{ "submission_id": "3603364", "keywords": [ { "keyword_id": "353928", "keyword_name": "abo", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "22" }, { "keyword_id": "51595", "keyword_name": "alpha/omega", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "3" }, { "keyword_id": "33", "keyword_name": "fox", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "251040" }, { "keyword_id": "165", "keyword_name": "male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1212681" }, { "keyword_id": "10308", "keyword_name": "male/male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "127674" }, { "keyword_id": "448915", "keyword_name": "omegaverse", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "38" }, { "keyword_id": "1971", "keyword_name": "rottweiler", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2280" } ], "hidden": "f", "scraps": "f", "favorite": "f", "favorites_count": "1", "create_datetime": "2025-04-23 04:03:43.160537+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "23 Apr 2025 06:03 CEST", "last_file_update_datetime": "2025-04-23 04:02:05.585123+00", "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "23 Apr 2025 06:02 CEST", "username": "VixenButNot", "user_id": "21656", "user_icon_file_name": "417332_VixenButNot_fox_brightened_cranked_100x100_extra_bright.png", "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/417/417332_VixenButNot_fox_brightened_cranked_100x100_extra_bright.png", "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/417/417332_VixenButNot_fox_brightened_cranked_100x100_extra_bright.png", "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/417/417332_VixenButNot_fox_brightened_cranked_100x100_extra_bright.png", "file_name": "5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "files": [ { "file_id": "5538306", "file_name": "5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5538/5538306_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_4_what_he_takes.txt", "mimetype": "text/plain", "submission_id": "3603364", "user_id": "21656", "submission_file_order": "0", "full_size_x": null, "full_size_y": null, "screen_size_x": null, "screen_size_y": null, "preview_size_x": null, "preview_size_y": null, "initial_file_md5": "0a9b1add8e1dd482bf77012873e9a6dd", "full_file_md5": "0a9b1add8e1dd482bf77012873e9a6dd", "large_file_md5": "", "small_file_md5": "", "thumbnail_md5": "", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2025-04-23 04:02:05.585123+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "23 Apr 2025 06:02 CEST" } ], "pools": [ { "pool_id": "100445", "name": "Breed Standard", "description": "Series In Progress", "count": "4", "submission_left_submission_id": "3595533", "submission_left_file_name": "5523763_VixenButNot_breed_standard_chapter_3_they_never_gave_me_a_name.txt" } ], "description": "Chapter 4: What He Takes\nDelta begins to reckon with what the fox is, what he was taken for, and what’s expected of him next. There are no chains here—but there is training. And training starts with honesty.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Chapter 4: What He Takes
Delta begins to reckon with what the fox is, what he was taken for, and what’s expected of him next. There are no chains here—but there is training. And training starts with honesty.", "writing": "Chapter 4 - What He Takes:\nDelta begins to reckon with what the fox is, what he was taken for, and what’s expected of him next. There are no chains here—but there is training. And training starts with honesty.\n\nThe door slid shut behind Delta with a soft hiss, and the glow of the fox’s quarters dimmed to its restful hue.\n\nHe didn’t look back.\n\nDidn’t need to.\n\nThe corridor outside was quiet—sterile-white walls and soft blue underlighting humming gently beneath his boots as he made his way down the curved spine of the ship. It wasn’t long before he reached the command suite, where the doors parted without needing to be buzzed.\n\nThe wolf was waiting.\n\nHe stood with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him, posture ramrod-straight. The window before him revealed the distant sprawl of stars, and the subtle arc of the ship's orbital path over the fox’s dead, red world. The planet looked smaller already. Powerless.\n\nThe wolf didn’t turn as Delta stepped inside.\n\n“Report,” he said.\n\nDelta folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall, casual—because he knew better than to mirror that posture. You didn’t try to match this male’s stance. You let it be a monolith.\n\n“He ate,” Delta said. “Didn’t take the knife. Took the meat. Smart choice.”\n\n“And?”\n\nDelta shrugged. “Didn’t say a word until I was halfway out the door. Then—” he hesitated, just for a beat, “—he told me they never gave him a name.”\n\nA pause.\n\nThen the wolf finally turned.\n\nSlowly.\n\nHis uniform—still immaculate—wasn’t the same one. The white one, the one the fox had spit on, was gone. Probably incinerated. But Delta could see it in the tightness of his jaw. In the barest twitch at the corner of his eye. That insult had landed.\n\nAnd it was burning there.