Note: Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this chapter! The response to this fic's first chapter was tremendous- thank you SO much, all!
I know it's been a while since I dropped the first chapter, but at least it hasn't been a month. ;D It took me a little while to work out some kinks (heh) in the plot/biology and society of this omegaverse. It decided to fight back! But I'm happy with what I ended up with. :) This fic should have five chapters total, so it's not too long, but we'll see how it goes haha.
Thank you Annaelle for the speedy and very-insightful beta (you keep me on my toes and make me better, luv). I've been working her overtime what with this, and my Mitzvah (reylo) update yesterday, a new Harry Potter ss/hg oneshot, and with War (reylo). She's going to be driven nuts with my writing fever, I swear. xoxo
All the best.
Rey stared forlornly across the room to where she knew her lightsaber had been placed. She'd seen him put it inside the desk drawer not too long ago, before both men had double-checked the cuffs on her wrists.
Him.
Kylo Ren.
She glared at the man, and he glared right back.
Kylo fucking Ren.
Her eyes darted towards the man leaning against the arm of the chair Kylo was sitting in, and she scowled at the curious look he was giving her.
"What?" she snapped out.
They simply stared back at her, and that frustrated her all the more. "Seriously, what? Why are you just staring at me? You've got me where you want me," she pointedly ignored the shift in their expressions, "you have me shackled to a damn headboard that's built into the wall, and I can't even use the Force with these… these things." She choked on the last. Since gaining access to the Force, she had never been unable to touch it, and it hurt. It felt like something had been ripped out of her, and the edges of the hole where her connection to the Force had been were jagged and raw.
It made her want to scream and cry in pain, and she would do so much to not have these things on her ever again in her life.
Except, well…
Rey closed her eyes tightly in an effort to control her breathing; to not let them see how affected she was by the cuffs that Kylo had slapped on her as soon as he'd disarmed her.
She was likely going to be wearing these things for a long time to come, until they either executed her or she found a way to escape. Or—she shuddered—until they broke her.
She would rather die.
Suddenly sensing movement in front of her, Rey snapped her eyes open and was met with the black wool of a military jacket. She looked up, further—
The redhead—General Hux, she recalled, and her anger intensified—was standing before her with a medkit. He met her eyes briefly, staring into hers, and then slowly sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. He turned himself to face her but kept a reasonable amount of distance between them, and his expression was carefully blank.
But she could smell him. He was agitated, on edge, and his alpha scent was sharp as it reached her nostrils. She reflexively inhaled, her instincts making her scent the man beside her. He smelled like… like… she scrunched her nose. She couldn't quite place what it was, but it smelled like something that had been roasted in a fire, and it wasn't unpleasant.
His lips twitched upwards minutely before he schooled his expression once again. Yet he didn't say a word—
"What do you want?" Rey growled, mostly mad at him, but also mad at herself for giving into her instincts to scent him.
He hummed thoughtfully and then tilted his head at her, exposing his neck very slightly to her view.
Rey gasped—that wasn't something alphas like him would ever do. Especially not if they were from the First Order. Even alphas in the Resistance never did that, and she'd been around so many… they would never expose even the smallest bit of their neck to an unattached beta, let alone an omega.
It was, it was—
"I want to help, little omega," he finally spoke. It was the first time she had heard him say a word to her—in person, that is; she had heard his speech via the holovids many times—and his voice was… it was far softer than she expected.
She glared at him suspiciously, and she knew that her features had taken on a mulish, stubborn cast. "Why would you want to help me?"
She wasn't even remotely surprised that they'd picked up on her true scent. She had been scared, stressed, and angry during their fight, and had exerted herself considerably in her efforts to get away—all actions and emotions that were prone to making a person's scent well up even more potently than normal.
It had been bound to come out at some point, she supposed. As soon as she'd seen that her suppressants had burned… yes, it was definitely bound to come out.
Hux looked at her thoughtfully, his chin still slightly tilted up… Rey looked away before he could catch her staring at his pulse.
He was trying to calm her, she realized suddenly, and her eyes went wide. It was something alphas only ever did for their bonded partners or those they were interested in, and Rey was shocked. He wasn't a beta who calmed those around them instinctively. He was an alpha, through and through, and he must be doing it subconsciously.
