Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Baltimore in winter was no place to convalesce, said Hannibal. Nor was Virginia. By the week after his discharge from the hospital, Will had begun to feel it. Early in his treatment, when the fever had broken, its undertow had seemed to suck all body heat from him as it ebbed. He'd spent too many days in antiseptic rooms with the cold trickle of an IV in his arm, feeling as if he might never be warm again.

Back at home, swathed in a dogpile, with Hannibal's pot-au-feu on the stove, he felt better. He pulled on his wool socks and welcomed the lengthening days. But the nights came, and then a late-season winter storm that glazed his car doors shut, and not even Hannibal draped around him like an insistent shawl could banish the chill.

Whiskey would've helped. He wasn't allowed whiskey, not until he finished his course of meds. There was a doctor around to enforce the prohibition.

"Sun," murmured Hannibal, addressing himself to the nape of Will's neck. "And sea air. That would help."

Will closed his eyes. He'd been so glad to be home. He hated to leave the dogs again. But he had weeks of medical leave left, and Jack hadn't called, and he was tired of being cold.

"Someplace not too far," he said. "Not too fancy."

"A seaside cottage," said Hannibal. "I have a place in mind. Leave it to me."

Even with Hannibal's help, getting ready to leave was a strain. Housecleaning, laying in supplies for the dogs and the sitter, enduring sad eyes from Winston and the others when the suitcase appeared--these efforts depleted whatever small reserves had begun to reaccumulate since he'd left the hospital. It would've galled him if he had the energy to be galled.

When the morning of their flight arrived, he let Hannibal bundle him into the Bentley like so much luggage. He fell asleep on the plane with his head on Hannibal's shoulder, glasses askew on his nose.

*

The island was accessible only by water and air. A ferry traveled the bay between it and the larger Pine Island every couple of hours. Hannibal had chartered a boat. He'd flown down and back the day before to see that everything in the house was arranged to his satisfaction: utilities in order, kitchen and pantry and wine cabinet stocked.

When Hannibal said "cottage" Will's mind had summoned memories of the claptrap beachfront shacks and bungalows seen in Biloxi in his childhood. The house Hannibal had rented loomed over a tangle of cycads and sea grapes, three stories, with terraced open decks and a screened lanai overlooking the Gulf. A path of crushed shells mixed with sand wound from the back patio through scrub and sea oats to the beach.

"For a month," Hannibal said, when Will asked how long they had the place.

"A month?" He'd scheduled the sitter for two weeks.

"We needn't stay the entire time. The option is available."

"What about your patients?" There were fewer now than there'd been before Will's illness--Hannibal had admitted it when pressed--but some at least had survived the wave of referrals.

"I've arranged to keep a number of appointments via Skype," said Hannibal. "Others agreed to postpone."

"As long as you don't Skype from the hot tub," Will said. "You'll blow your cover."

They made a tour of the house--the impeccable kitchen, the loft with its bookshelf full of field guides and naturalists' memoirs, a gratuitous number of bedrooms--but Will chafed at enclosure. The nap on the plane and sun on his face had revived him. Hannibal had been right about the air: from the moment they stepped out of the airport it had settled on Will's skin, moist and close and familiar, gravid with the promise of nearby ocean. The forecast read sunny and 80s for an indefinite span.

Will glanced at the ten-day calendar before stowing his phone. He'd missed a heat while he was hospitalized. Since he couldn't take suppressants and had been unfit for exertion, the doctors had put him under until it passed. He remembered waking, groggy, to find Hannibal at his bedside, immovable as a stone lion. He remembered there being a lot of that.

He changed his long sleeves and chinos for a t-shirt and shorts, and went to the kitchen.

Hannibal was elbows-deep in a mixing bowl. His eyes warmed at the sight of Will. Will stared with blank envy at the glass of Sancerre on the counter.

"Soon," Hannibal told him. "If you're thirsty, there's agua fresca, ginger beer, and iced tea."

Will exhaled through his nose--a sigh like a punctured balloon--and tore his eyes away. "'M going to check out the beach."

"Shall I bring lunch down, or will you come back?"

"I'll come back." His glance fell to the breakfast bar, where a business card had been left perfectly centered on the placemat. He picked it up and read: Masters' Bait and Tackle. Fishing licenses, bait and tackle, rentals and repair.

"It's just up the road," said Hannibal, "and seems well equipped."

