Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
WREN
At first, it was freedom.
The kind that tasted like cold air and pine sap, like rain-soaked earth and adrenaline. My boots splashed through puddles, mud streaking my calves, my breath coming out in laughter I didn’t mean to release. My heart was pounding, not from fear, but from want.
For once, I didn’t fight it. The heat was coming for me — slow, sure, inevitable — and I let it.
The cabin was behind me, a quiet little ghost, and I’d left my blockers sitting uselessly on the counter.
The choice hadn’t felt monumental when I made it, but now it echoed through my body like a drumbeat.
I hadn’t gone back on the suppressors. I hadn’t smothered the thing I’d spent months trying to control.
No. I wanted them.
Roan. Rhett. Jay.
The thought of them out there somewhere — strong, relentless, mine — made every nerve light up. The night air was damp and heavy with ozone, the scent of the storm building on the horizon. My skin prickled, temperature spiking from the inside out. The heat pulsed through me, low and deep and wild.
For the first time, I wasn’t ashamed of it.
I was savoring it.
I’d spent so long pretending that this part of me was an inconvenience — a hazard, a liability, something that needed masking.
But right now, out here in the trees, under the weight of the storm, it felt like power.
Every exhale left a trail of my scent — sweet, ripe, undeniable — and I didn’t bother to hide it.
Let them find me.
Let them chase.
Let them claim what was already theirs.
The first drops of rain hit my skin, sharp and icy, shocking against the fever simmering under the surface.
The storm rolled closer, thunder crawling over the mountains like a living thing.
I tilted my head back, laughed softly at the sky.
I wanted to feel everything. The chill. The burn. The hunger.
But then—
Something shifted.
A new scent rode the wind.
Alpha.
For a second, my body reacted instinctively — a rush of heat, of anticipation, a surge of recognition that came before thought. They’re here.
Except… no.
It wasn’t Roan.
It wasn’t Rhett.
It wasn’t Jay.
This scent was sharper. Colder. Wrong.
Beckett Rylan.
The realization sliced through me like a blade. My stomach dropped even as my pulse spiked. The rain came harder, cold needles against my skin, washing over me as if the storm itself wanted to strip away the heat that had just begun to bloom.
He was close. Too close.
The sound of him — the way he moved — I remembered it from the ice. Controlled chaos. A predator that liked to play before the kill.
Fear threaded through the heat, twisting it, warping it until it became something jagged and confusing. My body still wanted — that primal, aching need for an Alpha to find me, to fill me — but my mind rebelled. Every instinct screamed not him.
Not Rylan.
Not the one who had haunted the edges of my safety since the trade.
I stumbled backward, breath shaking, the wind catching my scent and flinging it into the storm. A curse broke from my lips. I should’ve kept the blockers. Should’ve waited for them before I—
Branches cracked somewhere behind me.
That smooth, mocking voice cut through the rain. “You really shouldn’t run alone, Wren.”
My heart lurched.
He was here.
And my body — traitorous, burning — didn’t care that my brain was screaming run. It responded to the Alpha in him, to the biological gravity that made every Omega weak in the knees when cornered.
I forced my feet to move, mud slipping beneath my boots, pulse roaring in my ears. “Not you,” I whispered, half to the storm, half to myself. “Not you.”
Because yes, I had invited the chase.
But not from the monster who thought he could claim me out of spite.
The fear built fast — sharp, dizzying — but under it was still that molten, desperate ache for the right Alphas. The ones who had earned me. The ones I’d chosen.
So I did the only thing I could.
I ran faster.
And I prayed that Roan, Rhett, and Jay were already on my trail — because if Rylan reached me first, my heat wouldn’t save me.
It would destroy me.
Cold was my only ally now.
It sliced through the heat haze wrapping around my body, clearing the edges of my thoughts like glass through fog. Every breath burned, lungs raw from running, but I needed that pain and clung to it. It reminded me I was more than my biology.
The rain came harder, pelting my skin like needles, soaking through my clothes until I was shivering. Good. Let it drown my scent. Let it bury me from him.
The storm was my camouflage. My absolution.
Mud clung to my boots as I pushed deeper into the trees, the terrain getting rougher, steeper. I used the terrain like I’d learned as a kid. Uphill for distance, downhill for speed. Keep your head low. Don’t waste energy doubling back too early. Make your trail unpredictable.
But the bastard was still close.
