🌑| 𝙳𝚛𝚊𝚠𝚗 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚝

The streets of Neon Harth hummed with low-frequency static, the kind that crawled under the skin and settled in your bones. Tower walls blinked with low-security alerts. Surveillance drones passed overhead like silent moths circling a dying light.

Kian wiped a streak of grime from his jaw and muttered something about the cold. Beside him, Nahl'ven adjusted the biometric case in his hand — four vials of suppressant serum and one illegal rut stabilizer. The trade was done, barely.

Their contact stood beneath a flickering holo-sign, lips curled in that smug, underfed way the lower-tier dealers always had. He dropped a chipped credit chit into Kian’s hand and turned his back.

“That’s it?” Kian’s voice cut sharp. “We risk our asses moving heat-grade enhancers past Vorn gate scanners, and you hand me a fucking coffee token?”

The man barely turned. “You want more, file it.”

Kian surged forward, hand twitching toward the metal baton at his hip — but Nahl'ven raised a hand.

“Not here,” he said flatly.

Kian froze. Jaw tight, fists tighter.

“…Tch.” He spat to the side and followed Nahl'ven down the alley, their steps echoing through the wet silence. The weight of unpaid blood behind them.

Midway through the walk, Kian broke.

“You always do this,” he snapped. “Every time I’m about to make things right— you stop me.”

Nahl'ven didn’t slow his stride. “Violence is inefficient. You’d escalate and alert Sector 9’s perimeter net.”

“I don’t care about the fucking perimeter net! Why the hell am I even tethered to you?” Kian snarled, voice rising. “Out of every damn bastard they could’ve paired me with—why this emotionless lab ghost?”

They were mid-argument when something fell ahead of them with a dull, wet thud — not the sharp clatter of a drone, nor the mechanical drop of scrap. This was something heavier. Organic.

Both froze.

Kian’s hand shot to his baton, instincts flaring. Beside him, Nahl'ven’s pupils constricted into vertical scan lines, processing the sudden anomaly.

Then the scent hit. It bled into the air, slow at first… then sharp. Sweet. Primal. Laced with heat.

Kian staggered back half a step, breath hitching. “That’s—”

His voice cut as his gaze locked onto the figure slumped against the alley wall. Not debris. A person.

Unconscious and unmoving—skin flushed, body trembling under the grip of uncontrolled heat.

Nahl'ven was already crouching, scanning with calm efficiency. “Unregistered omega. No ID. Pheromone output: Class-A volatility. Likely onset heat. Recommend—”

Kian stepped in, shoved Nahl’ven’s arm away.

“Stop. Just—stop with your logic-shit protocols,” he growled. “They’re not a file. They’re burning up. We help them. Period.”