Chapter 1
PART I
T'Challa knows that he shouldn't want Erik so badly. His cousin. His own blood. His fellow alpha.
But there's an undeniable, intense attraction from the moment that T'Challa first sets his eyes on Erik in the throne room.
Even with his hands cuffed behind his back, Erik exudes natural alpha charm and fearlessness. He is almost outrageously handsome, with his dreadlocks, sculpted muscles and capped golden canines. T'Challa wonders what those teeth will feel like, scraping against his own neck.
He has never wanted anyone else as immediately, as badly, as appallingly as he wants Erik.
T'Challa tries to resist it, of course. He deliberately antagonizes Erik, tries to wind him up. It's trivially easy to do so. T'Challa steps too close into Erik's personal space and gets right in his face. A couple of belittling comments ("I don't care that you killed Klaue"), insults ("I will never let a crazy person like you take the throne") and snide insinuations ("not our people") later, and Erik is practically ready to tear T'Challa's throat out, reacting instinctively to the presence of another aggressive alpha in his territory.
But it doesn't work. If anything, Erik is even more attractive when he's furious at T'Challa. Murderous rage is a very good look on him.
T'Challa burns with the desire to make Erik his. Burns with equal parts guilt and shame, for this desire. For what they've done to Erik, and what T'Challa, despite all their history, still wants to do to him.
In spite of the Queen Mother's advice, T'Challa accepts Erik's challenge for the throne.
If Erik kills him, so be it. It's nothing less than T'Challa deserves.
Fighting Erik at the Warrior Falls is torture.
The intimate press of skin against skin, limbs entangled with limbs is driving T'Challa to madness.
T'Challa is losing. Badly. His own alpha instincts are in overdrive, triggered by the close proximity of a dangerous enemy alpha. His competition. Each new cut on his body, each new drop of blood drawn by Erik, feeds his inner urge to rip Erik apart. To prove to the beta and omega spectators in the audience exactly who is the stronger alpha between them.
But intertwined with T'Challa's visceral, murderous desire is just - desire. Pure, unadulterated lust.
Erik is so unfairly attractive, even as he's declaring how much he hates T'Challa. Even when Erik is actively attempting to kill him. Erik's angry snarls, his ferocious attacks, the brutal, violent grace in his movements as he attempts to cut T'Challa's throat - all of it makes T'Challa hard.
He must be broken. There must be something deeply wrong with him, to make him react to Erik like this.
T'Challa doesn't dare to fully give himself over to his alpha nature. It would no doubt make things easier if he yields to his instincts and lets his body do the fighting, but if he lets go of his rigid self-control, he isn't sure whether he would fight Erik. Or fuck him.
Taking advantage of T'Challa's hesitation, Erik slices him deeply across both calves. The sudden, excruciating pain of Erik cutting through his tendons and muscles brings T'Challa to his knees.
With a triumphant yell, Erik hoists T'Challa over his shoulders and shouts to the horrified crowd, "Is this your king now?"
T'Challa catches the overpowering scent of alpha pheromones, spicy-sharp, as Erik luxuriates in his victory. He shudders in Erik's grip, overwhelmed with need. Erik probably thinks that T'Challa is trying to struggle free, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
Erik heaves T'Challa over the waterfall as if he weighs nothing at all. The pain and shock of the impact causes him to black out.
T'Challa's final thought before darkness sweeps over him is, "I hope - "
Being killed by Erik still doesn't kill his desire for Erik. Not that T'Challa had really expected it to.
When T'Challa, miraculously resurrected by the heart-shaped herb, wakes up in a pile of snow aching all over, he looks up into the anguished, tearful faces of his mother and his sister and knows that Erik has to be stopped.
It's partly T'Challa's fault for antagonizing Erik in the first place. If he hadn't treated Erik so aggressively during their first meeting - if he had acknowledged Erik as his cousin from the start instead of refusing to name him - if he had welcomed Erik home to Wakanda...things could have worked out differently. Perhaps Erik would have been more willing to talk instead of fight.
T'Challa could blame his biology for his initial reaction to Erik. It's well known that alphas never get along with other alphas. But he would only be lying to himself. He hadn't thought of Erik as sexual competition, the way he ought to have when confronted by another alpha - he had just wanted to fuck Erik senseless. Inter-alpha hostility had nothing to do with it.
And even after that, T'Challa had practically thrown the fight against Erik because of his own confused desires. He had been heedless of what that would mean for the future of his country.
T'Challa needs to clean up his own mess before Erik destroys his country. Destroys the world.
M'Baku does not agree to lend T'Challa his army. No matter. T'Challa will just have to deal with Erik on his own.
T'Challa confronts Erik across an open field after bringing down his planes.
Upon seeing T'Challa inexplicably alive and well, a delighted, shit-eating grin spreads across Erik's face.
"Wassup?" he calls out to T'Challa, and T'Challa's heart leaps.
Although Erik verbally turns down T'Challa's challenge, he still can't stop himself from attacking T'Challa. This time, T'Challa doesn't hold back either - the stakes are simply too high. He finds to his relief that he can more than hold his own against Erik when both of them are fighting seriously, no holds barred.
"Man, you're sure going hard at it this time, cuz!" Erik taunts him. He seems surprised by the ferocity of T'Challa's attacks, given how easily that he had beaten T'Challa in their previous fight.
The way that Erik purrs "hard at it" is very -
T'Challa pushes away that thought and forces Erik back step by step until they're both standing at the edge of the vibranium mine shaft. He glances assesingly at the long drop. They're both wearing impact-absorbing suits. The fall won't kill or even hurt them, and it's better to take the fight away from the others, in case anyone else gets hurt.
He pounces on Erik, bearing them both down into the mine shaft, towards the train tracks.
And if T'Challa's subsequent command to Shuri to activate the sonic disruptors is partly fuelled by a shameful desire to see Erik naked?
Well. He'll never admit it.
Fighting Erik as his suit is unpredictably melting on and off is a brand new torture in itself. What had T'Challa been thinking, really?
Their periodic nakedness certainly doesn't seem to bother Erik. He's only slightly surprised the first time it happens, and then he adjusts quickly, saving his most vicious strikes for the moments when T'Challa is unprotected by the Black Panther habit. Even though T'Challa is completely focused on the fight this time, he can barely block the worst of Erik's blows.
T'Challa knows that he needs to step it up. If he doesn't finish this soon, Erik will destroy him, destroy Wakanda and destroy the world.
So it's come down to this, then.
T'Challa relinquishes all his self-control and yields fully to his alpha nature for the first time in his life. Yellow haze temporarily swims over his vision, and he knows that his irises have now turned a bright, reflective gold.
Bad idea.
As T'Challa gives in to his instincts, aggression and desire slam into T'Challa's mind with the force of an oncoming train, overwhelming T'Challa's logic.
The first thing his body does when let off the leash is to lunge forward, grab hold of Erik by the shoulders and kiss him, hard.
For the first time since they've met, Erik is well and truly taken aback.
"T'Challa?" he says uncertainly, eyes wide with shock. Erik goes still under T'Challa, and his plush lips part. He is so surprised that the gold is even beginning to disappear from his eyes as his battle-fury fades.
At this very moment, the sonic disruptors turn on in unison with a loud whoosh.
The vibranium nanites of Erik's suit retract, exposing his chest, and T'Challa plunges his spear deeply into Erik's heart.