Chapter 7 #2
The heat surged through me with renewed intensity, and this time I didn't fight it.
Didn't want to fight it. My body responded to him on every level, omega instincts recognizing an alpha who had proven himself through combat, through protection, through the primal language of blood and victory.
Slick pooled between my thighs. My skin flushed hot and desperate.
Every cell in my body strained toward him, demanding, insisting, screaming mine.
I'd watched Min-ho nearly kill a man to protect me. Had watched him absorb punishment that would have dropped anyone else, just to keep Mercer's hands off my body. Had watched him choose me, fight for me, bleed for me.
No one had ever fought for me before.
Vernon had never fought for me. Vernon had bought me, owned me, used me. The idea of Vernon engaging in physical combat on my behalf was laughable. Vernon hired people to do violence for him. Vernon kept his hands clean while others got bloody.
Min-ho's hands were covered in Mercer's blood, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted those hands on my skin.
How badly I wanted him to pin me down the way Mercer had tried to, but with want instead of force.
How badly I wanted to feel the weight of his body pressing me into the earth while he claimed every part of me.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. My shirt hung in tatters around my shoulders, my pants twisted and half-undone from Mercer's assault.
I should have felt violated. Should have felt traumatized.
Instead, I felt the heat burning through my veins and the desperate ache of want that had been building since I was fourteen years old.
Min-ho didn't move. Didn't approach. Just stood there, ten feet away, watching me with those hazel eyes, his chest still heaving from the fight. Waiting to see what I would do.
Waiting for permission.
The silence stretched between us, filled with the sound of his breathing and mine, with the rustle of wind through the trees, with the unconscious rasp of Mercer's damaged lungs somewhere behind him.
Min-ho's scent wrapped around me familiar now but sharpened with copper and sweat and the raw edge of violence.
It was intoxicating. Overwhelming. Everything my heat-drunk body craved.
I understood now. Understood why he'd spent the night outside my hiding spot without approaching. Why he'd warned me about Mercer instead of using the threat to manipulate me. Why he'd just beaten a man half to death and was now standing perfectly still, giving me space, letting me choose.
This was what it meant to be wanted instead of owned. To be protected instead of controlled. To have an alpha who would fight for you and then wait to see if you wanted him back.
I'd never had that before. Hadn't known it existed.
My body shook with heat and arousal and the overwhelming emotion of finally, finally being offered a choice.
I rose to my feet. My legs trembled beneath me, barely able to hold my weight. Min-ho's eyes tracked the movement but he stayed where he was, still as stone, every muscle in his body coiled tight with the effort of not crossing the distance between us.
He wanted me. I could see it in every line of his body, could smell it in the way his scent had sharpened with possessive hunger. But he was waiting. Holding himself back. Giving me the space to decide.
"If I run," I said, and my voice came out hoarse, wrecked, barely above a whisper, "will you catch me?"
Min-ho's breath caught. His hands curled into fists at his sides, then slowly uncurled. I watched him process the words, watched understanding dawn in his eyes. This wasn't rejection. This wasn't fear.
This was the only way I knew how to say yes.
I'd spent years being taken. Being used. Being claimed without consent by an alpha who saw me as property. I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. Didn't have the language for desire that came from choice rather than obligation.
But I could give permission. I could offer myself as prey and trust that this alpha, this man, would catch me the way I needed to be caught.
"Dalvin." My name in his mouth, rough and reverent. He took one step toward me, then stopped himself. Held the line. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure I want you to chase me." I held his gaze, letting him see the heat burning in my eyes, the want that matched his own. "I'm sure I want you to catch me. Everything else... we'll figure out after."
Min-ho nodded. Once. Slow and deliberate. The promise in that single motion settled into my chest and stayed there, warm and certain.
"I'll catch you," he said. "I'll always catch you."
I turned and ran.
Not away from him this time. Toward the only future that made sense anymore. Toward the claiming I'd feared and craved in equal measure. Toward the alpha who had waited and watched and bled for me without ever asking for anything in return.
The forest blurred past me, green and gold and shadow. My bare feet found purchase on the soft earth, carrying me forward, carrying me home.
Behind me, I heard Min-ho start to follow.
And for the first time since Ashworth, running felt like freedom.
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