\n\nHe said nothing about it. Not directly.\n\nInstead, he walked past Delta, retrieving a data slate from the central console with a practiced flick of his wrist. He tapped once, twice. Reviewed something.\n\n“He’s still wild,” the wolf said, tone even. “Half-feral. It’ll need to be… trained out.”\n\n“Yeah,” Delta replied. “That’s not gonna be easy.”\n\n“I don’t require easy.”\n\nThe words cut clean.\n\nDelta held back a sigh. “You know he’s not just scared. He’s angry. That spit? That wasn’t a cry for help. That was him daring you to kill him.”\n\nThe wolf’s eyes lifted.\n\n“I’m aware.”\n\nAnd there it was again—that unshakable calm. But beneath it, barely contained, was the kind of pride that had built empires and burned bridges for the insult of a wrong look. The kind that remembered every offense and forgave none.\n\nThe fox had marked him. Challenged him.\n\nAnd the wolf hadn’t responded.\n\nYet.\n\n“He’s going to test every inch of the leash,” Delta said, softer this time. “You sure you’re ready to hold it?”\n\nThe wolf didn’t answer right away.\n\nThen, finally, he set the slate down and turned back to the window, hands folding once more behind his back.\n\n“He doesn’t know what it means to belong,” he said. “But he will.”\n\nThe stars outside gleamed cold and distant.\n\nAnd for a moment, Delta pitied the fox.\n\n\n\n\n\nMorning—if it could be called that in a ship that orbited no sun—came gently.\n\nSoft ambient light brightened the room by degrees, mimicking the slow bloom of dawn. The fox stirred before it reached full brightness, eyes cracking open to a room still too clean, too quiet. His belly ached with the echo of yesterday’s meal. Not from pain. From the unfamiliar fullness of it.\n\nHe sat upright slowly, ears rotating toward the sound that always came just before the door breathed open: a faint hiss and shift, like the ship itself was clearing its throat.\n\nDelta stepped in, holding a tray.\n\nIt was heavier than yesterday’s. The fox could smell the difference before he saw it. A warm, savory scent filled the room—eggs, crisped edges of tubers, something sweet and sharp like unfamiliar fruit, and the rich, impossible warmth of butter melting into toast.\n\nThe fox’s stomach clenched.\n\nDelta carried the tray to the table, moving with the same unhurried confidence as before. No armor, no blade in hand. Just that thick, muscled frame and a casual wariness behind the eyes.\n\nHe set the tray down.\n\nBut didn’t move aside.\n\nInstead, he stood planted between the fox and the food—arms at his sides, not crossed, not tense. Just there. Not a threat.\n\nBut an obstacle.\n\nHis body said it plain: You want it? Then you’re going to have to acknowledge me.\n\nThe fox sat still, curled on the edge of the bed. Watching.\n\nHe didn’t growl.\n\nNot yet.\n\nBut his eyes flicked from the tray, to Delta, to the tray again.\n\nDelta offered no commentary this time. Just waited. Like this wasn’t even a negotiation. Like he had all the time in the universe.\n\nThe fox’s paws flexed once against the sheet.\n\nHe was hungry.\n\nBut the man in front of him wasn’t going to feed him like a beast in a pen. Not today. Today the cost of food was smaller—but trickier.\n\nA gesture.\nA glance.\nA word.\n\nSomething.\n\nThe fox’s tail gave a single flick.\n\nThen he slid off the bed.\n\nNot fast. Not hostile.\n\nJust... deliberate.\n\nHe approached with slow steps, never taking his eyes off Delta. Not even when the scent of eggs hit him full in the face like a lover’s sigh.\n\nHe stopped just out of arm’s reach.\n\nThen lifted his chin. Just slightly.\n\nNot submission.\nNot gratitude.\n\nRecognition.\n\nA silent: You win this one.\n\nDelta's brow quirked—but he didn’t smile.\n\nHe stepped aside.\n\nNo words.\n\nJust space.\n\n\n\nThe fox ate in silence.\n\nNot fast, not defensive—just steady. Methodical. Every bite savored, eyes flicking toward Delta only occasionally, as if to make sure he was still being allowed to eat. As if this too could be taken away if he wasn’t careful.\n\nDelta let him be.\n\nHe moved slowly, deliberately, and sat on the edge of the bed—close, but not touching. Not crowding. The mattress dipped under his weight with a soft creak, and for a moment he just sat there, elbows on knees, staring at the wall as if it might give him an easier answer.\n\nThen he sighed, rubbing the back of his head with one calloused hand.\n\n“Look,” he said, voice rough with something not quite fatigue. “Cavrin—the wolf you spat on…”\n\nThe fox froze mid-chew.\n\nDelta didn’t look at him, not yet.\n\n“…he’s got a certain way he likes to do things. A certain way he likes me to do things. Orders. Structure. Everything measured. Everything controlled. Doesn’t matter if it’s a military op or feeding a feral omega—it’s all lines and angles and outcomes.”\n\nNow he looked at the fox.\n\nNot hard. Not soft.\n\nJust direct.\n\n“But if this is gonna work,” he said, “we’re doing it my way.”\n\nThe fox’s ears flicked. His chewing slowed.\n\nDelta leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees again. His voice dropped, softer now, just above a whisper.