Chapter 43

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Yuri’s first experience had been far from ideal.

It was not that his parents had failed to teach him about ruts and heat cycles; unfortunately, by the time his first rut arrived, neither of them was there to advise him anymore. He had been nineteen, and the hellish early summer was nearing its end.

At first, he thought he was running a mild fever. It did not seem severe enough to warrant medication, so he drank some tea and left for work. By then, doing anything more for Igor disgusted him so profoundly that death seemed preferable, but Yuri had reasons he could not die. If he did, Alexei, who already had no one left to rely on, would be alone.

That day, Yuri went to a club Igor operated. Igor had created most of Saratov’s entertainment venues, but that particular club was a favorite of both Volkovs. It had not been built as a legitimate business, but rather as a castle made purely for the father and son’s amusement.

Igor committed every imaginable depravity there. He drugged Omegas brought in from somewhere and held parties, or plied men who came to negotiate with alcohol until they could barely stand. When a deal fell through, fights broke out, and gunshots often rang out above the pounding music.

Yuri’s adolescence had been chained to that place.

From the time he dropped out of middle school, he had stood guard outside while such things happened within. At noon, when the club closed, he cleaned up every kind of filth: broken glass, cigarette ash, bloodstained tissues, torn condoms, syringes, white powder, and vomit.

It was a bright afternoon after the brutal winter, which had dragged well into spring, finally lifted and the temperature rose above freezing. The people fortunate enough to enjoy ordinary lives even in that hellish city went out on picnics as though they had been waiting all year for that day. Yuri had heard that if one visited a certain park in the affluent district near the police and fire stations around that time of year, people could be seen sunbathing in swimsuits.

Once, he had wanted to see it for himself, fascinated that a place like that could exist in a city seemingly made entirely of nightmares. He no longer felt that desire.

Yuri passed a pair of adorable twins walking hand in hand with their parents, then a couple sharing ice cream with their arms linked, before finding himself alone in an alley no one used. Beyond the cramped passage, where posters for the ballet company had disappeared and only garbage bins remained, stood a factory. The club was a little farther on.

Of all days, Igor was there.

Ordinarily, he would have been away tending to other business, but perhaps he had stayed until late morning to watch his son’s entertainment. He stood smoking a cigar with several men gathered around him.

Yuri attempted to greet him respectfully and pass by.

Igor called him back. “Kiselyov. You’ve gone into heat.”

When speaking to Alexei and Yuri, Igor always used the degrading expression in heat rather than rut.

“That blank look tells me you don’t know a damned thing. Ah, right. Your mother’s fucking dead, and your father ran off somewhere. There’s no adult left to teach you.”

Claiming he would educate Yuri in place of his dead mother and fugitive father, Igor locked him inside a cage. Bogdan, one of the men closest to Igor, struck the struggling Yuri over the head with a length of lumber. Blood flowed down his face.

Yuri was left inside the square iron cage for about an hour. He regained consciousness when the barred door opened and something like a sweet fragrance reached him. Startled awake, Yuri saw an Omega staggering inside and pulling the cage door shut behind him.

The man was three or four years older than Yuri, an Omega Igor often used for his amusement. A fluttering silk robe fell open, revealing the young man’s pale, naked body. He was senseless with alcohol and drugs. Looking at Yuri, he giggled vacantly and reached out with one small, slender hand.

A sweet scent Yuri had never encountered spread with every movement. Merely breathing it in, merely sharing the same space, sent the sweetness surging through him and forced his body to respond. Just as Igor had said, Yuri’s body had entered rut and desired an Omega capable of receiving his seed.

However, his mind did not.

Nausea rose, and Yuri retched.

The Omega giggled as though he found it amusing. “It’s okay. It’ll feel fucking incredible. Once you’ve gotten your first fuck out of the way, every Omega you see will have you desperate to shove your dick into a hole. I’m good at this. Want me to suck you off first?”

Yuri shoved the Omega away again and again at the filthy whisper, but each time the man fell, he climbed back up and clung to Yuri once more. Watching the grotesque scene, Yuri decided to knock him unconscious.

Igor stopped him.

“If you want him out, fine. But then he dies. I could cut off his head and deliver it as a present to your one and only friend’s house. Ah. Now that I think about it, that Sorokin brat should be going into heat soon too. He’s got more guts than you. If I sent him an Omega, he might even enjoy it.”

At the mention of the only precious person Yuri had left, Yuri glared at Igor until blood vessels burst in his eyes. Even after being told that he would die, the Omega showed no awareness of the danger. He crawled toward Yuri again like a dog. The closer he came, the more nauseating the overpowering floral scent became, as artificial as cheap perfume.

Yuri stared down at the crown of the Omega’s head as the man finally crawled to him and knelt with his ass raised. Slowly, Yuri reached out and seized a fistful of brown hair.

Resisting the fury urging him to wrench the Omega’s head back and throw him away, Yuri watched what was happening to him with bloodshot eyes.

Whatever happens, I will not lose my mind.

To keep from behaving like the animal Igor wanted him to become, Yuri bit the inside of his mouth again and again. The flesh became shredded, and blood flowed without stopping. Only after swallowing dozens of mouthfuls of blood-laced saliva did the show finally end.

But Igor did not forgive Yuri for refusing to behave as he intended. Yuri erased what happened afterward from his mind. He did not remember everything that had happened in his life.

That was how he survived.

Even now, whenever his rut approached or he saw another Alpha enter theirs, the first things Yuri remembered were the enormous iron cage and the sickening sweetness of cheap perfume.

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