Chapter Text
The forest always woke before Seonghwa did.
When the faint light of dawn touched the edges of the sky, his eyes blinked open, lashes crusted from sleep. For a long moment, he lay still under the thin pile of furs, listening to the world beyond the walls of his shelter.
The soundscape was familiar, yet never the same twice. This morning, the birds sang sharp and insistent, a layered chorus of trills and whistles that carried over the damp undergrowth. Farther off, water ran fast, tumbling against rocks in the stream bed. The trees—tall pines with trunks so wide it would take three men to encircle them—creaked as they swayed under the weight of wind. Each groan seemed almost like speech, as if the forest itself murmured in a tongue older than men.
Seonghwa stretched his arms above his head, feeling the pull in his shoulders and the ache in his lower back. Sleeping on the ground always left him stiff, but he had long since grown accustomed to it. Comfort was a luxury he could not afford; soft beds, woven blankets, hearths that burned through the night—those belonged to packs. He had no pack.
Slowly, he pushed himself upright. His shelter was dim, the only light seeping in through a narrow crack near the roof. The space was small, cramped enough that he could touch both walls with outstretched hands, but it kept him alive. One wall was made from stacked stone, scavenged and set with aching care, while the rest was woven reeds plastered with mud to keep out rain. Smoke stains blackened the ceiling above the firepit, which had long since burned to embers.
The air smelled faintly of ash and dried herbs, earthy and sharp.
Seonghwa gathered his hair into a rough tie, knotting it with a strip of leather, and tugged on his boots. Beside the door, his bow rested against the wall, polished smooth from use. He lifted it with practiced ease, running his thumb along the curve, checking the tension of the string. Satisfied, he slung the quiver across his back and pushed aside the reed mat covering the entrance.
The forest greeted him like an old companion. Mist curled low between the trunks, clinging to the ground like smoke. The air was cool, damp enough that each breath carried the taste of wet moss and pine resin. His boots sank into the earth as he moved, soft soil giving way beneath the weight of each step.
It was hunting time.
Seonghwa’s movements were silent, his body long-trained to blend into the rhythm of the wild. He followed trails he knew well: narrow paths carved by deer hooves, faint scratches along bark where boars had rubbed their tusks. He crouched low, brushing fingers across the ground where a fresh print pressed deep into the mud.
Rabbit. Small. Recently passed.
He set a snare quickly, his hands sure despite the chill numbing his fingers. The loop of rope settled in place, disguised beneath a thin scattering of leaves. He would check it later, after the forest had done its work.
Deeper still, he stalked quietly, bow ready. He did not rush. Patience was the first rule of survival here. The forest gave nothing to those who demanded. It was only offered to those who waited, who listened.
A flicker of movement caught his eye—a small doe grazing at the edge of a clearing, ears twitching, muscles taut beneath her dappled hide. Seonghwa froze, scarcely breathing. Slowly, he notched an arrow, pulled back the string until the bow hummed with tension.
The moment stretched thin.
Then he released.
The arrow flew swift and true, sinking deep into the doe’s flank. She stumbled once, twice, then collapsed into the grass.
Seonghwa approached with steady steps, knife drawn. He whispered a brief word under his breath—not prayer, exactly, but something close. A habit he had never shaken, even after exile. Then he worked with swift precision, ending the animal’s pain and beginning the process of cleaning.
By midday, he trudged back toward the shelter with the doe slung heavy across his shoulders. Blood smeared down his arm and across the front of his tunic, sticky and warm. His muscles ached under the weight, but his pace never faltered. Survival demanded effort, always effort, and he gave it without question.
Back at the shelter, he hung the meat carefully, stripping what he could to dry for later use. Flies would find it otherwise. His knife sliced cleanly, steady despite the fatigue dragging at his body.
The smell of blood lingered, coppery and rich. It clung to his hands no matter how often he rinsed them in the stream. Sometimes, when he breathed too deep, something inside him stirred—restless, unsteady, hungry in ways he refused to name.
He ignored it. He always ignored it.
When the work was done, he sat back on his heels, wiping sweat from his brow. The forest hummed around him, calm and indifferent. He should have felt at peace. But peace was not something that lived inside him anymore.
You don’t need anyone, he reminded himself. The forest provides. The forest endures. And so do you.
The words settled into his chest like a stone, heavy but familiar.
By the time the sun broke through the mist, the forest was alive with movement. Birds darted between branches, chattering at one another. Insects rose in thin, buzzing clouds, flashing silver where light touched their wings. Seonghwa kept his steps light, bow at the ready, scanning every flicker of shadow for prey.