Will slipped the card into his pocket. He stepped around the breakfast bar, behind Hannibal, and wrapped his arms around Hannibal's waist. He rubbed his face into Hannibal's back, between his shoulder blades.

"This is good," he said, muffled. "You picked good."

Hannibal set down the mixing bowl and touched Will's hand at his waist. "I hoped you'd approve. I'm glad."

Will held the embrace a little longer, then stepped away. He left the kitchen through the sliding door that led to the upper deck and descended the outdoor stairs.

On the ground level was a patio paved in flagstone, with a covered gas grill and a hammock hung in palm-tree shade. Will made his way through encroaching sea grapes to the head of the path. The path led him through ecosystems in miniature, from jungle to scrub. It grew tapered and indeterminate as he approached the beach.

A pair of Adirondack lounge chairs sat a few yards from the juncture of beach and path. Beyond the chairs stretched sand, not white but the pale brown of turbinado sugar, and beyond that the unending Gulf.

The sough and scent of it greeted Will, enveloping. He felt a foolish urge to charge forward and fling himself into it, this sea of his childhood, as he might've buried his face in a blanket put away years ago with other childish things.

He settled for abandoning his sandals and wading into the waves, ankle- and then shin-deep. The water was cool this time of year. Merely cool--still balmy compared to the Atlantic, let alone the Chesapeake Bay. His feet squelched in the wet sand. In his mind he could hear his dad's voice, reminding him to walk with care to scare up any stingrays in his path. Shuffle your feet, Willy. Let 'em know you're coming. You don't want to get stung.

Like the island, the beach had no public access except by boat. Figures were visible at some distance in either direction: a lone man surf fishing in one, a family with small children in the other. Will had waded only a little while before he caught sight of a roped-off section of sand, beyond the strandline, demarcated with stakes and posted signs. He had to draw closer to make out the text.

Dire warnings continued in the fine print. Will scanned within the area marked off by the wooden stakes. At last he found them: two specked eggs, almost indistinguishable amid the detritus of seashells and driftwood twigs. No sign of the parents.

Wary of his own intrusion, Will retreated and returned to the surf.

*

The next day he raided the bait shop as soon as it opened. He talked with the proprietor and a local charter boat captain who'd stopped in to buy live shrimp. Redfish Pass was the place, they said: the narrow channel formed when a hurricane had torn one island into two. Will rented his gear, bought a Florida license, and headed for the pass.

He was back at the house by late morning with two spotted sea trout in his cooler. "I caught dinner," he said, when Hannibal emerged from his makeshift office in one of the spare rooms.

Hannibal inspected the fish with pleasure. "Beautiful. What shall we do with them?"

"Not the knots," said Will. "Not this time." There had been, he could allow, a certain artistry in preparing fish such that they seemed to be either vomiting or eating their own tails. Seeing it once had been enough. "Please."

"Very well. No knotting."

Will returned the trout to the cooler and buried them in a mound of fresh ice. "I could throw them on the grill."

"The complete performance," said Hannibal. "Dinner caught in the wild, borne triumphant back to your den, and seared over an open flame. Ambitious of you."

"I'll wear one of those 'Kiss the Cook' aprons if you've got one." Will poured himself a glass of agua fresca and gulped it down. When the glass was empty he pressed it to the side of his face, craving its coolness. His cheeks felt warm. Probably too much sun. "Felt good to get out there. I might've overdone it."

"You're still recovering," said Hannibal. "It's why we're here. Have a nap, if you like."

"Yeah, I might. I better take a shower first." He turned as Hannibal leaned in to sniff the back of his neck. "Can you even smell anything on me right now besides sunblock and fish guts?"

"I can."

Will hesitated. Hannibal's nose was a better gauge than the calendar, or even his own sense of his physical self. "Am I getting close?"

"Tomorrow, I think."

Will set the glass on the counter. He shifted nearer to Hannibal. Hannibal mirrored the shift, then slowly began to nudge Will backward, using the full length and breadth of his body, until Will had backed himself up to the breakfast bar. Will looked into the diminished space between them with lowered eyes.

They hadn't fucked, in the strictest sense, since before Will had gone into the hospital. After his discharge Hannibal had spent the nights with him, had nestled and nuzzled and once or twice brought him off with hands and mouth, and rutted against him with almost aggravating gentleness. Will hadn't been up for anything else. It was going to feel good, he thought, to work up a real sweat.

