mame and Arvo exists to nurture and draw beautiful things…

“Arvo…” he sighs, turning to him and the beta is seated much closer than he thought, their shoulders touching. He notices the man gazing at his lips and it’s rather pleasant to lean closer to him — to feel the strength and solidness of his body — and for Arvo to dip his head a bit, and then it seemed only natural to erase the final bit of cruel space between them to seal their lips together.

They kiss tentatively, sweetly, Arvo’s hands pushing back his hair, the fingers curling, releasing, cupping his face, and it’s wonderful. He knows kissing is new for him, so V tentatively pushes his tongue forward to show the beta it’s alright and that he wants this as badly as Arvo does.

Laying down feels like a good idea, but not before he sets aside Arvo’s precious drawings so they don’t crush them. V sprawls out, surprised and delighted by how quickly Arvo lays atop him and he can immediately feel how hard the beta is through his kecks. He spreads his thighs so Arvo can settle on the bedding and V arches his back to untie the linens and pull them aside. 

Arvo leans back then to look at him, his hands stroking V’s thighs, the flat plain of his stomach, across the ladder of bones from his ribs to clavicle, a gentle finale at his neck where Arvo cradles his throat and strokes the vulnerable underside.

“Okay?” he asks, the veil of arousal lifting for just a moment, but long enough for V to see the spark of fear. Acting this way goes against everything Arvo has been taught about how a beta behaves. He is meant to be submissive to the alphas and honor their wishes, along with any tribal agreements. He is never to touch a village omega.

V leans up to kiss him again and yanks open his kecks to grope the hot length inside. He’s pleasantly surprised by the heft and size of him. V has never been with a beta this way, so he’s had nothing to compare it to before, but alphas love to go on about their superior equipment when it comes to mating. All betas, the story goes, have smaller pricks. 

More alpha propaganda.

As soon as his fingers grip Arvo’s cock, any lingering timidity vanishes, and the beta’s hands seize his hips, dragging him down as V wrestles the kecks from his hips to free him entirely. V pulls back from his mouth with a wet release and gazes down where large hands appear to almost completely encircle his waist. Arvo’s gaze is intense, watching him before he dips down and kisses the side of V’s neck, nuzzling and breathing in his scent as if he’s been dreaming about doing so for quite some time.

V inhales and clings to his broad shoulders, wishing that Arvo was naked too — but it doesn’t feel like there’s enough time. He just wants so badly and time is their enemy. They’re not permitted the privacy of a mated couple and none of this is remotely allowed. Arvo’s mouth is lovely and warm on the sensitive curve of his throat and suddenly V trembles and knows from the wetness between his legs that this is how it was meant to be with him and Wyatt — between him and any alpha, but Arvo isn’t an alpha, which of course is why V feels safe and divine in his company.

He hears Arvo moan and knows the scent of him must have reached his nose. V feels greedy too and turns his face into the crook of Arvo’s neck so he can deeply breathe him in as well: aged leather, paper and ink, sweat, a sweetness that V can’t place. His fingertips are rough raking across his back, pulling up the jacket and shirt, clawing at any bare skin he can reach, and his heels raking down the back of the beta’s thighs, pulling, silently begging. 

V moans when Arvo finally presses inside, so loudly that the beta kisses him to muffle some of the noise. The nearest hut contains Arthur and Max and he doubts they would supportively respond. 

His hips are flush when V trembles again, another wave rushing out of him, all the confirmation he’s ever needed in this world that they’ve made the right decision. V cradles his face as they kiss, slow and wet, Arvo barely moving with delicious, short strokes, and V realizes he’s afraid of climaxing too soon. He can’t form the words to tell the beta to not be afraid — that this is the best he has ever felt in his short life and that nothing could possibly disappoint him.

Every inch of him feels exuberant. Arvo’s hand grazes a pert nipple and he gasps, causing the beta to pause from fear he’s hurt him. He grabs the back of his neck and drags him into another embrace, almost choking from joy when Arvo snaps his hips forth, rougher, sprinting towards the scarp. His legs wrap the man’s waist, arms looped around his neck, clinging, and Arvo has him by the small of his back and nape of neck when he tenses and V trembles again before they both collapse into a cradle of light.

He barely has time to wonder if betas can knot when the swelling begins inside of him. V races to rearrange them because he doubts Arvo knows about knotting customs and the damage he can inflict if V isn’t positioned correctly. He lifts his leg and rolls so the man is behind him and Arvo needs no instructions or cajoling to press into his back, his breath ragged, no doubt terrified by what’s happening. The alphas must have told him some things, but the knot needs to be experienced first hand to fully appreciate it.

“Safe,” V moans, surprised by how much it hurts and how good it feels. He gasps, this time in pain, and Arvo’s hand is splayed atop his heart, sliding up to his cheek, to turn his face so they can kiss again. They are still embracing when he feels the release, deep and supremely intimate, marking V in a way that can never be undone.

Though many have breached his body, no one has known him this way, and he feels grateful that he can give Arvo this singular gift. Even rutting with Wyatt never resulted in this — this sacred communion with someone he loves.

It feels essential then to whisper his most guarded confession to Arvo, the storyteller with treasured information on his mind, the former child spy who guarded his village’s most precious secrets to save their lives: “I love you.”

“I love you, V. I love you.”

He smiles with a face wet from tears and kisses him, praying the sun won’t be so quick to rise on the horizon. May the night be strong and keep them guarded for a little while longer.

***

Arvo thinks perhaps the whole thing was a beautiful dream. 

His eyes blink open and there is only the hut’s ceiling and the protector Splendid charm above his doorway, but also a curious weight on his right arm, and when he looks to the side, there is V, asleep and utterly exquisite.

When Toast detected his artistic inclinations, she gifted him some of Miss Giddy’s old textbooks and he has seen pictures of the now-gone great works of art. He’s seen Michalangelo’s David and Bartolome Esteban and Caravaggio’s young men with their fruit baskets, and he believes V is more ethereal and lovely than the most seraphic muses from before the fall.

He tentatively leans forward to smell his hair and kiss his brow, not too firmly because he wants V to sleep and stay with him a bit longer. It’s a mistake, of course. The sun is already too high in the sky, pouring light into his hut so that he can see the remnants of the candles that burnt down to their wicks. He’s late rising: late to his chores, late to breakfast, late to playing with the sprogs who will no doubt miss his presence at any—

“Arvo!”

The cry comes from directly outside the hut and V wakes with a start. They barely have enough time to share an alarmed look when he sees a shadow pass in front of where there is a small gap in the hides. He flies off the linens and quickly adjusts the leather so no little snooping eyes can see inside.

It’s Tallara calling for him. She knows better than to simply charge into his hut in the morning — Arthur gave her that lecture after the third time she walked in on him changing into fresh clothing — so now she waits outside until he grants her access. 

V is frantically wrapping linens around his waist, eyes panicked and desperate, pleading with Arvo to do something so they don’t get caught. 

He holds his finger up to his lips and finds his trousers to yank them on and then forcefully breezes out of the hut and walks directly to the goats’ pen. As predicted, Tallara is standing right outside, so she stumbles back in surprise and then runs after him, never thinking to loiter a moment longer and see V inside. 

She takes off running — she has to run to keep up with his long strides.

“Your hut smells!”

“All those bloody candles we burnt last night,” Arvo mumbles, reaching down to toss a bundle of hay into the pen for the goats, who race over, braying.

“You slept late,” Tallara observes, climbing up onto the fence so she can rest her chin on her arms and watch the goats eat.

“I did…” he mumbles, squinting to see who is at the fire pit. So far, just The Dag and Arthur. So breakfast has not fully commenced. Good. This is his one opportunity to sneak V out of his hut, before the rest of the tribe awakes and then remains peppered outside for the rest of the day. And V sheltering in his hut all day is impossible. Someone will notice he’s gone—

“You said you’d draw with me and Kiah today.”

“Hm?” He looks at the girl, who is offering her best Max glare. A reminder of what’s at stake. “Oh, yes. Yes, we will. Later, hm?” A thought occurs to him, “Say, will you go ask your Ompa if he wants any goat’s milk for breakfast?”

Tallara offers a toothy smile, always keen to receive an important mission, cries, “Yeah!” and races off before Arvo has to encourage her further. 

“Bless,” he whispers to himself and opens the pen. At first, the goats blankly stare at him, and he swears beneath his breath, stepping aside so they have an easier time escaping. But they simply munch their hay and bray. “Stupid bloody—” 

Arvo picks up the hay and tosses it out of the pen, away from the huts. This time, the goats offer an annoyed series of bleats and hurry out of the pen in pursuit of their breakfast.

“Oy!” he shouts, waving for help. The Dag’s blonde head snaps in his direction, “The goats!” he explains, gesturing at the fleeing animals.

She swears from the pit and takes off running, Arthur and Tallara close behind. They reach him in roughly five seconds and begin securing the animals. “What happened?” Arthur wants to know immediately as he grabs the black billy’s horns and yanks.

V tentatively peeks outside and sees Arvo looking back. He waves the omega outside and sees him in the shape of a white blur in his peripheral, rounding the lake in the opposite direction, past the fire pit, and into his hut in under twenty seconds. Long enough for Arvo to join the goat-herding effort and say, “I thought I locked the bloody gate. I’m sorry.”

“Cursed animals,” Arthur growls, wrestling the goats by his horns back into the pen.

“Wake yourself up,” The Dag sneers.

“Right, sorry,” he says, head bowed, knowing this is just one of those moments he will have to endure until it passes. Better Arthur and The Dag think him stupid than reckless with the village rules.

He shepherds the other two goats back into their pen and they tie the rope around the gate so another escape is not possible, Tallara all the while chastising the goats. “Bad goats!” she says, wagging a finger.

“Thought you’d want some goat milk,” he says, panting a bit from all their efforts.

“We’ll make due with water,” Arthur says, flashing a smile, and Arvo knows the damage must not be too dire. The omega pats his arm and walks towards the pit, assuming Arvo will join them for the meal, and he’s correct. Arvo follows close behind.

***

V flies into their hut and Wyatt sits straight up on the bedding, takes a single look at him, and asks: “What devilry is this?”

His heart is hammering, lungs burning from the terror of that sprint, but he has nowhere else to run when the alpha stands and approaches him with suspicion and wariness. V is helpless when Wyatt considers his disheveled appearance with a furrowed brow and leans down to inhale.

Wyatt’s eyes widen. “Who rutted you?” he demands, grabbing V’s arm when he tries to move away. “Don’t bloody lie to me. You stink of it.”

V can’t think of a lie fast enough so he whispers: “Arvo.” 

So much for secrets, but he thinks maybe a man like Wyatt, who harbors a dangerous secret of his own, may be the perfect person to make his confession. If V is buggered, so is Wyatt.

The alpha’s eyes widen and he instantly releases V’s arm. “What’s taken hold of you?” and then growling, “Are you mad ?” as he stalks to the pelts and grabs them, only to drop them back down, smoothing the leather in place, as if that will give them an extra layer of privacy. “You’re doing everything in your power to get us kicked out…”

“I love him.”

Wyatt laughs and throws up his hands. “Well, wonderful! When you’re both tossed out of his early-life home, I’m sure that will comfort him. Little V loves ruined Arvo very, very much.”

The words sting and his throat tightens. 

“They won’t do that to him.”

“ Use your brain,” Wyatt hisses, rounding on him and stalking forward until V is huddled against the wall. The alpha braces a hand on either side of his head so escape is impossible, “They bought you, yeah? For what purpose? To make babies with me. They traded with a very dangerous man, I hear, which means this was important to them. And you think they’ll...what...forgive and forget?”

The sad truth is, yes, V thought maybe they would find some mercy here. But he’s beginning to see the flaws in his logic. 

“No one will find out,” he whispers.

“You’re bloody right they won’t.” He sighs, raking his fingers through his hair. “Fuck!” 

V flinches, but the alpha moves away from him. Wyatt is not the type of alpha to beat an omega.

“Come here,” the man says, and suddenly V finds himself pulled into a rough hug.

“What’re you doing ?” he gasps, trying to shove the man away, but Wyatt is insistent, rubbing his cheek over V’s head and the sides of his face, the stubble of his jawline burning his soft skin. “Stop it,” he mutters, trying to push away the man, but Wyatt simply grabs his wrists and holds them at his sides.

“Marking you, you little fool. You reek of that beta.”

Oh . V calms after that, allowing Wyatt to nuzzle his neck and chest, chin lifted and gaze cast to the ceiling as the man rubs his arms, fingers, his stomach; a sharp intake of air when the alpha kneels and rubs his legs, hands sliding up his thighs.

“That’s enough,” he says, stepping away.

Wyatt remains kneeling, head bowed in defeat. “It’s not enough. It’s not even close.” And his voice drops to a growl as he stands slowly, extending a threatening finger. “I should fuck you to cover his scent. Bend you over and take you because I’m the only one with some bloody sense in this hut.”

“Try that and you’re leaving this hut without your cock, dear ,” he sneers, throwing back Wyatt’s favorite term back in his face.

The words rush out of him and he’s utterly amazed. He’s never spoken to an alpha like that before. V’s amazement is reflected back to him in the shape of Wyatt’s widened eyes and agape mouth.

They stare at each other, a hostile standoff, until Wyatt suddenly laughs and shakes his head. “So...it’s love, is it? Does the beta love you?”

V doesn’t miss the derision with which Wyatt identifies his classification. 

They’ve mated only once and V wants to do nothing else besides run to him. “Yes,” he sighs, all the fight washing from him. He weakly adds: “You said I deserve it, remember?”

Wyatt sucks his teeth and nods, “Fucking hell.”

***

The sprogs are at Arvo’s storytime and every second alone is precious, so Max immediately wrestles Arthur to the sheets to gnaw and kiss his neck while the omega laughs and slaps his chest and biceps — no real force behind the blows — but enough to make his heart hammer and face burn with excitement.

“We don’t have time,” he observes, which is true.

Arvo’s stories don’t last all night and Arthur spent the majority of their free time nursing Mia. Almost as if on cue, Max paws at his breast, pushing up Arthur’s shirt to grip and squeeze the sensitive mound. Arthur hisses, arching into him and Max dips down to tongue at the nipple, which feels quite nice after Mia mauled him earlier. That girl has an appetite like her Alpa’s.

It’s clear his mate is determined to be quick, and he doesn’t try to stop him when a large hand pushes under the waistband of his garb and gropes between his legs. Arthur sighs, his thighs falling open, and rolls his eyes when he sees the triumphant look on Max’s face. 

“Smug…” he observes, the word strangled when Max’s fingers push into him.

Now his brow arches, as if teasing him. Yes? The expression says, You were saying?

Arthur decides to be quiet for a bit after that, allowing Max to lavish him with attention while they have the opportunity. The alpha has very clever fingers and before long Arthur is writhing on the bedding, panting for breath, reaching up to claw at Max’s layers and pushing them up so he can stroke his stomach.

Max kisses him when he tenses, swallowing the moan that pours from him. Arthur pushes him away, but only so Max will lay down and Arthur can kneel beside him, wrestling his trousers open. All the arrogance evaporates from Max when he swallows the alpha to the hilt, and strong hands fly to the back of his head to hold him in place.

His hips buck from the bedding and Arthur nearly gags, but the alpha stops moving, fingertips now tender as they stroke his head, the back of his neck, his cheek. Once Max has settled, he pulls back with a long, solid suck, and dives back down, very nearly smirking when the alpha loudly grunts.

Mia makes a soft fussing noise and he tries to steal a peek at the babe’s makeshift crib, but Max’s hand is heavy on his shoulder. “She’s safe,” he grunts and Arthur laughs with a full mouth. Max glances down, his gaze fond as he smirks. Be quick, beauty, or your children will catch quite an eyeful upon their return.

Familiarity has made them efficient. Arthur knows just how hard to suck; how to time the rhythm of his head bobbing; when to unleash his own clever fingers to stroke Max at the base. He thinks maybe Max will spill in his mouth, which will get the job done, but not in a way that will satisfy either of them, but at the last moment the alpha surges upwards and wrestles him onto his stomach.

“Wait…” he gasps, but stops fighting when Max pulls down his linen slacks. It will feel so much better this way, the omega part of his brain reminds.

He’s already wet from Max’s ministrations and it feels a waste to not—

Max breaches him suddenly and Arthur cries out, reaching out to grip the bedding as the alpha rides him hard, being quick so they’ll have time for the knot to grow, sit, and then ease on its own. “Max...Max,” he moans, the alpha so heavy and unrelenting on his back that the name expels from him in heavy puffs. His teeth rattle in his skull at the end of each thrust, Max’s loud grunts and warm breath huffing against the back of his neck.

The alpha’s hands are strong and pin his shoulders to the sheets, his hips digging into Arthur’s rear and rocking in the most delicious way at the end. 