\n\n“And that means you need to know what you’re being prepared for, little one.”\n\nThe fox’s body tensed at the phrase. Little one. Not a name, not a slur. Something between. The weight of it settled into the air.\n\nHe didn’t speak. But his eyes locked with Delta’s.\n\nAnd he listened.\n\nDelta held his gaze a moment longer.\n\n“You weren’t taken for punishment,” he said. “Not even for experimentation. You were taken because omegas like you… are dying. Out here. Everywhere. Cavrin’s species is almost sterile now. Their omegas are gone, or past viable. They can’t reproduce. Not naturally. Not safely. And you?”\n\nHe tapped his chest.\n\n“You’re compatible. One of the last known species that can carry and bond with them.”\n\nThe silence thickened like steam.\n\n“You’re not a prisoner anymore,” Delta added, voice low. “You’re a resource.”\n\nThe fox blinked slowly.\nThen dropped his eyes to the tray.\n\nBut the food didn’t move.\n\nBecause for the first time, it didn’t matter how good it smelled.\n\nHe’d just been told what he was.\n\n\n\nThe tray sat untouched now.\n\nThe scent of buttered toast and warm fruit still lingered in the air, but it had lost its power. The fox stared at it, unmoving, the tension in his shoulders coiling tighter with every breath.\n\nDelta watched him for a long moment.\n\nSomething about this one—this blood-streaked, snarl-wired little omega—hit different. Maybe it was the silence, so deliberate. Maybe it was the fire still alive behind the fox’s eyes, refusing to dim even in captivity. Or maybe it was just the weight of the years.\n\nThe other omegas had screamed. Begged. Or gone limp.\n\nThis one?\n\nHe endured.\n\nDelta sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand that was starting to shake more often these days.\n\n“There are things,” he said quietly, “that are going to be expected of you.”\n\nHe paused, just a second too long. Hating himself for what came next.\n\n“It’s my job to make you want them.”\n\nHis voice cracked just a hair on the last word, the shame buried in it only made more real by how little he tried to hide it.\n\n“Do you understand?”\n\nThe fox looked up slowly.\n\nEyes like flint. Burning, yes—but cold in the center. He didn’t speak.\n\nHe just shook his head. No.\n\nAnd somehow, that hurt more than defiance.\n\nDelta exhaled through his nose, dropped his head into his hands for a beat. He wasn’t built for this. Not anymore. Not since the flight deck. Not since he stopped being useful for clean kills and started being repurposed for soft, slow breaking.\n\nWhen he looked back up, his voice was low. Honest.\n\n“I have to teach you,” he said, “how to take an Alpha, little one.”\n\nHis eyes flicked away, jaw tightening.\n\n“And that man is tungsten.”\n\nThe fox flinched at the name.\n\nNot physically. Emotionally. Just a flicker. But Delta saw it.\n\n“You’re not gonna charm him,” Delta continued. “You’re not gonna defy him into respect. You’re not even gonna survive him unless you learn what he needs.”\n\nHe hesitated. Then added, softer:\n\n“What he takes.”\n\nThe room went quiet.\n\nNot dead. Not lifeless.\n\nJust waiting.\n\n\n\nThe silence stretched between them, thick with words unsaid.\n\nDelta didn’t expect a response. He didn’t want one, if he was honest with himself. He’d delivered his truth like a soldier giving a report—just facts, dull around the edges so they’d hurt less going in.\n\nBut the fox looked up.\n\nEyes gleaming, not with tears, but with something heavier. Something older. That deep, hollow ache carved by too many nights chained in the dirt, too many hands that never asked, too many days that blurred into survival.\n\nHis voice came quiet. Ragged.\n\nNot angry. Not pleading.\n\nJust tired.\n\n“Why me?”\n\nTwo words.\n\nAnd they nearly broke Delta in half.\n\nHe inhaled like he’d taken a hit to the ribs, sharp and sudden. His body didn’t move, but his face—his soul—tilted toward the crack.\n\nHe didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t.\n\nBecause how do you tell someone that out of hundreds—thousands—they were chosen not because they were strong, or special, or anything, but because they were compatible?\n\nBecause their body could be used?\n\nBecause the math lined up?\n\nDelta stared down at his hands, knotted together between his knees.\n\nAnd for a moment, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the galaxy.\n\n“You were the one we could get,” he said finally. Quiet. Flat.\n\nIt wasn’t a lie.\n\nBut it wasn’t the whole truth either.\n\nHe swallowed, then looked at the fox—not as a handler. Not as a soldier. But as a man.\n\n“And now you’re the one I have to protect.”\n\nAnother beat.\n\nAnother breath.\n\nHis eyes softened, just barely.\n\n“Even if it’s from what’s coming.”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Chapter 4 - What He Takes:
Delta begins to reckon with what the fox is, what he was taken for, and what’s expected of him next. There are no chains here—but there is training. And training starts with honesty.

