Chapter 4
T’Challa’s room was the biggest in the palace, and so luxuriously furnished that Erik had to actively work to keep from gaping at the sight of it like an idiot. During his short reign as king of Wakanda, he hadn't slept in the king's master bedroom, out of paranoia that T'Challa might have left behind a few booby traps lying in wait for anyone who successfully managed to overthrow him during the ritual challenge. It was what Erik himself would have done.
Now Erik looked appreciatively around the room, taking it all in. The king’s bedroom was at least as large as an averagely-sized flat. The furniture was futuristic, all curving silver vibranium and sleek glass surfaces, and the bed pushed up against the centre of the far wall was huge, fitted with dark purple satin sheets and piled high with fluffy pillows and blankets which looked sinfully soft.
The problem was, there was only one of it. Did T’Challa expect them to sleep together in the same bed?
“Make yourself comfortable,” T’Challa said. His tone was casual, but his eyes were dark and very sharp.
Erik bared his teeth, his hackles rising. It was still morning, far too early to go back to sleep. If T’Challa thought that Erik was just going to tumble into bed with him again, he was crazy.
“We're not - we're not gonna fuck again,” Erik said defiantly, his blood burning with indignation. "That was just that one time." One time of poor judgment on his part. The next time T’Challa tried anything with him, he was going to break T’Challa’s neck, or die trying.
T'Challa merely looked amused. “I wasn’t trying to imply anything just then,” he said lightly. “But I think you’ll come around eventually.”
“The hell I will!" Flustered, Erik fought back his automatic flush of embarrassment, as the memory of his earlier protest rose unbidden in his mind. He had been equally adamant less than an hour ago, but somehow he had ended up knotted on T’Challa’s dick.
To his relief, T’Challa didn’t mock him or press the issue further. Instead, he began walking towards the other end of the room. Erik tracked him with a fixed, wary gaze, but all T’Challa did was pull up a chair, sitting a good distance away from Erik.
Erik continued to eye him warily, not letting down his guard. Dealing with T’Challa was so exhausting. If he didn’t remain constantly alert, who knew what T’Challa was going to do to him?
But having some distance between them helped, and as T’Challa continued to remain where he was, making no motion to approach Erik, some of the tension started to drain out of Erik’s body. Erik walked to the other end of the room, towards the bed so that they were separated by the entire length of the room. He sat down at the edge of the bed, then immediately inhaled sharply and stiffened as his ass made contact with the surface of the bedsheets, the pressure reigniting the warm sting in his buttocks.
Fuck! Had T'Challa noticed that little flinch? Erik cursed himself for that humiliating show of weakness. Even if T'Challa still hadn't shown any outward reaction yet, there was no way he hadn't picked up on it. Back when Erik still had the powers of the heart-shaped herb, his senses had been so keen that he could hear an ant crawling on the wall in the next room.
"Erik -" T'Challa began, his voice low and gentle.
'What?!" Erik snapped, all his nerves on edge. Unconsciously, he clenched his fists, twisting the bedsheets beneath his fingers.
"Perhaps we can start over," T'Challa said. His tone was still low and soothing, but there was a difference this time - a change in his intonation, an almost-purr which seemed to resonate in the very marrow of Erik’s bones. Erik shivered, and a muscle in his jaw clenched.
"Don't use the Voice on me," he said quickly. "Stop fucking with me. I told you, I don't want - I don't need - I don't need an alpha."
The last time he'd fought back against T'Challa on this, T'Challa had spanked him for it. This time, though, T'Challa made no move to approach him. He continued sitting in his seat, his expression relaxed and calm, leaning back against the back of the seat in a gentle sprawl. He seemed to be making every effort to appear non-threatening, but Erik wasn’t fooled.
“Oh?” T’Challa said mildly.
“Yeah, I've done just fine without one so far,” Erik said, eyes sparking with challenge. Even as the words left his mouth, Erik was aware that it was only a half-truth. There were many dark nights he had spent curled up into the smallest, darkest corner he could find - the corner of a room or the back of a cupboard, nestling at the very back with the few blankets and pillows he could scrounge up in a sad imitation of a proper omega nest that an alpha would have built for him. The nights spent spiralling into a toxic tornado of self-doubt and loneliness and loss, craving that missing something in his life, aching for something that he couldn’t even put into words.