Kylo groaned from across the room, and Rey's eyes darted towards his form. "Please stop resisting," he grumbled, just loud enough for her to hear. "Your scent is deep, Jedi. He's trying to calm you so you won't keep driving us mad with your distress."
Rey tried to stand suddenly, and had to remember at the last moment that her hands were bound to the headboard. She ended up standing with her hands awkwardly to the side, but she felt much better as anger coursed through her again. "Well whose fault is that, Jedi Killer?" she growled right back at him.
Kylo was on his feet now, striding across the room in four large steps until he stood in front of her, teeth bared in a snarl.
Suddenly the redhead was between her and her nemesis, snarling in response to Kylo's outburst. He placed a hand on the taller man's chest and shoved him backwards, making him stumble slightly. Kylo glared at her from over the other man's shoulder, and then he was gone from the room, leaving nothing but his scent behind.
It was wild, like coffee mixed with wild grass, but overlaid on top of that was… something fire-roasted.
Rey narrowed her eyes, slowly turning her head from the doorway the dark-garbed man had escaped through to the man whose scent was marked all over the Force user.
They were lovers.
Rey knew the First Order had classified same-designation pairings between alphas, and between omegas, as illegal. What were arguably the two most powerful men in the First Order doing flouting the laws that their organization stood firmly against?
…did anyone else know?
Perhaps that was her way out. She hadn't stopped herself from resorting to blackmail in the past, and those incidents had been far less life-threatening to her—or to the galaxy.
She didn't understand, though… why would they fight for the First Order when they were so against something that was intrinsic to the core of who they were. The Resistance had many alpha pairs, and also omega pairs—sometimes three alphas or three omegas or more instead of the typical alpha-beta-omega or alpha-omega-alpha relationships… Kylo knew this, she was sure. It would have been hard to miss when his own uncle had openly carried on a committed relationship with Mara, another omega, before she died, and his best friend growing up, Poe, had always preferred other alphas. And no one had cared.
So… why?
Rey's curiosity was now completely piqued.
"That's better," Hux's murmured words broke her slightly out of her thoughts, enough that she could arch a brow at him in question. "Your scent isn't as strong as before," he explained. "Please forgive Ren's lack of manners—he's a complete boor, at times… well, most of the time," he confided conspiratorially.
"As if that's a secret!" Rey barked out in laughter—she couldn't help it. Kylo Ren was just that ridiculous sometimes. All of the time.
Hux smiled softly, and then eyed her once again. "Please, let me treat your wounds… It's just bacta." It was more a command than a request, but a brief flash of Kylo's memories from that fateful day on Starkiller quelled her, and she allowed him to dab bacta carefully onto her cheek, forehead, and collarbone.
She withdrew into herself as he finished, barely noticing him moving to the armchair Kylo had vacated as she was busy analyzing the memory she hadn't ever really focused on before. It was one of many like it, buried deep inside of the thousands of memories she had pulled from Kylo's mind and then closed off within her own.
It had been far too much information to handle before, but now, perhaps, it warranted a second look…
She opened up that part of her that had been locked down tightly and began to sort through the memories, looking for more like the one that showed how happy Hux was at Kylo letting him take care of his wounds.
She quickly got lost.
The feisty omega had finally drifted off.
Since Kylo had disappeared to Maker knew where, Taj had taken it upon himself to watch over the young woman. She—Rey, he reminded himself—had calmed down considerably after Kylo had left, and he couldn't relate more to that fact than if it had been he himself. Kylo was… well.
He may love the man, but he was infuriating at times.
Most of the time.
Closing his eyes for a brief moment to think, Taj suppressed a sigh.
He'd thought that she was a threat to his relationship before, but now he wasn't so sure. Seeing the way she'd reacted to Kylo had him smirking to himself, but more than that it had his inner alpha sitting up to take notice.
The one he normally kept a firm hand on. He had always prided himself on his control, and had been able to work around omegas all of his life.
It was disconcerting, to say the least, at how easily his control had started to slip away in her presence.
