Teru squinted to get a better look at the mirror's reflection. The moonlight illuminated his birthmark like a black light. The swirl Nolan said was an unfortunate blemish changed. It had split apart into four smaller swirls placed beside each other, two on top and two on the bottom.

A fresh ring of teeth marks encircled the new design. A tiny amount of red seeped out from the holes. If vampire fangs had bitten him instead, there would've been a lot more bleeding. Kieran's body instinctually knew to alter his fang size to inflict as little pain as possible, not wanting to distress the omega.

"What-why-I don't understand," Teru said, bewildered. "How is this possible?" He touched it, thinking Kieran was playing a prank on him by drawing three additional swirls with a white marker. The permanent engraving didn't smear away.

Kieran wrapped his arms around him and emitted calming pheromones to soothe Teru's rising anxiety. "Most are familiar with the deadly sins. Many can identify our symbols, too, such as my lion. Have you heard of the seven virtues?"

Teru recalled the stories his pack narrated to the pups at night with hand puppets and overdramatic body movements. Not one mentioned virtues. "No, I don't know what they are."

"I thought so. The virtues are not well known, especially in these times where humans only notice the evil in this world. For every sin, there is a neutralizer. They stand in opposition to us and help manage our impact on mortal society. Some scholars embodied the relationship as a deadly conflict between virtue and vice. In reality, it was simply a way to get humans to reflect on their immoral thoughts and behaviors. It's never existed in a physical form, only written in books and scrolls. Your mark proves that's not the case. This one," Kieran said, tracing over the logo with a finger, "is the symbol for Pride's virtue, humility. You must've been born with it half-formed, waiting for me to awake it from its dormancy and complete the design."

"Humility..." Teru didn't know how to feel about this development. Stupefied? Pleased? Both?

"It makes sense," Kieran pondered. "Your humble personality baffled Pride often, but not in a bad way."

In a flurry of movement, the alpha moved them so Teru lay on top. Kieran's hand rested on Teru's nape. He was unable to stop touching it, wanting to verify it wasn't fake, either. The white tattoo was clearly visible, but unbelievable to comprehend.

Teru settled in and crossed his arms over Kieran's chest. With sleepy, half-closed eyes, he observed the vampire's peaceful face. It was nice seeing such a rare expression. With the recent chaos, it was hard to be tranquil. The tune of their purring signified they were happy.

"Are you sure I'm a virtue? I don't feel any different," Teru asked, still not convinced he was blessed with such an important title. Teru, a human who was originally destined to live out his life in the caves, was supposedly someone meant to offset a sin? The most deadly one, at that! He was surprisingly not against it, not one bit. In fact, he wanted to...embrace it?

"I'd give up my fangs if I didn't think so. You are already the personification of humility, so I doubt you changed that much."

"What am I supposed to do, then? You said a virtue's role is to 'help manage' their vice. If I'm humility, how do I go about this? Humble the shit out of you?"

Kieran bellowed out a laugh. His human canines glistened under the grayish light beaming through the bedroom windows. "You should work on your filthy vocabulary. It's unbecoming."

It was Teru's turn to giggle. "You said the same thing on my first day living with you."

"I remember. I don't like hearing profanity leave your pretty lips."

A deviant sparkle brightened his eyes. "Shit."

"Don't say that," Kieran smirked.

"Fuck."

"Stop."

"Taint-"

He covered Teru's dirty mouth with his hand, amused. "You're done. Where did you even learn that word?"

From Blaise, but Kieran didn't need to know that. They lay there longer on the bed, occasionally laughing at the stupid conversation.

"To be honest, little one, I don't know what you're meant to do as a virtue. I've never heard of this happening to my siblings." Kieran brushed his fingers through Teru's black hair. "Just be by my side. In the meantime, I'm still planning when to leave the city. We should stay out of the public eye as much as possible because I do not know how others will react. That means you can't go to Abaddon's party in a few months-little one?"

Most of his words went over Teru's head. His face was pressing into the muscular chest under him, inhaling the mint pheromones he was so desperate to smell on himself instead. The tone of his purr was on par with the alpha's, lowering a few bars as he traveled upward in search of the sweet spot. There, the scent gland. Teru licked between Kieran's shoulder and neck. His canines tingled. They grazed on the skin to leave tiny knicks, infusing his own scent into his alpha-a scent that was now saturated in cinnamon, spicy enough to burn one's nose.

