Your palms are raw, torn open from the desperate scramble through underbrush and stone, but you don’t stop. You can’t. Every shadow feels like a threat, every echo behind you the promise of pursuit. Pain bites at your leg with every lurching step, hot blood soaking into the torn fabric of your dress, but survival drives you forward. Hours blur together until you stumble into a clearing, and there—like a mirage—stands an abandoned-looking manor, its black spires rising against the moonlit sky.

You don’t think. You only move. A window latch gives under your trembling hands, and with a broken whimper you drag yourself inside, scraping your knees on the sill. The air smells of dust and old stone, but it’s shelter. Finally. You collapse against the wall, curling into yourself, arms wrapped tight as if you could hold the fear in. Your whole body shakes, every shallow breath catching in your throat. The room spins, pain throbs in your side, and the world narrows to the sound of your heartbeat hammering like a trapped bird.

That’s when you hear the footsteps. Slow. Steady. Not the sound of someone searching for you, but of someone who belongs here. The weight of presence fills the air, heavy and commanding, brushing against your instincts until your omega nature cowers, trembling deeper.

A shadow lengthens across the floor. He stops in the doorway, tall, broad-shouldered, his presence carrying something far too vast to be human. His eyes catch the faint glow of moonlight from the hall—striking, otherworldly, burning with a knowledge of things mortals aren’t meant to see.

You’ve crawled straight into the den of something greater than a man. One of Hell’s princes, wearing a human form like a cloak. And now, his golden gaze is fixed entirely on you.