Chapter Text
Victor noticed him as the beginning strains of the quadrille floated from the orchestra tucked behind an Oriental screen in the corner of the ballroom. The man stood straight-backed and stiff, clearly unused to dancing. The look on his face was at once uncomfortable but determined, as if he had no idea how he had landed himself in his current position, but he would see it through to the end.
To hide the smile on his lips, Victor lifted his glass of champagne and took a quick sip. The man’s dance partner was Lady Sara Crispino, the most headstrong of the latest crop of debutantes this Season. Victor could picture exactly how she had run roughshod over the man’s wishes and secured his name on her dance card. She had, after all, done the same to Victor himself. There had been a mutual, unspoken understanding between them that neither was looking to tie themselves to another alpha, and that had made the encounter thoroughly enjoyable, if unexpected.
Just as he took another sip, renewed amusement causing a small chuckle to escape his lips, the man—as if summoned by the soft sound—glanced straight into Victor’s eyes.
Their gazes locked and Victor’s hand froze. A feeling he couldn’t name seared through him, sending his fingertips to tingling, butterflies to fluttering in his stomach. It was instant, like recognition—though he’d never seen this man before—and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle in alarm. But before he could identify the reason, before he could react, it faded, chased away by an unwelcome wave of heat that crashed through his groin. He frowned. Lady Hope’s ball to open the Season was a thoroughly improper place to become aroused.
“Now is hardly the time to be resting on your laurels,” a cultured drawl from behind him startled Victor from his musings. In a blink, the man he had been watching was gone, disappearing into the whirl of skirts and tailcoats on the ballroom floor.
Victor let his eyes sweep the room once, unsettled, before he turned to face his friend Rapsodie, who was frowning rather severely at him.
“I beg your pardon?” Victor said, shrugging involuntarily as he tried to relieve his shoulders of the weight of his confusion.
“The first step is complete,” Rapsodie said, “You have danced a set with the most accomplished and eligible debutantes this Season—charming all of their mamas and fueling the gossip rags in the process. You ought to strike while the iron is hot and select one or two for a second set, so we may proceed with the plan.”
Victor sighed, a familiar vice in his chest grounding him, reminding him of the reality of his situation. He summoned a footman by lifting his empty glass and exchanged it for a full one, downing it before he replied to Rapsodie.
He had meant to agree, to ask Rapsodie for his opinion on which debutante he ought to focus on, but what came out instead was: “I need a few minutes to think.”
He was inexplicably rattled. By what, he wasn’t sure, but he could sense that something had changed. The feeling from before was growing, casting an uneasy pall over his evening. If he didn’t take a moment to breathe, to recoup, he would fail and that was an outcome he could not allow.
Rapsodie seemed to understand. He jerked his chin towards the Hope’s library doors, set into the side of the ballroom.
“Go,” he said, “Hope’s brandy has always steadied you, but do not linger. The ball is more than half over and there is still much to do.”
Victor left with a grateful nod. The walk to the library was a slog, even as he kept to the side of the room. It seemed every person in attendance wanted his attention: hopeful mothers—their daughters in tow, fellow peers from his club clouded in ennui, followed closely by their unhappy wives dripping with innuendo. Victor managed to stave them all off with a smile and an excuse. Dodging the pleading masses who wanted his influence, his money, his title, was all second nature to him now, though no less tiring.
Just as he reached the library doors, relief settling on him at the thought of a full glass of Lord Hope’s excellent brandy, someone ran into him. Quite literally.
His attention entirely focused on his destination, Victor had no time to react when he was pushed through the open doorway in a flurry of limbs, a soft gasp echoing in his ear.
When he could see again, his eyes adjusting to the dim, candlelit library, he was splayed inelegantly on the marble floor, a warm body lying atop him. He gathered himself, letting some seconds pass as he tried to make sense of what had happened—trying to ignore the pleasant weight on his chest—before he sat up, moving slowly so as not to startle whoever had landed on him.
He blinked in surprise. It was the man he had noticed earlier, Lady Sara Crispino’s reluctant dance partner whose gaze had made him feel curiously unmoored.
