tries to kill Josh a couple of times. He's psychologically broken and morally shaken, and honestly, who wouldn't be with brothers like his?

One thing I appreciated is that there's no r4pe in the story. In fact, Chase is deeply disturbed by the possibility that he might have ab*sed Josh during their first encounter, but Josh reassures him that it was consensual. Josh is the only person Chase has ever been with.

For one thing, the previous chapter is them on the road to the hospital, apparently just to get Chase checked out because him overdosing on meds and going catatonic isn't a big deal because he's a dominant alpha and overdoses don't affect him that much and he kinda half snapped out of it. They get to the hospital, talk with a shady doctor, then leave and run into a suspicious accident on the road—which turns out to be an ambush. The next chapter is them literally being chased by other cars and dodging sprays of bullets as Josh has to weave the car in and out of traffic and avoid machine-gun-wielding semi-truck drivers trying to crush their car between the trucks, resulting in him having to do enough fancy driving to put the Fast & the Furious franchise to shame, before being forced off road into the aforementioned desert where they end up eventually escaping but running out of gas and lost in the desert.

All of this came out of nowhere and was pretty jarring considering the pace and focus of the story beforehand. And also, like, way too 80s/90s-action-movie clichéd. I felt like I was reading a crossover fanfic of this novel with Terminator 2.

It was also pretty weird to me how the bodyguards whipped out their guns and were firing back, all guns blazing, because... again, yeah, private security sure, okay, but I think the legal repercussions of all this in the US would be, uh, really harsh. Where's the California Highway Patrol during all this? Where are the regular cops? How many other cars are there on the freeway or streets, as I'm not sure where they actually are, and it's so underdescribed I'm not sure how much other traffic there is? And this is happening in broad daylight! Literally it says one of the truck drivers is shooting at them with a machine gun! (Depending on the translation you read, mind you.)

Anyway, once lost in the desert, the other bodyguard (they were split into two cars, Chase and Josh and the head bodyguard in one car, and the other bodyguards and secretary in another car, and they got separated on the road) decides to walk out into the desert with apparently no cellphone and no bearings and no supplies in the hopes of finding help (the story doesn't address this but I'm assuming that they don't have reception out in the desert, but that's a big assumption as the story literally doesn't mention their phones at all). Chase and Josh remain with the broken-down fuel-less car.

Blah blah, at night the desert gets very cold (this is true), and suddenly in the night a pack of coyotes decides to attack them (this is dumb). For one thing, the guys are inside the car, which only has a broken back window. But omg, the coyotes are sooo fierce and proud and think these two humans in a metal box are easy prey so they keep trying to get through the broken window to attack them! Mind you, because details were sketchy, it's possible that while Chase was in the back seat, Josh was outside the car still because he'd been trying to exercise to warm up—but even if so, he was literally right next to the car and could've just gotten inside and closed the door.

Somehow I doubt a pack of coyotes would have the courage and resourcefulness to try to jump onto the back of the car to attack them through the back window. But that's exactly what they do, and Josh has to fight them off using his bare hands and a wrench from the toolkit in the trunk while Chase has a panic attack and is unable to do anything before dramatically fainting while the coyotes take bites out of Josh.

When Chase wakes up, Josh is covered in blood from his multiple bite wounds to his arms and apparently his face too because at one point Chase wonders if Josh's beautiful face will be scarred, and instead of trying to use his clothes as bandages or tie a tourniquet or something, Josh's bright idea to stop his massive bleeding was to sneak cigarettes off of Chase while he was unconscious and smoke them since the nicotine will help constrict his blood vessels.

I... I don't think that's how it works, Josh.

So in the very beginning of the story when the security company accepts Chase as a client, they're told that there's been a kidnapping threat against Chase by a cult that wants to imprison him and sell his valuable dominant alpha s**en to the highest bidder. Uh. Sure.

Aside from the previously mentioned BULLETHELL DESERT VAMPIRE SURVIVOR chapters, nothing further happens on this front until nearly the end of volume 3, where Chase is abruptly kidnapped and rescued within I'm pretty sure it was a single chapter, and afterward he basically just goes home and has it out with Josh after discovering during the rescue that Josh is an omega, because his earpiece got knocked off during the fight and the tape on his ear coincidentally also came off and suddenly everyone in the room noticed he had a mark on his ear despite, you know, a bunch of h*rny attempted-r*pist terrorist omegas fighting tooth and nail with each other (to try to be the one to get with Chase) and with the bodyguard rescue team. The kidnapping is never mentioned again and there is zero explanation or description of any kind of aftermath or followup.