Max falls atop him and Arthur grunts, laughing when his mate moans into his hair. Once the knot expands, heralding his release, Arthur watches Mia roll onto her stomach and kick her little feet. She’ll start fussing soon. Hopefully, the knot will soften in time.

“I thought you wanted to be quick,” he smirks.

“Can’t be quick with you,” Max says, reaching under to cup his breasts again

“Max..” he winces, the flesh crushed between Max’s weight and the floor.

The alpha rolls them to the side, but does not relinquish his grip on his breast, which he happily fondles while they’re locked together. 

“ Arthur .” 

Conch’s voice just outside their hut startles him. Normally, he would have heard the other omega approaching, but they were too preoccupied to consider matters of safety. Max offers an annoyed grunt and Arthur shushes him.

“Speak,” he says, laughing when Max bites his shoulder.

A conspicuous pause. “Um, The Dag wants to speak with us in their hut. Before the sprogs are back.”

Arthur shoots Max an arrogant look to say: Told you. We didn’t have time , to which his mate responds by smirking and tweaking a tender nipple. He gasps, cruelly tensing his muscles to pull on Max’s vulnerable prick, and the alpha hisses, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling his crown backwards so he can bite his neck.

“So...you’ll be there?” Conch asks, afraid he’s been forgotten.

In truth, Arthur had forgotten him, but clears his throat and shouts: “Ay, we’ll be there.”

Eventually .

***

The elders gather in Gadget and The Dag’s hut later in the evening, Arthur and Conch placing their babies on a nest constructed by their sister in anticipation of their arrival. Two oil lamps burn on opposite sides of the hut, casting eerie overlapping halos across the space. Daku and Gadget have been digging latrines all day and look exhausted, sprawled on the floor of the hut as they warily consider The Dag.

“What’s this about?” Max gruffly asks. Arthur knows he’s tired from the rut and wants to sleep, but throws an annoyed look his way to address his tone when speaking to his sister. His mate at least has the grace to look chastened.

“Speak on Wyatt,” she says, turning to Gadget.

The alpha looks surprised. He wipes at his eyes and shakes his head a bit. 

“Not much to speak on. I knew him when he was a pup and I was a young hooligan.”

“Is he truthful?”

His brow furrowing, he asks: “What’s this about?”

The Dag looks at Arthur: “I don’t believe they mated.”

Daku snorts with laughter. There’s not much he knows in this world, but he knows what happens if a young, virile alpha is left alone with a fair omega. 

“I smelled the boy at the fire, and I smelled alpha.”

“Ay, you smelled Wyatt, but there is more than one way to imprint a scent,” answers The Dag.

“Maybe V was nervous,” Conch offers, casting a pleading look to the rest of the elders. He hates speaking badly of people when they’re not present to defend themselves, “He was with those awful alphas for so long…”

“That little succubus—” The Dag seethes, ignoring when Arthur utters a warning in the form of Dag and continues, “...looked in my eyes and played the part of a blushing bride and they’re lying. The both of them.”

“Poison,” Conch says, frowning, “You’re just saying words. You don’t know…”

“Wyatt wouldn’t lie,” says Gadget, his eyelids heavy, face dark with dirt. He tweaks his response a moment later: “Why would he lie?”

“To stay here,” Max answers. His brow is furrowed in a way that means he’s making grave calculations. Arthur warily gazes at his profile. For Max to speak at all during one of these meetings means the issue has been heavily weighing on his mind.

“He did mention debt, mate,” says Daku, his head resting against the hut’s wall, “Said he could never go back to Bartertown…”

“They want to sleep in our huts and eat our food,” The Dags growls. “They want the water.”

“Ay, well, I’ll say this, my love,” says Gadget, groaning as he climbs to his feet. The stirring causes the babies to squirm and fuss a bit so he crouches by them and waves a hand, smiling, until the babes watch him with wide, curious eyes and quiet. Gadget continues, in a quieter tone: “If V isn’t with child in the next thirty days, we’ll send him off with the caravan when they return.”

“Gadget…” Arthur warns.

He knows the alpha is a kind man, but oftentimes in an effort to be as ruthlessly efficient as his mate, he overcorrects. 

“Do we take beggars now?” Gadget asks, brows raised. “You send me into Bartertown to look at the faces of droves dying from thirst and I lie….all the time. I never say there’s a lake. I never bring them here. We don’t keep moochers.”

“Moochers,” Arthur scoffs. “Who? Is Arvo mooching?”

“He’s right, Arthur,” Max says. “Arvo helps with the sprogs and work. V would just be another mouth to feed. He breeds or he has to go.”

Arthur is not some sheltered Citadel omega. He has known war and famine. He has pretended at times to not be hungry so he could provide his children food. And he’s aware that they struggle to maintain the crops, reaping enough food to feed their little village.

“You never asked me if I could provide,” he says, looking at Max, suddenly transported back to the wasteland when they had escaped Joe. His skin was burning as he stood before the strange alpha, barely clothed, wondering if this man would take pity on them or if he would report them to the Citadel. And Furiosa had fought Max in the desert to protect them all. 

“You saved us because it was the right thing to do.”

But these kinds of abstract moral debates are of no interest to Max. He’s never had the luxury of having enough time to second guess himself.

“V is not you,” he summarizes and the matter is settled.

***

Daku and Gadget are digging the village’s second latrine. The idea is to rotate latrines and fill the first, then bury it to use the second while the first has time to fertilize the earth. There’s been some discussion about revolving The Dag’s crops to prevent the possibility of blight and the soon-to-be-sealed latrine is a prime location for a new location.

Max and Arvo started this second location and now it’s up to the two alphas to finish it, and it’s rough going. The men are digging a ditch as wide as the lake and a full grown alpha deep. Their hands are torn at the pads, calloused and bloody. They keep wrapping their hands with strips of linen, but the bandages are quick to stain with blood and fall off.

And though he knows he shouldn’t, and a man like Daku will absolutely loathe the preferential treatment, he suggests taking more breaks than usual and offers the alpha a sip from his canteen once...twice...three times before Daku slams his shovel into the sand and barks: “Enough, fool. I’m not going to drop dead from a bit of shoveling.”

Gadget nods and quietly takes a sip of water, mopping his brow with one of the bandages that has fallen off his hand. 

They stand in awkward silence until Daku, who may have realized he spoke with more venom than intended, mutters: “At least we’re the ones digging. Max has been a bear lately and Arvo…”

“That boy’s brain is gone with The Green Place, I swear it. The goats ran off on his watch this morning.”

Daku smirks and shakes his head, as if he cannot comprehend the lack of discipline in this younger generation. Gossip: It’s what they resort to when feeling bored or uncomfortable. Easier to mock Max’s sour mood than revisit undue and overly-harsh words traded between them.

And as if his words manifested into spy birds that took flight and emitted their siren call, the young beta suddenly appears at the top of the dune, Max at his side. They’re each carrying a shovel.

“Thought you could use some…” Arvo stops short at saying help and looks to Max, “Uh, I had a moment, so…”

“We’re here,” Max summarizes.

The four of them spend the afternoon digging in the brutal sun and soon their shirts are soaked through with perspiration so they remove them, and even then the heat remains unrelenting. 

Wyatt appears when the sun is low in the sky, a shovel hanging at his side.

“Look who’s decided to emerge!” cries Daku.

Wyatt grins, the tip of a pink tongue jutting out from between his teeth as he fishes out a small glass flask from the waistband of his slacks. “Emerged and bearing gifts, friend.”

Daku accepts the offer and pulls out the cork to smell the amber liquid. Gadget can tell from the ways his eyes widen that it’s the good Bartertown stuff. “Where were you hiding that?” Gadget smirks. Wyatt rode on the back of his bike and he had no idea the scoundrel was carrying concealed goods.

“I have my ways,” he alludes, winking as he sets about digging with the men.

And while Wyatt has managed to avoid most of the hard labor, the men are grateful for the devil’s water and therefore don’t sanction him as they work. Only Arvo seems hesitant to drink the stuff, taking a single sip and then shaking his head whenever Wyatt offers the bottle again. The alpha gracefully handles this rejection, though he observes Wyatt thoughtfully squinting at Arvo more than a few times. He supposes the young man is something of a novelty to him. Wyatt was probably never in the company of betas in Bartertown’s pit.

“This one…” he says apropos of nothing, nodding to Gadget, “Has always had a penchant for leggy blondes.” 

“Careful,” Gadget laughs. He’s joking, but he does glance toward the horizon, as if expecting The Dag at any moment to charge over a hill. “I’m a father now.”

Wyatt rolls his eyes and continues: “He snuck a pretty little omega into the pits one day..”

Gadget remembers the day, but elements become much more vivid as Wyatt describes them: 

The cornflower blue of the omega’s tunic. Tarni, was her name. Her thick fair locks falling in waves down her back. Violet eyes , praise Walhalla. Gadget had invited her to watch him work in order to show off—to pretend like he was the big man of the pit. Of course, he was one of the newer mechanics and barely in the good graces of Grit, the ancient mechanic who first trained him and the true leader of the pit. Which is why, when Grit made an unexpected appearance that early morn, he was forced to hide Tarni in the boot of a car.

“Poor thing was in there for hours!” Wyatt howls.

The alphas and beta laugh and look to Gadget for confirmation and all he can think to say is: “I left the boot open a bit so she could breathe.”

Wyatt doubles over from the force of his cackle, “A true gent! Now, why didn’t she want to be your mate, brother?” 

He good-naturedly socks Gadget in the arm and Gadget returns the favor, and before he knows it they’re tossling on the ground, a cloud of dirt kicks up around them, and the sounds of the other men’s laughter fill his ears. It’s been a while since he’s scrapped like this, as he did in his youth—and with a sparring partner in a younger man, no less. He’s surprised by Wyatt’s strength, how the man effortlessly tackles him to the ground, but Gadget quickly reverses them and pins him to the earth with a triumphant grin. 

“Mercy?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound breathless—that his face isn’t too flushed—and Wyatt relents so he releases him.

“Well done,” Daku chuckles as the men stand, grinning, and embrace.

“Strong,” Gadget notes and Wyatt plays at modesty with a humble shrug.

“You taught me all I know.”

They’re losing light, Max notes monosyllabically, so they gather the shovels and head back in the direction of the huts. Daku announces they’ve made great progress and should be finished with the latrine in a matter of days.

The new latrine is about a ten minute walk from the lake, so they have a moment to chat, and apparently Daku believes this is the perfect time for an interrogation.

“How is little V this fine day?”

“Ay, very well, thank you. A bit tired, but he’ll recover,” Wyatt says as he smiles brightly and throws a wink at Gadget.

Arvo lengthens his gait so he can catch up and walk beside their group to hear their conversation. Sometimes the limp slows him down a bit. Gadget feels a twinge of guilt when he notices. It has occurred to him more than a few times that Arvo might be lonely and long for a beta mate for himself. He should have considered that when they were in Bartertown. Perhaps they could have found someone…

The young man has always felt like the village’s collective responsibility, but especially his own. He’s not sure when that happened, but it probably developed gradually, like the boiling of water. 

At first, the boy would sleep in their hut whenever he had nightmares, then Arvo would spend days following Gadget around as he made various repairs. He thought maybe it was because he was the alpha least likely to bite his head off if he did something wrong, but then the bond endured past Arvo’s childhood. 

Now, in many ways, Arvo feels like his firstborn. The Dag credits their connection with the boy’s unusual physique as well, though he thinks that is probably just witchery nonsense. No, Arvo’s unanticipated build comes from his biological parents, two poor souls who likely went the way of Walhalla the moment the Rock Rider Chief and his horde took the canyon.

“So we can expect cubs,” Daku concludes, a pleased look on his face. In an odd turn of fate, Daku, the hardest man he’s ever known, is also the most fond of babies. Not that he would admit this. But Gadget has walked into his hut on more than one occasion and caught the alpha cooing at his babes. 

Wyatt laughs, throwing an arm around Gadget’s shoulders. “Ay, there will be sprogs in no time,” he says, grinning, and Gadget offers a supportive smile. 

He remembers his mate’s paranoia. Told you, beloved , he thinks, and in his peripheral notes Arvo has fallen away from the pack again to walk behind them. Apparently, the conversation does not interest him, or it’s possible that Gadget had been right earlier and this topic depresses the young man.

The thought makes him feel ill, so he changes topics: “The Dag has potatoes for us tonight,” he announces and Daku and Max’s faces brighten. After a hard day’s labor, there is nothing better than roasted spuds.

Even Wyatt seems to appreciate it because his arm is still looped around Gadget’s shoulders as he cries: “Miracles abound!”

***

That night is a good meal. 

Arvo eats so many spuds that he’s full in no time and gives the rest of his plate to Rabi, who is a bottomless pit. He’s due for a growth spurt, and debate over who will be taller—him or Gur—is the frequent topic of conversation between the boys. They keep track of their height on the side of Daku and Conch’s hut in the form of marks gashed into the siding and, a “G” and a “R” above the respective columns of measurement.

The boys don’t know they’re half-brothers, of course. 

No one knows that except the elders and Arvo, and he only knows because Conch accidentally mentioned the boys’ true heritage in front of him one day long ago when Arvo was small and helping with the washing of linens. He’d never seen the omega so spooked as Conch made him swear roughly five hundred times never, ever to mention the truth to anyone. 

At the time, the thinking was the boys should believe Daku and Gadget to be their fathers because it’d be easier (and better for the boys), but maintaining the lie all these years has been hard work. 

Whoever said telling the truth is the hardest thing never toiled to nurture an honorable lie for thousands of days.

He had thought the truth would come out a dozen different nights when they had stayed up too late and drank too much and the alphas were loose with their tongues, but such is the severity of the secret that they have all invested in it and held it close all these years.

Wyatt and V are seated on the opposite side of the fire and he can only see them in glimpses, whenever the flames flicker and bathe them in light, but he sees enough: Wyatt takes every opportunity to kiss and nuzzle the omega, who accepts the attention with sweet, private smiles, and even though he knows they must maintain this act—just as the core villagers have cared for and nurtured the lie of Rabi and Gur’s true father all these years—it doesn’t make bearing witness any easier.

He excuses himself only to Arthur, saying he’s feeling tired, and walks to his hut. No need to say goodnight to everyone, to have all those eyes turned towards him. Arthur can explain. He won’t be too badly missed.

He lights a lamp, strips, and climbs under the linens. Sprawled on his back, arms folded behind his head, he listens to the murmur of voices outside. Arvo is too far away to hear anything distinctly, but he can identify the voices easily enough. Gadget is telling a story, a good one, and there is much laughter, which makes Arvo smile. 

For approximately thirty seconds, he’s happy, but then he recalls V and what a mess he’s made of everything. To mate an omega who does not belong to him...it’s inexcusable and without question the dumbest thing he’s ever done. Subpar , the Rock Rider’s Chief voice labels him from beyond the grave. 

And yet...he has been obsessively revisiting their night together, revelling in the burning, agonizing fury of it all. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees V’s enraptured face, the flush of his skin, how pink his mouth grew in the wake of all their excitement.

They had confessed their love. It took him a moment to recall the memory was real—that he had not dreamed that an omega of V’s quality could love him.

The voices and glow from outside fade. Dinner is winding down, and so Arvo reaches over and slowly turns off his lamp. No little ones will visit tonight, which is good because he very much wants to be alone with his thoughts.

***

Of course, the peace does not last the entire night. He hears footfalls a few hours later, loud enough to wake him. He pulls on his kecks and holds aside the hide, fully expecting to see one of the children, but instead the moonlight bathes V, who darts into his hut before he can utter a greeting.

Arvo finds the lamp and lights it again and V is standing in the center of the hut, smiling, breathless and clearly energized from his secret visit. He immediately understands what this is: a rendezvous between lovers. But it cannot be.

“V…” he begins, standing to his full height, and there must be some quality in his voice that gives him away because the smile fades from the omega’s face. “We can’t. You should go back to your hut.”

“No, it’s safe. Wyatt knows I’m here.”

He sighs and rubs the back of his neck, his palm caressing the shorn hairs along the base of his skull. Isn’t that worse? Their strange arrangement is fraying his nerves. It’s unnatural for an alpha to share his mate this way. But V isn’t his mate , his cursed brain supplies. And yes, that’s right, but the truth of what they’re doing still runs counter to the natural order of things. 

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,” V whispers, clearly disappointed.

His words shatter Arvo’s resolve and he crosses the space between them to cradle the omega’s face and kiss him softly on the lips. “I am happy,” he says, allowing all the repressed urging and sincerity to rush to the surface. I’ve been thinking about you every hour of every day , he adds, privately, to himself. A terrible confession due to all of the pain and suffering such an admission is likely to cause, whether they have Wyatt’s blessing or not.

But the only thing crueler than breaking his oath would be to make V feel as though their union was imagined.

“I’ve been thinking about you every hour of every day,” V sighs, leaning into him, his body lithe and perfect—ready to offer exactly what Arvo needs. 