Never in his life before had he looked forward to being in heat. Not until Hannibal.

"You want--" he paused. It was going to sound ridiculous. He didn't care. "You want an appetizer?"

Hannibal's focus on him seemed to sharpen, as if to dismiss everything in his field of attention other than Will. To Will it felt like hot sun on his face.

"Did you have something in mind?"

"Nothing specific. Whatever you--"

Between one word and the next he was grabbed and hauled bodily onto the counter, Hannibal's hands on his hips.

"--want," finished Will, breathless with giddiness more than surprise. His cock twitched in his shorts. His legs splayed further apart. His hands landed on Hannibal's chest, then wavered upward. Hannibal had been leaving his hair ungelled, more and more often declining to slick it back. It made Will want to stick his fingers in it every chance he got.

Hannibal laid his palms flat on the counter, one on each side of Will's ass, and leaned in as if for a kiss. At the last minute he veered to trace the stubbled line of Will's jaw with his lips, following it back and upward to Will's ear. He caught and nipped the flesh of Will's earlobe, paused, gave a short puff of breath that might've been a laugh. Then his fingers were at Will's shorts, undoing, coaxing Will's thickening cock into his hand. With no other preamble he bent to Will's lap and took an audible--theatrical--whiff.

He sighed. "Better. No sunblock. No fish guts."

It startled a laugh from Will--he was about to say no, he hadn't stuffed any guts down his shorts--and then the laugh turned to a slack-jawed oh as Hannibal's mouth closed hot around him, sucking him in.

Will tipped forward, sinking over Hannibal's head and the slope of his shoulders. He curled his fingers like the claws of a kneading cat, dragged them up and down as much of Hannibal's back as he could reach, rucking the smooth pale linen of his shirt. Hannibal made a pleased sound and suckled harder.

"Oh God. Oh God, Hannibal--"

Will's heels banged on the cupboards below. He wasn't going to last--he was too pent up. He could barely even squirm; Hannibal had him by the hips and was holding him fast in place, with a strength that still took him aback, even when he'd come to know it intimately.

There was a brief reprieve when Hannibal let go to pull up Will's shirt and kiss his belly, licking at Will's navel as if he could tongue into it the way he liked to do with Will's hole, before nosing back down to the shaft. Then he had the head of Will's cock in his mouth again, and Will bent moaning over him, as if he could contain the inevitable outcome by folding himself in two.

When Will came, Hannibal swallowed him down. He pulled away wet-lipped and reared up to kiss Will, deeply, with the taste still in his mouth.

They slouched against each other for a little while, breathing. Will's head swam with the dim eddies of release. Hannibal gathered him close with hands firm at the small of his back, close enough to let Will feel how hard he was as he drew Will to the brink of the counter.

"Down now," Hannibal murmured. He pulled Will over the edge. Will wasn't sure his legs would hold when his feet hit the tile. Hannibal saved him the worry by pinning him upright, then turning Will to bend over the counter. He fitted himself against Will from behind, breathing hot breath on his neck. Will swallowed.

"You can--" His voice emerged wavery, smaller than he'd intended. "You can fuck me if you want."

"Hm. You won't be such a shy boy tomorrow," said Hannibal, "when you ask me to do that."

"I'm not shy."

"Chary, then. But I don't mind. I'm savoring the wait." He kissed behind Will's ear. For a minute the warmth of him vanished. Will heard a cupboard open and shut, a bottle twisted open. Then Hannibal was on him again, fingers hooked at the waistband of Will's shorts to shuck them down. "You'll smell more as you should when I'm done with you here. Will that do?"

Will groaned and slumped over his bent arms. His cock was doing its level if futile best to get hard again, just from the feel of Hannibal against him and the murmur of his voice. "Whatever you want."

What Hannibal wanted, it seemed, was to slather his cock with oil and fit it to the cleft of Will's ass, and to rub there, slick and hard and increasingly artless, until he came. He finished with tight jerks of his hips, breath stuttering. He nosed Will's hair and nape, then reached between them to spread his mess over the small of Will's back, for all the world as if he were smearing sunscreen.

He lifted his hand and put two fingers to Will's lips. Will made a helpless noise. Without further coaxing he caught Hannibal's wrist and mouthed the wet fingers, like a teething puppy with a toy. He felt Hannibal sigh against his hair, felt his face push back and forth among the flattened curls.

