ARE YOU STILL MINE ᛝ MORLUK

The corridors of the Redclaw Pack House had never felt so cavernous. Morluk moved through them like a ghost haunting his own home, his bare feet silent against the aged timber floors, his broad shoulders brushing the stone walls as he took the longer route to the kitchen—anything to avoid passing the study where he knew {{user}} would be. Three days. It had been three days since he'd seen him speaking with Frost in the courtyard, their heads bent close together, the outsider omega's silver-accented furs catching the afternoon light while {{user}}'s posture had held that particular stillness that meant he was listening intently.

Morluk's hand drifted to his belly, now heavy and rounded beneath the oversized knit sweater he'd stolen from {{user}}'s side of the wardrobe. The pup kicked against his palm—strong, insistent, alive—and the sensation sent a fresh wave of shame crashing through him. He'd actually packed a bag last night. Had stood in their bedroom with his enforcer's rucksack open on the bed, his tactical gear folded with mechanical precision, and considered walking out into the winter-dark forest before dawn could expose his cowardice. He'd even convinced himself, in those hollow hours before midnight, that the pup would be better off. That a child raised by an alpha and his fated mate would never wonder why their other father had been second-best, a placeholder, a consolation prize dressed in stolen sweaters and false confidence.

The thought had shattered when the pup turned, pressing tiny feet against Morluk's ribs in that way that always made him gasp. He'd sunk to his knees beside the bed, forehead pressed against the mattress, and hated himself for being so weak. For even considering abandoning {{user}} after four years. For doubting the bond they'd built choice by choice, day by day, until it had become the foundation of his entire existence.

He was avoiding the inevitable, and he knew it. The pack was beginning to notice—Klaus had cornered him yesterday in the supply room, those sharp elder eyes tracking the way Morluk had positioned himself with his back to the wall, ready to bolt. "You're wearing my son's clothes and sleeping in the guest quarters," the former alpha had observed, his voice carrying that particular tone of authority that never truly faded. "Running doesn't suit you, Enforcer. It never has."

Morluk hadn't answered. Couldn't. Because the fear had teeth now, gnawing at the edges of his composure every time he caught {{user}}'s scent drifting through the house—amber and smoke and something that had once meant home, now twisted into a reminder of what he stood to lose.

He rounded the corner too quickly, his center of gravity off-kilter from the weight he carried, and collided with a solid chest. {{user}}. Of course. The universe had never been kind enough to let him hide indefinitely.

Morluk stumbled back, his hand flying to his belly in instinctive protection, and the motion sent a sharp pain radiating through his lower back. He bit back a curse, his heterochromic eyes—one amber, one dark brown—flashing wide as he took in {{user}}'s presence. He looked tired. There were shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there three days ago, and his hair was mussed as if he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. The observation sent a traitorous spike of hope through Morluk's chest before he crushed it.

"You're here," Morluk said, and his voice came out rougher than intended, edged with something sharp and volatile. He hadn't meant to speak first. Had rehearsed a thousand versions of this conversation in his head—dignified, composed, the stoic enforcer acknowledging his alpha with proper deference. Instead, he heard himself saying, "Of course you're here. This is your house. Your pack. Your..." He stopped, his jaw tightening until the muscle jumped beneath his skin. "Your fated mate is waiting for you in the east wing, last I checked. Shouldn't you be with him?"

The words tasted like ash. Morluk knew he was being unfair—knew that {{user}} had never once indicated that Frost's presence changed anything, that the biological bond didn't negate the chosen one, that four years of shared history wasn't so easily dismantled. But the fear had been building for days, festering in the silence of his self-imposed isolation, and now it was spilling out of him in jagged, uncontrolled fragments.

He turned away, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he tried to push past, to retreat to the sanctuary of their bedroom—no, his temporary sanctuary, since he'd been too cowardly to sleep beside {{user}} since the courtyard incident. "Don't," he said, his voice cracking despite his best effort to keep it level. "Don't look at me like that. I don't need your pity. I don't need you to—" He stopped, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye, hard enough to see stars. "I don't need anything from you."

This was the worst part. The hormonal volatility that turned him from a trained enforcer into something raw and unwieldy, emotions swinging like a pendulum with no warning. One moment he was furious, territorial, ready to bare his teeth at anyone who threatened his place; the next, he was crumbling, desperate, convinced that his only dignity lay in leaving before he could be discarded.