He blamed her scent—it was intoxicating, like something that reminded him of sunlight and fresh-turned loam—but mostly he blamed Kylo.
Everything was always that damn man's fault.
If he hadn't fucking teased Hux with everything he knew about Rey, sharing memories with him and telling him stories, and then bringing up exactly how she liked to touch herself right in the middle of Kylo driving him wild—
Fuck.
Hux tore his thoughts away from all that; at least, he truly tried to stop picturing what she looked and felt like in those memories passed from Kylo to him…
He was driving himself mad, and that wasn't without her even looking at him the way she had earlier.
As if he was good enough to eat.
Hux knew she'd caught his scent—had seen her eyes flutter as she inhaled and tried to parse what she smelled—and even just the memory from his own damn mind was enough to send blood rushing downward.
He hadn't been able to stop himself from baring his neck to her—he knew she'd seen even that small tilt of the chin, but honestly, at this point he expected his usual ironclad control to be in tatters around her.
The way her eyes had darkened in response, though? After she'd gotten over her initial shock? Oh Maker, it had set his blood to boiling.
He groaned softly, and a low chuckle answered him.
He didn't tense, but he did open his eyes to take in the man standing just to the side of the chair. Kylo was looking at the girl's sleeping form on the bed, and Hux could see the way his eyes traced over her features, lingering on the shiny bacta on her skin, and especially on the place where her shirt had rucked up, exposing the skin of her belly between it and her trousers.
Now Hux was staring, too.
Stars, how they wanted this woman—the only omega they could imagine sharing, and what an omega at that.
Hux cursed the day she crossed their path.
"You knocked her out, didn't you?" Hux asked him later that evening.
Kylo raised one eyebrow at his partner. "Whatever gave you that impression?" he drawled.
"It's been over six hours since she fell asleep and you've been making enough noise to wake a slumbering bantha," Taj retorted.
Kylo let a small smile play at his lips. "Maybe," he hummed.
Hux rolled his eyes at him—just what Kylo had been trying for. The redhead had been on point all day, watching the sleeping woman without reprieve. Though Kylo had kept away for most of it, he had come and gone enough times that he'd been able to tell that his lover had barely moved.
And for good reason.
She was fascinating.
His mind flashed back to when he'd watched her sleep on Starkiller—before she had awoken and caused an impressive amount of havoc, he must admit—trying to understand exactly why the Force had been sending him visions of this girl for so long—he had later found out that he'd seen her in visions before she'd even been alive, and wasn't that an unsettling thought.
The only one who knew that had been Luke, and the man had seemingly never made the connection between the girl in his visions, and Rey—or if he had… Well, that said something, didn't it?
But Luke had known, and now Hux. He trusted the latter more than anything, even when sparks of a negative sort flew between them, and the former was in no position, even after rejoining the Resistance, to give that information to anyone to whom it mattered.
It was only later that he realized she was an omega, and later still that his mind had asked him: What if?
What if she were meant for him and Taj?
He had seen her linked to the both of them through varying visions, but they had never been very… clear.
Shaking his head minutely, Kylo pulled himself from his ruminations enough to ask, "What should we do with her?"
Hux was silent for a few minutes, and Kylo let him be. He could tell the man was thinking with that sharp mind of his that he so loved.
"I don't know," he finally murmured.
Well. Maybe not.
Kylo would have teased him, but his mind was running away with him, and it was filled with nothing but serious thoughts.
"The Force…" he began instead, tasting the words as he slowly sounded them out.
"What does the Force say?" Hux prompted him after Kylo fell silent, mulling his words. Taj often made fun of the, in his words, fanatic language surrounding the Force, but he had also seen it in action, including some visions Kylo had had which had come true. He knew when to take it seriously, and now was such a time.
Even if Kylo didn't quite have the right words.
"Kylo?" Hux prompted again.
He shut his eyes, and Hux quieted, letting him think, letting him reach out to the Force for direction. It had been pulling at him all day, ever since he had first picked up the barest hint of her presence, and was growing increasingly frenetic in its attempts to get Kylo to listen to him.
Let it be said that Kylo Ren did not ignore the will of the Force.
