Summer nights in Haicheng were temperamental. The day might be clear for ten thousand miles, but as night fell, the thick, cloying humidity in the air became heavy enough to suffocate.
The conference agenda had officially concluded. Originally, Silas Shen had planned to spend this final night in the hotel archiving data, but he couldn't withstand the damp, pleading gaze of the "giant dog" before him. He had eventually yielded. After a light dinner by the shore, they were now walking back under the silver moonlight.
"Professor, if we cut through that alley up ahead, we'll shave fifteen minutes off the main road." Hunter Huo pointed toward a deep lane wedged between two old-fashioned buildings. He was still clutching a bottle of mineral water Silas had started earlier, his pace light, his suit jacket draped carelessly over his shoulder.
Silas glanced at the alley. The streetlamp at the entrance was broken, emitting a faint, rhythmic sizzling sound. The interior was pitch black, save for a weak, yellowish glow at the far end.
"It's too dark." Silas frowned. Out of professional habit and innate caution, he disliked uncontrollable environments.
"That's why I'm here." Hunter leaned over, his voice dropping into a low, youthful hum near Silas's ear. "I'm your private assistant and full-time bodyguard, Professor Shen. Give me a chance to show off?"
Silas's ear-tips warmed at the sound of "Professor Shen." Remembering the lingering warmth of their interlocked fingers while crossing the street earlier, the rejection on the tip of his tongue circled once and vanished. He gave a small nod and followed Hunter into the narrow lane swallowed by shadows.
The alley smelled of damp moss and aged wood. Their footsteps echoed with startling clarity in the cramped space.
Sensing Silas's tension, Hunter wordlessly drifted closer, his warm shoulder occasionally bumping against Silas's in his own unique, silent language of comfort.
"Professor, look, there's ivy on the walls. The plants in Haicheng have such strong vitality..."
Hunter's words came to an abrupt halt.
Under a patch of sickly yellow light, three ill-intentioned figures lurked out from a dark corner, cutting off their path.
The leader was a man with a gleaming bald head and a hideous scorpion tattoo crawling from his collarbone to the root of his neck. He was flicking a cheap lighter, the flame dancing in the night, reflecting in his dull, greedy eyes.
"Heh, talk about luck." The bald man exhaled a plume of smoke, his gaze sliding over Silas like a slimy snake.
Even though Silas was bundled in Hunter's oversized navy suit, concealing most of his form, the frigid and noble aura of "cold fir after a snowfall" was unmistakable. In this filthy, derelict alley, he looked like a snow lotus that had wandered into a swamp—a sight that only incited the darkest destructive urges in a criminal's heart.
"Such a pretty Omega, out in a place like this with a pretty boy in the middle of the night?" The bald man gave a dry, raspy chuckle and signaled to the two goons behind him.
Hunter's expression turned deathly cold in an instant.
The lazy, "Golden Retriever" aura of a spoiled brat vanished completely. He took a predatory step forward, shielding Silas entirely behind his broad frame, his long fingers curling into a fist until his knuckles let out a sharp crack.
"Get lost."
Hunter uttered only two words, his voice a low rumble from the depths of his throat, carrying the near-physical pressure of a top-tier Alpha.
However, the opposition had come prepared.
The bald man gave a disdainful sneer and pulled a small, metallic spray bottle from his pocket. "Top-tier Alpha, huh? I've seen plenty. How about you try this?"
Pshhh—!
A pungent, spicy, and nauseatingly sweet scent rapidly diffused through the narrow space.
Silas's pupils constricted.
As a professor of biomedicine, he identified the scent instantly—it was a high-purity synthetic pheromone, a strictly banned "inducer" on the black market. It was designed to violently disrupt an Omega's endocrine system. The higher the grade of the Omega, the more severe the impact.
Worse yet, Silas had only recently received an incomplete temporary mark from Hunter. His physiological state was currently in a sensitive window of vulnerability.
"Mngh..."
Silas let out a low groan, his fingers—which were braced against the wall—curling sharply.
An unprecedented heat, like a wildfire across a prairie, ignited from the depths of his spine without warning. The scene before him began to overlap and sway. The forced onset of heat symptoms was like a roaring tsunami, instantly shattering the logic he took such pride in.
The scent of fir was no longer cold; it took on an inviting, ripened craving.
"Professor!"
Hunter was acutely aware of the change in the person behind him. He looked back, meeting Silas's eyes—now clouded with mist yet struggling desperately against the pain. Silas's complexion had shifted from pale to an unnatural, vivid flush. His breathing was fractured and shallow, and his body was trembling.
It was a dangerous signal of forced catalysis.
"My 'catalyst' tastes pretty good, doesn't it?" The bald man watched Silas sway, the malice in his eyes overflowing. "In a moment, we'll take you somewhere nice. I promise you'll—"
"I'll send you to hell first!"
Hunter snapped.
The darkness in his eyes was instantly flooded with bloodshot veins. The instinct known as "the hunt" tore his "good boy" disguise to shreds. The orange-scented pheromones in his body erupted like violent magma, carrying a suicidal level of aggression.
This was the absolute berserk state of a top-tier Alpha whose "reverse scale" had been touched.
However, the concentration of the synthetic pheromones was still rising. Silas felt his knees go weak, nearly sliding down the wall. He bit his tongue hard, using the sharp pain to summon a final shred of clarity, while his right hand instinctively gripped the back of Hunter's shirt.
"Ranran..." he whispered, an unconscious, broken murmur.
That single, fractured mumble was the final straw.
Hunter had wanted to comfort Silas first, but seeing the three thugs closing in with leering grins—one even reaching out toward Silas's exposed, pale neck—his mind went blank.
"You're dead."
Hunter moved.
He was a bolt of lightning in the dark. Before the hand could touch Silas, Hunter clamped onto the man's wrist. Amidst the crisp sound of snapping bone, the very air in the alley seemed to freeze.
At this moment, Silas was at the peak of his physiological instinct. He inhaled Hunter's scent—now thickened by fury and laced with a spicy hint of tobacco. The Omega's primal desire to be protected, to be marked, to be thoroughly possessed, was screaming at the boundaries of his remaining sanity.
His nails dug deep into the small of Hunter's back, leaving crimson tracks through the fabric of the shirt.
The night was heavy. In the ancient alley, a blood-colored struggle for protection was about to begin.