The door slid shut behind Delta with a soft hiss, and the glow of the fox’s quarters dimmed to its restful hue.

He didn’t look back.

Didn’t need to.

The corridor outside was quiet—sterile-white walls and soft blue underlighting humming gently beneath his boots as he made his way down the curved spine of the ship. It wasn’t long before he reached the command suite, where the doors parted without needing to be buzzed.

The wolf was waiting.

He stood with his back to the room, hands clasped behind him, posture ramrod-straight. The window before him revealed the distant sprawl of stars, and the subtle arc of the ship's orbital path over the fox’s dead, red world. The planet looked smaller already. Powerless.

The wolf didn’t turn as Delta stepped inside.

“Report,” he said.

Delta folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall, casual—because he knew better than to mirror that posture. You didn’t try to match this male’s stance. You let it be a monolith.

“He ate,” Delta said. “Didn’t take the knife. Took the meat. Smart choice.”

“And?”

Delta shrugged. “Didn’t say a word until I was halfway out the door. Then—” he hesitated, just for a beat, “—he told me they never gave him a name.”

A pause.

Then the wolf finally turned.

Slowly.

His uniform—still immaculate—wasn’t the same one. The white one, the one the fox had spit on, was gone. Probably incinerated. But Delta could see it in the tightness of his jaw. In the barest twitch at the corner of his eye. That insult had landed.

And it was burning there.

He said nothing about it. Not directly.

Instead, he walked past Delta, retrieving a data slate from the central console with a practiced flick of his wrist. He tapped once, twice. Reviewed something.

“He’s still wild,” the wolf said, tone even. “Half-feral. It’ll need to be… trained out.”

“Yeah,” Delta replied. “That’s not gonna be easy.”

“I don’t require easy.”

The words cut clean.

Delta held back a sigh. “You know he’s not just scared. He’s angry. That spit? That wasn’t a cry for help. That was him daring you to kill him.”