How strange to hear his own thoughts echoed back to him! He wonders if some kind of bond has already formed between them, and knows sometimes that can happen in the cases of well-matched mates. 

Arvo certainly felt like some powerful current was unlocked between them during their first night together, but it’s not something he can put words to. Standing with V now inside the shadow-veiled interior of his hut, he feels as though he hears a strange, beautiful tune that he only vaguely knows and even with a gun to his head could not name.

His hands grip V’s hips and dip down to pull the sheets higher on his thighs. He’s bare underneath. All Arvo would have to do is sneak his hand under the linens.

V sighs in anticipation, his hands caressing Arvo’s bare chest, arms sliding up to encircle his neck. He’s suddenly aggravated with his past self’s hesitancy. What in Walhalla’s name is he waiting for? It’s much easier to lean down and kiss V, so he does, pleased by the hungry response when the omega clings to him, crashing up into the embrace with all the subtlety of a storm.

Even though he is a young man who attempts to be helpful every day, and knows he’s had moments of bravery and selflessness in his life, he still doesn’t understand what he did to be worthy of V. No act makes him deserve this—a beautiful omega utterly fawning over him. He supposes the least he can do is be a good mate, so finally his hands slide up and under the coverings, gripping V’s rear, and he gasps against Arvo’s mouth.

He easily lifts the omega, V’s long legs wrapping his waist and guides them down to the linens so V can straddle his lap. His hands drop away when impatience leads V to wrestle open his kecks and Arvo laughs, amused and touched that he could inspire this kind of frenzy in anyone, let alone a creature like V. He reaches up to tuck a wavy lock behind his ear and V catches his hand, face turning so he may kiss the palm.

He thinks maybe he should be strong and take control of the moment. Wouldn’t an alpha do that? V has never been with a beta before and he worries any passivity will be alien to him. But no sooner does the thought enter his mind than the omega begins to stroke his length and Arvo loudly gasps. Thoughts of movement sail from his brain and he collapses to his back, another groan pouring from his mouth.

He’s forgotten about the need for secrecy and so V reminds him, leaning down to kiss his mouth and muffle his cries. A good thing too because next the omega removes his linens, lifts up, rolls his hips, and sinks back down so his wet heat swallows him entirely.

Arvo’s mouth is agape, awed as he watches all of this happen: V’s pale, sinewy figure rising and falling, his hips rolling in the most delicious, mesmerizing way. He is milk and honey and Arvo greedily grabs him, pulling him down so he can kiss him soundly this time—as he should have when he first entered the hut.

The youth thrusts back against him, begging for something in between jagged gasps. 

But Arvo is too distracted by the pummeling from two simultaneous waves of thoughts: This is, without question, the best he’s ever felt and also any of the alphas could hear them at any time, rip open the pelts, and see Arvo’s entire betahood embedded in the village’s most precious resource. The humiliation—the betrayal—of that frightens him, but then V’s precocious muscles squeeze him and he moans again and all coherent thoughts vanish to leave him alone with bliss.

Finally, he hears V’s request: mark me. Arvo, please, mark me. Out of necessity, Wyatt rubbed away his scent, and for the first time ever he’s consumed by rage at this injustice. 

How dare he erase their bond . There is no space for logic when it comes to his feelings for V. Was the desecration of their union necessary? Yes. Did that fact stop him from fantasizing about opening Wyatt’s skull with his shovel when they were digging the latrine? Not for a moment.

He doesn’t remember rolling, but suddenly V is trapped beneath him, his mouth stretched open in a silent cry, and Arvo worries he may be hurting him from the ferocity of this onslaught, but suddenly V gasps: “Like that...Oh, like that,” and he knows it must be good for him.

Countless nights of sexual frustration fuel him. How many times has he laid awake to the sounds of passionate cries from the other huts and known in his heart that he would never feel what his beloved family felt with their mates? And his own hand was no match for this...a nubile, willing body greeting him with all the enthusiasm of the Immortan’s waterfall tearing from its rock fortress. 

His hips sharply thrust, colliding with V’s poor flesh, and he knows he should go slower—not be so rough—but some kind of insanity has gripped him, narrowing his vision. Not even his heats (which pale in comparison to those of alphas) result in this kind of madness. He’s frightened at his own want until V grips his rear and drags him forth and Arvo realizes he’s begging for the knot.

For the second time, he makes a terrible mistake and for a second time he thanks the Many Mothers for the gift of free will.

***

This evening, they’re wiser about the timing of V’s departure. They knot and spend the next hour, or so, blissfully slumbering with V enfolded in his arms and Arvo’s cheek pressed to the bed of his soft locks. But he awakes soon after and they are no longer bodily joined, and it’s time for a swift farewell in the dark, both of them nude, exchanging hurried kisses before V dresses and slips into the night.

The whole routine disconcertingly reeks of a system and Arvo hates the idea of carrying on like this until...what? They’re caught or one of them accidentally spills their secret. 

For a man who prides himself on hard work and ethical morality, the idea of living like this makes him feel sick. Fortunately, his love for V has erased such petty worries. There is no fear or dread when he’s with the omega. There is only the certainty that they are meant to be together, and that whatever price they might one day have to pay for their decisions will be worth it. 

V runs silently on bare feet, the route now burned into his mind so that he entirely avoids the wet sand, and crawls into the nest with Wyatt. The alpha stirs  — is most certainly awake — but mercifully remains quiet and does not interrogate him. Theirs is a tumultuous relationship, but this is one of the moments he feels grateful for Wyatt’s protection and he says a quick prayer to the Many Mothers to keep the alpha safe. 

Days pass this way: V feigning innocence and playing the role of submissive mate while they build a life in the village. He does the washing with the omegas and helps care for the babies — so many babies — and tends the crops with The Dag and does the washing with Conch and every night he eats with the tribe by the fire until it’s late and everyone goes to sleep. 

But he doesn’t sleep. He sneaks out to be with his beloved, and every second spent sprinting to and from Arvo’s hut is nerve-wracking in the worst way imaginable, though it is always worth it. Always. Imagining his time with Arvo is what motivates him throughout the day—even when the sun is blazing hot and his fair skin bakes while he and Conch scrub the tribe’s clothing.

Each night, he goes to Arvo, sneaks back, and Wyatt grabs him in his half-sleep, groggily rubbing himself against V so he can mask their secret with his scent.

They carry on in a kind of self-contained habitat, practice lulling them into a false sense of security. The tribe is so kind to V that he forgets to imagine all of the terrible things that might happen to them if the truth was ever learned. 

That is, until he’s sprawled out in their hut one morn and suddenly leaps to his feet to rush outside and vomit. 

Wyatt’s immediate reaction is to laugh, for V enthusiastically indulged in the devil’s water the prior night and the alpha simply assumes he’s hung over. V is kneeling beside their hut as he wretches and Wyatt lumbers outside to squat beside him and gently rub his back. 

When they’re not bickering, there are moments like this: when Wyatt is sweet and almost doting. But inevitably he will ruin the moment.

“This is what I get for having a loose omega bride,” he declares, chuckling.

V offers him a nasty look. “What do you mean?” he mutters, accepting the whittled cup of water from the alpha.

“Well, either you indulged too much in the devil’s water, or….” He’s kidding of course, except V grows pale and looks at him with wide eyes and Wyatt realizes he’s accidentally stepped into the truth, “Fuck,” he hisses.

They have one of their worst fights that afternoon, in the privacy of their own hut, voices lowered like that could possibly defang their accusations. It’s almost like they need to call each other the worst things imaginable before any kind of sane strategy can be conceived and adopted. 

Wyatt says terrible things about him—calling into question his moral character and unknowingly (accurately) describing his life on the road—how he was passed around among the alphas, until V erupts in tears.

Wyatt immediately feels sorry and tries to hug him, whereupon V retaliates, shoving him away and hissing horrible, dreadful observations that are again (unfortunately) highly accurate about Wyatt’s life: how his mother was a whore who hated him and probably (definitely did) abandon him in Bartertown. 

He stops when he notices Wyatt’s eyes are filled with tears.

And it’s only after they have said the worst things conceivable to each other that they collapse on the hut’s floor, exhausted and resting in a loose hug. Wyatt rubs his back in slow, comforting circles.

“We’ll say it’s mine,” he says.

“Yes,” V agrees, but only because he can’t think of another way to save them both, and most importantly, Arvo.

***

Arvo’s hands are black and he has to pause to wash them in a bowl located on the floor by the door before he can continue. Unsurprisingly, Tallara is not patient or accepting of his much-needed break.

“You said I’d be after Kiah!” she reminds him and he laughs as he dries his hands with a rag.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

Kiah is worshipfully gazing at her portrait. Arvo thinks he didn’t get her eyes quite right, but she is smitten with the rendition. “I look so pretty,” she coos.

“That’s because you are pretty,” he lightly replies, of course completely oblivious to the fact that Kiah is madly in love with him and she will cradle this idle compliment for days like a prized, rare jewel she found in the desert. 

Tallara rolls her eyes because, while Arvo is oblivious, she is not. 

“I want to look tough,” she declares, climbing onto the crate where all Arvo’s models stand and posing with her hands on her hips.

Arvo smiles as he returns to his papers and charcoal, “As if I could draw you as anything but…”

“Like a pirate!” Tallara continues, “Have you met pirates?”

“Ay, a few,” Arvo sighs, selecting the right nub of charcoal and beginning a vague outline. “But your uncles have met more than me, and your Alpa met plenty when he was a road warrior.”

At the mention of Max, Tallara rolls her eyes again and sighs. 

The man who Max actually is may as well be a complete stranger to her. She only knows the serious man who insists she gets enough sleep and clear her plate at dinner time; occasionally the silly man who crawls on all fours, chasing the girls around the hut to make them shriek with laughter and Dog go mad barking. But she never met the man who kills his enemies with his bare hands.

Walhalla praise.

Gur and Rabi are quiet, each examining their own portrait. This is not unusual, so Arvo makes the mistake of lowering his guard and relaxing into the rhythm of drawing a figure, until Rabi suddenly says: “Gur and I look alike.”

Fortunately, he was smudging the lines at the time and not drawing, or his hand surely would have slipped clear off the paper. He only has enough time to look over to the boys before Gur chimes in: “We have the same eyes. I noticed ages ago.”

Arvo pretends to be seeing the similarity for the first time. 

“I suppose...a bit of a resemblance.”

Rabi’s brows raise, a clear indication he does not believe the man. Daku has offered him a similar look many times, and the fact that Rabi is not his biological son makes the similarity that much more eerie.

“Is my Alpa my real Alpa?”

Arvo can’t think of a deflection so he laughs, as if the question is absurd. “Of course he is,” he says eventually, too late, and Gur had detected a vulnerability.

“Is Gadget mine?”

“What is this mutiny?” Arvo chuckles, shaking his head as he draws the outlines of Tallara’s eyes. 

For some reason, he can’t do it today—can’t capture any of their eyes' exact shape or luster. The rush of energy that inspires him is fickle and comes and goes as it pleases. Some days, he can draw a hundred beautiful portraits; other days, it’s a struggle to get even one close to adequate. He thinks of V’s portraits stuffed under his bedding and his heart races. If V was here, stripped down to all of his earthly beauty, he could draw. He’s certain of it. He could craft a thousand wonderous effigies.

“I don’t look like Gadget,” Gur continues, “And Rabi doesn’t look like Daku. We’re not dumb. You can tell us. Do we have the same Alpa?”

He tosses the lads an annoyed look, “Gadget and Daku are your Alpas and it’s bloody disrespectful to speak about them this way.” His tone is harsh enough to shame the boys into abashment. “I won’t tell them you spoke this nonsense, but be sure you don’t forget yourselves again.”

The boys murmur their apologies and remain quiet the remainder of Tallara’s session, but Arvo knows the matter is not settled. The final portrait is not to his standards, but Tallara loves it dearly because in the sketch he’s strapped a sword to her hips.

“A sword!” she swoons, “So much better than a slingshot!”

***

He’s distracted the rest of the afternoon into early evening, accomplishing his plethora of chores around the village during which he occasionally considers going to Daku and Gadget and telling them what transpired in his hut. 

Well... some of what transpired. But ultimately, charging into their huts with a declaration of They know feels too dramatic—too reactionary. Gur and Rabi are boy alphas and as such all sorts of fantastical thoughts pop in and out of their heads all the time. They’ll forget this ridiculous obsession and there will be no need to bother the alphas with this additional burden.

All will be well . Conch’s voice fills his ears as he recalls the night where his rotten tooth was pulsing in his head, causing all sorts of miserable agony, and he rested across Conch’s lap while Daku yanked it with pincers out of his skull by the root.

He’s pleased with his rational decision, silently congratulating himself on the measured approach as he strips out of his soiled shirt, which is when V barges breathlessly into his hut.

Of course, his presence is not a total surprise, though it’s a bit early for their nightly ritual. 

Still, he smiles and opens his mouth to greet the omega when V blurts: “I’m with child.”

Whereupon, all other worries: Gur and Rabi, his duties: the goats, the crops, his place in the universe, vanish. Arvo stands there, breathing, stupidly staring until V looks like he’s seconds from bursting into tears, and suddenly he can move—quickly—and he grabs the omega in a fierce embrace, holding him tightly, kissing his poor flushed face. 

“I love you...all is well...I love you,” he whispers, not for a moment knowing what he or V are going to do.

“Wyatt says we’ll pretend it’s his,” V sniffles, and Arvo thinks, Ah, yes , because of course! 

That’s a smart plan. The village expects Wyatt and V to produce babies anyway, and now here they have the perfect gift—a physical manifestation of the fulfilment of their promise. A baby: a symbol of their successful union as alpha provider and omega bride.

Potential complications: The baby could look like him; the baby will definitely smell of him. This means Wyatt will have to try bloody hard to imprint on Arvo’s child, enough to make the babe smell convincingly, as if he could truly be the spawn of an Alpa. 

As he makes these silent calculations, Arvo feels nauseous. He is a coward making a coward’s plan of escape, but there is no alternative. They either adopt this plan or V will face dire consequences: exhilement, or worse, sent off with the same pack of alphas who tortured him all those years whenever they eventually return for another refill at their lake.

He’s been quiet too long and V is watching him with open concern. “Are you happy?” he quietly asks and Arvo is nearly swallowed by murderous guilt. How selfish he’s been! How inexcusably negligent of his precious mate.

He picks up the omega suddenly in a fierce embrace, hugging him tightly, swinging him around until V laughs. “I’m happy,” he whispers, setting him down in favor of cupping his face and kissing the omega, who is now weeping, but they are joyful tears.

***

To all other members of the tribe, the announcement seems spontaneous. In reality, it is a carefully orchestrated event by Arvo, Wyatt, and V. 

Arvo, who has never before lied to this scale to his people, comforts himself by saying the lie is necessary. The lie is the secret’s shield, and the lie is necessary — a divine good — even if it requires him disrespecting the people who saved his life. The secret is their love, and now their child, and he will do anything in order to protect it.

They’re gathered at the fire for supper and Arvo is picking at the diced vegetables and rat, occasionally glancing over the fire to V and Wyatt. They’re also eating, though actually V is doing more rearranging than eating — pushing the veggies around his plate and warily eyeing them. This part is not an act: V’s appetite has seemingly vanished overnight and it’s setting Arvo’s nerves on edge. He prays nightly to Walhalla that the baby is not weak on top of all their other worries.

Wyatt gazes at him in concern, which is part of their plan. A hand to the omega’s back; some whispered words of concern. As Arvo had predicted, Conch notices this first and asks V if he’s feeling well, which secures the attention of Arthur and The Dag. The alphas are the last to notice, but eventually they look to the omega as well. And in response to all the attention, V idly rests a hand on his stomach — this was the omega’s idea — and Conch immediately notices, as forecasted.

“Baby?” he asks, face lighting up when V offers confirmation by way of a shy smile, and Arvo feels a renewed pang of guilt, followed by a wave of crushing jealousy as the omegas swarm them both with their congratulations.

Wyatt laughs and accepts the back-slapping and friendly punches from the alphas, making one or two blue remarks about being a fast-worker. 

He’s not prepared for how difficult it is to watch another man claim ownership over his mate and child, and yet Arvo forces himself to his feet and lifts the corners of his mouth in the approximation of a smile. 

“Well done, well done,” he says to them both, his voice lost in all the commotion. He’s always been a rubbish actor, but no one is looking at him long enough to notice his hesitancy, and even if they did, they’d probably think he’s just feeling shy.

Shy, timid, invisible Arvo. 

And it is for this reason that no one notices when V watches him a little too long.

***

The necessary lie buys them time. 

Days become clusters of weeks and a few of those pass and all the while V’s role in the village becomes solidified, which of course was Arvo’s plan all along. 

Weeks become months.

