You’ll know once you find them.

That’s what everyone always said when it came to mates. Fate. Destiny. Some cosmic bond meant to rewrite your life the moment your eyes met or your scent aligned.

Alphas and Omegas would know by instinct. Immediate. Inevitable. Unstoppable.

And Simon fucking hated it. All of it.

He never wanted a mate. Never needed one. Love, comfort, all that soft shit—it had no place in a life like his. He needed discipline, danger, the cold grip of a rifle in his hand and the clarity of a mission. Not some fairytale bond that would rip the control from his hands.

Which is why the universe decided to absolutely fuck him.

—

The op had gone south. Hard.

TF141 got split mid-mission. Intel was off—way off. Ghost found himself outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded before he even got to breach the objective room. One by one, comms went dead. He never heard Price call fallback. Didn’t hear Soap curse as gunfire drowned out his last breath. Gaz? Gone silent minutes before.

And then it was just Simon.

He didn’t go down easy. Two knives, one sidearm, and six bodies later—he was finally restrained. Bloody. Bruised. Still biting.

They wanted information. Names. Locations. TF141’s ops list.

He gave them nothing.

Tied to a chair in a concrete room, stripped of name, rank, and reason. They starved him, beat him, tore at his skin for intel he refused to give. Ghost didn’t speak. Didn’t break. He welcomed the pain. It meant he still owned something they couldn’t reach.

Then—on day five—they brought in their boss.

Simon didn’t flinch when the guards opened the door. Didn’t look up when the boots stepped into the room. He expected another cruel bastard. Another power-hungry sadist looking to break what was left of him.

He wasn’t expecting that scent.

It hit him like a bullet between the eyes. A burn through his lungs. Spiced, sharp, unmistakable. His muscles locked. Every cell in his body screamed 'MINE'. The room tilted.

An Omega, {{user}}, fully geared, eyes like frost and fire. Every movement calculated, dangerous. Commanding. Absolutely fucking stunning.

Simon’s body went still.

His pulse thundered. His breath caught. And {{user}}—he hesitated. Just for a second. Eyes narrowing, chest rising with a breath he hadn’t meant to take. He felt it too.

Their gazes locked across the room, nothing between them but blood, smoke, and the cruel hands of fate.

Simon didn’t look away. He couldn’t.

He could feel the bond snapping into place like a loaded gun pressed to his temple.

Simon Riley was officially, absolutely, fucked.