Mine.

The searing pheromones sent him into a fever dream. He purred in torment as his uterus's pocket dilated more.

"I'm so hot," he whimpered. The first wave was starting.

The gland inside him worked overtime, pumping out the liquid that would help his hole accept the thickest of shafts. The evidence of his beginning heat left a pool of slick on Kieran's stomach. Yet, he did not feel an ounce of shame about the mess he was making. He wanted the dominant alpha to smell it, to let it induce his rut and use his body as a breeding ground.

"Teru," the vampire rumbled.

Right. That was his name. This was Kieran, his destined partner. Teru sat up until his spine straightened, straddling Kieran between his thighs. Big hands gripped his quivering hips, kneading the plump fat from the weight he's gained recently.

SQUELCH. The thick dollop of slick that had collected on Kieran squished under his weight. Can he smell his dripping arousal? Did he want to taste it? See it?

He surveyed his mate with fogged eyes, a thin layer of film obscuring his sanity to take this slowly. There was no time. His uterus would close in days. The mewling sound in his throat was desperate. Kieran stared back with need. No, that wasn't the expression Teru wanted. This alpha wasn't aggressive enough.

"HNNN," Teru inwardly groaned when his uterus cramped up, finishing the process to allow in seed. He accidentally scratched his bottom lip with his sharp canines. They had extended until resembling baby vampire fangs. Though he couldn't see them, his dark irises were likely laced with gold.

The dominant omega was here.

A drop of blood trickled out from the split skin. Kieran's red eyes zoned in on the bead, watching it make a maroon trail down his chin. Oh, is that what he wanted? It gave the sly human an idea.

"Stay still," he ordered Kieran, letting a flowery scent blend with his heat pheromones. The man had no choice but not to move a muscle. This had to work. It was going to work. An omega in heat needed an alpha in rut.

Teru gently wiped the crimson drop with his pointer finger. He turned around, giving the alpha a direct view of his slick-coated hole. It fluttered with anticipation of what he was about to do.

"Teru." Kieran's voice was gravely low, frustrated he couldn't move to take the lead and subdue this cheeky little omega. He was on the verge of growling in that octave tone only a dominant alpha can sound, the one that would make Teru orgasm. That's it. Almost there.

A green glimmer sparkled in the air like fireflies. The video said destined mates could see color in their partner's pheromones since their souls became one entity. After a fated pair sealed the bond, it activated a new part in the brain capable of seeing them. Emerald green. This must've been Kieran's hue. The darkened room with only the moon's light to guide them made the pretty color shimmer and glow around them. What color did Kieran see in Teru's scent? He'd ask that later. There were more pressing matters. For instance, the swollen cock in front of him, twitching to fill him up with undomesticated rut.

His hand slipped between his legs, over his sack, and lightly touched his puckering entrance with the finger stained with blood. The pad of his digit parted his hole until it penetrated the inner tissue. The length of his finger was certainly nowhere near what he required for his inner whore to be satisfied. Still, it was nice to tease the squirming alpha who wanted to do it himself. The dominant omega's pheromone spell wouldn't let him. It locked Kieran under his command to remain there, only able to watch Teru's displaying sex gleaming with slick and blood.

Removing his finger, his ass wiggled as he veered backward, inches from Kieran's face. He offered the homemade treat to the alpha for being a patient boy.

"Eat," the omega in unrestrained heat instructed him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blaise's eyes rolled to the back of his head as the alpha vampire behind him plunged four fingers into his well-lubricated hole. Since he was a dominant alpha, his body couldn't produce such wonderful juice on its own. Oh, how he wished he could, always wishing he was born as an omega. Why were the deadly sins all alphas, anyway?

After the fun meeting, he called up a boy toy of his. Blaise's favorite position was presenting, the one omegas instinctually wanted to curl into and let their partner go to town on their sodden folds. He fake moaned into the hotel pillow, waiting for this rookie to hurry and make him come. Time to take him off speed dial. It was so difficult finding a worthy alpha who gave a shit about his wants and needs. Was that so much to ask for?

He gasped. Blaise roughly shoved the man away. This disturbance-

"Yo, what the fuck?" the useless alpha asked, pissed.