It will be more difficult to kick them both out for lying if they prove themselves to be vital members of the village, he thinks. As his legitimacy grows, so does their baby and soon he’s sporting a small bump with which Arvo is borderline obsessed.

Whenever they’re alone, he hikes up V’s linens as soon as he can and rests his head on the mound even though V insists it’s too early for the baby to kick. Still, it’s nice to be close to their child as V’s cool fingers rub the back of his head.

These rendezvous only happen at night. He’s never been close to his child in the daylight.

“He’ll be a big, strong beta, just like you,” V says one night while they’re sprawled out together.

Arvo looks up at him and asks: “He?”

“Or she,” V adjusts.

The gender is irrelevant. All that matters in their world is the classification and all Arvo will ever be able to father is betas. If he spawned an entire city of children, every single sprog would be a beta and a quest for more betas was not part of the sale of V. He was purchased to make more alphas and omegas.

V’s breasts haven’t emerged yet, but his chest is sensitive, and he gasps when Arvo’s hand slides under the linens and strokes a nipple. The sensitivity heralds the buds, which Arvo is too ashamed to admit he’s anticipating with great urgency. He has often felt jealous of the alphas whenever he observed them grabbing a handful of their pregnant mates’ chests, and he’s eager to know what the supple flesh will feel like cradled in his attentive palm.

On the nights V feels too ill to rut, he lays naked while Arvo sketches him by candlelight. The beta can tell the attention flatters him, especially at a time when he insists his fingers and ankles are swollen and he feels rather ugly most days. 

In his opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. V is more beautiful than ever now that he glows with the energy of two lives. Arvo agonizes over capturing the swell of his belly just so and is at first nervous to show his mate, but the omega cherishes all the sketches. 

“You make me look like a siren,” he purrs as Arvo sets aside the sketch to push him onto his back.

And Arvo thinks that’s right. He remembers Miss Giddy’s books about beautiful gods and goddesses who led foolish men to their demise. V could probably lure many men to their deaths with an errant look. Arvo would follow the promise of such attention into the wasteland without a map or water and die gratefully in the blazing sun.

***

Gadget watches Gur level the pellet gun at the target and fire three times. Before the boy even squeezes the trigger, Gadget silently sighs, knowing every shot will miss. But the news is new to Gur, who lowers the gun, squinting and frowning.

“Only shoot on an exhale,” he explains. “Your hands shake on an inhale. It’s worse in combat.”

Gur blinks and turns back to look at him. “You remember to do that when you fight?”

I don’t breathe at all when I fight , Gadget thinks, but knows that’s too strange to explain to a child.

“You get used to it. It becomes second nature. Don’t worry, you’re still shooting better than Max without his specs.” He chuckles at his joke and then sighs when his boy simply offers a blank stare. “Try again.”

“I could do better with real bullets,” Gur sighs, adding: “And a real gun.”

“A real gun is heavier. Your shooting will be worse,” he answers, and to settle the matter for good, he says, “I’m not wasting the bullets.”

This is the most Gur has spoken to him in days and it was his son’s idea to practice shooting — just the two of them —  without the snooping ears of his siblings or Omma around to overhear their candid conversation. 

Gadget leapt at the idea because he’s hated this growing space between them. He doesn’t know why they’re drifting apart, but it’s alarming, and now that Gur has essentially requested a private chat with him, he thinks maybe it has to do with all the time the boy alpha has been spending with Tallara and Kiah. 

Maybe it’s time for a frank discussion about mating and Gadget is busy trying to frame the advice of Don’t do anything I did in my youth in a positive way when Gur asks:

“Are you my real pa?” 

The chill that cuts straight through him is unexpected, for Gadget has considered this very conversation a thousand times while nodding off beside his beloved, with his children mere hands away. He should be prepared, but he flounders for a moment, clearing his throat and squinting at the targets, afraid to look at his son.

Lying feels pointless. If Gur is asking the question, he knows the answer, and yet it doesn’t feel right to speak to him about the truth just yet — not without The Dag present.

“Let’s go find your Omma,” he says instead.

Wrestling The Dag away from her crops is tricky business. The omega is fiercely focused on her work and she hisses at the very sight of him stalking across the grass and heading towards her position, kneeling beside the tomato plants. Tiny aphids have been having their way with the plush fruits and The Dag isn’t in a good mood as a result.

“None of that now,” he says upon seeing her icy scowl, “Come with me. It’s Gur.”

At the mention of their boy, she immediately gathers her seed kit and hurries to their hut.

Gur is seated on his bedding when Gadget bows low to enter the hut and holds back the skins for The Dag to enter. The boy looks up at them and waits, and when no one seems to know what to say, he again asks: “Is Gadget my real Alpa?”

The Dag stares at him for a moment. “Why are you asking this?” 

If he hadn’t been in many-a-harrier situations than this, Gadget would have winced. His beloved has many gifts and strengths, but sensitivity is not one of them. In his opinion, the source of Gur’s newly-acquired knowledge is less important than the fact that their boy knows. And he definitely knows. He can tell in the way that Gur has been staring at him with open disdain for days now.

“Who’s my real Alpa then?” Gur asks, switching tracks.

Eventually, The Dag and Gadget sit on the hut’s floor and The Dag gives him an extremely abbreviated version: She was a captive of The Immortan, who raped and impregnated her. 

“And Conch was with you…” Gur prompts, and this time it is not a question. Well, well, well. Their eldest has been busy connecting the pieces, and Gadget supposes he’s noticed he and Rabi share an uncanny resemblance. 

The Dag’s mouth opens and immediately closes and her wide, clear eyes turn to him, even though Gadget is at a loss of what to say next. It’s one thing to divulge their own secret, but it feels sacrilegious to speak on Conch and Daku’s behalf as well. 

Gur scoffs and stands. 

“Nevermind, I don’t expect you to say truth now.” 

It’s strange to be seated under the deserved fury of his gaze. The Immortan’s eyes, burning with rage, capable of reducing the whole world to ash. He’s never been sure, but now he knows: Gur hates him. He hates him because of the lie they’ve been feeding him all these years.

“I want to sleep in my own hut,” he demands, and Gadget knows the conversation is over.

He nods, thinking it only fair that the boy — the young man — standing before him, he who is capable of writing the book of his own past without the help of mother or father, deserves to live in his own space.

“We’ll build it tomorrow,” he says.

Gur nods and Gadget thinks he will leave then, but first he looks at The Dag and says: “I’m sorry that man did that to you,” and stoops to kiss her cheek before he leaves.

And Gadget can only feel grateful that there is still love inside his betrayed heart for his Omma.

***

V wrings out another linen before he climbs from the lake and waddles over to the Dag and Conch, who are hanging the sheets from a long string extended between two poles. Splashing behind him indicates that Larrikin is also finishing up his sheet.

“Look at you,” Conch wistfully sighs. “Makes me miss being with child.”

“Not me,” The Dag snorts, “Are your feet swollen demons?”

V stares down at his fat little toes and sighs, “Ay.”

She hums, smug in her confirmation, “Wait until yer tits start leaking.”

V’s eyes widen as Larrikin ascends the bank behind him. “Okay, enough. Don’t scare the poor child,” he laughs, shaking his head, “You’ll do well. Pay The Dag no mind.”

“I suspect Wyatt wants you more than ever,” Conch continues, swept up in memories of carrying Daku’s babies, “Alphas love the smell of a pregnant omega.”

The omegas murmur in agreement, then look at him and V smiles and says, “Oh, ay.” But clearly that isn’t satisfactory because they curiously gaze at him, awaiting...something. But what? More details, probably. Confirmation that V is one of them.

But the problem is, he isn’t one of them. Not really. He’s pregnant with the child of a beta, and while there are similarities (including how V’s smell drives Arvo wild), there is also a massive difference: their child would always be considered second tier to any alpha child. Perhaps even third tier, behind the omegas. And their union would always be considered tainted. V could have been a vessel for an alpha or omega, but he sullied himself with beta seed, they’ll think.

He can never truly express how he feels, which is too bad because he genuinely likes and cares for these omegas. But they can never know him in this way.

“Ay...he wants me all the time.”

“Gadget was hard so often I told him his prick would get gangrene,” The Dag grins.

A merciful distraction. Conch blushes and The Dag shrieks with laughter. Larrikin also laughs, but gazes at him a beat longer than the others and the scrutiny makes V feel hot.

Conch, bless him, shatters the moment when he says they should go relieve Arvo from sprog duty, and The Dag says: “Gur will want to stay in his hut. He’s through with me,” which of course inspires a torrent of questions. 

Why, what happened? Did you quarrel? Did Gadget scold him?

The curiosity about him is temporarily sated, for now.

***

He frantically checks the whole village first: the goats’ pen, The Dag’s crops, and all the huts. He even looks around Conch’s bloody piano because he’s convinced Rabi might be hiding somewhere there and he just didn’t spot him from afar. Nothing. The boy alpha is nowhere to be found.

Daku immediately began the search once Gadget told him the news that their boys know the truth. He’s beginning to accept the boy may have run away when he stalks over a dune and sees Rabi seated on a square of cloth, reading one of the books Toast brought the children from The Citadel. 

A small gift when compared to her greatest offer to the village’s children: literacy. She taught all of the sprogs how to read during her visits, gifting them with heaps of old books, and now they’re more fluid at it than even their parents (most of them, Max still can’t read a word).

Daku exhales in relief and trudges over to him. As he approaches, Rabi sets aside his book and looks at him, and Daku can tell by the trepidation in his gaze that he knows the truth, and additionally he knows that Daku knows that he knows.

No point in putting on airs then.

He’d been planning on riding a newly-maintenanced bike to make sure it’s handling correctly, so Daku is dressed in heavy riding gear and grunts as he takes a seat by Rabi. He nods to his book: “Good?”

His son is wisely dressed for the climate: one of the shirts they traded from the underground mall: light fabric, breathable, and trousers to match. His feet are bare and Daku can’t help but notice his dirty toes and think he’s due for a bath, even though that is no longer his job and Rabi is responsible for his own washing now.

“It’s about cowboys,” Rabi noncommittally answers.

Daku hums. “What’s that?”

The boy squints, thinking. “They’re like….you and the uncles.” And when Daku offers a thoughtful hum, he clarifies: “They’re the good guys.”

The answer makes him feel hopeful so he clears his throat and says: “Gur may have said something to you…”

“I know everything,” Rabi sighs, as if everyone except him is being painfully slow, “I noticed Gur and I look alike and Ompa mentioned he lived in the Citadel and Miss Giddy wrote everything down — did you know that? — she wrote a whole book about everything that happened, and The Dag, Larrikin, and Ompa’s names are right there in the list of the Immortan’s brides.”

Daku blinks. This is news to him. He thinks maybe he should read more.

Rabi continues: “So...I know. I’ve known for ages,” his voice wavering, betraying his stoic expression.

Silence settles as they gaze out at the endless sand. Daku sighs and examines his mud-covered boots. Looks like they’re both filthy, then.

For some reason, he tells Rabi everything: about the scare with his arm — his heart — but don’t worry I’m okay now . 

He just wants to make sure Rabi and Bindi, Yarran, and Alira are provided for, so that is why they ventured to Bartertown and brought back Wyatt and V. They’re securing the next generation’s prosperity. He’s old and getting older. One day, he’ll die, but to not be afraid because Rabi will always be safe in the village and the uncles, Omma, and Ompas will care for him and protect him always. Always . 

And he didn’t tell Rabi about Joe because Joe was a bastard and is dead — good riddance — and Rabi’s his boy anyway, so Daku never wished for an ugly man to claim ownership of a boy as good and pure as Rabi.

He says all of this in one mad exhale, then pauses, picking at the fringe of his slacks.

“Anyway, that’s all,” he mutters, the wind knocked from him when Rabi launches at him, his thin arms surprisingly strong as the boy clings to him, weeping. He utters a surprised exclamation and rubs the boy’s back. 

What happened? Is Rabi still cross?

“I love you, Alpa,” the boy cries. “I don’t care about Joe. You’re my Alpa. You are .”

He sighs, folding the boy in a strong embrace. He was a fool for assuming Gur and Rabi were comrades in vengeance. Yes, they were privy to the same information, but he was wrong to assume their response would be identical. Gur is furious. Rabi is hurt, lost, and wants to know that home is still home and he’s seeking reassurance that nothing has changed between him and Daku.

“That’s right,” he says, “I’m your pa.”

He holds the boy, says he loves him, and then thinks: Okay, that’s enough. That’s enough for today. He stands and helps Rabi gather his things, silently tucking the sheet beneath his arm and carrying the book as they head back to the village together.

***

The Book of Miss Giddy spends a whole chapter on dancing.

Before the fall, dance was almost everywhere: in contests, celebrations, and entertainment. And so many different kinds! Rabi doesn’t know what a tango is, but Miss Giddy says it started in a place called Río de la Plata, which means nothing to Rabi, but he likes the way the words roll off his tongue and he keeps repeating it over and over, mumbling it in their hut, until Daku tells him to stop.

The only dance Rabi knows is the dancing the alphas and omegas do around the fire. And that’s usually silly and after the alphas have had too much to drink. Sometimes, the silliness stops and kissing starts and that’s the signal for the pups to retreat to their huts. Oftentimes, the children will then gather with Arvo and he’ll tell them stories, and that’s all Rabi knows about dance.

Normally, dance is not a thing he looks forward to, but tonight is different. Tonight, he knows Daku is not his birth father, but is his Alpa, and so he doesn’t roll his eyes when Daku, sober, pulls Conch to his feet and rocks back and forth with him in a sort of slow dance by the fire. He’s surprised because this is not his father’s way normally, but he thinks maybe the talk about his heart explains his behavior. 

Maybe almost dying made him want to dance with Ompa.

The love between them is palpable and comforts Rabi. Theirs is a tumultuous world and it feels good that certain things are guaranteed: the love of his parents, his love for them, their love for each other, the love of and for his siblings, and the love and protection from his tribe.

To watch people dance to no music is strange, which may be why Kiah begins to sing a song that Toast taught her. It’s soft, melodic, and beautiful. 

The others eat, offering them privacy by way of ignoring them, until Gadget snares an unsuspecting Dag and laughs, saying, “Yes...yes…” while she hisses, “No...no…” because she knows he’s aiming to dance slow with her too and the feeling is strange and new for her. But then Gadget has her in the embrace and is moving slowly and Rabi can see the moment she exhales and rests her pale cheek on his chest. Perhaps dancing slowly isn’t so bad after all.

Max doesn’t want to dance either, but that’s too bad because Larrikin has his eyes set on him, and he grins wickedly while heaving the alpha to his feet, even as Max mumbles his objection. They drift in slow, calming circles, languid enough so Max has no trouble keeping up in his leg brace, and Rabi can tell by the faint smile on the alpha’s mouth that, despite his instincts, he’s enjoying himself.

Wyatt laughs then and says, “Well, we can’t be the only ones not dancing!” as he extends a hand to a timid V.

“I don’t know if I should…” he sighs, cradling his swell.

But the alpha twirls with a flourish and suddenly V is up, spinning with him, and laughing so loudly that it makes Rabi smile.

So Rabi’s research, as assisted by Miss Giddy (Walhalla keep her), is that dancing is a good thing done by loving mates. 

He thinks maybe he should add some observations to her book, just to keep things updated. He’s the best reader and writer of all the pups, after all. It feels like an important thing he could do: offering guidance and wisdom to scared sprogs who might follow in his steps one day, wondering what the strange business of this world is all about.

Rabi could be the one to offer a hand and say: I was scared too, but here are some things you should know. The world’s not all terrifying shadows.

He’s so busy imagining this new world where he is lord of all information that he fails to notice Arvo slip away from the fire, or V’s lingering gaze as he leaves.

***

He barely makes it into the hut when the scream rips from his chest. He can’t unleash it fully, of course, so he grabs a heavy leather jacket to muffle the wild noise. When Arvo peels away the sleeve, it’s wet, and he realizes he’s crying. He stares at the streaks, stunned, wondering if he’s gone fully mad. 

Maybe this is how Max behaved when the War Boys found him wandering in the desert.

Sort your brain, boy. The Rock Rider Chief’s voice again. His first father. His worst father. The worst man he’s ever known. 

And how will Arvo be different for his child? He will also be a distant father figure, unable to ever properly hold or love them. He will have to watch another man, an alpha, do a piss poor job of raising his sprog. Forever. Until the gates of Walhalla open and water floods the earth once more.

“Arvo…”

When he looks back to the hut’s entrance, V is peeking inside. 

“What’re you doing?” he hisses, grabbing his bony wrist and pulling him inside. 

This isn’t like their other trysts: the fire is still burning, their entire tribe is still eating supper. 

Has V lost his mind ?

“You left. You’re upset….” he timidly answers, gazing mournfully at Arvo’s face. 

