OPDSP 5

‘Why is he here like this?’

Aeryl was so startled, he almost threw him off.

‘Wasn’t the Grand Duke a Beta?’

Aeryl had never heard that the Grand Duke had a secondary gender. Whether Alpha or Omega, word would’ve gotten out. But setting the question aside for now, Aeryl quickly checked the Grand Duke’s condition.

‘No external injuries.’

The most he had was a scraped palm from the fall. Aeryl felt around his head but found no signs of a blow.

‘Doesn’t look like he was attacked… Is it something else?’

Either way, he needed to be moved to the bed. Aeryl slung one of the Grand Duke’s arms over his shoulder and tried to lift him.

“Urgh.”

The Grand Duke was incredibly heavy.

Aeryl had kept up with strength training just in case, but even taking a single step was difficult. His body, covered in muscle like armor, even hurt to bump against. It felt more like moving a suit of armor than a person.

“Huff!”

After finally laying the Grand Duke down on the bed in the corner of the examination room, Aeryl wiped the sweat pouring from his forehead. He was out of breath from just that short distance. Still panting, he scanned the Grand Duke’s condition with his eyes.

“His mind’s not intact.”

Though his eyes were open slightly, they were unfocused. His face was flushed, and his breathing was rough—signs of a fever.

“Poison?”

If there were no external wounds, the next suspect was internal damage. But poison seemed unlikely—his lips were clear, still a healthy red.

“Then what’s wrong with him?”

Aeryl placed his fingers on the Grand Duke’s neck. His heartbeat was absurdly fast.

“Definitely abnormal signs, but—ugh!”

Just as Aeryl was concentrating on analyzing him, the Grand Duke suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled. In an instant, the world flipped, and the Grand Duke’s face loomed above. Aeryl realized too late that he had been pinned to the bed by the Grand Duke’s weight. He could feel every bit of it pressing down on him.

“What are you doing?”

Aeryl was flustered. The Grand Duke stared down at him, and the look in his eyes was like a predator eyeing its prey—it sent a chill down his spine.

Why is he looking at me like that?

‘Is this payback for earlier?’

Aeryl instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. Was a punch coming? Or worse? Just the thought of a Swordmaster’s punch made his body tremble. As he braced for the blow, something wet brushed against the back of his neck.

‘What the—?!’

His eyes flew open in shock. An unbelievable sight met him. The Grand Duke had buried his face in the crook of Aeryl’s neck. The wet sensation on his skin had been the Grand Duke’s tongue.

‘???’

The Grand Duke nuzzled into Aeryl’s neck, kissed it, and inhaled deeply. The sensation of breath over thin skin gave Aeryl goosebumps.

“Haa…”

The Grand Duke let out a low, satisfied groan. His breath was hot enough to burn. Was this really the same man he met earlier, all cold and distant?

“Your Grace?”

No reply. Instead, the Grand Duke’s hand roamed across Aeryl’s chest. The sensation of those large, confident hands stirred something unbidden in him.

“Urgh…”

‘I can’t let this get to me.’

Aeryl twisted his body, but in doing so, their lower bodies pressed even more tightly together—something hard as a club pressed against Aeryl’s thigh. Unless the Grand Duke had a habit of keeping a baton in his pants, it could only be what Aeryl feared.

‘!!!’

His mind snapped back to clarity.

‘It’s a rut!’

The clinical term: rut.

Commonly known as a heat. A period of intense sexual drive.

‘But he was perfectly fine during the day! Why all of a sudden?’

Aeryl was shaken. If a rut was approaching, the solution was simple: take a rut suppressant. It wasn’t a common drug, but someone like the Grand Duke should have no trouble getting it.

During a rut, reason disappears. All that’s left is the drive to mate, acting purely on instinct. That’s why managing a rut was the most important responsibility for a secondary-gendered person. Aeryl, too, took special care—staying indoors and using personally crafted medicine during such times.

‘The Grand Duke can’t even manage his own rut? What is this?’

It was absurd—but also dangerous.

The man before him was an Alpha in full rut.

His body was practically oozing heat pheromones. If not for Aeryl’s mask, he would’ve been swept up in it too. Until the Grand Duke’s rut ended, he would be lost to reason, consumed by the drive for intercourse and reproduction.

Just imagining it was horrifying.

“Eeek!”