The wolf’s eyes lifted.

“I’m aware.”

And there it was again—that unshakable calm. But beneath it, barely contained, was the kind of pride that had built empires and burned bridges for the insult of a wrong look. The kind that remembered every offense and forgave none.

The fox had marked him. Challenged him.

And the wolf hadn’t responded.

Yet.

“He’s going to test every inch of the leash,” Delta said, softer this time. “You sure you’re ready to hold it?”

The wolf didn’t answer right away.

Then, finally, he set the slate down and turned back to the window, hands folding once more behind his back.

“He doesn’t know what it means to belong,” he said. “But he will.”

The stars outside gleamed cold and distant.

And for a moment, Delta pitied the fox.





Morning—if it could be called that in a ship that orbited no sun—came gently.

Soft ambient light brightened the room by degrees, mimicking the slow bloom of dawn. The fox stirred before it reached full brightness, eyes cracking open to a room still too clean, too quiet. His belly ached with the echo of yesterday’s meal. Not from pain. From the unfamiliar fullness of it.

He sat upright slowly, ears rotating toward the sound that always came just before the door breathed open: a faint hiss and shift, like the ship itself was clearing its throat.

Delta stepped in, holding a tray.

It was heavier than yesterday’s. The fox could smell the difference before he saw it. A warm, savory scent filled the room—eggs, crisped edges of tubers, something sweet and sharp like unfamiliar fruit, and the rich, impossible warmth of butter melting into toast.

The fox’s stomach clenched.

Delta carried the tray to the table, moving with the same unhurried confidence as before. No armor, no blade in hand. Just that thick, muscled frame and a casual wariness behind the eyes.

He set the tray down.

But didn’t move aside.

Instead, he stood planted between the fox and the food—arms at his sides, not crossed, not tense. Just there. Not a threat.

But an obstacle.

His body said it plain: You want it? Then you’re going to have to acknowledge me.

The fox sat still, curled on the edge of the bed. Watching.

He didn’t growl.

Not yet.

But his eyes flicked from the tray, to Delta, to the tray again.

Delta offered no commentary this time. Just waited. Like this wasn’t even a negotiation. Like he had all the time in the universe.

The fox’s paws flexed once against the sheet.

He was hungry.

But the man in front of him wasn’t going to feed him like a beast in a pen. Not today. Today the cost of food was smaller—but trickier.

A gesture.
A glance.
A word.

Something.

The fox’s tail gave a single flick.

Then he slid off the bed.

Not fast. Not hostile.

Just... deliberate.

He approached with slow steps, never taking his eyes off Delta. Not even when the scent of eggs hit him full in the face like a lover’s sigh.

He stopped just out of arm’s reach.

Then lifted his chin. Just slightly.

Not submission.
Not gratitude.

Recognition.

A silent: You win this one.

Delta's brow quirked—but he didn’t smile.

He stepped aside.

No words.

Just space.



The fox ate in silence.

Not fast, not defensive—just steady. Methodical. Every bite savored, eyes flicking toward Delta only occasionally, as if to make sure he was still being allowed to eat. As if this too could be taken away if he wasn’t careful.

Delta let him be.

He moved slowly, deliberately, and sat on the edge of the bed—close, but not touching. Not crowding. The mattress dipped under his weight with a soft creak, and for a moment he just sat there, elbows on knees, staring at the wall as if it might give him an easier answer.

Then he sighed, rubbing the back of his head with one calloused hand.

“Look,” he said, voice rough with something not quite fatigue. “Cavrin—the wolf you spat on…”

The fox froze mid-chew.

Delta didn’t look at him, not yet.

“…he’s got a certain way he likes to do things. A certain way he likes me to do things. Orders. Structure. Everything measured. Everything controlled. Doesn’t matter if it’s a military op or feeding a feral omega—it’s all lines and angles and outcomes.”

Now he looked at the fox.

Not hard. Not soft.

Just direct.

“But if this is gonna work,” he said, “we’re doing it my way.”

The fox’s ears flicked. His chewing slowed.

Delta leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees again. His voice dropped, softer now, just above a whisper.

