Beg Me Like You Mean It, Captain

"You look like you’re about to pass out, Evans."

The voice startled me and my body jolted.

At that moment, my fingers, already numb and slick, lost their grip. I watched in slow motion as the glass vial fell, and in an attempt to catch it, I knocked down the syringe next to me as well.

They hit the dirt, skidded down a deep, narrow crack in the stone ledge. If it had ended with just falling, it might’ve been okay. I could still try to retrieve them, but they didn’t just fall.

Tink. Shatter.

The sound of the glass vial and the syringe breaking against the stone deep inside the crack was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.

"No!"

I gasped out and quickly reached for the edge, my fingers scraping against the cold rock, but it was useless. They were gone. Shattered in a hole I couldn’t reach, deep in a crevice where the mountain would swallow the scent of the chemicals before they could even hit the air.

My heart didn’t just drop; it stopped. I was miles from the nearest pharmacy, two days away from my backup supply in the city, and the dam was already breaking.

I turned my head slowly, my face pale, looking toward the source of the voice.

Reid McCoy was standing five feet away, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked relaxed, but his eyes weren’t relaxed. They were narrowed, his nostrils flaring as he took in the sudden shift in the air.

He hadn’t smelled it yet—the blockers were still technically in my system for another half an hour—but he’d seen me drop something. And he’d seen the sheer terror on my face.

"What was that?" Reid asked, his voice deepening, turning into that low, vibrating tone that always made my insides turn to liquid. He took a slow, deliberate step toward me. "You look like you just watched someone die, Captain."

That would be me in a matter of minutes if I didn’t get out of here right now.

I stood up, my back hitting the rock wall behind me. My pulse was a frantic, visible thrum in my neck. "It was... nothing, Reid. Just some medicine. Migraines."

Reid didn’t stop. He kept coming until he was inches away, his Alpha pheromones hitting me like a tidal wave. He was so sturdy, so solid, and right now, he was the most dangerous person in the world.

"Migraine medicine doesn’t come in vials that you hide to take in the woods," Reid murmured, his gaze dropping to the crack in the ground and then back to my wide, desperate eyes. "What are you hiding, Kain?"

I could feel it then. The first leak. A tiny, microscopic bloom of something sweet and floral, beginning to rise from the heat of my skin.

No, no, this... this can’t be happening.

The heavy silence of the woods felt like it was curdling, grasping at my throat with invisible hands.

Because at this point, I could already feel it. The heat cycle had hit.

It wasn’t a slow burn but a chemical detonation. Without the blockers to dampen the fire, the dam I’d spent years reinforcing simply disintegrated. I felt the sweat break out across my collarbone, a feverish, heavy slickness of discomfort. And then came the scent—no longer the ’nothing’ of a Beta, but a surge of distressed wild orchids, thick and sweet, screaming into the mountain air.

Reid didn’t move at first. He just stood there, his sturdy frame silhouetted against the sun, his head tilting slowly to the side as he tried to figure me out.

Then, his nostrils flared.

It was a sharp twitch. I watched his eyes change—the grey irises bleeding into black as his pupils blew wide. The bored arrogance was gone. In its place was something raw.

"Evans?" his voice was a low growl. "What... what the hell is that?"

"Nothing," I gasped, my voice thin and high. I didn’t wait for him to respond. I tried to run, but he caught my arm. He jerked me back, spinning me around until my shoulder hit the rough bark of a tree.

"Ugh, let go," I choked out, but even to my own ears, it didn’t sound like a command. It sounded like a plea.

Reid didn’t let go. If anything, his grip tightened, his fingers digging into my bicep. He didn’t look worried anymore.

He didn’t wait for a proper answer and leaned in, his face dropping to the crook of my neck. I felt his hot breath hit my skin, and my internal Omega let out a pathetic, high-pitched whine. ’He’s sniffing me. He wants to get my scent.’