He must look weak: eyes and nose inflamed, cheeks wet. An alpha wouldn’t cry. In response to seeing another man dance with his mate, an alpha would take action. And while Arvo has always prided himself on his negotiation tactics and creative solutions, he sometimes wishes he could wield a blunt instrument like the uncles and simply raze his enemies to the ground.  

If only to taste the enormous satisfaction.

“I can’t do this, V…” he quietly admits.

He feels worse after the confession. The least he could for V is quietly bear this burden remotely and love him like he might a beautiful statue: silently, afar, never to be touched when others are watching. To observe their child grow under the tutelage and guidance of another man because that’s what would be best for V and their baby. Yes, the burden of frequently re-marking the pup with Wyatt’s scent would be cumbersome, but it’s something the three of them agreed to do in order to buy safety and time. 

He agreed to erase himself from his own child, forever.

V’s eyes widen and Arvo knows he’s afraid, and he hates that he’s the one who’s made him feel this way. I’m scared too , he wants to say, but doesn’t think it’s fair. All he can offer at this point is the willingness to not share every single paranoia that pops inside his head.

The divider flurries and Wyatt appears, surprising them both into silence. Arvo feels like all of this could be a horrible nightmare. 

He glances at his bedding, checking for snakes. There are always snakes in his bad dreams.

“What are you doing ?” Wyatt growls, gesturing towards the outside world, “The omegas are asking where you’ve gone to. What if they catch you in here?”

“Why are you here?” Arvo counters, his face suddenly burning. His heart flutters from the surge of anger and he thinks: Walhalla, save me because he knows in his bones that he’s going to fight Wyatt, as though it’s already been written.

The tone of his voice shocks them both and he thinks Good . He’s tired of being predictable: stalwart, unsurprising Arvo—always in his hut; always around to watch the sprogs; always on time for meals; always free to lend a hand when they need him. Never complaining. Never raising his voice. Never attracting undue attention or stealing anyone’s attention.

The perfect, meak beta.

“Watch your tongue,” Wyatt threatens, bristling with all the power of a wronged alpha.

“Stop it,” V hushes, strong fear pheromones pouring from him. The smell makes Arvo feel wild, and his muddled brain thinks he hates Wyatt—this man, who has come into his hut and upset his mate.

“You’re attracting more attention being here. Go,” Arvo instructs.

The alpha barks with laughter. “And tell them what? Everyone saw him walk off this way. They know he’s not in our hut. Fuck, the two of you are stupid—”

Arvo strikes him hard in the throat and Wyatt collapses to his knees, gasping for breath.

V stares down at Wyatt with huge eyes, then looks back to Arvo as if he can’t believe what’s just happened and some unseen force must be the reason an alpha is now laid out on the floor of his hut, making a strange wheezing sound.

The reprieve and relative silence gives his mind a moment to clear. 

He realizes V is asking him something: Safe? He’s scared and Arvo is the cause. He hit Wyatt. The man is still clutching his throat. He wonders if he broke his windpipe. Arvo’s hands shake so he balls them into fists and gazes at the hides, awaiting a flutter and the faces of the tribe to fill the space. All their dirty secrets laid bare.

Wyatt is quiet now, no longer wheezing. His head is bowed as hands grip his throat.

“I’m sorry, mate—”

He barely gets the words out before Wyatt leaps to his feet and charges him. V shouts as they slam into the side of the hut and crack the heavy mud coating. Bits of clay and dry mud crash down on him as he slams his elbow down onto Wyatt’s spine: once, twice, three times, until the alpha releases him and then he kicks the man in the solar plexus backwards.

Arvo tries to run past him, out of the hut, but Wyatt grabs his boot and he falls forward. He crashes to the ground and the air is knocked from his lungs, so he rolls onto his back, trying to breathe. His lower half is in the hut, but his upper body sticks outside on the grass. Wyatt moves fast to straddle him, the hides draped over him and framing his face like a head dressing, and punches Arvo so hard everything goes white. 

Distantly, he can hear V shouting for help, and ridiculously he wants to tell him to be quiet so they’re not found out—as if the entire village hasn’t already heard them trying to murder each other.

Rough hands grab and pull them apart, but Wyatt manages to split his lip before they can fully separate and Arvo’s last coherent thought before he blacks out is it was a good and deserved shot.

***

The children are inconsolably rapturous. 

After all, this is the first fight they’ve ever witnessed. Arvo’s head swims as the alphas drag him to Arthur and Max’s hut, arms slung over Gadget and Daku’s strong shoulders as the tips of his boots drag through the sand. Distantly, he can hear the alpha children shouting for more information.

Is that Arvo?! Did Arvo hit an alpha?? Did Arvo hit WYATT?! Did ARVO?? ARVO!?

He’s not proud of the smidge of smugness he feels. No one thought him capable of it. He didn’t even know if he was capable of it.

Any pride vanishes when he hears Kiah’s soft voice asking if he’s hurt.

He scared the children and the omegas. He exposed their secret. He’s a terrible excuse for a beta.

Gadget and Daku deposit him on the bedding and he sees Wyatt seated on the floor, an angry bruise already forming on his throat. 

“What the bloody hell happened?!” Daku shouts, face red, neck and forehead veins bulging and Arvo swallows thickly in response.

In all of his wildest fantasies about what might happen to them, he forgot how truly terrifying a furious alpha is in the flesh.

“Nothing,” Wyatt croaks, sucking a deep breath so he can be heard: “He insulted me. We had a fight. That’s all.”

Even now, Wyatt is trying to cover for them. 

An epiphany: Arvo is the problem. He was the one who lost his temper and started the fight, and before that it was his pride that made him flee the fire, and before that it was his lust that brought him to bed with V—even though the end result was more than mutual.

V bursts into the hut, having lagged behind the group because it’s difficult for him to move about these days. He’s sweet standing there, with a wide gaze and hands resting on his stomach, even now protecting their child.

Arvo realizes he wants to be a man worthy of such an omega, and it hasn’t been the fact that he’s a beta that has been preventing that. He’s been a lying smeg, as The Dag would say. 

Honor visits him in a flash, as rapid and inexplicable as inspiration: “V is my mate. That’s our baby,” he blurts.

Wyatt groans, covering his face as Gadget simply crows with laughter, certain this is an odd joke from a deranged beta.

For the first time, he realizes Arthur is standing in the hut too. He wonders if his vision has gone wonky because the room swims before he can clearly see the omega, but he’s standing there, calmly watching him. He doesn’t seem surprised. 

Arvo wonders how long he’s known.

Max, on the other hand, shakes his head and mumbles to himself. 

“The contract. The agreement . The Provider.”

Gadget’s laughter subsides, the smile dropping from his face when he realizes it’s not a joke. “You’re serious.” Arvo can’t answer him, can’t stand the look of betrayal in his eyes, and so Gadget looks at V: “Say something!” he barks and the omega flinches.

“It’s true,” he whispers and trembles, eyes luminous with tears.

Wyatt groans again, a condemned man on the way to the gallows.

“So…” Gadget declares, in a rough tone Arvo has never heard before, “You fucked a promised omega, destroyed the village’s contract with a dangerous man, and lied to all of us.”

And hearing his crimes read aloud is so much worse than listing them in his darkest nightmares. Arvo utters a soft Gadget , but it’s too late. 

The alpha storms over to Wyatt and grips him by the hair, dragging him outside. Wyatt yelps, grabbing at Gadget’s wrist to release some of the pressure, but it’s no use. Gadget has him, and as Arvo (and the rest of the hut’s occupants) run outside, he’s once again reminded of the fact that Gadget is a huge alpha and quite frightening when roused.

“I give endlessly , don’t I?!” the man bellows, “Do I not provide and love and this is my thanks?!”

Wyatt cowers on the ground and the other alpha grips his neck. For a horrible moment, Arvo is certain Gadget will crush Wyatt’s throat.

The Dag runs to him and bravely stands in his way, chin lifted, and Arvo can see she’s crying. He doesn’t know why. There’s so much he doesn’t understand. 

“It’s not his fault,” she whispers to him, nodding to Wyatt, “Our pain is not his crime.”

And Gadget gazes down at his Bartertown kin and sighs, releasing him. For a pitiful moment, Arvo thinks maybe all will be well and they can resolve this conflict, but then Max speaks: 

“Wyatt and V...pack your things. You have two days and then be gone.”

Even Arthur looks surprised. “Max, no,” he gasps. “You cannot send a pregnant omega into the wasteland.”

“They can go back to Bartertown,” he says, “They cannot stay here.”

V’s mouth drops open and a terrible sound leaves him: part wail, part moan.

“ Please ,” Arvo begs, falling to his knees and grabbing Max’s hand. He feels the alpha flinch, but refuses to let go, “Max, please ,” he gasps again, his forehead resting against the alpha’s knuckles.

He understands the alpha’s reasoning: The Provider will return and see V, who is now swollen with a beta’s child, and his pride will turn to fury. His prized possession, the most beautiful omega in all asunder, deflowered by a lowly beta. Rage will consume him. He will accuse them of being liars and he will be right. 

Wars have started over less.

Max doesn’t view his decision as a death sentence. In his mind, he is mercifully sending V and Wyatt away to start over in Bartertown. 

So little does he think of a beta’s bond that he assumes doing this won’t kill Arvo. 

“Stop that,” Max scolds, pulling away his hand. “Stand. Be a man.”

Arvo staggers to his feet and stares at the alpha, and the flash of fear in Max’s eyes does not escape him. Steady, predictable Arvo has transformed into a raving lunatic.

“Then I’m leaving for Bartertown too,” Arvo flatly declares.

“No!” 

The elders turn and see all the village’s children gathered by the fire. Of course they’ve heard everything. They’re little snoops and this is the most interesting thing that’s happened in their short lives.

Kiah is in tears, clinging to Tallara. “Don’t send Arvo away!”

“Hush now,” Conch says, but the fact that he’s shuffled behind Daku and is currently using him as a shield doesn’t exactly instill the children with confidence. But Arvo feels a swell of affection for him when the omega adds: “He’s been here since he was a boy, Max.”

“Then he knows I don’t tolerate liars,” Max gruffly replies, the words cutting him deeply.

“We need him, Max,” Arthur interjects, “He’s part of our tribe.”

The alpha grunts, leveling an icy look his way. He’s furious, but Arthur’s words are true: Arvo is an essential part of the tribe. 

“Fine, you stay. But they go,” he says, turning towards his hut.

“No!” Arvo cries, desperate in his panic, stupidly reaching for him again. 

Max turns on him, eyes ablaze. “Enough, dammit!” 

The children shrink in his peripheral and the omegas jump in fear. Even Arvo steps backwards, as if the alpha might strike him. He can’t remember the last time he heard Max shout. He sounds a snarling beast. 

The only stoic omega is Arthur, who lingers by the hut door, observing.

“I’ve said my piece, Arvo, and that’s it,” Max growls, “You stay, they go. Don’t test my patience, boy.” He nods to the children, “Put them to bed.”

“Gadget…” Wyatt begs, “Brother, please. I can’t go back. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill me,” he moans and Arvo feels a pang of sympathy for the alpha, who is kneeling in the sand.

“You’re a liar,” Gadget dismisses, which for a man of his principles is as good as a death sentence. Worse. It is total erasure. He simply walks away from the man and points at his sprogs. “Bed, now !” And not even Gur answers back. He simply grips Entity and Waru by the hands and hurries to their hut.

So it’s true: All is lost. Arvo doesn’t know what else to do so he goes to V and holds him, kissing his brow, and promising it will be alright, even though that’s not true. All Arvo has left is beautiful lies. The omega weeps from fear and shame and clings to him, the hard swell of his belly pressing into him.

The elders and some of the lingering children watch them, fascinated and in disbelief, until Conch says, “Okay, bed…” while shooing away the children. 

Arvo looks up and sees Arthur watching them and he thinks something like sympathy is reflected in his eyes, which is worthless because not even Arthur can talk Max down from his fury right now.

He’s broken something priceless and doesn’t think it can ever be repaired because a man like him is treacherous and dishonest enough to break but not brave and capable enough to build. His shame has been laid out bare in front of the whole village, and if they are truly condemned then he wants to enjoy his last night with V, so he takes the omega by the hand and walks him back to his hut.

No one tries to stop them.

***

The sun rises on the dunes and Gadget stands atop one of the largest mounds of sand, watching it. He couldn’t sleep last night: because of Gur; because of Arvo; because of Wyatt.

All his lads and all the lies. 

He’s sure this mutiny is somehow his fault—caused by a singular, rotten decision that branched off into three bad decisions, and then six, so on and so forth until they’ve reached this moment.

Maybe he should have told Gur about Joe the moment the boy could comprehend his explanation. Maybe he should have been stricter with Arvo, humored him less, sent him to bed crying instead of cradling him all night. He turned the boy soft—transformed him into a man of weak principles.

Daku exits his hut, clearly on the way to the loo, but spots him and takes a detour.

“Hail,” he greets, nodding.

“Off to the latrine?” Gadget asks, squinting in the morning light.

“Ay. I swear, brother, I have to piss every hour these days.” Daku considers their land, inhaling deeply. “You’re up early.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. He watches Dog trotting around as he is wont to do in the morning. The old beast lumbers up to the pen to sniff at the goats, none of which are his old friend.

“Ay, much commotion last night,” Daku agrees, and means to say something else, but suddenly Gadget is talking.

“Haven’t we been talking about balance?” he asks, looking to the other alpha. “We said there are too many alphas and omegas for one person to care for, even Arvo. Don’t we need more betas to help keep the order?”

And he knows the reasoning is desperate because Daku sighs and shakes his head. 

“You think Max will listen to reason? Arvo lied…”

“Yes, he lied,” Gadget agrees, “He’s in love. Haven’t you done stupid things for omegas?”

Daku chuckles and skillfully deflects: “Me? Never, but I know your past.” He knows the situation is dire because Gadget doesn’t smile. There are dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he’s aged about ten years in a single day. “You’ve changed your tune. You were out for blood last night.”

“I was thinking…” he sighs, staring out at the drifts and shaking his head, “It was so easy to know the right thing to do when it was us and the Chief—when that bastard threatened our lives. But now, I don’t know…”

“You think Max is wrong…” Daku pointedly declares, his unnerving gaze set upon the other alpha.

And though it is mutinous, he nods and says: “Ay.”

The man frowns, making calculations: “We could send them to the Citadel. Maybe Wyatt can outrun his debtors there.”

But the answer is anemic. They know that still means sending them away from their village; from their family. 

“I think Gur hates me,” Gadget says suddenly, and asks: “How did Rabi take it?”

Daku nods, not wanting to outwardly delight in his fortunate fate in front of Gadget, who is bruised and broken. “Well enough.” He knows this process will require one hundred conversations and will not be resolved after one chat.

“Bless,” Gadget replies, his voice free of malice and sarcasm, which only makes Daku feel worse.

“He doesn’t hate you. He couldn’t hate you.”

“I keep thinking about if Gur ran off. He’s furious. He might do it. Say he runs to the Citadel, and someone takes him in, raises him right, loves him, and then he does something so... stupid one day,” says Gadget, his voice wavering, “So unforgivably, inexusably bloody stupid ….Wouldn’t I want them to forgive him anyway? Despite himself?”

Daku stays quiet, thinking of Rabi crying and clinging to him.

“If we show one small mercy, remove one small stone, the whole tower could come down.”

“That was the old world. Didn’t we fight so we could show small mercies?”

***

Max knows when he’s outnumbered, but he refuses to budge or be cajoled when he believes that he is correct. He cannot abide scoundrels, and what sort of example would it set for the village if he allowed Arvo to lie to his face in such a blatant way?

His stubbornness, however, does not automatically persuade those closest to him. 

Kiah, in particular, knows his weaknesses and releases tears on the level of Joe’s waterfall, moaning, clinging to Arthur and the omega rocks her back and forth. He strokes her long hair, hoping to comfort her, but the girl keeps moaning: “It’s not fair...It’s not fair!”

And Max can’t bear it any longer.

“ What’s fair?” he growls, “Not a bloody thing is fair!”

“Stop it,” Arthur warns and the babies Mia and Jedda whine, in apparent agreement from their nest of bedding, that Max has gone too far.

Tallara, for her part, is quiet. She’s seated on the floor of the hut, knees pulled to her chest, as she glares daggers at him.

As a family, they’ve had disagreements before, but never this righteous, unified disdain of him. Max feels mad because he knows in his bones that he’s right to cut out the rot of Arvo, a lying traitor who could very well get them all killed. It doesn’t matter he’s been here since he was a boy. Clearly, he’s grown too comfortable if he can betray the village like this.

Don’t you think I love him? he wants to ask, but feels he has to be strong in his decision. He tries not to imagine Arvo as he was as a boy: stick-thin, knock knees, perpetually filthy.

Unquestionably loyal, loving, desperate for a family.

“What’s fair?” he repeats. “Tell me.”

Kiah sniffles against Arthur’s breast and glares at him.