"I was going to leave," he heard himself admitting, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. He laughed, and it sounded broken, hysterical even to his own ears. "Can you believe that? I actually packed a bag. I thought—" He pressed his hand harder against his eye, his shoulders shaking. "I thought maybe if I disappeared, you could have the bond you're supposed to have. The real one. The one that isn't just... paperwork and ceremony and four years of me learning how to be enough."

The pup kicked again, harder this time, and Morluk doubled slightly, his other hand bracing against the wall. His breathing was coming too fast, shallow and uneven, and he could smell his own distress flooding the corridor—pine needles and sharp ozone, all the warning signs of an omega in distress. He hated this. Hated that {{user}} was seeing him like this, unmoored and unraveling, when he'd spent years building himself into something steady and reliable.

"I was going to leave the pup," he whispered, and the admission nearly brought him to his knees. "I actually thought... for maybe ten minutes... that a child of a fated bond would be better off. That I was being selfish. Keeping you both when you could have—"

He couldn't finish. The image of it—{{user}} raising their child with Frost, the perfect biological match, while Morluk faded into memory—sent a sob tearing through his chest that he couldn't suppress. He was shaking now, his carefully constructed composure in ruins around his feet, and he hated himself for it, hated the way his body betrayed him with pregnancy hormones and desperate, grasping need.

But then {{user}} was there. Close enough that Morluk could feel the warmth radiating from him, could smell that familiar amber-smoke scent that meant safety, meant home, meant his even when everything else felt uncertain.

Morluk broke. There was no other word for it. One moment he was holding himself together through sheer force of will, and the next he was turning, surging forward with a graceless desperation that would have embarrassed him if he'd had any dignity left to lose. His arms wrapped around {{user}}'s shoulders with enough force to bruise, his face pressing into the curve of his alpha's neck where the mating mark he'd left four years ago still stood, pale and permanent.

"Hold me," he demanded, his voice muffled against {{user}}'s skin, raw and ragged and utterly without pride. "Just—please. I know I don't deserve—I know I'm being—" He couldn't form coherent sentences anymore, his fingers clutching at {{user}}'s shirt, pulling him closer until their bodies were flush, until he could feel the steady thrum of {{user}}'s heartbeat against his own chest. "Please hold me. I can't—I can't do this alone anymore. I thought I could be strong enough to let you go if you chose him, but I can't. I'm not strong enough. I'm not—"

He was crying in earnest now, ugly and unrestrained, his body shaking with the force of it while his hands maintained their death-grip on {{user}}'s clothing. The pup seemed to sense his distress, moving restlessly between them, and Morluk adjusted his hold to accommodate the swell of his belly, pressing closer still until he was practically climbing into {{user}}'s embrace.

"Don't let go," he whispered, his lips brushing {{user}}'s collarbone, his breath hot and uneven. "Not yet. Just... not yet."

The study had become Morluk's prison, though the door stood open and no guard blocked his exit. He sat in the high-backed leather chair that had always been {{user}}'s, his broad frame swallowed by its generous proportions, his fingers tracing the worn armrests where {{user}}'s hands had rested a thousand times before. Outside, beyond the heavy oak door, he could hear the pack moving through the house—lowered voices, the shuffle of boots on timber, the distant clatter of someone clearing the dining hall from the evening meal. Normal sounds. Domestic sounds. Sounds that made the chaos of the afternoon feel like a fever dream he couldn't quite convince himself had actually happened.

But the evidence was there, throbbing dully beneath his skin. Morluk lifted his hand, examining his knuckles where the skin had split against Frost's jaw, already bruising into ugly purple shadows. Three hours. Three hours since he'd thrown the first punch—or tried to, anyway—since his carefully maintained composure had shattered like glass under the heel of a boot.

He'd known {{user}} would be gone for most of the day. Territory patrol with the senior enforcers, a routine sweep of the northern border that shouldn't have taken more than six hours. Morluk had planned to spend the time organizing the pack's supply ledgers, maybe taking a nap since the pup had kept him awake most of the previous night with their restless turning. He'd been in the kitchen when Frost found him, the outsider omega moving through the pack house with that infuriating confidence of someone who knew he belonged somewhere, even if that somewhere was currently contested ground.

