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. Thatalpha 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 betrayme. 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, heenjoyedthe 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 foranyone.
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.