“The bombs? The famine? Tell me when it was ever fair, beauty.”

“Max, stop it ,” Arthur spits again through clenched teeth. Max knows he’d be getting a real ear-full (inasmuch as his ears still work) from Arthur if the girls weren’t present.

“We love Arvo,” is Kiah’s innocent reply. 

For a child, that is enough. Her love is boundless, but Max’s is not. He’s been hurt too many times, so he must be cautious when doling out his love because it is no longer a limitless resource. He gave most of it to Arthur, and then branched off the rationing to his daughters in equal measures.

He has love for his tribe, for the dead he loved when alive, for Furiosa, for the sisters, and that is all. He has no more love to give, and he certainly has no additional fuel for when he is wronged at this level.

“Girls, go play in The Dag’s hut,” Arthur says, setting down Kiah.

Tallara sighs and stands, collecting her sister by the hand and guiding them from the hut. 

And because he’s always been at the total mercy of his mate, Max speaks before he can be intimidated by the fire in Arthur’s amber gaze: “It’s my right as tribe leader, Arthur.”

His mate’s answer surprises him: “I know.” 

He looks to Arthur then and is struck by the fact that he is such a glory even after all these years: his alabaster face, the way a light seems to shine through him. 

“But did I belong to you the first time we rut in the desert?”

Max furrows his brow, uncomprehending, so Arthur continues:

“I belonged to Furiosa. You even said so afterwards. You knew we shouldn’t have because it was wrong.”

He blinks slowly, gazing down at his hands. They’re dark with dirt from breaking up the fight. All of that seems so long ago that it bears no relevance on what’s happening now. Max tries to remember that younger, daring version of himself: the man who charged an occupied canyon to protect his tribe; who endured torture at the hands of crazed soldiers to see his loved ones again; who took Arthur even when Arthur was not his to take.

Is that the same madness that took Arvo?

“And you’re thinking… ‘But I’m an alpha, it’s different,’” says Arthur and Max nods in agreement and points at him: Yes! That’s exactly right! He’s an alpha and it is different. Alphas are bloody-well programmed to seek out omegas and claim them, but betas are meant to be subservient. 

“Arvo doesn’t behave like a normal beta. Do I behave as an omega is meant to?” his cunning mate asks.

Max deflates and sighs, dropping backwards to collapse against the bedding. Sometimes, he thinks they can communicate without words. Arthur sprawls on his stomach beside him and rests his cheek against Max’s chest, gazing up at him. He peeks down at the omega and lowers a hand to run fingers through his hair. Very shrewd, my love .

Max has never been good at negotiating out of a rhetorical boobytrap, but he’s always known bait when he sees it.

All he has left is his ultimate authority as an alpha: “Arthur, they have to go, and Arvo will probably want to go with them.”

It speaks to Arthur’s character that his eyes are filled with tears but his voice remains steady when he whispers: “I know.”

“Do you hate me for it, beauty?”

Arthur leans up to kiss him and sighs against his mouth: “Never.”

When his hand dips down to slide under Arthur’s linens and the omega allows it, he thinks his morning may have taken a turn for the better, but then The Dag’s screams interrupt their serenity.

***

Gur packed one small bag, and it’s surely not enough: just a jacket, a clean shirt, water, some dried meat, and a knife—but it’s all he had time to hide away under the constant watchful eye of his Omma.

He still hasn’t decided how to refer to Gadget in his own mind yet: Not Alpa, not pa, so perhaps just Gadget for the time being. The liar. Funny that Max humiliated Arvo in front of the village for harboring secrets when Alpa is the biggest liar he knows.

No, not Alpa , he chastises himself. Gadget. 

He can’t stay—has decided to go—and assumes the easiest way is a clean break, so he sneaks off between the time Gadget slips out early in the morn and Omma wakes from her slumber. It’s risky, but Gur dips down to kiss her brow before he leaves, casting one last look back at Entity and Waru’s small sleeping forms before dipping outside. He tells himself not to feel too badly because they’re not his full-blood siblings, but it still hurts to leave them behind.

The plan is to walk to the Citadel. Gur has no earthly idea how he’ll do this — after all, the trip takes days by car or bike — but he hopes to meet a caravan or pirates along the way who will take him in or give him a hitch. If no one stops for him, however, he’s buggered. 

But it is his opinion that is still a better fate than staying in that hut. Even if Gadget did eventually build him his own, he’d still have to see the alpha every day and know that he is a liar and not his real father.

Gur’s real father was a genocidal, raping monster. Rabi’s read all that’s been written about their Alpa, and that is the long and short of it. He wonders if that will be him too some day — if there is a timebomb inside him set to detonate when he turns his half-life.

He tightens the strap of his pack, sucks in a breath, and picks up the pace — the dunes now reaching his mid-thigh and slowing everything down, which is probably why Rabi catches up to him so easily. The boy’s heavy breathing fills his ear, and when he turns around, Rabi is already an arm’s reach away.

His mistake was sharing the escape plans with his closest friend. Of course Rabi chased him down. He chose this route precisely because the elders would assume the trek was too difficult for a child, but Gur is tough.

“Where’re you going?!” he demands, “Your Omma noticed you took your things. She’s going mad at the village, Gur.”

“Go home, Rabi,” Gur dismisses, lengthening his strides, as if that will dissuade the other boy in the slightest.

“I know you're cross with your Alpa—”

“He’s not my Alpa.”

Rabi continues: “I was cross with mine too! But then he told me why he did it, and I swear it, Gur: Once Gadget explains everything, you won’t be so cross anymore…”

Gur suddenly stops and rounds on the other boy, snarling: “I’m not cross . I hate him, understand?!”

The intensity of his words silence Rabi and the boy looks at him with something like fear in his eyes. Rabi has never been afraid of him before. Gur feels satisfied. Isn’t his birthright to make alphas fear him? This is his only legacy: terror and intimidation. He’ll go to the Citadel and swear fealty to Furiosa, and then one day follow in her footsteps.

His destiny has already been written, and it feels oddly like peace. Gur doesn’t have to worry about moral quandaries because his path is clear: slash and raze, take what he desires, love no one.

Rabi is still following him, but silently, as if the fight has drained from him. Gur feels smug for precisely ten seconds until they clear a tall dune, and spot way in the distance the caravan of The Provider.

***

Morning comes too quickly and soon the hut is filled with light pouring through the gap of the entrance. V has a sheet wrapped around his waist, a leg folded before him so he can consider the beta and Arvo can look back at him.

The previous night was for weeping and clinging to his mate, but now he feels utterly drained as he looks at him and asks: “Is this my fault?”

A wounded sound leaves Arvo as he leans up and pulls him forward and down, the omega draped across him. Arvo’s fingertips trace the lines of his cheekbones. “This was my decision, V. Every step of the way,” he murmurs, kissing his lips.

Their noses brush, nuzzling, as he thinks. He’s trying to conceive of a way to convince Arvo to stay here with his family, and the beta must realize this (thanks in no small part to their strengthening bond) because he says: “You’re my family now.”

And he knows that is true, but is also true that this tribe raised Arvo, and he knows it will not be easy for him to sever those ties. There is no more time for analysis, however, because outside shouts erupt.

***

“He’s gone! He took his jacket and knife!” The Dag shrieks, tearing out of Gadget’s grip as she runs from the hut, “He’s gone !”

Gadget chases her outside, insisting, “He might have walked off for a bit. He’ll come back!”

But it’s too late: The shrieking of his beloved has attracted the attention of the entire village. He sighs, watching the other couples filter outside, and he stares at Wyatt a moment when the alpha makes a sheepish appearance.

“What’s happened?” Arthur demands, racing outside, a grumpy Max ambling behind him. 

Oh, hell.

“He’s not coming back! He tooks his favorite knife!” The Dag insists, her eyes wild. As much as she’s prided herself in instilling independence in her children throughout the years, she is fiercely protective of them, and quick to madness if convinced they’re in danger.

Gadget looks back to their hut, where Entity and Waru are warily loitering in the doorway. “Go back inside,” he says, “All is well.”

“All is not well! Our boy ran off and you don’t even care!” she accuses, wild in her desperation.

Gadget steps close to her. “I care ,” he growls. 

He probably cares more than she could ever imagine. This whole mess is his fault. He should have handled Gur’s true paternity better—or differently. He doesn’t know what he would have done differently, but that he should have handled it differently. He should have done whatever Daku did. Rabi doesn’t hate Daku. Their bond as father and son is still solid.

“Let’s take the bikes out and look for him,” Daku offers and Gadget points at him to indicate he appreciates someone offering a sensible solution. Bikes , he thinks, looking at The Dag. A sensible solution.

She glares at him. “You find him or I’ll feed you to wolves.”

He’s about to say he doesn’t doubt that for a moment when the boys — Gur and Rabi — come running over the dune in such a crazed fashion that any relief Gadget feels entirely (and instantly) vanishes.

***

The boys report that they saw The Provider’s caravan in the distance, but it was stopped and the men were setting up camp for the night. So that’s it, then: a day’s worth of time to craft a plan. Sending V and Wyatt off to the Citadel is impossible: they’ll cross paths with The Provider, and then the alpha is likely to kill them all anyway. And sending them off to Bartertown is an automatic death sentence for Wyatt.

“Are we in trouble?” Waru asks.

Gadget sighs, seeing him standing outside of the hut. “What did I say before? Go back inside, Waru.”

“There’s something else, too,” says Gur, “There are more alphas now. And I think more guns. Better ones, not just rifles.”

Daku and Gadget share a wary glance. “How many men?” Gadget asks.

“Thirty, I think,” says Gur, looking to Rabi, who nods in somber confirmation.

Fucking Hell.

“And more guns, you say?”

“Yeah, bigger and heavier ones. The ones you said I can’t shoot.”

He ignores the dig and exhales, looking at Daku.

“They must have picked up some men and ammo from Bullet Farm.”

“Maybe I’ll know them,” Daku offers, “Be able to negotiate a peace deal.”

Max is seated on one of the fire pit’s logs and snorts: “There is no peace now.”

The Dag sends the children to their huts so the elders can have a frank conversation. Max is in such a state that their leader doesn’t even have the heart to send Wyatt, V, or Arvo away. What’s the point when they might all be massacred in a day?

“We could shoot a flare for the Canyon—for Capable,” says Arthur.

Max offers a wary look, “So she can walk into a massacre? They probably have more guns than the Canyon folk, Arthur.”

Which is true. The Canyon arsenal is a shadow of what it was under the Rock Rider Chief, a deliberate design to stop another despot from taking control of the area.

No, what they need is to control, contain, and then dismantle. Gadget chews the side of his thumb, thinking. “We send the children away…” he begins and Max nods, enough encouragement for him to continue: “Past the far dunes, to wait. If we don’t return by nightfall, we tell them to walk to the Canyon.”

Conch begins to cry and Daku walks to him and folds him in an embrace. 

“Go wait in the hut,” he gently commands.

“Why?” the omega cries, “So you can make plans for sending off our children without me?”

“We should send the elder omegas, as well,” Daku says.

The Dag sneers at this offer: “I’m not leaving. I can shoot.”

Gadget sighs, not even bothering to ask the rest of them for an opinion. It was never a question Arthur would fight. 

“Conch, you can lead the children so they don’t get lost in the dark,” he says.

This softens Conch slightly. He frowns, looking at Arthur for guidance and the omega offers a kind, encouraging smile. He says: “You’ll keep them calm while they wait. Just a little while. Just while we deal with it.”

“I wouldn’t want anyone else waiting with the little ones, Conch,” Gadget adds.

This seems to be enough purpose to quiet the omega and he nods slowly, accepting the role. If they’re killed in battle, then it will be up to Conch to save the children. Gadget feels strangely confident that this is the right decision.

“I have ten guns,” Daku says, and adds: “Not enough bullets.”

Gadget squints at the horizon. “We could lay down strips; snag their wheels; catch them off guard.”

“That’d buy us time, but not enough,” Daku responds.

Control, contain, dismantle. How can they control the situation? The idea strikes like lightning.

“We can hide,” he says.

Daku scoffs, “Where, mate?” and gestures around them, and right : that is a problem. They’re completely exposed in the village and not even the huts offer much protection, since they are made of clay and mud. 

Arvo walks off and Gadget tries not to feel angry about it. The situation might be hopeless, and Arvo may be a traitor, but he expected more from the lad. When he dips into Daku and Conch’s hut, Daku cries: “Oy!” but the planning conversation doesn’t pause.

“What if I negotiate and trade my life for yours?” V offers, unbearably vulnerable in his state, a hand resting on his belly. Not even Max looks at him with anger.

“We’re the ones who lied to him, not you,” says Arthur.

“But I could try !” he pleads, his voice cracking. “Please, you took me in, treated me as kin, it’s all I can do. Please, please let me…” he moans, cheeks flushed, lip trembling. 

Arthur walks to him and hugs the poor child. V has suffered the caravan’s worst torture and yet he’s willing to fall on the sword again if it will spare their lives. And while Gadget is an alpha and understands Max’s thinking, he is again struck by the injustice of sending away an omega like V for wanting something as pure and holy for himself as a love in his life.

V sobs, clinging to him, and Arthur’s training as an Ompa serves him well as he rubs the youth’s back and soothingly talks to him.

Arvo emerges from the hut, carrying what looks like a fistful of snakes in his left hand. Gadget recognizes the bikes’ rubber brake hoses when the beta draws closer and Daku sneers at him: “You thieving ingrate. Not done stealing from us?” he accuses.

Arvo ignores the insult, his young face bright with purpose as he announces: “I have an idea.”

***

The children are uncharacteristically quiet as Conch readies them for their departure. Even Tallara is silent now that Max has thoroughly dissuaded her of the belief that she will be able to stay and help them fight, and while she has descended into silent depression, Gur rages with indignation.

“I can shoot! I’ve been practicing,” he insists, petitioning Conch because the alphas have already said no, and he thinks Conch is soft. 

And he may be right about that, but he is wrong to think Conch has any leverage when it comes to the decisions made by the other elders. He knows his strengths: being a good mate and Ompa, assisting in the births, and caring for the babes—but strategizing and fighting are not his expertise and he has never felt the need to pretend otherwise.

“Hush,” he says, wrapping the boy’s skinny shoulders in a linen to protect him from the sun, “No more talk. You stay close to me.”

Most of the younger sprogs are crying, so the elders try to make it seem like this isn’t an incredibly dangerous mission they’re about to embark on.

Gadget has to pry a child off of each of his legs and kneel in the sand to consider them eye-to-eye. 

“Remember I told you about the Canyon folk and the underground soldiers? This is just like that. Your Alpa will keep you safe,” he tells a hysterical Waru and Entity. 

Entity grips the small charm around her neck, a gift from many years ago. Gadget looks at the coin, a faint smile on his lips, reminded of all the times he felt helpless before.

Gur watches this, expressionless. When Gadget looks at him, he simply says: “You should let me shoot.”

The alpha sighs, stands, and walks to him, ignoring when the boy tenses as he grips his shoulder.

“Keep them safe,” he says and walks back toward the village. 

Gur stands there, watching the back of him recede in the distance.

The Dag is wilder with them, gripping and lifting, even Gur, who first growls and then relents—a limp, passive weight against her as she nuzzles and kisses him. “Little beast,” she whispers and Gur suddenly throws his arms around her.

Max says, “Be good,” and bows to smell the tops of his children’s heads, pausing a moment to linger, his eyes slipping closed as if trying to memorize their scents.

“We just need to talk to the man and explain that Wyatt and V are staying with us,” Arthur says, kneeling in the sand to hug the two elder girls, even as Tallara struggles to hold Jedda and Kiah cradles the baby. “Hold her head,” Arthur encourages, smiling when she does as instructed, “Very good. I love you, my sweet girls,” he concludes, kissing them each on a cheek, and then the heads of his babies before he stands and swiftly walks off.

Conch knows he’s leaving so the girls don’t see him cry.

The most difficult for him to witness, of course, is Daku saying goodbye to their children. His mate is a hardened road warrior, and yet he recognizes the soft vulnerability in his gaze when he gathers them in his arms. Conch is holding the baby Alira and angles her just so as the alpha approaches so she can see her Alpa and offer him a toothless smile. He smiles down at her and Conch is momentarily breathless, utterly overwhelmed by his love for this man.

“Do you know you’re still the loveliest omega I’ve ever seen?” Daku asks him.

He can’t speak when the alpha cradles his cheek, but he turns into his embrace and kisses Daku’s calloused fingertips, bracing himself for the kiss a moment before it touches his mouth because he knows he can’t cry. He simply can’t in front of the children.

Afterwards, Daku winks at him and turns, leaving.

And it’s amazing how much strength he feels when all their little faces are turned towards him, searching for guidance. “Okay, let’s go,” he says, offering what he hopes is a reassuring smile. 

He tries to spot Daku one last time, but the alpha has already disappeared over the dune.

