The world had become a blurred montage of mahogany bookshelves and flickering fluorescent lights. To the outside world, it looked like a dedicated student carrying a fainted classmate. To Lu Rin, it was a descent into a sensory hell he had spent half a decade bricking over.
Gu Xun didn't take the main elevator. He knew the campus scanners would detect an S-class Omega in distress and trigger a medical lockdown, bringing the Chairman's eyes straight to them. Instead, he kicked open the heavy door to the service stairwell.
"Stay... with me, Rin-rin," Gu Xun grunted. His voice was a low vibration against Lu Rin's chest, the only thing tethering the Omega to reality.
Every time Lu Rin's cheek brushed against the cotton of Gu Xun's T-shirt, a jolt of unwanted electricity shot through his nerves. The scent of the Alpha was changing. The sweet resin was being burned away by the friction of the moment, revealing the raw, molten iron underneath. It was the scent of the man who had abandoned him, yet it was the only air Lu Rin's lungs wanted to breathe.
"Greenhouse..." Lu Rin managed to gasp, his fingers curling into the fabric of Gu Xun's hoodie.
"I know," Gu Xun replied. "The rooftop. Pheromone-neutralising glass. No cameras. No scanners."
The rooftop greenhouse was a botanical experiment, a "Dead Zone" where the plants required a zero-pheromone environment to thrive. It was the only place on campus where an S-class heat wouldn't trigger an emergency broadcast to the entire city.
Gu Xun burst through the final door. The air inside was different: unnaturally still, filtered through special charcoal-lined vents. The scent of damp earth and moss was the first thing to hit Lu Rin's senses, momentarily clearing the fog in his brain.
Gu Xun laid him down on a bed of soft, decorative moss near the rare orchids. He didn't pull away. He stayed on his knees, looming over Lu Rin, his chest heaving.
"The vials," Lu Rin whispered, his eyes fluttering. "My bag..."
"I don't have them, Rin," Gu Xun said, his voice cracking. "You left the bag in the restricted section. I didn't stop to grab it. I only grabbed you."
Lu Rin's eyes snapped open. The realisation hit him harder than the fever. He was in the early stages of a triple-dose rebound heat (a biological backlash that would be twice as intense because it had been bottled up for five years), and he was trapped in a dead zone with the only Alpha in the world his body was wired to accept.
"Leave," Lu Rin commanded, but it sounded like a plea. "Go back. Get the bag. Lock the door from the outside."
"I can't," Gu Xun whispered. He held up his hands; they were shaking violently. His golden eyes were wide, the pupils blown so large there was barely any gold left. "Rin-rin, if I leave you now, your scent will fill this entire floor. The neutralisers can only handle so much. Someone will find you. My father's people are still monitoring the campus."
The heat spiked. A wave of Antarctic ice and blooming lotus exploded from Lu Rin's skin, so potent it actually made the nearby orchids wilt.
Lu Rin let out a broken whimper, his back arching off the moss. The silver scar on his abdomen felt like a brand. His body was screaming for a mark, for a scent, for the Alpha who had once promised him forever.
"Don't... look at me," Lu Rin sobbed, covering his face with his hands. "Don't touch me."
Gu Xun didn't move. He sat back on his heels, a single tear tracking through the dust on his cheek. He was an Alpha in the presence of his mate's heat, but he didn't pounce. He didn't growl. He didn't even release his own scent to overwhelm him.
He simply reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, leather strap: a spare restraint from the lab.
"I'm going to tie my hands to the cooling pipes, Rin," Gu Xun said, his voice impossibly steady despite the sweat pouring down his face. "I'll stay right here. I'll be your anchor, but I won't touch you. I won't take advantage of a biological accident."
He moved to the industrial pipes along the glass wall, looping the strap around his wrists and the metal. He cinched it tight, the leather creaking.
"I'm the dog, remember?" Gu Xun said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips as he looked at Lu Rin through the haze. "And a good dog stays when he's told."
Lu Rin watched through blurred vision as the former Crown Alpha (the man who could have crushed this entire room with a single command) voluntarily bound himself in the corner, his head bowed, his body trembling with the effort of resisting his instincts.
The heat was rising. The greenhouse was becoming a cage of blue lotus and iron.
And for the first time in five years, Lu Rin didn't feel the ice. He felt the fire.
Lu Rin is in the throes of a rebound heat, while Gu Xun has tied his own hands to avoid touching The "Marking Reversal" begins. Lu Rin's resolve breaks, but not in the way Gu Xun expects.