“And that means you need to know what you’re being prepared for, little one.”

The fox’s body tensed at the phrase. Little one. Not a name, not a slur. Something between. The weight of it settled into the air.

He didn’t speak. But his eyes locked with Delta’s.

And he listened.

Delta held his gaze a moment longer.

“You weren’t taken for punishment,” he said. “Not even for experimentation. You were taken because omegas like you… are dying. Out here. Everywhere. Cavrin’s species is almost sterile now. Their omegas are gone, or past viable. They can’t reproduce. Not naturally. Not safely. And you?”

He tapped his chest.

“You’re compatible. One of the last known species that can carry and bond with them.”

The silence thickened like steam.

“You’re not a prisoner anymore,” Delta added, voice low. “You’re a resource.”

The fox blinked slowly.
Then dropped his eyes to the tray.

But the food didn’t move.

Because for the first time, it didn’t matter how good it smelled.

He’d just been told what he was.



The tray sat untouched now.

The scent of buttered toast and warm fruit still lingered in the air, but it had lost its power. The fox stared at it, unmoving, the tension in his shoulders coiling tighter with every breath.

Delta watched him for a long moment.

Something about this one—this blood-streaked, snarl-wired little omega—hit different. Maybe it was the silence, so deliberate. Maybe it was the fire still alive behind the fox’s eyes, refusing to dim even in captivity. Or maybe it was just the weight of the years.

The other omegas had screamed. Begged. Or gone limp.

This one?

He endured.

Delta sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand that was starting to shake more often these days.

“There are things,” he said quietly, “that are going to be expected of you.”

He paused, just a second too long. Hating himself for what came next.

“It’s my job to make you want them.”

His voice cracked just a hair on the last word, the shame buried in it only made more real by how little he tried to hide it.

“Do you understand?”

The fox looked up slowly.

Eyes like flint. Burning, yes—but cold in the center. He didn’t speak.

He just shook his head. No.

And somehow, that hurt more than defiance.

Delta exhaled through his nose, dropped his head into his hands for a beat. He wasn’t built for this. Not anymore. Not since the flight deck. Not since he stopped being useful for clean kills and started being repurposed for soft, slow breaking.

When he looked back up, his voice was low. Honest.

“I have to teach you,” he said, “how to take an Alpha, little one.”

His eyes flicked away, jaw tightening.

“And that man is tungsten.”

The fox flinched at the name.

Not physically. Emotionally. Just a flicker. But Delta saw it.

“You’re not gonna charm him,” Delta continued. “You’re not gonna defy him into respect. You’re not even gonna survive him unless you learn what he needs.”

He hesitated. Then added, softer:

“What he takes.”

The room went quiet.

Not dead. Not lifeless.

Just waiting.



The silence stretched between them, thick with words unsaid.

Delta didn’t expect a response. He didn’t want one, if he was honest with himself. He’d delivered his truth like a soldier giving a report—just facts, dull around the edges so they’d hurt less going in.

But the fox looked up.

Eyes gleaming, not with tears, but with something heavier. Something older. That deep, hollow ache carved by too many nights chained in the dirt, too many hands that never asked, too many days that blurred into survival.

His voice came quiet. Ragged.

Not angry. Not pleading.

Just tired.

“Why me?”

Two words.

And they nearly broke Delta in half.

He inhaled like he’d taken a hit to the ribs, sharp and sudden. His body didn’t move, but his face—his soul—tilted toward the crack.

He didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t.

Because how do you tell someone that out of hundreds—thousands—they were chosen not because they were strong, or special, or anything, but because they were compatible?

Because their body could be used?

Because the math lined up?

Delta stared down at his hands, knotted together between his knees.

And for a moment, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the galaxy.

“You were the one we could get,” he said finally. Quiet. Flat.

It wasn’t a lie.

But it wasn’t the whole truth either.

He swallowed, then looked at the fox—not as a handler. Not as a soldier. But as a man.

“And now you’re the one I have to protect.”

Another beat.

Another breath.

His eyes softened, just barely.

“Even if it’s from what’s coming.”", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Breed Standard - Chapter 4: What He Takes", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/plain", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "54" }