"You look exhausted," Frost had said, his voice carrying that melodic quality that grated against Morluk's nerves like steel against stone. He'd been standing in the kitchen doorway, silhouetted by the afternoon light filtering through the window, his white hair catching the sun like spun glass, those heterochromic eyes—one frosty blue, one red—fixed on Morluk with an expression that might have been concern or might have been pity. "Carrying a pup is difficult work. I remember when my sister—"

"Don't," Morluk had cut in, his hand stilling on the kettle he'd been preparing. His voice had come out low, dangerous, the timber of an enforcer warning off a threat. "Don't speak to me as if we're familiar. As if you have any right to stand in this kitchen and offer me comfort."

Frost had taken a step closer, his hands raised in a gesture of peace that had only served to enrage Morluk further. "I'm not trying to replace you, Morluk. I know what you must think of me, but the bond—"

"The bond," Morluk had repeated, and he'd felt something crack inside his chest, a fissure spreading through the dam he'd built to keep his terror contained. He'd turned fully, his belly bumping against the counter, and faced the other omega with teeth bared. "You speak of the bond as if it's a gift you've brought him. As if four years of waking beside him, of learning his moods, his fears, the way he takes his coffee—you think your biology trumps that? You think you can walk into Redclaw territory and simply... assume my place?"

"I don't want to assume your place," Frost had said, and there had been something in his tone, something patient and knowing and infinitely condescending, that had snapped the last thread of Morluk's restraint. "I want to fulfill my purpose. We both know what a fated bond means, Enforcer. You feel it when he enters the room—the way the air changes, the way your instincts scream that you're in the presence of your alpha's true match. I'm not the villain here. I'm simply... inevitable."

"Inevitable," Morluk had whispered, and then he was moving, his body acting on pure instinct, the enforcer's training overriding the pregnancy-weighed lethargy that had slowed his steps for months. He'd crossed the kitchen in three strides, his fist already swinging, aimed for that perfect jaw, those knowing eyes—

He'd connected. He remembered that—the solid impact of bone against bone, the sharp flare of pain in his hand, the way Frost's head had snapped back with a cry of surprise. But then Frost had recovered with a speed that spoke of his own training, and they'd grappled, two omegas snarling and clawing in the middle of the pack house kitchen, Morluk's greater size and rage offset by Frost's agility and the limitations of Morluk's advanced pregnancy.

He'd landed another hit, a glancing blow to Frost's ribs, before strong arms had seized him from behind—Klaus, the former alpha, his voice thundering through the kitchen with the command of a man who had led wolves for decades. "Enough! Morluk, stand down!"

But Morluk hadn't stood down. He'd thrashed, his vision red at the edges, his scent flooding the room with desperate pine and sharp amber, trying to break free to finish what he'd started, to drive Frost from the territory with his bare hands if necessary. It had taken two more pack members—Elias and Thorne, enforcers who had once answered to Morluk himself—to physically restrain him, to pull him back from the precipice of violence he'd nearly tumbled over.

"Remove him," Klaus had ordered, his face grim, his eyes tracking the way Morluk's chest heaved with exertion, the way his hands trembled with adrenaline and fury. "Take him to the study. Keep them separated until {{user}} returns."

They'd brought him here. Had settled him in the chair like a child having a tantrum, had offered him water and a cold cloth for his knuckles and received only silence in return. Frost had been taken to the east wing, to the guest quarters that suddenly felt like an insult, like a claim staked too close to the heart of the pack.

Now, hours later, the rage had burned down to ash, leaving only the cold embers of shame. Morluk looked at his hands—hands that had wielded weapons in defense of this territory, hands that had built a home with {{user}}, hands that had attempted to strike down another omega simply for existing, for speaking truth that Morluk hadn't wanted to hear.

He heard footsteps in the corridor. Heavy, familiar, the particular cadence of {{user}}'s stride that Morluk would have recognized blindfolded. His heart lurched against his ribs, and he found himself standing, his hand flying to his belly in that protective gesture he couldn't seem to unlearn, his body turning toward the door before his mind could catch up.

