His Omega, His Ruin

The Chase

He told me to run.

And for the first time in my life, the command didn't make me feel like prey. It made me feel like a challenge.

In my old pack, running had been an act of desperation—a frantic scramble away from punishment, away from mockery, away from whatever I had done wrong this time. But looking into Magnus's burning gold eyes, I understood that this was something else entirely. He wasn't trying to drive me away. He was begging me to give him an outlet. He needed the hunt—the pursuit, the primal satisfaction of closing the distance—and deep in the marrow of my bones, I realized I needed it too.

I was done being the thing that ran from its fate.

I turned and bolted—not toward the safety of the guest wing but straight for the double glass doors at the end of the corridor that opened onto the walled garden. A sound tore from his throat behind me, half groan and half breathless laugh, followed by the heavy, thundering cadence of boots hitting stone.

He was coming.

The thrill of it shot through my veins like something intoxicating, hotter and fiercer than any fear I had ever known. I burst through the doors and the cold mountain air hit my flushed cheeks like a slap. I scrambled down the stone steps and into the damp twilight.

The garden was a maze of dormant hedges and ancient oaks, the ground carpeted in wet, decaying leaves that smelled of earth and autumn. I had no plan. I just ran, my feet slipping on the wet grass, my lungs burning with the sharp cold. I could hear him gaining—his movements heavy and deliberate.

He wasn't using his full speed. I knew that instinctively. If he wanted me caught, I'd have been caught before I cleared the steps. He was savoring it. Letting the anticipation build. Letting me feel the wildness of the night.

A twig snapped to my left. I veered right, dodging behind the trunk of a massive weeping willow, pressing my back against the rough bark and clapping a hand over my mouth to muffle a giggle that was bubbling up from somewhere I hadn't heard from in a very long time.

The silence that followed was charged with static.

Then his warmth wrapped around the other side of the tree before I could react.

I squealed—pure, unadulterated joy—and bolted again. Three steps. That was all I managed. An arm like a steel band wrapped around my waist and lifted me off my feet, and we were falling together, his body twisting in midair with impossible grace to take the impact, cushioning me against his chest as we rolled through the leaves.

We came to a stop with him above me, his weight pressing me into the damp earth.

The world was still spinning, a blur of grey sky and bare branches. But he was the only thing in focus. He was panting, his breath coming in ragged clouds of steam, his hair wild and dark with mist. The gold glow in his eyes had softened—the fever still there, but the dangerous edge burned away, replaced by something open and undisguised and breathtakingly warm.

The weight of him was heavy against me in a way that felt nothing like being trapped. It felt like being held. Like the earth itself had pressed us together and decided to keep it that way.

He brushed a wet leaf from my cheek, his fingers trembling slightly with the effort to be gentle after all that velocity. He looked at me the way people looked at riddles they had finally solved—open, unguarded, awed.

"You stopped running," he murmured. His voice was rough and deep, vibrating between us where our bodies were pressed together. "You could have made it to the gate. You could have hidden in the greenhouse. But you stopped."

I looked up at him. At the man who had turned a hunt into a game just to hear me laugh. At the king who had knelt in the mud for an Omega nobody wanted.

"Because I didn't want to get away," I whispered. I reached up and tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him down. "I wanted to be caught."

His mouth found mine, and this time, he didn't hold back.