It was maddening. It was terrifying. It was the most confusing thing anyone had ever done.
The heat pulsed through me in waves, each one stronger than the last. My skin felt too tight, too hot, despite the coldair. Slick gathered between my thighs, my body preparing for a claiming I didn't want from an alpha I couldn't have. I pressed my legs together and bit down on my lip until I tasted copper.
I would not call out to him. Would not beg. Would not give him the satisfaction of hearing me break.
The hours stretched into eternity. I dozed in fits and starts, jerking awake at every sound, my heart racing as I strained to hear movement that never came. Each time I surfaced from the thin veil of sleep, his scent was still there. Warm and metallic and impossible to ignore. A constant presence in the darkness.
At one point, I heard him stand. Every muscle in me went rigid, locking in preparation for flight or surrender. But his footsteps moved away, not toward me. I heard the quiet sound of water against leaves, and I realized he was relieving himself at a distance, maintaining the boundary he'd established. Maintaining my space.
He returned to his position a few minutes later. Settled back against the tree. Didn't come any closer.
The small consideration undid me more than any grand gesture could have. Vernon had never given me privacy. Had followed me into bathrooms, had watched me dress, had made certain I understood that no part of me belonged to myself. The simple act of Min-ho walking away, of giving me even that small dignity, cracked open a fissure in the wall I'd built around my heart.
Somewhere around midnight, an owl called. The sound echoed off the rocks, hollow and mournful, and I flinched so hard I scraped my elbow against stone. In the aftermath of the cry, I heard Min-ho shift. Heard him settle again. Heard nothing else.
He could have approached a dozen times. Could have cornered me in the crevice, used the narrow space against me,claimed me before I had a chance to fight. The law would have been on his side. The system didn't care about consent once the horn sounded.
But he stayed where he was.
I didn't understand. Couldn't make sense of an alpha who had power and didn't use it. Vernon had taught me that power was always used. That restraint was just cruelty wearing a patient mask. That kindness was a trap designed to lower defenses before the real blow landed.
Min-ho's stillness was a trap. It had to be. But I couldn't figure out where the teeth were hidden.
The cold deepened as the night wore on. My shivers became tremors, my body burning with heat on the inside while the mountain air froze me from the outside. I wrapped my arms around my knees and made myself as compact as possible, conserving warmth, conserving energy, conserving the fragments of sanity I had left.
Dawn came slowly. The black softened to gray, then to pale pink, then to the soft gold of early morning. Light crept across the rocks, painting them in watercolors, illuminating the forest in gentle increments. A cardinal called somewhere in the trees, its bright song absurdly cheerful against the tension coiled in my muscles.
I needed to move. Needed to find a new position before the other alphas got too close, before Mercer tracked my scent, before my heat crested and left me too desperate to run. Every survival instinct I'd honed over the past year screamed at me to go, go, go.
But I couldn't make myself leave without knowing.
I crawled to the edge of the crevice and peered out through the gap in the rocks. The morning light stung my tired eyes. The cold air bit at my exposed skin. I blinked against the brightness and searched the tree line for movement.
Min-ho sat thirty feet away, his back against a fallen pine, his eyes already fixed on the spot where I was emerging. He looked exhausted. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and a day's worth of stubble darkened his jaw. His black clothes were rumpled, damp with dew, streaked with dirt from a night spent on the forest floor. But his posture was alert, his hands resting loosely on his knees, his body language deliberately unthreatening.
He'd been there all night. Watching over me. Protecting me from Mercer and the other alphas and whatever dangers the preserve held.
And he hadn't touched me. Hadn't tried.
Our eyes met across the distance. The connection jolted through me, electric and visceral, sparking along nerves already raw from the building heat. I watched his nostrils flare as my scent reached him. Watched his jaw tighten with the effort of staying still. Watched his hands curl briefly into fists before he forced them flat again.
He wanted me. The evidence was written in every line of his body, every controlled breath, every micro-expression he couldn't quite suppress. He wanted me with an intensity that matched the ache building in my own core.
But he didn't move.
"I'm not leaving," he said. His voice was rough from the cold, from the sleepless night, but steady. Controlled. The voice of a man who had learned to master himself. "But I'm not chasing you either. When you're ready to talk, I'll be here."
I stared at him. The words didn't make sense. The actions didn't match any pattern I knew.
Vernon would have been in the crevice by now. Would have dragged me out by my hair, would have reminded me of my place, would have made sure I understood the cost of making him wait. Vernon's patience had always been a weapon,a stretched-out prelude to punishment, a way to let fear do his work for him before he ever raised a hand.
Min-ho's patience was different. I could see it in the way he held himself, the deliberate relaxation in his shoulders, the openness of his posture. He wasn't conserving energy for violence. He was giving me space. Actual, literal, physical space to make my own choice.
I didn't know what to do with that.
I retreated into the rocks without answering. I wasn't ready. Didn't know if I would ever be ready.
But for the first time in eight years, I'd encountered an alpha who gave me a choice.