Aeryl let out a high-pitched squeal. The Grand Duke had blatantly rubbed his lower body against him. Aeryl could feel exactly how aroused he was.

“Your Grace!”

He called out again, desperately trying to hold onto his sanity, but there was no answer.

‘He’s completely lost it!’

The Grand Duke was in heat—and he was reacting to Aeryl. Alpha pheromones were wrapping around Aeryl’s entire body. Thanks to the mask, he hadn’t lost his reason, but he could feel his body growing hot.

If this kept going, he’d get dragged into the heat too!

He had to stop the Grand Duke before the mask lost its effectiveness.

‘Stay sharp.’

Aeryl warned himself and pushed against the Grand Duke’s chest with all his might. The man didn’t budge. He was a Swordmaster—there was no winning in a contest of strength. Worse, the heat-induced pheromones made Aeryl’s limbs weaken.

‘There’s got to be a way to get out of this…!’

It was hard to even think clearly. The Grand Duke roughly yanked down Aeryl’s collar, exposing the bare nape of his neck. His fingers snagged on the edge of the mask, and it rattled dangerously. A shiver ran down Aeryl’s spine.

“It’s in the way…”

The Grand Duke growled, lifting Aeryl by the collar. There was a wild glint in his eyes—he had clearly made up his mind about something.

That’s when Aeryl spotted a vase on the bedside table. He’d placed it there to soften the otherwise clinical atmosphere. Aeryl steeled himself.

“I’m really sorry… but this is better for you too!”

He grabbed the vase and smashed it down on the Grand Duke’s head.

Crash!

There was a loud shatter—it was unclear whether it was the vase or the Grand Duke’s skull. Either way, the man collapsed on top of Aeryl. Normally, Aeryl’s sluggish attack would never have landed, but the Grand Duke’s rut-addled mind was, for once, a stroke of luck.

That was how ruts worked. In fact, there was once a king who kept guards nearby during his rut, just in case.

The Alpha pheromones and the scorching heat in the air slowly began to dissipate. Aeryl lay limp, panting heavily.

‘It’s over.’

He had stopped the Grand Duke. He’d done it. The Grand Duke was now slumped over Aeryl’s body.

‘So heavy. He’s not dead, is he?’

Aeryl quickly checked his head—no blood. Of course not. The Grand Duke really was built different.

“Haah…”

He was alive. With a sigh of relief, Aeryl shoved the Grand Duke to the side and slipped out of bed.

His appearance was an utter mess. At some point, his shirt had been torn open, exposing his chest, and red marks now stood out starkly against the pale skin of his neck. If anyone saw him now, they’d definitely think something had happened.

This is mortifying. For an Omega who’s never even dated, this was way too much stimulation. He had to change clothes and get to treatment. But first…

“What do I do now?”

The Grand Duke had only stopped because he’d passed out. But rut didn’t just vanish with unconsciousness.

‘He needs a suppressant. Now.’

Aeryl went to the cupboard and retrieved a rut suppressant he’d prepared for himself. Since the rut had already begun, he doubled the usual dosage.

But when he returned to the bed, something was wrong. The Grand Duke was drenched in sweat and writhing in pain. His fever seemed even worse than before, his skin now burning red.

“Why is this happening all of a sudden?”

Aeryl calmly checked his condition. He recalled how he’d first found the Grand Duke—collapsed and unconscious.

‘A rut intense enough to knock him out… and with fever and pain, too. These symptoms… They’re just like a first-time manifestation.’

That realization struck like lightning.

It suddenly made sense why someone like the Grand Duke hadn’t taken precautions for his rut—why he had lost all reason.

‘No way…’

Normally, secondary genders manifested during adolescence. But the Grand Duke was already twenty-six—well past the usual age.

Any other doctor might’ve dismissed the idea as impossible. But Aeryl had studied the dynamics of secondary genders obsessively, even conducting his own research. He knew that late manifestations weren’t unheard of.

‘There was that Omega who manifested in their thirties…’

In that case, it was due to delayed development of the womb. Who’s to say Alphas couldn’t have similar conditions?

Aeryl stared at the unconscious Grand Duke. The reality sank in—he was trapped in this small space with a newly manifested Alpha, one who was releasing explosive pheromones.

Unblinking, he looked down at the man. Then his fist clenched.

And Aeryl thought:

‘I want to know what’s going on with his body.’