Not until he’d met T’Challa.
Erik quickly shoved that traitorous thought out of his mind.
“How did you do it?” T’Challa asked.
Erik hesitated. He had tried to throw himself into his cause, ignoring his own needs in favour of something bigger than himself. Ever since his father had been killed, he had worked himself to the bone, signing on to the army as soon as he was of age in order to gain the training and skills that he would have needed to beat T’Challa. Being in the army had helped, a little. In a way, the structure and discipline of the military had somewhat satisfied that deep, yearning void within him, one that he had always tried to deny. But, if Erik was honest with himself, it had all just made him even more miserable in the end.
“I had more important things to do,” Erik said instead. “Besides, there’s no evidence that omegas need alphas. What they all say is just a bunch of old wives’ tales. Trying to make us seem clingy and desperate -” Erik broke off mid-sentence cutting himself off just in time as he realised that he was beginning to sound defensive. He didn’t want to seem too much in denial.
T’Challa smiled slightly. “Do you want to know what they say about omegas in Wakanda?"
"What?" Erik was curious despite himself.
"I consulted a few people about what to expect," T'Challa said. "Omegas are quite rare - there aren’t many omegas in Wakanda, and I’ve never had any personal experience interacting with one before. I asked my friends, family and elders for advice.
“Most of them were quite sympathetic. The general consensus was that you couldn’t really be blamed for what you had done when you first arrived in Wakanda. You were acting out because you didn’t have proper alpha guidance in your life -”
Erik snorted. "Acting out?"
That phrase really glossed over his numerous crimes. Being treated like a misbehaving child was condescending as fuck, but hey, if being an omega was some sort of get out of jail free card in Wakanda, he wasn’t above taking advantage of it.
T’Challa continued, “- And you’ve been neglected and unloved, which is very bad for an omega's psyche. Omegas in particular need a lot of love and affection -”
Erik spluttered. "I - I don't - the fuck I do!"
T'Challa's expression remained perfectly neutral.
More shaken than he would have liked to admit, Erik made a violent cutting motion through the air, indicating for T'Challa to continue speaking.
"- And finally, that you’ve been making a fuss to get attention, most likely because you aren’t being sexually satisfied,” T’Challa finished.
Erik’s jaw dropped. Outrage, indignation and a bone-deep cringing embarrassment warred within his chest. There were so many things wrong with that statement that he didn’t even know where to begin.
“Not sexually satisfied? I’ll have you know that I - that I - what the fuck, it’s none of y’all’s fucking business! Who the fuck said that? I’m going to kill them. No wait, never mind. Don’t tell me - I don’t want to know.” Erik shuddered. The thought of some dried-up, wrinkled old elder, or his Aunt Ramonda, or worse, Shuri, speculating about his sex life (or lack thereof) was deeply unnerving. Just the thought of it made his face heat up again. He scowled, getting to his feet and balling his hands into fists, but suddenly T’Challa was standing right in front of him.
Erik inhaled sharply, his heart rate spiking with the shock of it. So fast. He hadn’t even seen T’Challa move. One moment T’Challa was lounging in the straight-backed chair at the far end of the bedroom, and the next moment he was standing before Erik, springing forward in one swift, graceful motion like a panther coiling and lunging for his prey. T’Challa was now standing so close that he was almost nose to nose with Erik, and suddenly all Erik could smell was the scent of alpha overwhelming his senses.
T'Challa put out a hand, placing the flat of his palm against Erik’s chest. Erik could hear the blood thumping through his veins, his heart pounding so hard that it felt like it might leap out of his chest. Everything narrowed down to that one warm point of contact between them - T'Challa's palm on his chest, over his heart.
“Don’t you think there might be some truth to that?” T’Challa purred.
He wasn't using the Voice this time, but the words nevertheless struck at Erik with the force of a thunderbolt. Unbidden, the memories sprang to his mind of those cold nights he had spent alone, with nothing but his hatred and his grief for company. The heats he had gone through drugged to the gills with suppressants, with fire and agony blazing inside his bones, forcing back tears as his entire body burned for an alpha’s touch.
“I - no.”
