Cilian’s fingers adjusted Ren’s aim, tilting the barrel just a fraction of an inch. The proximity was nauseating. Ren felt the leather collar around his neck feel tighter, a physical reminder of who truly held the trigger.

"Now," Cilian breathed. "Why don’t you try it again? But with a little more focus."

Ren’s tampered breathing seemed to be ringing in his ear. He couldn’t concentrate properly, especially with Cilian’s pressure behind him. He swallowed, steadying his breath, and then pulled the trigger.

The shot was a perfect bullseye, right through the ’heart’ of the paper silhouette.

"See?" Cilian chuckled, his voice sounding dazed and delighted, but he didn’t let go.

Instead, he rested his chin on Ren’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on the mangled paper but sniffing in Ren’s scent in the moment. His scent was frantic and erratic, but it did not smell any less nice than it did the last night.

"You’re a natural, Ren. We’re going to make quite the pair when we finally go hunting for your dear advisor."

Ren stood there with his chest heaving, and the acrid smell of gunpowder filling his lungs. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

His hands were still trembling, the empty weight of the handgun feeling like an extension of his own hollowed-out soul.

For a split second, as the smoke cleared, the shredded target in front of him suddenly shifted into the image of Cilian’s smiling face.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to blink away the hallucination, but even if he did, what next?

He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t be near Cilian right now because he just might decide to put a bullet in his skull. He pushed past Cilian and turned to walk away.

"Where are you going, Ren?" Cilian called out, but Ren did not answer.

He didn’t even look back. He just wanted to get out of this shitty place.

But before he could take three steps, a shadow blurred in his vision. Despite the bullet hole in his shoulder, Cilian moved quite fast.

A heavy hand slammed into the wall beside Ren’s head, and then a sudden, violent shove pinned him against the cold concrete.

Ren gasped as the air was knocked out of him, but he quickly looked up. Cilian was right there, his face pale and slick with a cold sweat, but his good arm held Ren’s wrists against the stone with a strength Ren could not counter.

Then, the air changed.

Cilian had released his pheromones.

The scent of frost flooded the small space, crashing over Ren’s senses like an avalanche. It was a suffocating, dominant weight that forced Ren’s knees to weaken.

"You..." Ren bit the inside of his mouth, trying to reject the pheromones, but it was too potent, and his pores were sucking it in.

"I’d like to share in your rage, Ren," Cilian whispered, his face inches from Ren’s. His eyes, dark and blown wide with fever and adrenaline, dropped to Ren’s mouth. "But unfortunately, I can’t. So let me get a taste of it instead."

In a final, desperate act of defiance, Ren jerked his hand up, pressing the tip of the empty gun hard against Cilian’s forehead. The metal was still warm from the rapid fire, but that was all there was to it.

Cilian didn’t even blink. He rolled his eyes to look at the weapon, then back to Ren’s eyes, and then a slow, dark smile spread across his lips.

He knew the gun chamber was empty. He knew Ren was holding a useless piece of iron.

"You’ll definitely put a bullet in me one day, Ren," Cilian breathed, his voice a melodic rasp against Ren’s skin. "But unfortunately, it’s not today."

"Fuck you!" Ren rasped, his voice coming out in a dense whisper.

The tone delighted Cilian, but what even delighted him more was the curse he spoke.

"Don’t worry. I’ll definitely do it to you, but let’s go with the appetizer first."

With that, he crashed his lips onto Ren’s.

It wasn’t a soft kiss. It wasn’t a comfort. It was better interpreted as a collision.

Ren didn’t pull away. Instead, he hissed into the kiss, his fingers tightening on the useless gun until they finally loosened and the gun fell from his hand, clanking heavily on the floor.

Ren gripped Cilian’s shirt and kissed back with a sudden, violent hunger. He wasn’t kissing Cilian; he was biting back at the world. He was using Cilian’s mouth to swallow the scream that had been building up all this time.

He needed the distraction. He needed the pain. He needed to feel something other than the rage of watching his family burn, and knowing the ones behind it were close friends that could be considered family...

He opened his eyes, staring intensely at Cilian.

...That he considered a lover.

Cilian groaned low in his throat, a sound of dazed delight, his fingers digging into Ren’s arm as he pulled him closer, ignoring the way his own wound began to bleed through the fresh bandages.

They were two monsters in a basement, feeding on each other’s wreckage and preparing to evade each other’s words.

But suddenly, a loud, metallic clang echoed through the range.

The heavy steel door at the top of the stairs burst open, and a guard stumbled in, his face pale, his radio crackling with static and screaming voices.

"Sir! The perimeter—" the guard yelled, then stopped, freezing at the sight of the Alpha pinning his ’favorite person’ to the wall in the dark.

Cilian pulled back an inch, his lips smeared with Ren’s blood and his own. He didn’t look at the guard. He kept his eyes on Ren, his breath coming in ragged, satisfied hitches.

Along the line, Ren had bitten him, but he didn’t seem to care.

He lowered his hand from Ren’s wrist and smeared the blood a bit more around Ren’s lips, watching him as he panted, and how delirious he was getting from the effect of the kiss and his Pheromones.

"Speak," Cilian suddenly commanded, his voice sounding terrifying and airily chill. "Before I kill you for the interruption."

"The Mordecais, sir!" the guard stammered.

"What about them?"

"They’re coming in from the north gate. And they’ve brought a specialized unit. They’re calling for..." his eyes landed on Ren, and then he gulped. "The last Pierce."