“Pray forgive me,” the man said, his voice soft, his embarrassment clear, “I did not notice you in my path.” He looked up then and Victor was overcome with the sensation of drowning—or rather, a facsimile of what he imagined drowning to feel like. The urge to berate the man dissipated as he stared into his wide brown eyes, so striking against his pale skin and mussed black hair.
“I—” Victor swallowed, his throat dry, the odd feeling he had felt when their eyes first met threatening to overwhelm him. “I forgive you,” he whispered. That hadn’t been what he had meant to say, but it had been what fell from his mouth anyway. The man smiled up at him, still sitting in Victor’s lap, and Victor almost fainted from the speed at which his blood rushed to his groin.
With an embarrassed cough, Victor unceremoniously nudged the man off of his traitorous body and scrambled to his feet, holding out a hand in apology to help the man up.
“I do not believe we have been introduced,” Victor said, brushing off his clothes and surreptitiously adjusting his breeches and waistcoat as he did so, “I am Vicino.”
“Your Grace,” the man said, sweeping automatically into a bow. The ease and fluidity with which he moved was dazzling. “I do apologize for bumping into you. I am Yuuri Katsuki.”
Victor racked his brain. He vaguely remembered hearing something about the son of Toshiya Katsuki, Esquire, something important. But for the life of him, he could not recall what it was. He gave Katsuki a deeper nod then he normally would, still rattled by their collision. He tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a proposition.
“May I ask why you were running?” he finally managed as he headed towards a side table by the lit fireplace, where the bottle of coveted brandy stood, and poured two glasses. He held one out to Katsuki, whose gloved fingers brushed Victor's as he took it. Victor would swear lightning flashed through his hand in that instance.
After a gulp that drained half the glass, Katsuki glanced at him. He looked nervous. Victor was used to making people nervous by now, as both an alpha and the highest ranking peer below the royal family themselves.
“I was escaping the crowd,” Katsuki said. His voice was husky, the very roughness of it sending tingles down Victor’s spine.
“An unwanted admirer? Surely you must be accustomed to them by now.” Victor didn’t see how anyone would be able to resist Katsuki. He wasn’t the most ostentatious of fellows, but his voice was pleasing, and his body even more so, despite his clothes being far from fashionable. His face exuded a kind of pure innocence that Victor had long since lost, and he held himself with a grace that Victor couldn’t look away from.
“No, I-I simply wished to be alone.”
“Was that a hint?” Victor could tell—though it didn’t happen often, if at all—when he was being rebuffed.
Katsuki shook his head—the gall it took to reject a duke, perhaps? “Oh no! Not at all, Your Grace, truly.” Victor wished he could hear his name spoken in Katsuki’s fascinating voice. It was an odd desire, one that had never occurred to him to hope for, but now that it had been brought to life, he couldn’t let it go.
“Then I take it to mean that you do not mind being alone with me?” Ah, a proposition after all. He was being far too forward, especially with a man he had just met. And he was letting himself be distracted from his and Rapsodie’s plan, though the urgency of the night had retreated to a back corner of his mind and could be easily ignored.
“I—” Katsuki didn’t seem to know what to say, falling silent as he blinked rapidly, his inexperience with flirting and attraction clear, unusual in a man of his age. Victor gave him a seductive smile, pleased to see the flush rising on his cheeks. His eyes were curiously unfocused. Had he been that affected by a glance?
Victor couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the luxury of flirting with someone for enjoyment rather than out of necessity. He’d missed the simplicity of acting on an uncomplicated attraction.
Katsuki took a step forward, his hand moving to his neck and loosening his cravat as he did so. Immediately, a scent so powerful it made Victor step back, flowed from Katsuki. He hit the windowsill with his hip before he realized he had backed himself against the wall to escape.
“You’re an omega,” Victor said in disbelief, his amusement evaporating instantly. How could he have forgotten this crucial fact? It had been a topic of much discussion at his club but he had somehow missed the connection between that Yuuri Katsuki—one who had been described as mousy and dull—and the tempting being who had smashed into him moments before. Katsuki was the first male omega England had had in over a hundred years, certainly the first that Victor had ever encountered.