"Shut up!" Lust belted. He needed to think. This was too important to worry about emptying their balls right now. He could sense it.

No. Fucking. Way.

A virtue was born.

She sat at the dinner table, enjoying her fifth glass of the best-quality blood her business produced. This specific type was from a line of human betas she carefully bred at the blood farm. It was a lineage that took seventy years to painstakingly create.

Despite the impeccable quality, the sponsors were breathing down her neck to come up with a new taste to sell to the masses.

New, my ass.

Gluttony took a big gulp until the glass was empty. She felt the smooth crystal in her hands, wishing she could gaze at the clear material with her eyes. Unfortunately, it's been so long since she's been able to see.

The expensive cup fell from her hands, breaking into several shards across the floor. She heard her blood slave gasp and fetch the broom to clean it up.

This feeling...

One of her prophecies came true at that moment.

"A new taste, indeed."

The twins were in their penthouse, surrounded by the finest things life had to offer. Ashantee snapped her fingers as she lay in her spa chair, being treated by a private nail technician to re-do her toes. Her blood slave quickly responded to the summon, placing a straw in her mouth so she could drink from her O- blood type cocktail.

Ashantee didn't bother taking off the cucumber slices covering her eyes when she complained to her tired sister, "Koko, let's go to the blood slave auction tomorrow at the theater. I hear they're showing imported alphas from Spain. Koko?"

She sighed because Sloth was in her own sleepy daydreams again. At least Greed made their environment posh and comfortable for Koko, whose disability was the desire for ease. It made her unable to work and have a productive life. It was a disease, really.

"Ugh, if only I could get my hands on our brother's omega-"

The two squealed, startling the nail tech. The tip of the nail bottle brush made a long streak of hot pink on Greed's foot.

"Did you feel that?" Sloth asked, fully awake.

"I did! I want a virtue! How can I get one?"

Charles was in his office after another long workday, examining Ravi's files. The poor thing was experiencing PPD, or postpartum depression. It was a common condition for mothers who recently gave birth. Symptoms were having difficulties bonding with their pup, sadness, lack of energy, and even suicidal tendencies. Ravi displayed all of these.

Frankly, it was no surprise given how he conceived the pup. According to the nurse, he woke up violently in his hospital bed today, screaming at the sire in his nightmares to get off of him. If only Charles could abolish that breeding program. That disgusting serum he created to forcefully induce ruts and heats would forever stain his oath to protect patients. He should've let Abaddon take his license away rather than complying with the blackmail. But, what would Wrath focus on to regulate its anger if he couldn't practice medicine anymore?

He glanced up when his sin jolted from its slumber. "Interesting. I want to run some tests."

This would surely make the record books.

Tristan scratched, and scratched, and scratched at his nape until a steady stream of blood fell down his backside. If he didn't stop, the spot would look like Kieran's scar, all red and smooth.

Pride, he thought bitterly. He was always treated better for being the firstborn.

Tristan was recuperating in his empty apartment. He was no longer the worst sin, forced to relinquish the title fair-and-square. All he wanted was to be number one, to use the job as a distraction from the stinging anguish that he's felt since that day. His nails dug deeper through muscle matter until he felt bone. The itching was in there, waiting to be emptied of its spinal cord fluid. This was the hundredth time doing this, but maybe it'll work today? Just a tad more and-

Envy stopped hurting himself at the disruption.

He lay on the wooden floor where there was no furniture around him. Old and new bloodstains seeped into the floorboards from years of self-mutilation. There was no mate to mark anymore, to help him get through this. Tristan's haunted eyes peered through the glass balcony doors. The full moon was vivid tonight, brightening the outline of his injured figure, one that was wounded body and soul.

"Looks like he found his virtue, too."

The queen sat on her throne in the dark with only the stars to give her light. In all of her years of being alive, formed by God's hand Himself, a virtue never had the opportunity to awaken before. She wanted to meet him, the virtue that went under her radar for two decades.

"I should pay my son a visit."

The king scoured his hideout, trying to recover old papers regarding Ryoma. They were around here somewhere. He needed that paperwork.

There was a spiritual shift in the air. Abaddon paused and scrunched the sheets in his hands. This sixth sense singing in holiness was horrid to him. It needed to be exterminated with some discipline, tethered to his bedframe poles with a ball gag in the omega's mouth.