Erik’s voice trembled on the last word, and he squeezed his eyes shut in denial. The tenderness in T'Challa's expression was so terrible, so unbearable that he couldn’t bear to look at him any longer.
“I’ll take care of you,” T’Challa murmured. “You know I will. Erik. Look at me.”
In a fit of pique and just to be contrary, Erik deliberately fixed his gaze on the blank spot on the far end of the wall over T’Challa’s shoulder. He took in a deep breath to steady his voice and sneered, “Take care of me? You spanked me!”
“That’s a part of it, yes. You need discipline. Guidance.” A sly grin crossed T’Challa’s face. “And I know you liked it.”
“Okay, you know what, fuck you -”
The next flare of scent from T’Challa was so intense that Erik’s knees literally grew weak. His legs buckled, and it only took a little push from T’Challa before Erik was falling back against the bed, sitting down heavily against the soft, yielding mattress. A gasp escaped Erik’s lips as his warm ass made contact with the surface of the bedsheets. Erik flinched, and T’Challa, damn him, laughed, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
The sight of T”Challa’s eyes, framed with long dark lashes and crinkling with amusement momentarily make Erik’s heart skip a beat. No! He wasn’t going to fall for that. Heat rose in Erik’s chest, heat and indignant outrage that T’Challa was manhandling him again, doing whatever the fuck he wanted without regard for Erik’s wishes, acting just like the tyrant that Erik knew he was, regardless of the kindly, kingly facade that he liked to put up. Erik had seen right through it from the start.
He tried to get up, but T’Challa was pushing him flat on his back. Erik’s head spun with disorientation as he looked up at the gilded, arching ceiling, which was suddenly blotted out by T'Challa looming over him. He tried to shove T’Challa off, but T'Challa easily pinned him down, placing his hands on Erik's wrists and kicking Erik's legs apart. With T'Challa's body weight pressing down on him, Erik just couldn't shrug him off.
T'Challa began to nuzzle down the column of Erik's neck. Erik shivered at the sensation of T'Challa's warm, wet breath tickling the sensitive skin above his bonding gland. Erik's head fell back, exposing more of his throat and he let out an embarrassingly breathy whine as his eyelids fluttered shut.
Fuck.
He shouldn’t be leaning into T'Challa's touch like this. He really, really should tell T’Challa to just fuck off. Fuck! Was he really going to just spread his legs and get fucked again, not ten minutes after swearing to himself never to submit to T'Challa?
Erik grasped for his rage, his hatred for his cousin, tried to remember how T’Challa had humiliated him not even an hour ago. But for some reason that familiar emotion of righteous anger was somehow, out of his reach. Instinctively, Erik relaxed under T’Challa’s touch, sighing and then almost purring in pleasure as T'Challa ran his hands down Erik's body, teasing him back to full arousal again.
No. He was stronger than this. He didn't need - he didn't want T'Challa. But try as he might, Erik couldn't block out the sweet, seductive words that T'Challa was now murmuring into his ear.
"I'll take care of you," T'Challa promised again. "As a proper guardian. I'll look after you, in all the ways an omega deserves from an alpha, until you find your eventual mate."
T'Challa's tongue darted out to lick a warm stripe around the hell of Erik's ear, and Erik moaned, high and soft, his toes curling from the intoxicating pleasure of it, basking in the glow of being at the centre of this handsome, gorgeous alpha's attention. Deeply buried instincts burst through the heat-addled fog that had settled over his mind. This was a good alpha. A good, strong alpha, promising to give him whatever he wanted, just as he deserved. Suddenly Erik was overwhelmed by the yearning of it all, by just how badly he wanted to be pampered by T'Challa, to be cherished and petted, to be fucked so hard that he saw stars. Erik whimpered.
"Let me suck your cock," T'Challa purred, his voice so deep and filthy with lust that it was practically a growl. T'Challa's hand, stroking Erik's groin languidly under the hem of his robe, closed over Erik's cock, and Erik cried out with the heat and pressure of it.
Without waiting for an answer, T'Challa leaned down. He drew the hem of Erik's robe up, over his thighs and then his hips, ignoring Erik's ineffectual attempts to bat his hands away.