I could feel it, that pull. That alpha gravity. My instincts didn’t care that it was the wrong scent, that the wrong voice had whispered my name through the storm. My body still responded to him in flashes of raw, stupid heat. A cruel biological betrayal.
No. Even as wrong as it felt, my body responded to it. Damn it. I refused to betray them. To betray me. Not like this.
My mind warred with every primal impulse that begged me to stop, to let the alpha find me. I forced my legs to move, heart hammering like it wanted to escape my ribs.
Lightning cracked overhead, so bright it painted the forest in white for half a heartbeat. In that blink, I saw movement down the slope. A dark figure, broad shoulders, purposeful stride. Beckett Rylan.
Too close.
My throat tightened. I bit down hard on my lower lip until I tasted copper, grounding myself in the pain.
Focus, Wren. You’ve run before. You’ve survived too long to give in now.
I veered sharply to the left, ducking through a stand of birch trees where the wind swirled unpredictably.
I scraped my hand deliberately against a branch, and left a faint blood scent.
A lure. Then I doubled back, crouching low, fighting against the trembling in my limbs as I pressed through the undergrowth in the opposite direction.
Rain hammered the earth, turning everything slick, but I welcomed it. The mud would swallow my tracks soon enough.
Another flash of lightning and another glimpse of Rylan further upslope now, heading toward the false scent trail. My breath hitched in relief.
For a moment, I could almost hear Roan’s voice in my head, that calm command he used when the ice got tense: Keep your head. Control what you can. Don’t panic.
I tried. God, I tried.
But the storm wasn’t just rain anymore. It was a living wall of wind and thunder, screaming through the pines.
I could barely see five feet ahead. The temperature dropped so fast my teeth began to chatter, the heat inside me battling the cold until it felt like my skin couldn’t decide which way to burn.
My gear helped, barely. The waterproof layers were meant for media scrums, not mountain hunts, but the rain had found every seam, every zipper. My fingers ached from the cold.
A branch snapped behind me.
Not the storm.
Him.
I bit back a sound, ducking low, pressing myself against a fallen log slick with moss. The air was heavy, full of scent and ozone and fear.
Then, barely more than a whisper, his voice cut through the dark. “You honestly thought they’d find you before I did?”
My pulse spiked.
He was playing with me. Drawing it out. Beckett Rylan didn’t just chase for dominance, he enjoyed the hunt.
He’d been hunting me since our first meeting.
I’d always managed to cut him off and avoid him.
Now? Especially after losing the Apex Trophy to the Howlers, he wanted me scared, trembling, pliant.
But I wasn’t prey. Not for him. Not for anyone.
I crouched lower, heart hammering, forcing shallow, silent breaths. My muscles shook with the effort of holding still. The icy rain kept falling, thick and relentless, masking scent and sound.
A gust of wind shifted, and suddenly I caught something welcome on the breeze, faint but unmistakable.
Roan.
A heartbeat later — Rhett.
Jay.
Their scents threaded through the storm, tangled and wild and theirs. Relief hit so hard my knees almost buckled.
Still, I didn’t move. Couldn’t risk leading them straight into Rylan’s path. I needed to draw him off just a little longer.
I slid forward on my stomach, pushing through wet leaves until I reached the edge of a slope.
What had been packed in snow before was all mud, leaves, and debris.
Soon, it would be ice slicked and crystalline.
Below me, though, was a narrow ravine, swollen with runoff from the storm.
Dangerous, fast-moving water, but it would break my trail completely.
Decision made, I exhaled once, hard. “Come and get me, asshole,” I whispered, and threw myself down the incline.
The cold hit like a fist. The current grabbed me, tearing my breath from my lungs as I fought to surface, clawing against the pull of water and mud and panic.
But even through the chaos, I had one thought — one, steady pulse in my mind that burned hotter than the heat still raging in my body.
Find me, Roan. Please. Jay. Rhett. Find me before he does.
The current slammed me against a rock hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. My world narrowed to water and thunder and the raw, searing cold that clawed through every inch of me. I couldn’t tell which way was up. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Then—impact. A second splash, heavier, deliberate. A shape cutting through the current.
No.
Panic ripped through me, sharp and immediate. I kicked backward, heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. My mind screamed Rylan, even before I could see him—his voice echoing through memory, through fear, through every instinct that said run.
But then—warmth.
Hands found me. Strong. Steady. Familiar.