The first snowfall of winter had begun to settle when you crossed into forbidden territory.

Your legs trembled with exhaustion, lungs burning with cold air and blood drying on your skin from your last punishment. The other Alpha had made it clear—no one left his pack. Especially not an Omega.

You were property.

But somehow, you’d gotten away. You didn’t know how far you’d run, only that your feet had carried you into the heart of unknown land—Simon Ghost Riley’s territory.

Whispers of him had drifted through your old pack like ghost stories. An Alpha born for war. Quiet, lethal, with a gaze sharp enough to cut. They said no one crossed his borders and lived to tell about it.

You collapsed on the forest floor, the snow already burying you like a soft grave.

You didn’t expect to wake up.

But you did.

And he was the first thing you saw.

A towering man in a black tactical coat, skull-patterned mask half-lowered, revealing a firm mouth and the barest trace of a frown. His scent, strong and grounding, curled around your senses like heat after frostbite. It made you dizzy.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, voice low, edged with a quiet fury that made the earth itself seem to hold its breath.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You just trembled, waiting for the blow.

But it never came.

Instead, he removed his coat and draped it over your shaking body. You flinched anyway, instinctively.

Simon Riley didn’t move closer. “You’re safe,” he said, like a vow. “They won’t touch you again.”

And he meant it.

What you didn’t know then was that Ghost wasn’t just protecting you because you’d wandered into his land.

You were his mate.