My eyes flew open. Mercer was gone, ripped away from me with such force that he flew several feet before crashing into a tree trunk. And standing over me, chest heaving, eyes blazing with fury, was Min-ho.
"Get away from him."
The words came out as a growl, barely human, vibrating with alpha command that made my omega instincts snap to attention. Min-ho looked like something out of a nightmare. Blood on his face from a cut above his eye. Dirt and leaves tangled in his dark hair. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl that promised violence.
Mercer pushed himself to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth. "You should have stayed on the false trail."
"I know what a diversion smells like."
"Then you should know when you're outmatched." Mercer's hand moved to the knife at his thigh. "Walk away. Last chance."
Min-ho's answer was a fist to Mercer's face.
The fight was nothing like the coordinated combat I'd seen in movies. It was brutal, ugly, primal. Two alphas tearing at each other with fists and elbows and knees, crashing through underbrush, slamming into trees, painting the forest floor with blood.
I should have run. Should have used the distraction to disappear into the woods, to find another alpha, to escape while both of them were focused on each other.
I didn't run.
I couldn't look away.
Min-ho fought with the raw power of a man who had spent twelve years shaping iron with his bare hands. Each blow landed with devastating force, driving Mercer back step by step. The proxy was skilled, trained, dangerous, but Min-ho was relentless. Every time Mercer landed a hit, Min-ho absorbed it and kept coming. Every time Mercer tried to create distance, Min-ho closed it.
They crashed through a stand of young pines, snapping saplings, sending birds screaming into the sky. Mercer caught Min-ho with an uppercut that snapped his head back. Bloodsprayed from Min-ho's nose. He didn't slow down. Just spat red and drove forward, tackling Mercer into a boulder with enough force to crack stone.
The knife came out. Mercer slashed at Min-ho's chest, opening a line of red across his ribs. Min-ho didn't even flinch. He caught Mercer's wrist on the backswing and twisted.
The crack of breaking bone echoed through the forest.
Mercer screamed. The knife fell from his useless hand. Min-ho didn't stop. He drove his elbow into Mercer's face, snapping his head back, then followed with a knee to the ribs that I heard crack from twenty feet away. One rib. Two. The sounds wet and final.
The proxy crumpled, but Min-ho wasn't finished. He grabbed Mercer by the collar and slammed his fist into the man's face again. And again. And again. Until Mercer's features were a mask of blood, until his body went limp, until the only sounds were Min-ho's ragged breathing and the drip of blood from his knuckles onto the forest floor.
Min-ho stood over him, chest heaving, blood dripping from his wounds onto Mercer's prone form. For a long moment, he just stared down at the man who had tried to take me. Then he drew his foot back and kicked Mercer in the ribs one more time, a final punctuation mark that sent the unconscious body rolling several feet across the leaves.
He turned to face me.
The rage drained from his expression, replaced by concern, by tenderness, by a desperate hope that made something crack open in my chest. Blood ran down his face from the cut above his eye. His shirt was torn where the knife had caught him, the wound still seeping red. His knuckles were split and swollen, his breathing ragged, trembling with the aftermath of violence.
He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
The heat surged through me with renewed intensity, and this time I didn't fight it. Didn't want to fight it. My body responded to him on every level, omega instincts recognizing an alpha who had proven himself through combat, through protection, through the primal language of blood and victory. Slick pooled between my thighs. My skin flushed hot and desperate. Every cell in my body strained toward him, demanding, insisting, screaming mine.
I'd watched Min-ho nearly kill a man to protect me. Had watched him absorb punishment that would have dropped anyone else, just to keep Mercer's hands off my body. Had watched him choose me, fight for me, bleed for me.
No one had ever fought for me before.
Vernon had never fought for me. Vernon had bought me, owned me, used me. The idea of Vernon engaging in physical combat on my behalf was laughable. Vernon hired people to do violence for him. Vernon kept his hands clean while others got bloody.
Min-ho's hands were covered in Mercer's blood, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted those hands on my skin. How badly I wanted him to pin me down the way Mercer had tried to, but with want instead of force. How badly I wanted to feel the weight of his body pressing me into the earth while he claimed every part of me.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. My shirt hung in tatters around my shoulders, my pants twisted and half-undone from Mercer's assault. I should have felt violated. Should have felt traumatized. Instead, I felt the heat burning through my veins and the desperate ache of want that had been building since I was fourteen years old.
Min-ho didn't move. Didn't approach. Just stood there, ten feet away, watching me with those hazel eyes, his chest still heaving from the fight. Waiting to see what I would do.
Waiting for permission.
The silence stretched between us, filled with the sound of his breathing and mine, with the rustle of wind through the trees, with the unconscious rasp of Mercer's damaged lungs somewhere behind him. Min-ho's scent wrapped around me familiar now but sharpened with copper and sweat and the raw edge of violence. It was intoxicating. Overwhelming. Everything my heat-drunk body craved.
