Chapter 4
Min-ho
Six hours of waiting had done nothing to settle the fire in my blood.
The alpha staging area occupied the west wing of the facility, all leather armchairs and mahogany tables and a bar stocked with whiskey that cost more per glass than most people earned in a day.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the preserve, miles of forest rolling toward the mountains, green and gold under the afternoon sun.
Somewhere in that wilderness, Dalvin was running.
I stood apart from the other alphas. Watched them drink and boast and compare strategies, their voices too loud in the hushed space.
Some had spread maps across the tables, marking terrain features, discussing optimal routes.
Others lounged with the lazy confidence of men who had done this before, who treated The Chase as sport rather than survival.
A cluster near the fireplace laughed at something one of them said. I caught fragments of the conversation. Comparing scent samples. Rating omegas on a scale of one to ten. Debating which ones would be easy catches and which would require effort.
My jaw tightened until my teeth ached.
These men saw The Chase as entertainment.
A weekend getaway with a guaranteed prize at the end.
They would return to their lives afterward with bonded omegas on their arms, trophies to display at dinner parties, warm bodies to fill their beds.
It didn't matter to them whether those omegas wanted to be there.
The system was designed to ensure compliance, and compliance was enough.
None of them understood what was at stake. None of them cared.
Garrett appeared at my elbow with two glasses of water. He handed me one without comment. We'd agreed early that morning to stay sharp, stay sober, stay focused. The whiskey could wait until Dalvin was safe.
"I've got a name," Garrett said quietly. "Vernon's proxy. Drake Mercer."
I turned to look at him. "How?"
"Bartender's chatty when you tip well enough. Mercer's been making calls all morning, not bothering to lower his voice. Mentioned the senator by name twice." Garrett's mouth pressed into a thin line. "He's former military. Private security now. The kind of work that doesn't show up on LinkedIn."
"Retrieval specialist."
"That's the polite term." Garrett nodded toward the far corner of the room. "Blond, buzz cut, sitting alone. Hasn't touched a drink. Hasn't talked to anyone except on his phone."
I followed his gaze. Drake Mercer sat with his back to the wall, watching the room with the patient stillness of a predator conserving energy.
Everything about him screamed professional.
The way he held himself, coiled and ready.
The way his eyes tracked movement without his head turning.
The tactical watch on his wrist, the kind with GPS and encrypted communication built in.
He wasn't here for romance. He wasn't here for tradition. He was here to collect a target and deliver it to a client.
"He'll have backup," I said. "Outside the preserve, waiting for his signal."
"Already confirmed. My contact at the front gate clocked two vehicles with Virginia plates parked at the extraction point. Four men total, not counting Mercer."
Five against two. Those weren't odds I loved, but they weren't impossible either. Mercer would be focused on Dalvin. His backup would be focused on extraction. Garrett and I only needed to keep them off balance long enough for me to make the claim.
After that, the law was on our side. A completed bond couldn't be challenged by a previous alpha. Vernon could rage and threaten and deploy his army of lawyers, but Dalvin would be mine, and there wasn't a court in the country that could undo it.
"The plan stays the same," I said. "I find Dalvin. You run interference on Mercer."
"And if Mercer finds him first?"
I didn't answer. The possibility existed, sharp and cold in the back of my mind, but I refused to give it weight. Dalvin had a six-hour head start. He was smart, resourceful, had survived a year on the run from one of the most powerful men in the country. He wouldn't be easy to catch.
But the memory of the ceremony wouldn't leave me alone.
Dalvin across the hall in white linen, barefoot, his brown hair styled but his eyes wild with fear.
The sharp line of his collarbone visible at the open throat of his shirt.
The way his hands had clasped in front of him, knuckles white with tension.
He was thinner than I remembered, angles where there should have been curves, his body pared down to essentials by a year of running.
And then the moment he'd looked up and seen me.
His lips had parted. His pupils had blown wide.
His scent had bloomed, flooding the air with honeyed arousal so intense I'd felt it across twenty feet of stone floor, felt it wrap around me and demand response.