The doe from earlier would last him several days, but survival was not just about today. It was about tomorrow . Always tomorrow. A single mistake—a spoiled meal, a wasted arrow, a trap sprung too soon—could undo weeks of effort.
He moved deeper into the undergrowth, gathering what he could as he went. Mushrooms with pale, firm caps—safe to eat, though bitter. Sprigs of wild thyme and yarrow, their scent sharp as he tucked them into his satchel. He ran his fingers over the bark of a willow tree, marking it in his mind. Willow bark meant medicine, if he prepared it right.
Herbs were as vital as meat.
Every plant he touched, every print he studied, reminded him of the years he had carved into this land. He had taught himself these things out of necessity. No pack healer to guide him, no elder to correct his hand if he chose the wrong leaf. Mistakes had cost him before. A rash that burned for days after chewing the wrong root. A fever that nearly took him one winter when he misjudged a mold.
Alone, every wound was a danger. Every sickness, a risk. And still, he endured.
The forest gave—so long as he knew how to take.
A rustle to his left stilled him mid-step. His head turned sharply, eyes narrowing as his fingers tightened on the bowstring. The sound was heavy, deliberate, nothing like the quick flutter of a rabbit or bird.
Another step. The undergrowth shivered.
A boar burst through the brush, massive tusks glinting, bristled mane raised. Its squeal tore through the quiet, sharp enough to rattle his teeth.
Seonghwa’s body reacted before his mind could. He shot an arrow, striking the beast’s shoulder. It staggered but did not fall. Rage flared in its small black eyes, and it charged.
The impact of its hooves shook the ground beneath him. Seonghwa threw himself sideways, rolling hard into the dirt as the boar thundered past. His shoulder slammed against a rock, pain flaring sharp down his arm.
He scrambled to his feet, lungs dragging in air. Another arrow already in hand, he drew and fired. The shaft buried deep into the animal’s chest. It bellowed, stumbled, and swung its head wildly, tusks gouging the earth.
Too close. Far too close.
Seonghwa darted for cover behind a tree as the beast charged again. Bark splintered where tusk met trunk, a shower of wood raining down over him. His heart hammered. Sweat stung his eyes.
This was the price of solitude. In a pack, others would circle the beast, drive it into weakness, bring it down with teamwork. Alone, he had only his skill—and luck.
The boar wheeled for another attack. Seonghwa didn’t hesitate. He drew his knife, braced himself, and waited until the last possible moment. When the beast lunged, he dropped low, slashing upward with every ounce of strength in his arm. The blade cut deep into its throat. Hot blood sprayed across his face and chest, blinding him as the boar crashed to the ground with a final, rattling squeal.
The forest went still again.
Seonghwa staggered back, chest heaving. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, crimson smearing across pale skin. His knife hand shook, fingers cramped tight around the hilt.
Too close. Too close.
He stood over the fallen animal, breath uneven, staring down at the size of it. More than two hundred pounds of rage and muscle. If he’d been a second slower—if his blade had glanced instead of cut—he would be lying broken in the dirt right now.
His stomach turned.
And yet… the scent of blood, rich and metallic, called to something in him. His instincts stirred, restless, pulling him toward it. He clenched his jaw, forcing the urge down. He would not give it space. He would not let the Omega inside him yield to instincts he had worked so hard to bury.
He cleaned the blade on his tunic with swift, harsh strokes, as though the motion itself could silence the ache inside him.
It took everything to drag the carcass closer to the trail, tying its legs with rope so he could haul it back later. His muscles screamed from the effort, and the gash across his shoulder from the earlier fall throbbed with every pull.
By the time he reached his shelter again, sweat soaked his back and the sun had dipped lower, throwing long shadows across the forest floor. He left the boar outside, too drained to butcher it yet. That would be work for tomorrow.
Inside, he slumped by the firepit, breath ragged. His hands were streaked with drying blood, knuckles bruised from striking rock during his fall. He stared at them for a long time, chest rising and falling with sharp, shallow breaths.
This was survival. This was the life he had chosen, when he refused what had been demanded of him. He told himself that again and again, as though repetition made it true.
But tonight, the truth felt hollow.
No pack meant no safety net. No safety net meant every day balanced on a knife’s edge.
Alone, every mistake carried the weight of death.
He swallowed hard, throat tight, and reached for the bundle of herbs tucked into the corner of the shelter. His hands shook as he laid them out, preparing what he would need for the ritual he dreaded most: the one that kept him alone.
The herbs lay in a scattered mess across the floor, pale green and dusty brown against the worn wood. Seonghwa crouched over them with careful, deliberate hands, as though even the act of touching them demanded reverence.