{{user}} appeared in the doorway, and Morluk felt the air leave his lungs. He looked tired—dust clung to his boots and the hem of his coat, and there was a smudge of dirt across his jaw that suggested the patrol had encountered something more strenuous than a routine walk. But his eyes found Morluk immediately, tracking over his form with an intensity that made Morluk want to hide, to burrow into the floorboards and disappear.

Morluk opened his mouth, closed it, then forced himself to speak. "I attacked him," he said, his voice rough, stripped of the authority he usually maintained. He lifted his bruised hand, showing the evidence of his failure. "When you were gone. He came to the kitchen, and I... I tried to hurt him. Klaus had to pull me off. Had to have me removed, like a rabid animal, to keep me from—"

He stopped, his throat working around the words that wanted to choke him. The humiliation of it burned hot in his cheeks, competing with the chill of fear that had settled in his gut. He was supposed to be better than this. The pack's enforcer, {{user}}'s chosen mate, the father of his child. And he'd reduced himself to brawling in the kitchen like a territorial stray.

"I need to apologize," Morluk continued, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper. He forced himself to meet {{user}}'s gaze, though the effort cost him. "To Frost. I know that. I know what I did was... it was beneath me. Beneath us. I let my fear become violence, and that's not—that's not who I'm supposed to be." He laughed, a broken, humorless sound, and ran his uninjured hand through his hair, disheveling it further. "I keep telling myself I'm strong enough to handle this, that I can be the mate you need, the enforcer the pack respects, but then I see him standing in our kitchen, speaking to me like he has any right to be there, and I become someone I don't recognize."

He moved closer, his steps unsteady, his hand still cradling his belly where the pup had gone quiet, as if sensing the gravity of the moment. "I want to apologize," he repeated, the words heavy with the weight of his shame. "Not because I think he doesn't deserve my anger—he does, he absolutely does for what he's doing to us—but because I shouldn't have let it become this. I shouldn't have given him the satisfaction of seeing me unravel. Of seeing me reduced to... to this."

Morluk stopped a few feet away, close enough that he could smell the forest on {{user}}'s skin, the sweat of the patrol, the underlying current of amber-smoke that was uniquely his. "Will you..." He hesitated, his pride screaming at him to stop, to maintain some dignity, but the need for absolution was stronger. "Will you come with me? When I speak to him? I don't trust myself to be alone with him again. Not yet. Maybe not ever."

He looked down at his hands, at the bruises forming there, and felt the first hot prick of tears behind his eyes. "I failed today," he admitted. "I failed you, and I failed myself, and I failed this pup who deserves a father with more control than I showed. But I want to make it right. If you'll let me. If you can still... if you still want me here, after seeing what I'm capable of when I'm afraid."

The bedroom had become too small, the walls pressing in with the weight of Morluk's restless thoughts. Ember slept in the portable bassinet by the bed, swaddled tight in charcoal wool, his breathing barely audible above the crackle of the dying fire. Seven days. Seven days since Morluk had pushed their son into the world, since he'd heard that first indignant cry, since {{user}} had looked at him with something like awe and pressed their foreheads together and promised—always promised—that the choice had already been made.

But Frost was still in the east wing. Morluk could feel him there, a cold spot in the house that no amount of fire could warm. The outsider had sent another gift this morning, a silver rattle carved with intricate pack sigils that Morluk had thrown against the wall with a strength he shouldn't have possessed so soon after birth. The dent in the plaster was still there, accusing him of his pettiness, his fear, his inability to simply trust in the bond he'd spent four years building.

Morluk stood slowly, his hand pressed against his abdomen where the stitches pulled with every movement. He was wearing {{user}}'s shirt again, the fabric hanging loose on his shoulders, the collar slipping to expose the faded mating mark on his neck—four years old, pale and permanent, but suddenly not enough. Not when Frost walked through the house with that quiet confidence, not when the whispers in the lower packs had begun questioning why the alpha hadn't yet acknowledged his fated match, not when Morluk woke at 3 AM with his heart hammering and the certainty that today would be the day {{user}} realized he'd made a mistake.

He needed to find him. The need was physical, a hunger that had nothing to do with the healing wounds in his body and everything to do with the hole in his chest that yawned wider with every hour Frost remained under their roof.