My own body had answered before I could stop it, heat flooding my veins, my scent sharpening with possession and want.
He'd recognized me. After twelve years, he'd known me instantly.
And then he'd run.
Not toward the eastern ridge, where the smart omegas went, where the terrain offered cover and defensible positions. He'd run blind, panicked, fleeing from me with the same desperate energy he'd use to flee from Mercer.
I scared him. The thought sat heavy in my chest, an iron weight I couldn't set down. After everything Vernon had done to him, I scared him too.
The release horn shattered the silence.
Alphas surged toward the doors, a tide of aggression and adrenaline pouring into the afternoon light. Some sprinted immediately, eager and reckless. Others moved with more calculation, checking gear, consulting maps, forming loose alliances with other hunters.
I shouldered my pack and walked.
The preserve swallowed me within minutes.
Dense pine forest closed around the path, the air thick with the scent of resin and damp earth.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy in broken shafts, illuminating drifts of fallen needles and the occasional flash of a stream cutting through the undergrowth.
Birds scattered at my approach, their alarm calls echoing through the trees.
The pack on my back held everything I might need for three days in the wilderness.
Water purification tablets. Protein bars and dried fruit.
A compact sleeping bag rated for mountain temperatures.
A first aid kit, because The Chase didn't pause for injuries.
And comfort items I'd added on impulse. A bar of good chocolate.
A soft cloth for cleaning wounds. A spare jacket in case Dalvin was cold when I found him.
If I found him. When I found him.
I moved steadily, not rushing, reading the terrain the way I read metal in the forge. Every landscape had a logic to it. Water flowed downhill. Prey sought cover. Predators followed scent.
Dalvin hadn't planned his route. I'd seen that in the ceremony, in the blank panic on his face when the horn sounded.
He'd bolted northwest, away from the main omega routes, into rougher terrain that most participants avoided.
That meant he was alone out there, no other omegas nearby, no chance of safety in numbers.
It also meant Mercer would have a harder time tracking him through the crowd.
Small mercies.
I crossed a rocky streambed, cold water soaking through my boots, and climbed a ridge thick with rhododendron.
Their waxy leaves brushed against my arms as I pushed through, releasing a faint green scent when I bruised them.
The afternoon light was fading, gold deepening to amber, shadows stretching long across the forest floor.
Other alphas moved through the trees in the distance, their scents carrying on the wind. Leather and musk and eager hunger.
I gave them wide berth. Didn't want to be drawn into territorial disputes or forced to explain why I wasn't hunting the nearest omega. Every minute spent on confrontation was a minute Mercer could use to close the gap.
The first hunt I witnessed was gentle.
A young alpha, barely older than Dalvin had been at Ashworth, crouched beside a hollow log where an omega had curled herself into a ball.
She was crying, but not from fear. From relief.
Her scent carried the salt of tears and the warmth of gratitude, and the alpha's scent answered with tenderness and careful restraint.
He spoke to her softly, words I couldn't hear from this distance, offering his hand palm-up in a gesture of invitation rather than demand. She stared at that hand for a long moment. Then she reached out and took it, her fingers trembling as they wrapped around his.
He pulled her into his arms and held her while she sobbed against his chest. His hand stroked her hair with the gentle rhythm of a man who had all the time in the world. No urgency. No possession. Just comfort, offered freely, accepted gratefully.
I looked away. That wasn't my story. That wasn't why I was here. But the image stayed with me as I walked, a reminder that The Chase could be more than predation. That some alphas entered this forest looking for connection rather than conquest.
The second hunt was harder to watch.
An omega running flat out through a clearing, bare feet bleeding from rocks and thorns, white linen torn and stained with dirt.
An alpha gaining on him with every stride, face twisted with the predatory glee of a man who enjoyed the pursuit more than the prize.
The omega's scent screamed terror, acrid and sharp, cutting through the pine and earth with a chemical distress signal that should have triggered protective instincts in any decent alpha.
The hunter's scent answered with dominance and possession, a biological demand for submission that brooked no refusal.