“Where’s Arvo?” Kiah cries.

And as if on cue, the beta appears. “I’m here, beanie. Were you trying to leave without saying goodbye?” he teases, remarkably composed for what he is about to endure, but then again, he supposes Arvo has withstood more hardship than most.

He bends down and the girl latches onto him, even as she balances the baby with her other arm, and Arvo utters a soft, “Careful. Careful .”

Tallara gravely considers him. “Do you even know how to shoot?” she asks, sounding a mixture of sad, disdainful, and frightened.

Arvo smirks. “Of course I can shoot. What do you think of me? I’ve been shooting since I was younger than you ,” he teases, reaching out to poke her belly.

Tallara doesn’t look convinced, but she hugs him next.

“Shouldn’t you hide with us instead?” Rabi asks.

Arvo stands, brushing off his slacks, and offers the sprogs a fond look: “I made a mess and now I have to fix it. Don’t give Conch any trouble.” 

The beta looks at him and Conch opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know what to say. Their relationship has blossomed like the smallest, most unassuming bud. At first, Arvo was a pest—an inconvenience—then a sweet child, and finally a fine, young man and trusted confidante.

“I don’t care what Max says,” he says.

For a creature birthed into subservience, this small defiance of their tribe’s leader is Conch’s ultimate praise.

Arvo swallows thickly and nods, stepping close to him to stoop and kiss his cheek. 

“Thank you,” he says.

And with that, he walks past the hill, and Conch barely has enough time to think about how very brave the beta is before he leads the procession of children into the desert.

***

The next morning

Arthur and Max stand by the fire and watch what’s left of it smoldering in the ashes. They stayed up all night working on their plan, and now they’re finished and all there is to do is wait. Wyatt stands atop one of the nearby dunes as their lookout and V sits on a log, shivering, arms crossed for warmth.

In their plans, there is still much risk, and they all know this so there is no need to state the obvious. Each of them shares the danger in equal measure—no one is exempt; all are exposed. It is perhaps the one equalizing event to ever befall the village, one that could result in the deaths of an omega or beta as it could an alpha.

“If things go badly—” Max begins, voice pitched low because the message is for his ears only.

“We’ve never fought together before,” Arthur interrupts, brows quirked.

He’s dressed in his riding gear, and in Max’s opinion, looks a glory to behold. 

“Ay, beauty. That was by design,” Max answers, the corner of his mouth lifting slowly. Even now, Arthur drives him bloody mad. He wants to kiss him, so he does because, sod it . He could be dead within the hour and he will not go without kissing his mate. “You were at the canyon,” he suddenly recalls.

“That was to save you . I hope your shooting is better,” the omega challenges. 

Max taps the side of his specs as if to prove that very point.

Suddenly, Wyatt charges down the side of the dune, falling onto his rear and sliding part of the way down because he’s in such a rush, and they both know The Provider approaches. 

V watches this and sucks in a deep breath, standing slowly.

Max points to his hut and tells Wyatt to wait inside. No need for them to all be sitting around, looking exactly like a bunch of fools about to ambush an army of alphas. Better a sole alpha and two omegas greet them to lower their defenses.

Arthur watches Wyatt, feeling a pang of sympathy. Theirs was the sort of foolish plan only young people believe will actually work. Imprinting a scent is tricky business, and could only possibly fool passersby, but not one’s own tribe (for very long)—or someone like The Provider, who has spent hundreds of days sleeping beside V and intimately knows his scent, just as he knows his own.

There will be no question that the scent radiating from him belongs to a beta and the baby in his belly is that beta’s child.

V looks at him with the eyes of a hunted animal.

“If he tries to take me, I want you to shoot me.”

Arthur tries not to react because he knows The Provider taking V is a very real possibility.

“It won’t come to that.”

***

The roar of the bikes’ engines herald their arrival, and as they slow, the wagon’s creaking wheels fill the void. 

The boys were right — they are three times their number from before — and the alphas don’t wait for permission. They dismount their bikes and walk straight to the water, falling to hands and knees, and gulping deeply from the lake.

Arthur hears Max grumble his unhappiness but he offers a warning glare before the alpha does anything foolish. Not yet .

He takes V by the hand and slowly approaches the wagon. A pair of black boots appears at the lip and the tall alpha quickly dismounts. He’s sporting more facial hair than last time and he smiles brightly upon seeing them. 

“Ah...It’s good to be back!”

“Hail,” Arthur greets, squeezing V’s hand because the poor omega is trembling.

The Provider notices the swell of his belly immediately. “ Well …” he sighs, “Look. At. YOU!” The man crows, laughing and clapping his hands together, “You’ve wasted no time in planting the seed! My boys, come see this miracle at work.”

None of the alphas move from the lake. Arthur wonders how dehydrated they are—how weak they might be. He leans closer to note The Provider’s lips are cracked.

And as Arthur leans forward, The Provider takes a step closer to V. The omega flinches, and of course this man notices, and dips close to him to inhale his scent. His brow furrows, at first in confusion. “What’s this…?” he asks, breathing again and again as if he cannot conceive the truth.

From behind them, Max hums and Arthur knows the meaning of such a noise: When it happens, it will happen fast, beauty.

He grabs V’s wrist, yanking him closer. “Who’s fucked you, hm?” he shouts, and this time the men by the lake look over. “You reek of beta, you little bitch,” he growls.

Max takes a step forward, but Arthur is first to speak: “I ask you to speak respectfully while in our village, sir.”

“ Quiet ,” The Provider growls, casting a wild look to Max, “Is this how you conduct your business? He was my best omega and you whored him to some common beta? Do you think I’m a fool?” He dips close to V and grabs his face, the omega crying out in alarm, “I should have fucked you when I had the chance.”

The alphas are now standing and watching them and Arthur can see an idea occur to the man. 

“Well, not too late, hm?” He grabs V by the hair and pulls hard, throwing him to the ground, “Who wants a turn with our storied Vision, hm?”

He steps on the omega’s linens, laughing as he pulls at them, threatening to leave him naked in front of the men. And Arthur can smell the men’s excitement as they grin, cheering as their grand leader goads them on. 

“That’s enough, dammit,” Max growls, stalking closer to The Provider.

But the alpha ignores him. “I bring you food! I bring you water! And now I give you an omega…” The Provider looks down at V, “Try not to let the beta child in his belly ruin it for you, lads.”

The men are in merry moods now, laughing and slapping each other on the back, some crouching down to get a better look at V. One of them, a man with a bushy red beard, extends a hand to grab his ankle and V cries out, kicking him away. Arthur throws himself onto the ground to shield the youth, back-fisting an alpha who dips too close to them, but the man simply laughs as if this is all part of their game.

Their fear is an aphrodisiac for these men.

The red-beard tries to grab Arthur next, but Max is there, charging at him and snarling so fiercely that the man lurches backwards.

All the commotion has attracted the attention of Wyatt, who walks outside and spots The Provider as The Provider simultaneously spots him.

The alpha leader grows silent and Wyatt staggers to a halt.

“What is this devilry?” The Provider spits, “You spoil my omega and you harbor thieves?” he accuses, turning on Max and stalking close to him, the alpha looming over him. “A man who owes me enough gold to pave the Citadel?!”

Max stares at him, baffled, but in a flash Arthur understands: The Provider is the man Wyatt has been running from, the one he owes a great debt.

V is temporarily forgotten as the alphas stare at Wyatt and The Provider storms over to him. For his part, Wyatt is too shocked and frightened to move. He simply stands there, watching the man draw closer and closer like the spectre of death.

“Wyaaatt,” the man disdainfully notes, drawing out his name like a particularly vulgar bit of profanity. “Lads, I loaned this ingrate a bag of gold coins for...what was it, again? Doesn’t matter. He lost.” He doesn’t wait for Wyatt to answer, not that the alpha is in any condition to do so anyway. All the color has drained from his face. “What was it, hm? Cards? Bike racing?”

The Provider casts a look over his shoulder to the rest of them before he dips closer to Wyatt.

 “Tell me where their guns are and you can come with us,” he quietly offers, “We’ll take the omegas and kill the old alpha, and…” He looks around, squinting, “Where are the others?”

“Sleeping,” Wyatt says at once, “And they’ve no guns. They were robbed three days ago by pirates.”

A slow smile breaks out across The Provider’s face. 

“Well...that’s too bad, isn’t it? Come with us, brother. If you fight with us, all debts are forgiven.”

He sighs slowly, gazing across the lake to Arthur and V, huddled on the ground. V is shaking, his face wet with tears, and Wyatt knows his exact fate: The men will rape him until he is dead and then throw him out the back of the wagon without ever stopping to bury their conquest, and his baby will live inside him a day or two longer, but then it will die too.

And he knows The Provider is offering him this because, for all his failings, Wyatt is a bloody good shot and it’s wise to keep him on their side. He can see a guaranteed way out of this mess, but it will require betraying Gadget again, and hurting little V, and he realizes in that moment that his days of being a scoundrel are over. 

The bad man who was once him died out here in the desert. He tries to think of when he perished, and believes it might have been when fiercely determined and blessedly naive V said he loved Arvo, and Wyatt thought their love could never be—because that has been his sad story for so many years.

V thought his love for a beta was unnatural, and Wyatt wanted to fight for them—to harbor the hope that their maverick union could work.

He’s looking at V as a sigh rushes from him and he mutters, “Fuck,” before fingers fly up to his mouth and a whistle tears from his mouth. 

He sees a flash of The Provider’s confused face before he takes off running.

Down...down...down, low on the ground, a hair’s breadth away from the boots of the alphas rests the tip of a tube, barely poking out from the desert’s surface—easily missed by a bunch of brutes devoting the entirety of their mental energy towards raping and pillaging.

Another tip pokes out from the sand just to the left of The Provider, and another further away by the other huts, and finally the last one to the left of Arvo’s hurt by the goat pen — a perfect perimeter around the murderous lot.

Wyatt’s whistle bounces through the village and hisses burst behind the men. By the time they look at their bikes, the tires have been blown out. The men roar, outraged and confused, and The Provider casts a wild look around the village, wondering where in Walhalla’s name they’ve managed to hide, when his boot jabs something hard in the sand, and he only has enough time to look down and comprehend the tip of a rifle before Arvo erupts from his grave in the sand.

The beta rips the breathing tube from his mouth and fires two swift shots as The Provider charges with a roar across the village and dives behind a hut. He wrestles his pistol out from the back of his trousers while screaming, “Fire, fire, fire!” and a full melee explodes.

***

When the shooting starts, Conch shouts for the children to take cover even though they’re too far away to be hit by any stray shots. The children claw up the side of the dune, desperately trying to see what’s happening.

“Are they dead?” Kiah cries, her eyes widening with fright.

“No, no,” Conch soothes, even though he doesn’t know if that’s true and his heart is threatening to leap out of his chest. 

Please, Daku. Please.

“Alpa is dead?” Bindi asks, face twisted in a way that means she’s about to cry, which sets off Yarran, and soon Conch is dealing with a chain reaction of hysteria that he cannot quelch, even with the help of Rabi, who picks up his sister and cradles her on his lap.

He’s so distracted that he doesn’t notice Gur and Tallara slip off and run towards the village.

***

They erupt from the earth one-by-one almost simultaneously: first Arvo, and then The Dag with her wild, white hair and banshee shriek that temporarily stuns and terrifies the men because they are certain she is a witch come to kill them all. And they’re not far off.

She shoots two men in their chests before they can draw their weapons and vanishes behind the huts.

Arthur drags V to safety, Max shielding them both and firing with a revolver he’d kept concealed in his boot. 

Gadget bursts free from the grave and begins firing, and as the men turn to run from him, a sand-covered Daku appears at their backs and opens fire. Arthur can’t be sure how many are killed but there’s a small pile of bodies in his wake by the time he sprints off.

They have now lost the element of surprise, however, and the living alphas are quick to recover. They open a volley of gunfire and everyone takes off running, trying to save their own hides, though Max keeps throwing himself in front of Arthur in a way that strangely annoys him. 

His panicked brain thinks: Our daughters need an Alpa too, you know.

The men run for the wagon and grab more guns and Arthur sees The Provider cradling a rifle. Their eyes meet and the alpha opens fire. Arthur shouts and hits the sand, watching the side of their hut shatter to pieces.

The goats bray madly whenever there is a reprieve and Arthur shimmies over to one of their graves to fish out more rifles. He hands one to V and whispers, “Here.”

The omega stares at him in horror. “I don’t know how to,” he rasps.

“Stay low. Point and shoot,” Arthur says and takes off, crouched low to the ground while the men are busy shooting at Daku and Gadget.

Arvo takes cover behind a hut, using the stones of the foundation to shield his head and essential organs. By his rough count — and it’s rough; it’s difficult to count the enemy while you’re running away— there are twenty men left alive.

He peeks out and sees Max wrestling one of the men to the ground before he wrenches the poor sod’s head and his neck drops back down to the earth at a strange angle.

The Dag has transformed one of the graves into a bunker, popping up occasionally to fire off a few rounds before she dips back down, taking cover.

Suddenly, there comes a hummingbird’s eruption of shots, and when he peeks around the splintered frame of Daku and Conch’s home, he sees Wyatt calmly advancing on the men, his hand a blur as he flips back the hammer with his right hand and fires with the left in the blink of an eye again and again. 

One of the alphas reaches for his holster and Wyatt blows off his fingers before he can grip the handle. “Fight back, you omegaless cretins!” he screams and a bullet tears past Arvo’s skull and he’s forced to take cover again.

As he’s laying upon his stomach against the sand, his brain supplies a terrible hallucination: Gur and Tallara sliding down a dune and running towards the village.

“No…” he groans, realizing they are real.

Gadget and Max have spotted them too because the firefight is forgotten as they run to the children and grab them, dragging the children behind a hut.

“Are you mad?” Gadget growls, pinning the boy’s arms to his sides as he tries to fight out of his grasp.

“I can help! You’re outnumbered!” he cries.

“Alpa, give me a gun,” Tallara demands.

“ No , dammit,” he hisses, pointing to Arthur, “Go to your Ompa.”

His thinking being that they, a group of alphas, are a bigger target, and the idea of sending the children back up the dune’s hill to be easy pickings makes him feel ill. These men are surely the kind who will shoot children in the back.

“Now... now !” he demands, and the girl darts off into the arms of Arthur, who is braced behind Arvo’s hut.

“You wait here. You stay right here, Gur,” Gadget shouts and looks over to Arvo, who is roughly twenty hands away.

Daku crawls quickly over to them. “We’re almost out of rounds,” he whispers, peeking into the pouch at his waist, but he hands Gadget what he has and the man reloads.

Arvo dares to peek around the hut and spots a cluster of alphas squatting behind their wagon and bikes. It’s only a matter of time before they advance. They’re running out of time. 

When he looks over, Gadget and Daku are crouched behind the hut, eyes wild, staring back at him. They both seem unscathed, and for a mad moment, Arvo believes his plan could work. 

Daku points at him and then himself, and then Gadget, and mouths: three, two, one…

The men charge out and Arvo wills his body to move. The compulsion to charge into battle is not as strong in his beta brain, but he wills his feet to move and he runs out beside them, aware of Daku’s body jerking back suddenly and Gadget falling, but he still runs on, lifts the rifle, exhales , and shoots.

He hears Gur shout, “No!” and knows it’s because his Alpa is hurt...possibly dead, but he doesn’t stop to look back, not until a bullet wings his arm and he’s forced to take cover again, this time behind the posts of the goats’ pen. It’s rubbish cover, but also his only option. He rips off a strip from the bottom of his shirt and ties it around his bicep to stop the flow of blood.

When he looks inside the pen, two of the goats are dead, blood pooled in the hay beneath them.

Arvo freezes because, for the first time since the shootout began, he sees V. The omega is standing directly in front of The Provider, who is holding a sharp knife to his throat. 

V’s face is wet, his eyes apologetic, and the alpha spots Arvo’s hiding place.

“How about you come out and we have a little chat, hm? Leave the gun.”

The beta is still panting for breath as he sets the rifle into the sand and slowly stands. As he walks closer to The Provider, he sees Gur kneeling beside Gadget, who is writhing in pain, clutching his side. Not dead, but badly hurt.

Daku is also laying on the ground, clutching his arm where a deep red stain grows in the fabric of his shirt.

He can tell by the way The Provider is slanted that he’s hurt as well, and upon closer inspection, he sees his leg is bleeding rather badly.

“You’re outnumbered and we can stay here, picking you off one-by-one, or we can leave right now with V and no one else has to die,” the alpha offers.

Arvo blinks and nods, gazing at the bloody bodies peppered across the village, the shattered huts, poor Conch’s piano riddled in bullet holes. A man is lying face-down in the lake, his long hair floating to the surface.

“I count all the dead being on your side,” he says.