Releasing Hannibal's fingers, Will lowered his chin to rest it flat against the granite countertop. At this point the breakfast bar was holding both of them up. He waited, but Hannibal seemed in no hurry to budge.

"Do I get to move sometime soon?"

"I don't know that I care to let go of you."

"You can not let go of me in the shower. Otherwise I'm gonna pass out right here."

"All right." Hannibal pressed a last kiss to the back of Will's head. "Sweet Will."

"You've got a funny idea of sweet."

"Have I? But you are sweet for me. You must know it. The way you open yourself for me, and your heart of hearts goes so wonderfully soft. It makes me want to do dreadful things to you."

"Yeah, okay. Tell me about the dreadful things when I'm more awake," said Will.

Hannibal half-carried him to the master suite. Will let himself be guided, handled, chivvied into the shower, lathered and rinsed and toweled down. In the hospital, during his treatment, he hadn't wanted physical help, not beyond what was necessary, but this was different. Maybe Hannibal was right: he did go soft. Soft in the middle, pliable throughout. With his hair still damp he crawled naked into the bed and was asleep before his eyes could fall shut.

*

Waves lapped the hull of the boat. It wasn't a sailboat, but a fishing boat with an outboard motor, modest in size, like the smallish ones Will had seen at the bayside marina. A bimini top stretched over the center console to shade it. Lap of luxury, his dad would've said.

The bay was nearly placid, dim with twilight, silver-blue. Will stood in the prow, holding his casting rod, line in the water. He hadn't caught anything, but that didn't seem important. Just to be here, floating over the seagrass bed, surrounded by suffusive calm in all directions--that was enough.

A splash stirred the water to the right of him, beyond his peripheral sight. Will heard the blow of a wet exhalation, an indrawn breath.

A dolphin, he thought--but when he turned, there was no glossy gray shape, no vanishing dorsal fin.

Something bigger and darker moved under the prow.

The horns emerged first, branched like a mangrove sapling. They rose up wet and gleaming with strands of seagrass caught among the tines. The ears appeared, and then the dark head with its ruff of feathers sleeked flat. Dark eyes gazed up at Will. The dark muzzle broke the surface like an alligator's snout.

The stag snuffled the air.

For a minute they stared at one another. Will could see the stag's forelegs treading water beneath the surface, trailing seaweed strands. The stag gave a slow blink. Then, as if it had seen what it came to see, it blew another dolphin-blow and surged away from Will and the boat, submerging out of sight.

In its wake he saw a speckled tail flip behind it, not feathered but finned.

Will didn't move, didn't speak, but what unfurled within him was a strange, unsurprised relief: the way he felt when one of the dogs had run off into the woods for hours, and at last come straggling home.

*

He woke to the feel of a hand stroking his hair. He mumbled--acknowledgement, not complaint--and rolled onto one side. Hannibal sat beside him on the edge of the bed.

"Time to eat," Hannibal said. "It's getting late."

Will peered at the bedside clock, then sank back into the pillow. He rubbed his face with both hands. "Jesus. If one orgasm knocks me out that hard, I don't know how I'm going to survive tomorrow."

"We'll manage," said Hannibal. "I've made a saffron pilaf to accompany the trout, a panna cotta for dessert, and lunches for tomorrow. If you feel up to it, I thought we might go for a stroll after you eat. Perhaps down to the marina."

"A stroll, I can probably handle," said Will, but instead of sitting up he flopped onto his back and lay flat. "How strange is it to miss a recurring hallucination?"

"Miss, as one misses an absent friend? What hallucination?"

"The stag--I'm not sure if I ever told you." There were stretches of time in the hospital that remained lost to him, conversations of which he had no memory.

"I would remember if you had," said Hannibal. He settled in like a child for a bedtime story. "Tell me now."

"I started seeing it...it must've been right after Cassie Boyle's body was found. The first time was in a dream, I think. Later I started seeing it when I wasn't asleep. A stag with black feathers on its body. Big. Like an elk."

"Was it frightening?"

"No, I was never afraid of it, it was...beautiful, actually. Sometimes it acted like it wanted me to follow it. Sometimes it followed me."

Hannibal had no difficulty with this. "In many traditions, a familiar spirit appears to a young practitioner of the shamanic arts. It guides him as he comes into his powers and learns to travel back and forth between realities. Perhaps your stag came to guide your passage to and from the other realm."

