I shouldered my pack and walked.
The preserve swallowed me within minutes. Dense pine forest closed around the path, the air thick with the scent of resin and damp earth. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in broken shafts, illuminating drifts of fallen needles and the occasional flash of a stream cutting through the undergrowth. Birds scattered at my approach, their alarm calls echoing through the trees.
The pack on my back held everything I might need for three days in the wilderness. Water purification tablets. Protein bars and dried fruit. A compact sleeping bag rated for mountain temperatures. A first aid kit, because The Chase didn't pause for injuries. And comfort items I'd added on impulse. A bar of goodchocolate. A soft cloth for cleaning wounds. A spare jacket in case Dalvin was cold when I found him.
If I found him. When I found him.
I moved steadily, not rushing, reading the terrain the way I read metal in the forge. Every landscape had a logic to it. Water flowed downhill. Prey sought cover. Predators followed scent.
Dalvin hadn't planned his route. I'd seen that in the ceremony, in the blank panic on his face when the horn sounded. He'd bolted northwest, away from the main omega routes, into rougher terrain that most participants avoided. That meant he was alone out there, no other omegas nearby, no chance of safety in numbers.
It also meant Mercer would have a harder time tracking him through the crowd.
Small mercies.
I crossed a rocky streambed, cold water soaking through my boots, and climbed a ridge thick with rhododendron. Their waxy leaves brushed against my arms as I pushed through, releasing a faint green scent when I bruised them. The afternoon light was fading, gold deepening to amber, shadows stretching long across the forest floor. Other alphas moved through the trees in the distance, their scents carrying on the wind. Leather and musk and eager hunger.
I gave them wide berth. Didn't want to be drawn into territorial disputes or forced to explain why I wasn't hunting the nearest omega. Every minute spent on confrontation was a minute Mercer could use to close the gap.
The first hunt I witnessed was gentle.
A young alpha, barely older than Dalvin had been at Ashworth, crouched beside a hollow log where an omega had curled herself into a ball. She was crying, but not from fear. From relief. Her scent carried the salt of tears and the warmthof gratitude, and the alpha's scent answered with tenderness and careful restraint.
He spoke to her softly, words I couldn't hear from this distance, offering his hand palm-up in a gesture of invitation rather than demand. She stared at that hand for a long moment. Then she reached out and took it, her fingers trembling as they wrapped around his.
He pulled her into his arms and held her while she sobbed against his chest. His hand stroked her hair with the gentle rhythm of a man who had all the time in the world. No urgency. No possession. Just comfort, offered freely, accepted gratefully.
I looked away. That wasn't my story. That wasn't why I was here. But the image stayed with me as I walked, a reminder that The Chase could be more than predation. That some alphas entered this forest looking for connection rather than conquest.
The second hunt was harder to watch.
An omega running flat out through a clearing, bare feet bleeding from rocks and thorns, white linen torn and stained with dirt. An alpha gaining on him with every stride, face twisted with the predatory glee of a man who enjoyed the pursuit more than the prize. The omega's scent screamed terror, acrid and sharp, cutting through the pine and earth with a chemical distress signal that should have triggered protective instincts in any decent alpha.
The hunter's scent answered with dominance and possession, a biological demand for submission that brooked no refusal.
When the alpha caught him, tackling him to the forest floor, the omega went limp. Surrendering with the boneless collapse of someone who had learned that fighting made things worse. Who had learned that stillness invited less pain than struggle.
I kept walking. My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.
That could be Dalvin. If Mercer caught him first, that would be Dalvin. Limp and surrendered and dragged back to Vernon because the law didn't care about consent, only about completed bonds.
I moved faster.
By nightfall, I'd found the trail.
Dalvin's scent threaded through the underbrush, faint but unmistakable. That warm, smoky sweetness, layered now with exhaustion and the sharp edge of approaching heat. He'd passed through here hours ago, moving erratically, doubling back on himself, leaving a path that spoke of confusion rather than strategy.
I crouched beside a broken fern and studied the ground. Bare footprints in the soft earth, smaller than mine, the impressions deep at the toes where he'd been running hard. A smear of blood on a rock where he must have scraped his foot. A handprint on a tree trunk, pressed there for balance when he stumbled.
He was scared. Lost. Running on instinct instead of thought.
The thought surfaced before I could stop it: if another alpha touched him, I would kill them. Not defend Dalvin. Not rescue him. Kill the alpha. The distinction mattered, and the fact that I couldn't feel it in the moment should have worried me more than it did.
And beneath the fear, beneath the exhaustion, his heat was building. I could taste it on my tongue, sweet and urgent, calling to every alpha instinct I possessed. My body wanted to follow that call. Wanted to run him down and claim him and bury myself inside him until neither of us could remember our own names.
I forced the instinct down. Locked it behind the same walls I'd built around my rage, my grief, my loneliness. There would be time for want later. Right now, I needed to find him before Mercer did.
I followed the trail through a dense stand of hemlock, their feathery branches blocking the last of the daylight. The ground rose beneath my feet, rocky and uneven, until I emerged onto a small plateau overlooking a tumble of boulders.