He never had.
"She…" he started on a whisper, then licked his lips before continuing, eyes still closed. "The Force wishes us to remain near her, to follow her, to…" he hesitated, shaking his head slightly. "I—just, everything I see is unfamiliar. There are faces I do not know, almost always blurred at the edges, and—and there… she is always there. That is all I can tell for now," he admitted as he released a long breath of air, shoving both hands through his head of hair. "That, and I feel… peace. The Force is at peace when it shows me these images, and yet I do not know exactly what it wants. It is… frustrating."
Hux's hand touched his elbow, and his fiery scent swirled up to calm Kylo's frayed nerves. It was soothing, his man's scent, and he inhaled deeply of it before opening his eyes and pulling the redhead's face into the crook of his neck.
They stayed like that for many minutes, simply breathing in one another and letting their scents combine like they so rarely let them, rubbing cheeks and noses into whatever skin was available to them.
"We'll figure it out," Taj finally murmured. "You know I'll follow you wherever you go. Wherever you need to go. You are the most important thing in my life, now more than ever, above all other concerns."
Kylo tightened his arms around the fierce man he called his own. "And I you," he murmured, closing his eyes again on a sigh.
He knew the girl had been awake for long minutes now, keeping her breath calm and deep—she was good—but he didn't think to mention it to Hux.
It didn't change the fact that every word they'd spoken had been the truth.
Good, he thought. Let her hear.
Rey stopped herself from stiffening at what she heard as it penetrated the fog surrounding her. It wasn't all from sleep; she had worn her mind out with everything that had been passing through it.
And now there was more to think on.
He had been seeing her in Force visions? Or, at least, the Force was speaking to him about her?
And she thought she'd been the only one. She had denied it all she wanted, for as long as she had been able to, but right that moment Rey realized that the visions she'd been seeing since a young age… had been of these two men.
The Force had been speaking to her, as well, and she hadn't listened.
Luke would have been—
She stopped herself from thinking too hard on what Luke would have done or said—that wouldn't truly help her right now. Unfortunately, the abruptness of her thoughts had caused her breaths to start coming unevenly, and she forced herself, finally, to give up the pretense of being asleep.
Except—
Rey panicked, struggling in an attempt to pull herself up and out of her thoughts.
But she couldn't. Everything had begun to swirl around her, fast as can be, and going faster. It seemed as though the world was spinning around her, blurring into an incomprehensible smear of colors and sounds. Memories bombarded her from all sides, bleeding into each other more and more until she could barely tell up from down, real from not. She could, on some distant level, recognize the memory she had studied earlier, its emotional imprint warm and pleasant, but the more she tried to hold onto it, the more it slipped through her fingers, like the sands on Jakku.
She distantly heard someone scream, and it wasn't until pain wracked through her body and mind that she realized she was the one screaming, tugging on whatever was holding her arms back desperately in an attempt to clutch at her head, which throbbed and stung like it was on the verge of exploding—
But she found herself incapable of reaching her head—why couldn't she, why, why, why?—to alleviate the pressure building up within her.
And then suddenly, hands were on her head, on her back, soothing her hair from off of her forehead and pulling it back for her, tying it, but she couldn't be sure, at the nape of her neck. At least, it felt like that's what was happening.
She couldn't be sure of anything anymore.
Nothing made sense, and everything hurt.
Everything.
Rey cried out, sobbing. She opened her eyes as wide as they could go but she was incapable of making sense of anything in front of her. All she could see were shapes and colors; nothing was defined or clear or even solid.
Her hearing was gone, too. All she could hear was white noise mixed with a buzzing that was getting louder and louder and—
Her body seized, locking up, agony tearing through her—
She heard a loud hiss, a startled yelp, and suddenly she was being pushed to lay flat, her cheeks were being held between two large hands, and her ankles were suddenly being pinned to the soft mattress and blankets—
Her mind stilled, blissfully clear for a moment where panic rushed over her, and then she was gone again. Simply gone. But the fear never left once it settled inside of her.
She couldn't let them—
No.
No!
Rey struggled, screaming and crying as she thrashed, and then she felt darkness welling up deep within her, and—