He sorted them by instinct, lips pressed thin as he whispered their names to himself. Ashbark for cooling. Feverleaf for balance. Bitterroot for breaking the surge before it builds. His voice was steady, though inside he felt the faintest tremor begin beneath his ribs—the kind of tremor that warned him the next heat was drawing near.
It always began this way: a restless hum under the skin, a coil of warmth at the base of his spine. The forest sharpened around him, every scent, every shift of air catching in his lungs too deeply. Even now, he could smell the faint scent of his own body changing, rising. He shoved the thought down, focusing on his work.
Grinding the herbs took longer than it should have. His shoulder ached from the boar’s charge, every motion of the pestle sending a twinge through the muscle. Still, he worked. He had to. If he let the heat come, if he surrendered even once, it would undo everything he had built.
The powder darkened as he crushed, releasing its bitter, acrid scent. His nose wrinkled, but his hands did not falter.
He remembered the first time he’d tried it—half-measured, desperate. The concoction had burned his throat raw, left him shaking and feverish for days. But it had worked. Mostly.
Mostly.
A flash of memory seared his mind: curled on the floor of his old den, back arched in pain, body screaming for touch that would not come. He had dug his nails into his arms until blood welled, biting down on fabric to muffle the sounds tearing out of him. He had sworn then he would never let it get that far again. He would keep control, no matter the cost.
He spooned the powder into a small cup, adding water from a clay jug. The liquid swirled into a murky green, its surface trembling with each tiny shake of his hands.
Seonghwa stared at it for a long moment. His reflection stared back, distorted in the rippling surface: pale face hollowed from too many seasons of solitude, dark eyes shadowed with exhaustion.
“This is the price,” he muttered. His voice sounded harsh in the stillness of the shelter. “This is what freedom costs.”
He raised the cup to his lips and drank.
The bitterness hit instantly, coating his tongue, sliding thick down his throat like sludge. He gagged but forced himself to swallow, muscles clenching in protest. By the second gulp, his stomach twisted violently. By the third, he could feel the burn spreading outward, curling into his veins like fire.
His breath came shallow. His chest rose and fell too quickly. He pressed a hand against the ground, grounding himself as the world tilted sideways. The herbs were not kind. They never were.
Sweat slicked his skin within minutes, dripping down his temple. His heart hammered erratically, pounding against his ribs as though trying to break free.
He curled forward, arms wrapped around himself, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. Every nerve felt aflame—heat begging to bloom, suppressed and smothered into something jagged and raw.
No. No. I won’t.
He rocked back and forth, a slow, desperate rhythm that matched the ragged pull of his breath. The forest outside seemed to press closer, listening.
Memories clawed up, unbidden. The circle of his old pack, the elders’ voices sharp with scorn: You shame us. You deny what you were born for.
The Alpha’s hand, reaching for him in expectation, in ownership. The way Seonghwa had jerked back, heart thunder in his throat. His own words ringing out, trembling but defiant: I will not bind to someone I do not choose.
Exile had followed. Exile and solitude and nights like this, where his body became enemy as much as ally.
The medicine burned a path through him, a violent tide that ripped the yearning from his muscles, scalded the hunger from his veins. It left only exhaustion in its wake, a bone-deep hollow that felt worse than hunger, worse than thirst.
When it was done, Seonghwa lay sprawled on the ground, chest heaving. His limbs trembled with the aftershocks, his skin clammy and cold despite the fire’s warmth.
For a long while he couldn’t move. His breath rasped in the quiet, every inhale scraping his throat raw.
Finally, with effort, he pushed himself upright. His hands still shook as he gathered the remnants of the herbs, tucking them neatly back into their place. Order mattered. Even when his body was in chaos, his world had to remain ordered.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with a ragged sleeve, staring into the fire until the dancing flames steadied something inside him.
It was done. The heat would not rise again—not for another cycle, if the herbs held.
But the hollowness remained, a gnawing emptiness he could not name. He pulled his blanket around himself, drawing his knees to his chest. The forest was too quiet. The silence pressed in from all sides.
Once, he had been surrounded by voices. Laughter, bickering, the comfort of scents overlapping in a den full of bodies that were never far apart. Even when he had hated the expectations, the constant press of others’ will against his own, he had never felt this kind of alone.
The memory of it stung worse than the medicine.
“I don’t need them,” he whispered, voice hoarse. His fingers clenched tight in the fabric of the blanket. “I don’t need anyone.”
The words tasted like ash.
And still, the emptiness remained.
