The dogs ignored my concerns, trotting ahead with increased enthusiasm. Through gaps in the trees, I caught glimpses of a small clearing. Something about the deliberate way the dogs were heading toward it made alarm bells ring in my head.
I stopped completely, causing both dogs to look back in canine confusion.
“What’s in that clearing?” I demanded, as if they might suddenly develop the power of human speech along with their remarkable understanding of English. “Is this a trap? Are you furry Judases leading me straight to?—”
Before I could finish my accusation, both dogs darted forward, breaking into the clearing with happy barks that sounded suspiciously like announcements of successful hunting.
“Traitors!” I hissed, ducking behind a broad tree trunk to assess the situation.
The clearing contained a small campsite—tents, neatly stacked supplies, and a stone-ringed fire pit with glowing embers. Someone was definitely home, and based on the dogs’ enthusiastic greeting, they were on familiar terms with my canine betrayers.
I was preparing to back away slowly when the sound of approaching footsteps caught my attention. Two men emerged from the deeper forest on the far side of the clearing. My heart sank to somewhere in the vicinity of my hiking boots.
They weren’t wearing tactical gear or face masks this time, but I recognized them instantly—something about the way they moved, the confident set of their shoulders. The guards from last winter. The ones who’d tackled me, manhandled me, and carried me home like a naughty child.
Both were shirtless in the summer heat, their muscled torsos gleaming with a light sheen of sweat as they approached the campsite. One was slightly taller with dark-brown hair and an elegant build that somehow made him not wearing a shirt seem like a fashion choice rather than a concession to temperature—all lean power and predatory grace, with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and dark-brown eyes that held the kind of dangerous intelligence that made my stomach flip in ways I absolutely refused to acknowledge. The other was broader, more solidly built, with watchful hazel eyes that seemed to catalog every detail with unsettling intensity. His silence carried more menace than words ever could, like a mountain that might decide to fall on you without warning.
Without their masks, they were… well, not what I’d expected. Younger, for one thing. I’d imagined grizzled mercenaries with faces like poorly maintained hiking trails, not these men who looked like they’d stepped out of some premium cable show about attractive people doing morally questionable things. The kind of devastating good looks that probably made normalpeople forget how to form complete sentences—which was deeply annoying since I was currently trying very hard not to notice how the summer heat had turned their skin golden, or how their tactical pants hung low on narrow hips, or how watching them move was like observing apex predators in their natural habitat.
The absolute audacity of these men to look like that while I was standing there covered in forest debris and probably resembling a feral woodland creature who’d lost a fight with a pine tree.
The dogs bounded toward them with ecstatic whines, tails wagging at supersonic speeds as they circled the men’s legs. Apollo barked once, turning to look directly at my hiding spot with what I swear was a smug expression.
“Et tu, Apollo?” I whispered, feeling genuinely betrayed by my short-lived canine alliance. “I gave you premium beef jerky, you traitor.”
The men followed the dog’s gaze, their expressions shifting from confusion to recognition to something that looked disturbingly like amusement. The elegant one said something to his companion, who nodded and started moving toward the trees where I was hiding.
That was all the confirmation I needed. I turned and ran, abandoning stealth for speed, crashing through the underbrush with the grace of a panicked deer.
“Look what we have here!” a voice called behind me. “Our little troublemaker’s come back to play!”
“He’s running the wrong way,” another voice shouted, deeper and more amused. “Northeast sector is our territory, sweetheart!”
The sound of pursuit crashed through the undergrowth—boots against forest floor, branches snapping, dogs barking withexcitement rather than aggression. They were enjoying this. It was a game to them.
“Should we let him think he’s getting away?” I heard the first voice again, loud enough to carry through the trees. “Or end this little adventure now, pretty thing?”
“Let him run,” the second voice replied with dark amusement. “I enjoy watching our omega pet try to escape.”
I didn’t look back. Looking back was for people who enjoyed the sight of rapidly approaching capture. I had no plan beyond “away”—all my carefully mapped routes forgotten in the face of immediate danger. The forest blurred around me as I ran, lungs burning, branches whipping against my arms and face.
A low-hanging branch caught my cap, ripping it from my head and leaving my hair exposed to catch the afternoon light filtering through the canopy. I didn't stop to retrieve it—every second counted now.
“We can smell you, little wildcat!” The taunting call floated through the trees. “Your fear makes your scent stronger. Sweeter.”
Through a gap in the trees, I glimpsed water—a small pond or natural spring, its surface gleaming in the afternoon sun. Without hesitation, I changed course toward it. Water meant potential escape, or at least a way to throw off any tracking. Dogs couldn’t follow a scent through water, right? That was a thing I’d read in some survival manual.
I burst into the clearing surrounding the pond, momentum carrying me forward as my mind raced through increasingly desperate escape options. The water stretched before me—not too deep, clear enough to see the smooth stones below, and most importantly, not containing any of the muscle-bound nightmares currently pursuing me.
Or so I thought.
Movement on the far shore stopped my strategic genius mid-calculation. A man was emerging from the water like some R-rated Greek mythology scene—water cascading down a body that made Michelangelo’sDavidlook like he needed to hit the gym more often. Tall, impossibly broad-shouldered, with wet black hair slicked back from a face that belonged on the cover ofAlpha Monthly: Too Hot to Function Edition.
Our eyes met across the water—his cobalt blue and predatory, like looking into the heart of a flame that burned cold and dangerous, mine undoubtedly conveying the universal expression for “you have got to be fucking kidding me.” I watched horror-movie style as recognition dawned on his face, followed by a slow, wolf-catches-lamb smile that sent an entirely unwelcome heat spiraling through parts of my body that clearly hadn’t gotten the “we hate this guy” memo.
“Well,” he said, making absolutely zero effort to cover what was clearly an extensive package deal, “isn’t this a delightful surprise.”
That voice. The same one that had informed me last winter that my ass needed disciplining. The same one that had breathed against my neck while pinning me to the forest floor. The same one that had haunted certain dreams I’d spent months aggressively denying I’d had.
