I crawl out of my nest, legs shaking from heat and exhaustion. Down the stairs, through the halls, past the life I can't live anymore. Every step north feels like coming back to life, the bond singing with anticipation.
"Take me to the Frost Court," I tell James, my voice steady for the first time in days.
"Miss?"
"I'm going home." The word tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. "To my alpha."
The journey north takes six hours that feel like six lifetimes.
For the first hour, I second-guess myself with every mile. "Turn around," I whisper to James through the partition. "Take me back. I can find another way."
But we both know I'm lying. There is no other way. There never was.
The carriage wheels echo my heartbeat as we climb into the mountains. With each mile closer to him, the physical burning eases slightly—the bond recognizing that I'm finally coming home. But the emotional weight grows heavier, and so does the sexual desperation.
I'm not just returning to him. I'm accepting what I am. What he made me.
Second hour, the heat spikes again, and I'm reduced to writhing on the carriage seat, pressing my burning face against the cold window. My slick soaks through my dress, my magic lashes out in desperate pulses, and I bite my lip bloody to keep from begging James to drive faster.
The preservation magic floods me with archived sensations—the memory of his mouth between my legs, his tongue working my clit while his fingers stretched me open. I can almost feel the ridged texture of his cocks pressing against my entrance, can almost hear his voice commanding me to beg for it.
"Almost there, Miss," James calls back, and I can hear the worry in his voice.
Almost to my owner. Almost to my cage. Almost to the man who systematically destroyed my ability to live without him. Almost to the alpha who will finally fill the aching emptiness between my legs.
Third hour, I start crying. Not from pain, but from the relief building in my chest as familiar scents reach me through the window. Pine and snow and the particular crisp coldness that means Frost Court territory.
My body recognizes it before my mind does. Home. This is home now, not the mansion where I was raised. That knowledge should terrify me. Instead, it just makes me cry harder—and makes my pussy clench with need.
I can smell him now, faintly, carried on the mountain air. That unique scent of winter and ancient power that makes my transformed body sing with recognition. My slick increases, my nipples hardening to painful points as my body prepares for reunion.
Fourth hour, I'm rehearsing what I'll say to him. "I hate you for this." "I had no choice." "You win." Each phrase feels both true and inadequate.
How do you tell someone you've returned to them not out of love, but out of biological necessity? How do you explain that you've chosen captivity because freedom was killing you? How do you admit that even though you hate him, your pussy is dripping with need for his knots?
Fifth hour, we pass through Frost Court settlements. Humans who've learned to live under Fae rule, their homes modified with magical heating, their children playing games I don't recognize. They look... content. Adapted.
Is that what I'm doing? Adapting? Or just giving up?
The distinction feels important, but I can't grasp why. Not when every mile closer to him makes my body burn hotter, makes the ache between my legs more desperate.
Sixth hour, the palace comes into view, and my breath catches.
It's exactly as I left it—crystalline spires reaching toward the stars, walls that shimmer with contained power, ice sculptures in the gardens that seem to move in my peripheral vision. Beautiful and terrible and completely other.
But as we approach the gates, something changes in the air. The temperature drops another ten degrees, and frost beginsforming on the carriage windows in patterns I recognize. My body responds immediately, pussy clenching with desperate need, slick flowing more freely as familiar magic touches my transformed senses.
He knows I'm here.
The guards at the gate step forward as James brings the carriage to a stop. They're human, but they move with the careful efficiency of people who've learned to serve something far more powerful than themselves.
"Miss Montgomery," the captain says formally. "Lord Aratus is expecting you."
Of course he is. He's probably been counting down the hours just as precisely as Professor Wells predicted. Patient as winter, certain of my return.
I step from the carriage on legs that shake like a newborn colt's. The cold mountain air should be shocking after weeks in the warm human world, but it feels like coming up for air after nearly drowning. My transformed skin drinks in the familiar cold, my magic settling for the first time in weeks.
The omega who thought she could run, now crawling back in desperate heat.