And he was ill-prepared for his scent. It flowed from him, the most toe-curlingly, mind-scramblingly delicious scent Victor had ever smelled. He tried to slow his breathing, to prevent any more of it from entering his lungs.
But it was too strong. Katsuki’s scent had physically manifested, blowing around his brain, tickling along the back of his hands, sending a bolt of warmth through his limbs. He could barely keep his eyes open, every sense in him straining towards that scent. He didn’t notice when Katsuki took his glass from his limp hand and placed it on the windowsill behind him. And he could only let out a helpless groan when his tailcoat and waistcoat were unbuttoned, a shuddery breath escaping him as the cool air hit his throat once his shirt had been opened.
His mind was rebelling, yelling at him to lift a hand and stop Katsuki, but his body ignored it, enthralled to the point where he had no more care left for propriety. He didn’t move, frozen in shock when Katsuki undressed himself, when his hands tangled in Victor's hair, ruining its exacting style. The idle thought that his valet would kill him flitted through Victor’s mind before the sight of Katsuki’s nipples in the firelight drove it away. Though the fire was hot and Victor even hotter, Katsuki’s nipples peaked in the chilly library air.
Victor wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and worship those small rosy tips, suckle at them until they glowed and glistened like jewels. But before he could act on his impulses, Katsuki had wrapped his arms around Victor’s neck, pulling his head down for a passionate kiss, pressing their bare chests together.
Victor kissed him back—hard—a sense of urgency, of wanting to devour making him rougher than he normally would be. Dimly, he registered Katsuki’s untutored motions, the hesitant movements of his lips. His guess had been correct. Katsuki was wholly inexperienced in the ways of seduction, which only served to feed Victor's desire. His alpha instincts roared inside him, possessiveness flooding his veins, the feeling from before hanging over his head like an omen.
He was normally a quiet man, but with Katsuki’s scent in his lungs, his soft bare skin under his lips and hands, Victor couldn’t stop the words that poured from his mouth.
“Let me,” he murmured as he drew the shirt off of Katsuki’s shoulders, purring with pleasure when Katsuki tilted his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. “That’s right,” he breathed, “God, you smell so good, so sweet.” He dropped kisses on every inch of bare skin he could as Katsuki trembled under his attentions. “Let me touch you, taste you. Let me…”
A sense of something he couldn’t remember the name to, the feeling from when he’d first seen Katsuki, was building up inside of him. It sat in the background, dark, waiting, growing ever more prominent and oppressive.
It wasn’t until the library door burst open, accompanied by the glaring lights of the chandeliers in the ballroom outside, that Victor’s awareness returned to him. The shrill, scandalized gasps of the leading ladies of the ton in the doorway slashed through his consciousness, driving away the scent-induced fog. He lifted his head from where he had been suckling at Katsuki’s throat, his vision finally clearing from the haze that had overcome it.
Panic setting in, he glanced down at the equally dazed Katsuki, half-naked in his arms, his clothes on the floor, dropped there by Victor himself as he had torn into them. He didn’t look at all scared, or even a bit surprised. In fact, he looked entirely unapologetic, his brows furrowed, his chin set, even as he blushed and panted.
That was when Victor realized their encounter had all been planned. He had finally been caught in a trap.
“Well, well, Your Grace” a woman said from the doorway, her hands on her hips. Though she directed her words at Victor, her angry gaze was centered on Katsuki, who turned his face away from her look. “It seems we have some things to discuss concerning my nephew.”
Victor recognized her then as Lady Okukawa, sister to Katsuki’s father.
“We shall leave you to dress,” she said with authority before turning to shoo the rest of the scandalized onlookers out of the room, “Pray do not take too long.”
It was only when the door shut behind her and a terrible silence fell in the library, that Victor could finally put a name to the feeling that had haunted him since he had first laid eyes on Yuuri Katsuki in the ballroom: doom.