Sleep did not come easily after the ritual. The herbs weighed heavy in his body, dragging him down into a half-state—neither rest nor waking. It was in that gray fog that the memories came, as they always did, sharp as knives no matter how many seasons had passed.
The smell of incense came first. Thick, cloying smoke curling through the hall of judgment, catching in his throat as he knelt on the cold stone floor. The space was vast, cavernous, every sound magnified. The murmurs of the gathered pack pressed in like a tide.
He had kept his head bowed, eyes fixed on the flagstones, because if he looked up he would see them all—his packmates, his family, his elders—and he did not want to see their faces when they passed judgment.
“Seonghwa.” The voice of Elder Rahn cut through the silence. Old, brittle, but edged with authority sharp as a blade. “You are called here because you have shamed this pack. Because you have defied your nature.”
The words burned in his chest, but he stayed still.
“An Omega’s duty is clear. You are born to bond. To nurture. To serve the balance of the pack,” another elder intoned. “It is not a choice. It is the law of the blood.”
The crowd shifted, the sound of whispers rippling. He knew they were looking at him. At the lone Omega who dared to say no.
“Raise your head.”
Seonghwa obeyed, though every muscle in his body screamed to keep still. His gaze lifted slowly, and there—across the circle—stood the Alpha they had chosen for him.
Tall, broad-shouldered, gaze gleaming with certainty. Daro. His scent was sharp in the air, laced with triumph, as though he had already won.
Seonghwa’s stomach twisted.
“You are to bond with him,” Elder Rahn declared. “The union has been decided. He is strong. He will guard you. You will bear him heirs, and your place will be honored.”
The words struck like chains, tightening with every syllable. Seonghwa’s hands curled into fists in his lap, nails biting crescents into his palms.
“No.” His voice was hoarse but clear.
The hall stilled. Even the incense smoke seemed to pause in the air.
“No?” Rahn repeated, disbelief dripping from the single syllable.
“I will not bond with him.” Seonghwa forced the words past the lump in his throat. His heart hammered so loudly he feared it would echo. “I will not bond with anyone I do not choose.”
Gasps rippled through the gathering.
Daro stepped forward, confusion flashing to anger in his eyes. “You dare refuse me? Do you think you have a choice?” His voice carried, deep and sure, filling the space. “You are an Omega. You should be grateful.”
“I would rather be alone than bound in chains,” Seonghwa spat, surprising even himself with the venom in his voice.
“You disgrace yourself,” Rahn snapped. His gnarled hand struck the staff against stone, the crack reverberating like thunder. “You disgrace us all. What arrogance makes you believe you know better than the will of the pack?”
Seonghwa’s vision blurred with unshed tears, but he did not bow. “I know myself. That is enough.”
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. He could hear his mother’s breath hitch somewhere in the crowd. Could feel the weight of every gaze on his skin, hot as fire.
“Then you will have no place among us,” Rahn decreed, voice cold as winter. “If you will not fulfill your role, you will not walk under our protection. You are cast out. Exiled.”
The word landed like a stone, sinking into his gut.
“No—” A cry broke from his mother, silenced quickly by another’s hand.
Seonghwa’s throat closed. His heart screamed to look at her, to cling to that final tether, but he forced his eyes straight ahead. If he looked back, he would break.
Daro sneered, his scent flooding sharp and acrid. “You will regret this, Omega. Alone, you are nothing.”
Seonghwa stood on shaking legs. The elders expected him to plead, to fall to his knees, to beg forgiveness. He could feel the weight of their expectation pressing down like a storm.
But he did not.
“I would rather be nothing,” he said, voice steady despite the quake in his limbs, “than belong to someone who sees me as property.”
A murmur swept through the hall, scandal and outrage tangled with disbelief.
And then it was done. The staff struck again. Judgment sealed.
He was led to the edge of the territory that same day, no time to gather more than what fit in a single bag. His siblings did not meet his gaze. His father did not speak. His mother’s hands trembled as she pressed a small pouch of herbs into his palm, eyes brimming with words she was not allowed to say.
When he stepped across the boundary stone, the weight of a hundred eyes bore into his back. The air outside the pack lands felt thin, unfamiliar. His feet faltered, but he kept walking.
He did not look back.
He had told himself, over and over, that he had left with dignity. That he had chosen freedom over chains. That solitude was better than submission.
And yet, in the dark nights that followed, when the cold seeped into his bones and the silence screamed louder than any crowd, he had wondered if perhaps they were right—if alone, he truly was nothing.
Seonghwa jolted awake, heart racing, sweat damp on his brow. The fire had burned low, coals glowing faint in the hearth. His breath shuddered out of him.