An arrogant new model-turned-actor who has an inferiority complex deliberately provokes Chase during a joint interview for their new movie, saying a bunch of really awful stuff that yeah, no, he'd be instantly canceled for ranging from insulting Chase by saying he has no talent and can't actually act, he's just standing around being pretty, and all his massive success is solely due to being a dominant alpha, and btw there's rumors that he sleeps with dogs lol is he really that into bestiality and if so, why doesn't he go to Denmark where he can sleep with dog prostit**es? (Yeah, nobody stops the guy running his mouth, neither his manager who may or may not be present, and certainly not the interviewer, who is simply excited because he wants there to be a scandal so the interview will go viral.)

So Chase endures it all with a poker face, then gets up, walks over to the guy, and kisses him in front of the cameras and crew—and bites his tongue off. And then spits the tongue out and laughs wildly as the guy screams and bleeds everywhere and people call for an ambulance.

And Chase is allowed to just get into a car and go back home. Uh, hello, s*xual and physical assault charges? Possibly attempted mu*der, as you can totally bleed to death if your tongue is cut/bitten off? Where is this place's own security? Nobody tries to stop him from leaving or call the police? He did this all while the cameras were rolling! It wasn't a live interview as far as I'm aware but his attack has literally been recorded from multiple angles. His career would be finished.

But nothing happens. He just continues on like normal, going to filming and etc. The incident is briefly referenced apparently months later when his secretary tells him that oh btw that actor whose tongue you bit off has finally recovered from surgery and is threatening to sue if you don't pay for his medical expenses and additional compensation. Uh. I don't think he'd wait months to demand money, I think he would have immediately filed charges for physical and s*xual assault and landed Chase's a** in jail as there is video proof of what happened.

So his brother Grayson, who is one of those cruel smuggo manipulative types who is so psycho that he literally can't see how he's being cruel, forced a young (?) Chase to have s*x with a dog during one of his ruts... maybe. It's unclear for a very long time if this really happened or is possibly Grayson manipulating Chase to think it did. He's been using this (possible) incident ever since to further control and manipulate Chase "for his own good", and claims he doesn't see anything wrong with forcing his little brother to f*** a dog because a hole is a hole and he has to get through his rut, so what's the problem. (If you read Kiss Me Liar, yes, this is the same incident/rumor that doctor guy referenced to Yeonwoo.)

Like... I don't know, the whole thing is really weird to me, even beyond the bestiality. Yes, dominant alphas in this version of the omegaverse can basically go crazy if they don't "release their pheromones" periodically and their ruts can be equally crazy, but given how the repeated emphasis is still on "pheromones" (and omegas), it doesn't seem to me like he'd unconsciously willingly engage in bestiality. It seems more like he'd just go violent. Because it's also largely implied/told from Grayson's unreliable mouth, it's unclear exactly what happened.

Eventually some chapters later, Grayson more explicitly reveals to Josh that actually, nah, bestiality didn't happen, he just made Chase think it did in order to try to get him to release his pheromones better or something as Chase refuses to have s*x with other people, and again, he did it for Chase's own good and doesn't think he did anything wrong.

In particular, a top who doesn't assault/rape/ab*se their partner and is even horrified at the mere thought that he might have. Somewhere in Vol 3, Chase even asks Josh, in horror, if he had r*ped Josh, and if that was how they had conceived Pete. (Of course Josh vehemently denies that any r*pe happened!)

Their fistfight in volume 1 will always be one of my all-time favorite scenes in BL. There's nothing else better to develop chemistry between two characters than to have them throw hands lol except sex

For better or worse, it seems like Grayson is the only one among Chase's family who actually shows a little bit of care for him. Grayson admits to Josh all the bullying he's done to Chase when they were children, and the sick joke about him having s*x with a dog, but still, it seems that Grayson forcibly brings him to or*y parties so that he can expel pheromones (and not go insane). In Side Story 1, Grayson is the one who searches for Josh for the sake of Chase, who falls into a rut. In the main story, I saw Grayson as a despicable SOB, but in the side story he kind of redeemed himself in my eyes a little.

Learning what ML had to go through made me so livid. Same how MC reacted. Punch the mfq responsible for ml’s trauma

Oh god, I was so sad because ML has severe phobia of dogs thats explained in the novel (its pretty fcked up), but he still fought against it to save the mc’s child without even knowing its his child as well.

coyote scene, which I found to be so improbable and unlikely that it stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.)

his first reaction being horrified that he could have r*ped MC, when it was really more him that was the one being taken advantage of?? He was the one in rut after all : (

I think Chase and Pete's meeting was dragged, the only thing dragging in the story fortunately, but I think it could have been solved quicker and better, the paternity confession was a bit anticlimactic.

I'm curious about how they will develop like the wedding, how their family dynamics are going to be, how Pete will adapt to his new life, etc