It’s perhaps an arrogant thing to say, but Arvo’s head isn’t quite in the right place having been buried alive for the better part of a day and then unleashed into a war zone.

The Provider grips the handle of the brutal knife and presses the edge into V’s soft neck. Arvo can tell the way the omega grimaces that it hurts.

“Boy, I’m going to count to three and then you’ll watch your mate and child die in front of you.”

Arvo wonders how fast he could charge The Provider. Not fast enough. All of his options will be too late. The spike of fear makes him slow and unable to speak. He’s going to stand stockstill and watch the throat of his beloved open, all the life force draining from him before he hits the sand.

“One…”

Even if he charges him, the other alphas will kill him.

“Two…”

He’s standing in almost the exact same spot where he met V. How strange.

“Three…”

Arvo waits for the red curtain, but it never comes. Instead, a small pellet rips the air by his ear, sails past his skull, and collides with The Provider’s hand. He shouts, the knife falling from his hand, and Arvo dives for it.

The Provider kicks him hard in the chest, but he has the knife, and the alpha is upon him—huge, brutally strong, and furious, pounding at his body, bruising the flesh and cracking his bones, and still Arvo fights.

He knows the other alphas must be trying to aid him because the gunfire starts again and V crouches to the earth, whimpering in terror.

“Shoot him, you useless imbeciles!” The Provider shouts as they’re tustling, to which one of the men commands him to stop moving and he knows they don’t have the shot.

He still has time.

Arvo powerfully bucks the man off him and scrambles to his feet, his boot catching The Provider square in the jaw and sending him backwards, and Arvo dives at him, the knife in his hand, stabbing him in the ribs.

The first strike makes the man wild with fear, thrashing, madness making him grip the blade with his bare hands, The Provider’s palms suddenly red from the effort. Arvo straddles him, ignoring the painful jolt in his bum leg, and brings the knife down into his chest. The blade draws back dripping. The second strike surprises him. Arvo can see the shock on his face, amazed he’s been bested by a beta.

Arvo stabs him in the side once..twice, leaning down close to his face, which for a moment is the Rock Rider Chief’s face and he thinks Goodbye. Finally, goodbye.

He feels when the last breath leaves him, releasing him to join the abyss from whence he came.

Arvo staggers to his feet and looks from The Provider’s stunned men to his people, including Tallara, the slingshot still extended in her hand.

He reaches for V, pulling him to his feet even as the omega whispers, “Oh….Arvo,” and he realizes he’s covered in blood and that blood is now smeared across V’s arms.

“I’m sorry...I’m sorry,” he rambles, only quieting when the omega wraps him in a warm embrace.

Wyatt slowly steps into his peripheral, addressing the men: “The fight is over. Take your dead and leave. Speak not a word of this to anyone. If you tell anyone of this village or our lake, I’ll appear by your bedside while you sleep.” And when the men glance at each other, as if considering another volley, he adds: “Or we can kill every last one of you right now. Up to you.”

From their left and right flanks come the clicks of pumped shotguns and Arthur and The Dag step out from behind huts, rifles raised and ready. Whether there are actually bullets in them, or not, is beside the point. The alphas are exhausted, most of them wounded, and this was never really their fight at all.

At first, they timidly trickle out from hiding, fearing an ambush, but when it becomes clear that the village is at least willing to keep their promise in this regard, they become bolder. The men collect their dead, saving The Provider’s body for last, which they pass overhead like some kind of holy relic. They load the wagon, the able-bodied men pushing the sabotaged bikes alongside the rickety beast.

As soon as the last man’s figure disappears beyond the horizon, The Dag drops her gun and runs to Gadget. “My love...my love,” she groans, trying to cover his wound with her hands, but he cries out and curls onto his side.

He’s never seen Gadget like this, and Arvo knows the wound must be grave.

Wyatt charges over to the fallen alpha, checking the damage, then moves to crawl to Daku, but he waves the man away. “I’m fine. The bullet passed through. Help him.”

Gur watches all of this with wide eyes, his hands covered in his Alpa’s blood. 

“You can fix him, can’t you?” he asks Wyatt.

And while Wyatt has sewn closed many-a-bullet wounds, he can’t guarantee the boy that his Alpa will live—not until he knows none of the interior organs have been pierced. If Gadget needs any kind of serious surgery, he’s doomed.

“I can fix him,” he says anyway.

When he looks to the others, Tallara is standing between her parents, Arthur to her left with his rifle, and Max to her right with his hand on her bony shoulder. 

“Good shot,” Wyatt says to the girl.

Tallara is pale watching Gadget writhe on the ground, his blood wetting the sand, but she suddenly looks at him with dark eyes and nods.

***

Arvo and Wyatt carry him to what’s left of Wyatt’s hut and lay him out on some linens. Gur and The Dag linger nearby — too close — and Wyatt commands the others to take them away. He can’t perform the delicate procedure if they’re moaning and crying in his ear.

Daku and Max stand nearby as Arthur walks outside with the other omega, a comforting arm around her, his free hand rubbing Gur’s back.

“I have to get the bullet out,” Wyatt says, “Hold him down.”

Which they take as a command for all of them to descend. Perhaps wanting to feel helpful, each alpha grabs a separate limb, pinning it in place.

“This was a stupid bloody plan, Arvo,” Gadget groans.

He’s so relieved the alpha is awake and coherent that he laughs.

Wyatt digs inside his side with his bare fingers and Gadget screams. He can’t get a grip on the slippery bugger and his fingers come back bloodied and empty, and it doesn’t escape his attention when Daku levels a murderous look at him. For the first time, he notices the man has tied a bit of fabric around his bicep to stop the blood flow. A poor bandaging job, but his injury is not their priority right now.

“Stop trying to get out of latrine duty,” Daku jokes and Gadget barks with laughter, but he’s pale and growing paler. 

He gazes down at Wyatt, “Can’t believe you’re…” He drifts off, eyes rolling back, and no amount of tapping his cheek or calling his name by the other alphas wake him up. Not dead, though, but they’re nearing the final sleep.

Bad...very bad.

His fingers pierce the warm wound again and Gadget screams again, briefly fully awake, before he again slips into unconsciousness, which makes it easier for Wyatt to pinch the metal disc and lift it out.

“Get me needle and thread and devil’s water,” he commands.

He patches the wound as best he can and then cleans it with the alcohol. Gadget doesn’t even stir when he pours it across his side.

Bad, bad, bad…

Outside, he hears the boy weeping, and when Wyatt glances over his shoulder, The Dag and Gur are standing in the doorway, watching him work. He doesn’t have the time to tell them to leave, so he focuses on what he’s doing and then the men gently relocate Gadget to the bedding. 

“Will he die?” Gur asks, his voice muffled against his mother’s side.

Wyatt looks down at his hands, which are covered in blood, and then looks at Arvo, who makes him look spotless by comparison. So much blood spilled, and so quickly. 

“I don’t know,” he says, “But best to say your goodbyes now.”

Gur pushes past him and into the hut, collapsing to his knees beside the alpha and clutching his hand as he whispers: “Alpa, please. Wake up, please.”

And that’s too much for Wyatt to bear. He points at Daku and Arvo and says, “Let’s get you stitched up.”

***

The sprogs are obsessed with their destroyed huts. It hasn’t occurred to them yet that this means they won’t have proper shelter for the night, and will require a total reconstruction beginning tomorrow. 

For now, the short-term game of finding bullet fragments is enough entertainment for them. They want to know all about the invaders: how many of them were there, who shot whom, what Arvo did to The Provider, exactly, even though no one will give them any of the good details because they’re children and doing so would be traumatizing.

All they know is that Gadget has been hurt, but he’ll be alright. That’s what they’ve decided to tell the children so they don’t get upset. 

He’s just resting .

That lie is more difficult to maintain because they’ve noticed Gur isn’t outside playing with them, and sometimes they hear him weeping inside Wyatt’s hut, where his Alpa is resting.

Arvo washes in the lake so he’s not a horror when the sprogs return, but he’s keenly aware that V saw everything and may now think differently of him. The idea makes him mournful, as if he is grieving the death of his former self.

“The goats are dead!” Rabi shouts, standing on one of the wooden pegs of the pen.

“Don’t touch them,” Arvo says, walking past him, and into his hut. He’s tried to block some of the holes with driftwood and the former plaster of his roof, but it’s a poor patch job. 

He senses someone watching and turns to find V standing inside. He’s unharmed, thank the Many Mothers, but Arvo knows better than most that not all wounds are visible.

“I can never thank you all...for what you did for me,” V says.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, unsure of why he keeps apologizing, but then it occurs to him: “I’m sorry you had to see me that way.”

The omega crosses the hut and reaches up to touch his face. V’s fingertips are dry and cool, and they feel wonderful ghosting his cheeks and brow. 

“You were brave and noble,” he whispers, leaning up to kiss him, and he relishes the thrust of his hard belly. When he leans back, there is uncertainty in his gaze as he asks: “Will we be able to stay?”

Arvo hums, considering this. That’s the real question and he knows who he has to speak with before he can answer for sure.

As he’s considering his next steps, V moves Arvo’s hands to his hips and begins to sway slowly, and before he knows it they’re moving in languid circles. 

He smiles and gazes at the shining face of his love.

“What’re you doing?” he chuckles.

V smiles, laughter in his voice as he replies: “Dancing with you.”

Of course, he knows this is his reward for all that came before, including the night he acted with haste and foolishness when he rushed from the firepit because he couldn’t abide the sight of V dancing with another man.

He’s unworthy, but will not object.

***

Wyatt sits by the candle, reading the book, an ancient paperback Rabi gifted him. 

It’s about cowboys: good ones and a bad one who wears a black hat. The bad fellow has come to town and aims to make trouble, but there are more good ones who intend to keep the peace. He had only picked it up because he knew he’d be on bedside duty for the next few days, and needed something to pass the time, but he’s grown to quite enjoy how—

Gadget suddenly moves. It begins with his left foot, and right hand, and Wyatt thinks Good . That’s all they need for today. That’s enough. But then incredibly, the alpha opens his eyes. Wyatt immediately sets down the book and shuffles closer to him. 

“Hey, hey ,” he says, “Shh, it’s alright.”

Gadget’s first impulse is to fight upon waking—not understanding where he is or what’s happening. He tenses when Wyatt touches him and cocks back a fist, as if planning to punch him. 

He almost smiles out of fondness.

“You’re safe. All is well.”

“All is not well. I got shot,” Gadget grumbles.

He laughs, so immensely relieved that he might cry. Gadget not only remembers what happened to him, but he possesses enough energy to feel annoyed by the whole ordeal—as if his gunshot wound is a splinter, some minor inconvenience.

“Ay, I guess there is that.”

Gadget gingerly lowers back down to the sheets and squints at him. “And you saved me…”

Wyatt looks away, under the guise of picking up his book. He doesn’t know what to say. He supposes that’s true, but it feels wrong to take credit—not after everything else he’s done.

He doesn’t answer, but Gadget speaks anyway: “Interesting.”

“Well, I couldn’t let you run off from me again…” he finally says, offering a weak smile.

“ Hell ,” Gadget laughs, the sound dry. Wyatt makes a mental note to bring him some water, “Are you still going to guilt me about leaving?”

“Not so much as a goodbye to the boys in the pit, Gadget. It was, frankly, rude,” Wyatt teases. “And to go fight for the she-alpha? Unforgivable.”

The alpha waves his hand through the air, dismissing him, but the movement makes him suddenly wince. Wyatt moves towards him to check his bandages, but Gadget swats him away.

During the subsequent silence, they recall all that’s happened between them, and grow somber. All of a sudden, jovial banter doesn’t feel appropriate.

“I wanted to explain...why I done what I done,” Wyatt begins. Gadget doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are bright and alert, so he continues: “Mostly, it was for selfish reasons. Like I said, I owed The Provider more than I could make in three lifetimes, so...I ran.”

He licks his lips and continues:

“But then, I think it somehow became for good reasons. V was scared and he needed someone, and I could help him stay safe, so I lied—and I know that was wrong, Gadget. I do...But, you’ve seen him, how was I going to say no to that?”

The alpha nods, processing this. 

“And that’s why you wanted to stay so badly? Don’t give me the line about owing The Provider gold. We could have hidden you at Bullet Town. You wanted to stay here for V?”

He looks down at the book’s worn pages and flips through them, the aroma of aged paper wafting. Wyatt loves that smell, just as he loves the scent of worn leather, oil, and gasoline.

After everything, he should speak truth to Gadget, but there are some things that can never be uttered, and his feelings for Gadget are one of them.

“Ay, I like it here,” he simply replies. It’s not a lie, but it’s certainly not the full truth.

It is, to put it simply, the best that he can do right now.

“You’re a good fighter,” Gadget says, “Handy too, when you want to be. If we find you another little omega in Bartertown, could you settle here?”

Wyatt can’t tell him that the moment he saw him return to their city, he would have quite literally followed him anywhere. 

“I think I could manage, my dear, ay.”

Gadget smiles slowly, satisfied. “I’ll talk to Max.”

It’s as good as a promise.

***

Max is alone in the hut when Arvo peeks inside. It appears as though he is also considering all the repairs to be done. He clears his throat, and when the alpha doesn’t hear that, he does it again — louder. Max frowns when he sees it’s him, but waves Arvo inside. 

“What?” he greets, in classic, gruff Max-style.

“I wanted to ask about…” Arvo flounders a bit and then sighs: “Will you let us stay?”

The alpha gravely considers him, a deep frown marring his face. Arvo knows Max has never been this cross with him before, even when he brought head critters into the village, or the time he was cleaning the alpha’s gun and accidentally fired it inside their hut.

“My girls are fond of you…” he begins, “And Arthur is too.”

Arvo feels a small surge of hope, but does not speak, as if doing so could shatter their precarious peace. 

“You can’t disobey me again,” Max says.

“No, never. Never, Max. I won’t—I wouldn’t have ever , but…” 

He stares down at his hands. There’s still blood embedded under his nails. How to explain the sudden appearance of V? It was as if the fabric of the universe split open and revealed the undercurrent of light that connects all things. In a flash, he understood the concept of love.

“I didn’t see him coming, you know?”

The alpha chuckles and pats his shoulder. “I know.” He pauses, something like fondness in his gaze, “A beta, hm?”

Arvo smiles slowly. He’s fluent enough in Max to understand what he means: A beta has done all this: wooed a beautiful omega, defended his village, killed a feared alpha leader with his bare hands.

“I suppose so…” he replies, shrugging.

This makes Max snicker and he isn’t sure why, but then the alpha hugs him, and Arvo doesn’t mean to, but he fiercely grips him in return until Max chuckles, saying, “Okay...okay…” and gently pries off the beta. “All is forgiven.”

Something bumps the back of his leg, and when he looks down, Dog is staring up at him. Arvo smiles and reaches down to stroke the beast’s ears. He hasn’t seen him since the soldiers came. Must have run off until the firefight was over. Smart .

“He knows it’s safe again,” says Max.

You and me both , he thinks.

***

Six Months Later

Silo arrives at the village by the lake in the middle of the night.

V jolts upright and cries out in the midst of a powerful contraction, and Arvo darts outside to sprint to Conch’s hut and wake him.

He’s allowed to be there during the birth, something that not even the alphas have been permitted, and he feels profoundly honored to be present when his boy emerges into their world: a healthy, plump, beautiful beta. Bloody and screaming too—so loudly that Conch laughs and says, “My word, You’ve got a lot to say.”

V beams with pride as he holds the wrapped newborn to his breast and all the omegas come to look at him and coo about how lovely he is.

Arvo thinks he’s so happy that his heart might burst, and it feels good to finally be able to bond with the alphas in this way — as they stand about and watch the omegas be omegas and coo at the baby — and pretend to be seperate from the celebration when they are simply engaged in their own version of it.

“Quite big for a beta baby,” says Daku.

“He’ll be tall and strapping like our Arvo,” Gadget winks, slumped slightly, favoring his good side as the other flank continues to heal beneath the bandages.

“A good fighter,” Wyatt agrees, “I’ll teach him to shoot.”

When Max grunts, he knows it’s unanimous: their baby is a blessing, according to the only authorities who matter in his world.

The children can’t get enough of the baby, though they must dole out time with him in limited doses or the sprogs would want to look at him all the time. 

Bindi calls Silo, “My baby,” and frequently asks to hold him. “May I hold my baby?” she asks ever-so-politely and V smiles, permitting it, though only with his supervision.

These happy moments alone would have been inconceivable to the scrawny canyon child all those years ago, but his favorite time is when the tribe leaves and it’s just the three of them: Silo resting on his back in between Arvo and V, squirming, his wide eyes drinking in all the glories of their world. His eyes are the same pretty shade of green as V’s and sometimes Arvo can quite easily get lost looking at his boy for hours.

“I’ll love you forever,” he says, a promise he has made V many times, but now the contract is extended to Silo too.

This is one oath he means to keep.

*********