What would be the point of saying no? Erik thought to himself. His resolve was crumbling. T'Challa was strong enough to do anything he wanted to Erik. That thought made the omega in him wriggle in secret delight. Surely it would be better to just go along with it, and get what pleasure he could out of T'Challa? He would be the one taking advantage of T'Challa, not the other way round.
The logical part of Erik knew that he was just rationalising, teetering on the brink of giving into his lust. He was going to regret this when he came back to his senses. But it was too much. He couldn't resist the sight of T'Challa leaning down between his spread thighs, hands spreading his legs open and looking up at him through heavy-lidded eyes.
Erik shifted his legs wider to accommodate T'Challa's body, thrusting his hips up towards T'Challa. He was so wet that T'Challa would be needing to change the sheets later. The spreading spot of dampness beneath his ass would have been uncomfortable at any other time, but Erik was now too aroused to care. His cock jutted out before him, hard, swollen and needing attention.
T'Challa's mouth closed over the tip, and Erik cried out, his vision almost whiting out in pleasure at the sensation of warm, wet heat around his cock. T'Challa took him all the way down to the root in one practiced swallow, sliding his lips down the thick shaft until his nose was almost touching the curls at the base of Erik's groin.
Unbidden, a small flash of jealousy surged within Erik's chest. Where had T'Challa learned how to suck cock so well? Had he practiced this on some other omega? Erik tightened his hands in T'Challa's short curls, heedless of his potential discomfort, and deliberately fucked into T'Challa's mouth with a hard snap of his hips.
It didn't seem to bother T'Challa one bit. His head bobbed up and down the shaft of Erik's cock, sucking at him just hard enough that it was almost painful, pausing in between strokes to tease and lick at the glans - the sensitive head of Erik's cock. He seemed to know, almost instinctively, how to do it just the way Erik liked. Erik groaned in pleasure, giving up on the idea of punishing T'Challa and just letting the waves of pleasure pulsing through his cock sweep over him. T'Challa fondled him too, teasing at the soft, sensitive skin of his inner thighs and playing with his balls, sending lightning sparks of pleasure through Erik’s veins, up Erik's spine.
When T'Challa brushed the tip of his finger against the rim of Erik's hole, Erik tensed up and gasped. He still felt sore and stretched out from the prior knotting. But the spark of pain radiating out from his ass made the pleasure feel even sharper.
"Like that, yeah," Erik gasped out, tightening his hands in T’Challa’s short curls. He began to thrust up into T'Challa's mouth with shallow thrusts, chasing the sweet suction as T'Challa panted heavily around his cock, the vibration from his grunts thrumming up the shaft and making Erik's toes curl with pleasure. He had been a fool to try and push T’Challa away. T'Challa looked glorious like this, looking as satisfied as the cat that got the cream, sucking on Erik's cock like it was the best thing he had ever tasted.
Erik stroked the pad of his thumb over T'Challa's cheek, tracing the outline of his hard cock beneath. Fuck, this was hot.His breathing became shallower and more urgent as T'Challa continued to suck him, his head bobbing up and down on Erik's cock as lewd, filthy noises filled the room. The air was thick with the heady scent of alpha pheromones, spurring on Erik's arousal and sending him spiralling ever deeper into ecstasy. Pressure was building up in his groin now, the familiar feeling of his climax approaching. Erik tightened his grip in T'Challa's hair in warning.
"I'm gonna come," Erik managed to say, the words coming out of his lips in a breathless gasp.
T'Challa didn't pull off. The muscles in Erik's thighs tensed and went taut, and he stiffened as he came down T'Challa's throat with a choked cry, pulse after pulse of come that was sucked dry, not a single drop of it leaking out of the corners of T'Challa's lips.
T'Challa continued to swallow around him, the suction almost too much to bear around Erik's sensitive cock. The pleasure was unbearable. Erik squirmed, whimpering, as he tried to push T'Challa off his softening cock.
"Enough," Erik gasped out. "Please!" He sounded like a complete wreck.
T'Challa finally lifted his head, carelessly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Erik slumped limply against the pillows. T’Challa’s beard was dripping wet with Erik's slick, and as Erik watched, dazed and exhausted, the tip of T’Challa’s tongue darted out of the corner of his lip, a slow, languid lick that sent a shudder up Erik’s spine.
He was so fucked.