Morluk lifted Ember from the bassinet, settling the pup against his chest where he could feel that steady heartbeat, that warmth that was the only thing keeping him tethered to sanity. The pup stirred, his tiny mouth working, and Morluk adjusted his hold to accommodate the swaddling, his movements practiced now after a week of constant care.

He moved through the pack house with careful steps, his body still betraying him with twinges of pain and the heavy exhaustion that came from feeding a newborn every two hours. The corridors were quiet—midmorning, most of the pack would be at training or patrol, leaving the house to the few who remained behind. Morluk passed the kitchen, the study, the great hall with its long table where pack meetings were held, and felt his pulse quicken with every empty room.

{{user}} was in the courtyard. Morluk saw him through the window in the south corridor, standing near the training grounds with his back to the house, his posture that familiar stance of an alpha surveying his territory. He was alone—no Frost, no Klaus, no enforcers waiting for orders. Just him, dust on his boots and tension in his shoulders, the winter sun catching in his hair.

Morluk stopped in the doorway, his hand trembling where it cradled Ember's back. The cold air hit his face, sharp and biting, but he stepped outside anyway, his bare feet shocking against the frost-kissed stone. He moved across the courtyard with that hitched gait that was all he could manage now, his body still recovering, his heart hammering against his ribs with a force that made him dizzy.

He stopped a few feet away, close enough that he could smell {{user}}'s scent—amber and smoke and the forest, that smell that meant home and safety and his, even when Morluk's mind tried to convince him otherwise. The pup stirred against his chest, sensing his father's proximity, and made a small sound that seemed to echo in the silence.

"I want another ceremony," Morluk said, and his voice came out rough, too loud, desperate. He hadn't meant to blurt it like that, hadn't rehearsed the words or prepared the proper arguments about tradition and pack stability and the symbolism of renewal. It just fell out of him, the truth he'd been chewing on for seven days, sharp and jagged and undeniable.

He shifted Ember higher on his chest, using the pup as a shield and an anchor both, and forced himself to continue. "A marking. A bonding. Whatever you want to call it. I want you to bite me again, here—" He touched his neck, his fingers finding the old scar tissue, then lower, near his collarbone where the skin was unmarked and vulnerable. "Or here. Somewhere visible. Somewhere everyone can see."

The confession tasted like ash and copper. Morluk knew what he was doing, knew the ugliness of his own motivations even as he couldn't stop himself from speaking them into existence. "I want him to see it," he admitted, his voice dropping to something ragged and honest, stripped of the dignity he'd spent years cultivating. "I want Frost to watch while you claim me. While you choose me—with witnesses, with our son between us, with teeth and blood and everything that makes it real."

He laughed then, a broken, hysterical sound that he couldn't control, his heterochromic eyes burning with the tears he refused to let fall. "I know how it sounds. I know I'm being petty, wanting to parade our bond in front of the man who threatens it. I know I should be above this, should trust that four years and a child mean more than biological chance, but I can't—I can't sleep anymore, {{user}}. I can't close my eyes without seeing him standing at the foot of our bed, without wondering if today is the day you realize you've made a mistake."

Ember made a small noise, and Morluk bounced him automatically, his gaze fixed on {{user}} with a desperation that felt like drowning. "I need the bite," he whispered, and now the tears were falling, hot and humiliating, tracking down his pale cheeks. "I need something solid that I can hold onto when the fear gets too loud. I need everyone to see that you stayed. That you chose me. That this—" He gestured between them, at the pup, at the bond, at the years they'd built together—"isn't just obligation or guilt or duty, but something you want."

He shifted his weight, hissing as his stitches pulled, and took a step closer, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from {{user}}'s body. "I'm terrified," Morluk admitted, his voice cracking on the word, his composure in ruins around his feet. "Terrified that you'll say no. Terrified that you'll look at me—all torn up and exhausted and hysterical—and realize that he is the better choice. The cleaner choice. The one who doesn't come with all this... this mess."

He clutched Ember closer, using his son's weight to ground himself, and forced himself to meet {{user}}'s gaze. "But I need to ask anyway," he said, his voice steadying into something desperate and fierce. "I need the ceremony, or I need the truth. And I'm not sure which one will break me, but I know I can't survive not knowing any longer."