He took a deep, shuddering inhale, and I could feel the hard lines of his torso, the sheer mass of him crushing the air out of my lungs.

But this was no time to be fantasizing about his body mass. My heat was here and Reid was right here as well, his body pressed against mine.

It was over. He was going to find out. And knowing Reid, he was going to make a big issue out of it.

’I’m finished.’

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Reid breathed, his voice muffled against my pulse point and I jolted. He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye. His expression was messy with a mix of shock and a dark, triumphant hunger.

"You’re a bloody Omega."

The words made my body go limp. I looked up at him, my vision slowly blurring with the onset of the heat. "Reid, let go. That’s... that’s an order."

Reid let out a short mocking laugh and then leaned his weight into me, his thigh steadying itself between my legs, keeping me pinned to the tree. He looked at my flushed face, my trembling mouth, and the way I was quietly hyperventilating.

"An order?" he mocked, his thumb dragging slowly, heavily across the sensitive skin of my inner wrist. "You’re shaking like a leaf, Captain. Right here, in the middle of the woods, you’re leaking Pheromones. Omega Pheromones."

He leaned in again, his lips brushing my ear, his pheromones flaring in a heavy, stifling wave that made my head spin.

"You’ve been lying to us," he whispered, the sound thick with a new, dangerous kind of pride. "The ’understanding’ leader. The ’Beta’ hero Captain. There’s none of that. You’re just a flower hiding in my forest, and you just lost your cover."

I couldn’t even find the words to argue. My body was already leaning into him, my fingers instinctively curling into the fabric of his jacket.

It was as if he was the only sturdy thing in a world that was currently melting.

Reid pulled back, his eyes scanning the ridgeline behind us. The rest of the team was less than a mile away. Twenty Alphas who were about to catch a scent that would turn this bonding trip into a bloodbath.

"You’re wide open, Kain," Reid murmured, his grip on my arm tightening. "And I’m the only thing standing between you and the rest of the team."

He had seen through me. There was no more negotiation. I was through.

Since it was already like that, I didn’t want him to be here to watch me at this moment. It was better if I were alone.

"I... you should go now." I managed to say. "Go back... to the cabin."

"Go back to the cabin?" Reid repeated, his voice a low and hoarse. He let out a short, sharp laugh that vibrated against my chest. "And miss this? I’ve spent months wondering why our ’perfect’ Captain was so damn repressed. Now I know. You aren’t just soft, Evans. You’re a biological disaster."

I tried to turn my head away, to hide the flush creeping up my neck, but he was faster. He reached up, his hand tangling into a fistful of my hair at the base of my skull. He jerked my head back, forcing me to look up at him, and I let out an involuntary whimper.

The sudden sharp pain was a shock, but my traitorous Omega instincts flared at the dominance, my breath hitching in a way that was utterly humiliating.

Reid leaned in until our noses were almost touching, his grey eyes blown wide and dark with a prideful triumph. His own pheromones surged, wrapping around me like a cage.

"How does it feel?" he whispered, his breath hot against my lips. "The great leader of the Serpents. The one who’s always so ’understanding’. Does it hurt, Evans? Knowing that in about ten minutes, you’re going to be on your knees begging me for a hit of my pheromones just to keep your head from exploding?"

"I won’t... beg you for anything," I gritted out, my eyes stinging. I tried to keep my face straight, to maintain a shred of the dignity I’d spent twenty-five years building, but the orchid scent pouring off my skin was a dead giveaway. I was leaking too much, and we both knew it was a sign of an invite from my body.

Reid’s grip on my hair tightened, pulling me even closer until I was forced onto my tiptoes. He looked down at my trembling mouth, a slow, dangerous smirk carving its way onto his face. He looked like he wanted to break me. He looked like he wanted to own me.

"We’ll see about that," he murmured, his gaze traveling over my flushed skin with a terrifyingly slow intensity. "You’re a flower in my forest now, Captain. And I’m the only one who can keep the other wolves from picking your petals."