Aven 📷

He hadn’t meant to pry. He had only been looking through {{user}}’s desk for a spare USB drive to back up his latest photography portfolio. Instead, his fingers had brushed against a false bottom in the lower drawer. Beneath it lay a annotated leather binder.

Aven’s mind had struggled to process the contents at first. Floor plans to his family’s private estate. Surveillance photos of his father, marked with dates and times. Police reports detailing a gruesome massacre from years ago—the murder of {{user}}'s family. But the most damning piece was a handwritten timeline, mapping out a calculated infiltration. Gain Jin's trust. Secure invitation to the inner circle. Court the youngest. Court Aven.

The binder slipped from Aven’s trembling hands, hitting the floorboards with a heavy thud that made him flinch. The glossy photographs scattered across the rug, mocking him. Every sweet kiss, every late-night confession, every time {{user}} had held him and made him feel safe—it was all just a stepping stone. A meticulously planned strategy for revenge.

The heavy click of the front door unlocking echoed through the apartment, followed by the familiar, heavy footsteps of his Alpha. Normally, the sound would send a thrill through Aven, his omega instincts instantly reaching out for his mate. Today, it made his blood run cold. His natural scent of white tea and rainwater—usually so soothing and bright—instantly soured, flooded with the sharp, acrid stench of profound devastation and panic.

Aven stumbled back from the desk, his legs feeling like lead. He instinctively wrapped his arms tightly around his own stomach, a subconscious gesture to protect himself as he stared at the bedroom doorway. When {{user}} stepped into the room, Aven didn't run to him. He stood frozen, his hazel eyes wide, red-rimmed, and brimming with tears that he stubbornly refused to let fall.

He looked down at the scattered documents on the floor, then back up to the man he had given his entire heart to. His chest heaved with a broken, jagged breath.

"Was any of it real?" Aven's voice was a frail, shattered whisper, lacking its usual warmth. He took another step back, pressing his shoulders against the wall as if trying to put as much distance between them as possible, though his omega biology was screaming at him in agonizing confusion over the separation. "Me, Jin... everything. Was it all just a lie to get to my father?" A tear finally broke free, tracing a hot path down his pale cheek. "Tell me I'm wrong. Please tell me I'm misunderstanding this."

The bedroom was suffocatingly dark, the heavy blackout curtains drawn tight against a world Aven no longer wanted to see.

Two days. It had been forty-eight hours since the floor fell out from under his life, but time had lost all meaning. Aven lay curled into a tight, miserable ball in the center of his bed, tangling himself in a chaotic, haphazard nest of heavy blankets and his own oversized sweaters. He hadn’t moved to open the blinds, hadn’t turned on a light, hadn’t even reached for the glass of water sitting stale on his nightstand.

The physical toll of his heartbreak was agonizing. His eyes were swollen shut, burning and crusted from crying until his tear ducts simply ran dry, only to start weeping all over again the moment he woke from his fitful, exhausted spells of sleep. His throat felt like sandpaper, raw from the muffled sobs he had choked into his pillow. Every muscle in his delicate frame ached with a heavy, leaden exhaustion, pinned down by a gravity he couldn't fight.

But the worst part was the scent.

Aven’s room used to smell bright and inviting—a comforting blend of his white tea and rainwater pheromones mingled with the dark, grounding scent of his Alpha. Now, the air was entirely stagnant, choking on the sharp, acrid stench of an Omega’s profound distress. The rainwater had turned to acid; the white tea was bitter. It was the scent of a broken heart, so potent it made Aven physically sick.

He clutched a fistful of the bedsheets to his chest, trembling as another hollow ache resonated deep within his ribcage. His Omega instincts were a chaotic, torturous mess. Half of his biology was screaming in agony over the separation from {{user}}, begging for the comforting weight of his Alpha to soothe the distress, to wrap him up and promise him safety. The other half—his rational, human mind—recoiled in horror at the very thought of the man who had used him as a pawn in a bloody game of revenge.

The cognitive dissonance was tearing him apart. He hated {{user}}. He hated him for the lies, for the manipulation, for looking him in the eyes and whispering sweet nothings while plotting his father's demise. But God, heaven help him, he still loved him, too.

A floorboard creaked out in the hallway.

Aven flinched, his breath hitching in his dry throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face deeper into the mattress. A heavy silence stretched out, thick and agonizing, before the faint, muffled sound of a knuckle brushing against the locked wood of his bedroom door echoed into the dark.

It wasn't Jin's frantic, worried pounding. It was heavy. Hesitant.

Aven didn't make a sound. He didn't move. He just laid there in the dark ruins of his nest, tears silently tracking over the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes tighter, wishing he could just sleep and never wake up to this reality again.

For two days, he had drowned in sorrow, but as the silence stretched through the hallway, a new, fiery emotion clawed its way up his throat. Anger. A hot, blinding fury that tasted like ash and adrenaline. The knock at the door was the spark that finally ignited the dry, dead tinder of Aven’s grief.

He didn't just get up; he threw himself out of the tangled nest of blankets. His legs were shaky from lack of food and sleep, but rage propelled him forward. He crossed the dark room, his hands trembling violently as he yanked the door open

{{user}} was standing right there in the dimly lit hallway. The sight of the Alpha—the broad shoulders, the familiar jawline, the eyes Aven had memorized—sent a violently conflicting shockwave through Aven’s system. His Omega biology practically whined, wanting to launch forward and bury his face in {{user}}'s neck.

Instead, Aven grabbed the first thing within reach on his dresser—a heavy, framed photograph of the two of them smiling at a beach in California—and hurled it at the Alpha.

The heavy wood and glass shattered against the wall just inches from {{user}}'s shoulder as the Alpha ducked, the glass raining down onto the hardwood floor.

"Don't you dare stand there looking like a kicked puppy!" Aven’s voice tore from his raw throat, a hoarse, ragged scream that echoed off the walls. His chest heaved, his hazel eyes completely feral. The stagnant, miserable air of the apartment was suddenly flooded with his pheromones, but it wasn't the sweet, calming scent of white tea anymore. It was scorched. Bitter and suffocating, like burnt tea leaves and sharp, acidic ozone.

"Did you think I'd just lay in here and die quietly?" Aven spat, taking a step out of the doorway. He was a mess—pale, eyes swollen, wearing a sweater that was three sizes too big—but he looked ready to draw blood. "Did you think I'd just accept that the last year and a half of my life was a fucking internship for your revenge plot?"

He didn't wait for an answer, stepping closer, his hands balling into fists at his sides to keep from striking the Alpha. "I gave you everything! I fought with Jin for you! I loved you so much it felt like my ribs were breaking, and you—you were just using my bed as a stepping stone to my father!"

Aven’s voice broke on the last word, the anger suddenly warring with a devastating sob, but he forced it down, his glare burning with absolute hatred. "I don't care what my father did to you. He's a monster, and I hope he burns. But you..." Aven jabbed a trembling finger into {{user}}'s chest, right over his heart. "You looked me in the eyes, you touched me, you held me, and you lied. You're no better than he is. You're just a different kind of monster."