Page 98 of The Rejected Omega

And he’s not playing, he’s hunting.

Slick soaks my panties. My omega is awake, and she’s thrilled.

Wet leaves slip beneath my feet, and I catch myself against a moss-slick tree.

But I don’t stop. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. Every nerve in my body is stretched taut, every sense locked onto the hunter at my heels.

I can hear him stalking me. Quick, light steps. Controlled breathing.

A low, ragged growl rumbles through the trees like thunder.

“Keep running,” his voice calls from behind me. He barely sounds human. “You know how this ends.”

The cold night air is split open by his scent. It crashes over me like a wave, and I’m drowning.

A root catches my foot.

I stumble forward, landing hard on my palms and knees. It knocks the breath out of me.

Before I can move, he’s on me, pressing me into the forest floor with his body.

He cages me in with his arms. I half expect him to pin me by the back of the neck and force my submission, but he just hovers above me, a rumbling growl in his throat.

I pant into the damp earth. It smells just like it did on the night I discovered he was mine, but this time he’shere.

The world spins as he flips me onto my back and lowers his body atop mine.

His lips find my throat, just beneath my ear, and paint me with his saliva. A deep vibrating sound comes from his chest and shoots straight to my core.

“Why here?” I pant.

“This is where it all began. I want to rewrite the past.”

“What if I’m not ready?”

He presses his forehead to mine “Then I’ll wait. My whole life, if I have to.”

“And if I move on? Choose another?”

His entire frame tenses, his muscles shifting.

“Then I will suffer. As I deserve.”

And god help me, part of me wants him to suffer. Wants him to ache the way I did. To know what it’s like to burn without being touched, to scream without sound. To wake up with a mouth full of blood and my name on his tongue, a nightmare chasing him into the waking world.

But there’s been too much suffering between us already.

He swallows hard.

“Forgive me, Birdy. Forgive me, and let me keep loving you, because I never stopped. You once gave me your heartunreservedly. I’ve no intention of giving it back. You have me—I am yours. Then, now, and always."

My chest aches with the need to believe him. To believe this is finally real and true. I stare up at him, my vision swimming. “Connor?—”

“Let me give you everything. My bite. My bond. My knot.”

The woods hold their breath, and I say nothing. The second I lean up and brush my lips against his, Connor breaks.

He surges forward, slamming his mouth into mine. We’re tongue and teeth and desperation. It’s not soft or sweet. It’s a joining of two forces held apart for three long years.

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