"The realm of madness," muttered Will. "It showed up in my dream, just now. I was...glad to see it." He didn't mention the part about the tail, how the stag's form seemed to be changing. Becoming something new. Some superstitious part of him shied away from saying it aloud, as if he might jinx the transformation before it fully came to pass. "I guess I didn't think I'd see it again."

"Well. Since relapse can occur in up to twenty-five percent of patients with your brand of encephalitis, you may yet see your friend again in the waking world." Hannibal patted Will's shoulder. "Take heart."

"Right. Thanks, Doctor." Will thumped him on the arm, then thumped again for good measure.

Hannibal caught hold of his hand before Will could draw it back again. "I know you don't like to think of it. But if it should happen, we'll be better armed next time. We'll recognize the symptoms, and have you well again as soon as may be."

His fingers curled around Will's. He held Will's hand and gaze until Will nodded.

"Now. Will you come and eat before our walk, or must I bring you lunch in bed?"

"No, I'm up. I'm up." Will heaved himself upright to make it true. "You want to parade around with an omega in pre-heat on your arm, is that it? Show off your nose candy?"

"Don't put on any pheromone mask," said Hannibal. "I want to be the envy of the island."

*

It bordered on risque, going out unmasked in pre-heat--not quite scandalous, but racy, like wearing tight pants that showed off his butt. Which was another thing Will never did, and had no interest in doing. But Hannibal looked so smug as they strolled along the walking path, even when their only audience consisted of a retired beta couple from the house down the way, out for a turn with their aged schnauzer.

Will crouched to let the schnauzer study his palm while Hannibal made small talk: the weather, where they were from, how long they were staying. Being sociable wasn't so bad with Hannibal around to do the heavy lifting, not when there was a dog in the mix.

"What's his name?" asked Will.

"Fritz," said the husband. "After der alte Fritz."

"Frederick the Great," the wife said. "He insists on calling the house 'Sanssouci.'"

"It's a fashion here to name the houses, yes?" asked Hannibal. "I've seen a number of signs."

Will glanced up from ruffling the dog's ears. "Does ours have a name?"

"Not that I know of." Hannibal smiled down. "Perhaps you might give it one."

Housey McHouseface, thought Will, but he didn't say it aloud. They said goodbye to the Fritzes and ambled on to the marina, where Hannibal angled transparently for Will's opinion of the boats. Will gave distracted answers. He kept casting his eye toward the surface of the water, checking for antlers rising from the bay.

*

He went to bed early after dinner. In the dense hours after midnight he woke, flushed and sweaty, heart racing in his chest. His hair clung in sticky coils to his neck, his brow. Fear scalded him--was it starting again? The fever, the liquid seepage of his mind--had it ever stopped?

Then he heard Hannibal's breathing, steady and slow at his side, and awareness came. Not sickness, not a relapse, not his brain roasting again over its own coals. Just heat.

Letting all his breath out in a rush, he flopped over sideways onto Hannibal, who twitched awake with a grunt.

*

On the morning of the second day, after the fervor had passed, Will cracked his eyes open to find Hannibal at the bedside, fully dressed in a seersucker suit. He squinted.

"You going out?"

Hannibal sat down on the edge of the bed. He put his hands in his lap, where they fidgeted slightly. Will observed the fidgets, increasingly alert.

"There's no delicate way to put this," said Hannibal. He sounded rueful. "There was a mishap with one of the condoms last night. A breakage. I don't have emergency contraception on hand, but I'll go to the pharmacy on Pine Island, and that will be that. The ferry leaves in half an hour."

Will's head slumped back. He didn't groan, but he felt like groaning. He squinted again at Hannibal. "Why didn't you say something?"

"There seemed no benefit in telling you in the moment, only loss of sleep for you. The pharmacy was already closed. If you take the EC today there shouldn't be any difficulty. Within a five-day window the effectiveness rate is extremely high."

"Yeah, I know." Will knew from experience. He rolled himself out of bed. "Hold on a sec."

He straggled to the bathroom and dug into the kit that held his medications. There, buried at the bottom, he found what he was looking for. He checked the expiration date: still good.

Returning to the bedroom, he flashed the package at Hannibal. "Saved you a trip."

"Ah," said Hannibal. He had the grace to look chagrined.

"Jack always wanted a backup, and so did I." Will tore into the package. "Maintenance fucks were one thing, but if he'd put a bun in my oven, that wouldn't have gone well for anyone."

"I'd imagine not." Hannibal folded his hands. "Will, I apologize. I should've told you immediately."

"You didn't want to disturb my beauty sleep," said Will. "I get it." He gave Hannibal the eye. "I could use some coffee."

"Of course. At once."

*

In the screened lanai off the master suite was an oversized daybed, roomy enough for two if the occupants were friendly, piled with cushions and positioned to face the view of the Gulf. After his shower Will installed himself there in his bathrobe, a fluffy towel tucked under his ass, which was still inclined to drip.

Hannibal appeared with a breakfast tray: more coffee, pain perdu with compote of mixed tropical fruits, a purplish orchid in a vase. Will started in on the French toast before pointing at the orchid with his fork.

"What's this. 'Sorry my rubber broke' in the language of flowers?"

"Something to that effect." Hannibal had traded his suit for pajama bottoms and a bathrobe of his own. He settled on the daybed next to Will. "It's edible."

"'Course it is."

Will reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out the contraception pill, still in its foil wrapper. He propped it on the breakfast tray next to his knife.

Hannibal blinked and looked at the pill with what appeared to be deep interest: curiosity, not concern. "Are you going to take it?"

"Do you want me to take it?"

"The decision is yours."

Will took a long drink of coffee. "You're good at saying the right things." He set the cup down. "Ever thought about having kids, Doctor?"

"Will. I'd be more than happy to have this conversation at another time, when--"

"When my heat's over. Because I'm not capable of rational discussion until then?"

"We both know that's not the case. Even so, your feelings may change. Mine have."

"So the rational course would be to take the damn pill, then think about it when my body isn't lobbying quite so hard in one direction. Then talk."

"That would seem wise, yes."

Will opened the foil packet and took the damn pill. Then, because Hannibal did a funny thing with his mouth when Will swallowed pills dry--a slight but discernible flattening--Will washed it down with coffee.

"Done. Time bomb's no longer ticking." If he'd expected relief in Hannibal's expression, he saw none. "You didn't answer my question."

Hannibal paused to excise a corner of pain perdu. "For most of my life, having children never seemed a likely or greatly desirable prospect. Before I came to know you."

"You weren't concerned about people questioning your alphahood?"

"No. What about you? No concern for the chiming of the biological clock?"

If Will had a biological clock, he figured the alarm had gone off years ago, and he'd been mashing the snooze button ever since. Until he'd caught brain fever, and the clock had melted altogether. In fairness, Hannibal was right--his first heat after recovery from a life-threatening illness was probably not the time to make reproductive choices, not when his genes were howling perpetuate with all their might. But maybe there was something to the clamor, timing aside.

"Not the kind of project I'd want to tackle on my own," he said. "Never had anybody to tackle it with." There'd always been the dogs, ever since he'd moved into his own house. The dogs had been enough for him.

"Had. And now?"

"Now you're fishing."

Hannibal set down his fork and curled his hands. He looked away, toward the swaying fronds of the potted palm in the corner, the slow rotation of the ceiling fan's angled blades. "If you were to say you would consider having a child with me, Will--even consider it--"

He broke off. His eyes grew bright. Too bright, and red around the edges. Will sat up, nearly upsetting the breakfast tray.

"Are you crying? Jesus, Hannibal. Don't cry." He reached across the tray for Hannibal's hand and clasped it, stroking the knuckles with one thumb. "You're right, we'll talk about it later. When we're both less hopped up on hormones. Okay?"

"Yes, all right."

Will set the vase and its flower nearer to Hannibal. "Here. Eat your orchid."

Hannibal gazed at him with sorrow to rival Winston's over an open suitcase. "That was for you."

"Okay, I'll eat the orchid."

Will picked it up by the stem. He thought about biting off petal by petal, loves me, loves me not, but that didn't seem like much of a question. It hadn't seemed like a question for a while. Maybe by the time it had occurred to him to frame it, he'd already known the answer.

There was nothing mystical in an alpha-omega bond, any more than there was in the one that made mothers gaga for their infants. A rush of oxytocin to the head. But regular flooding could shift neural tributaries in their courses. Repeated heats might distill the chemistry between partners to a potency that preserved the bond like summer fruit in liquor, if the match was right.

Will had read the literature. He'd never expected to become a case study, not of something like this. Not of something good.

He stuffed the entire flower into his mouth and chewed.

*