It had been seasons, years even, since that day. But still, the memory clung sharp as fresh wounds. Still, his body remembered the sting of exile as though it were yesterday.
He pressed a hand to his chest, steadying himself.
“I am not nothing,” he whispered into the quiet, though his voice shook.
The forest gave no answer. Only the wind, whispering through the trees like distant voices he would never hear again.
By the time night fell, the air had turned heavy. The kind of weight that pressed down on the skin and filled the lungs with warning. Seonghwa knew storms long before they came—the forest always whispered of them, the leaves restless, the animals uneasy.
That evening, the silence was deeper than usual.
He sat outside the hut with his knife in hand, slowly running it along a whetstone. Sparks whispered off the blade, but his focus was not on the steel. His ears strained for sounds beyond the usual nocturnal chorus. No crickets. No distant owls. Even the rabbits had vanished from the underbrush.
The air was wrong.
He exhaled and set the knife aside, rising to his feet. His joints cracked softly as he stretched, his body too lean, too accustomed to constant tension. He padded toward the treeline, eyes scanning the darkening canopy.
The first roll of thunder came like a growl across the mountains. Not close yet—but soon.
Seonghwa frowned, dragging a hand across the back of his neck. His instincts prickled, warning of danger. Usually, it was enough to blame the weather, to convince himself that a storm explained away his unease. But tonight, his body hummed with sharper urgency. His mind ached with the instinct to hide, to burrow somewhere safe, to close the door and shut out the world.
Instead, he lit another lantern. Shadows leapt back across the clearing, banished for now.
Inside the hut, he stoked the fire higher, feeding it carefully with split wood until the hearth crackled bright. He busied himself with trivial tasks: checking the dried fish strung overhead, rearranging bundles of herbs, tightening the leather wrap on his water gourd. Anything to ignore the gnawing undercurrent in his chest.
But no task dulled it. The forest was too quiet.
By the time the storm broke, he was already pacing.
The rain came sudden and heavy, slashing against the roof, drumming into the packed earth outside. Wind howled through the trees, bending branches until they creaked in protest. Every gust carried scents muddied by water—wet earth, crushed leaves, lightning.
Seonghwa stood at the door, fingers curled tight around the frame. His heart pounded. His breaths came quick, shallow. Storms alone were no threat; he had weathered dozens. But something else rode on this one, something that set every hair on his arms standing on end.
He closed his eyes, tried to steady himself. It’s nothing. It’s the storm. It’s just the storm.
But then—there.
Through the rain and wind came a new sound. Barely audible, muffled by distance, but unmistakable. A crack of branches, a body crashing through undergrowth. Not the measured tread of a wolf or deer. Too heavy. Too uncoordinated.
A person.
Seonghwa’s eyes flew open, his body moving before his thoughts could catch up. He snatched his knife from the table, grip firm despite the tremor in his wrist. His pulse thundered as he slipped out into the storm, rain soaking him instantly.
The night was chaos—rain lashing sideways, thunder splitting the sky, lightning flashing white through the trees. He squinted against it, forcing his senses wider, searching.
The forest’s silence had broken now, filled instead with the ragged sounds of struggle. A body moving blindly, stumbling, falling.
Closer.
Seonghwa’s instincts screamed at him to retreat. To return to the hut, shut the door, let whatever fate had claimed this intruder finish the work. He owed nothing to anyone. He had survived because he had refused to be bound to another’s downfall.
But still, he moved forward.
His feet sank in the sodden earth as he pushed through branches, lantern light swinging wildly in his free hand. The rain blurred everything, his soaked clothes clinging to his frame, but he pressed on toward the sound.
There—a flash of lightning illuminated the forest, stark and unforgiving.
A figure collapsed against the roots of a tree, body crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut.
Seonghwa froze, breath caught.
Even from here, he could smell it. The thick, overwhelming scent of Alpha, muddied by blood and rain but still potent enough to hit him like a blow. It tangled in his lungs, stirred instincts he had long kept caged. His body trembled, an Omega’s natural reaction to such presence, even weakened.
“No,” Seonghwa hissed, forcing himself back. His fingers tightened around the knife. He should turn away. He should leave this stranger to the storm. Alphas brought nothing but ruin. He had lived that lesson.
But then the lightning struck again, and he saw more clearly—the torn side of the stranger’s body, dark with blood. The way one arm twisted unnaturally. The faint rise and fall of breath that spoke of life clinging by a thread.
Seonghwa cursed under his breath.
It would be so easy to walk away. To let the storm wash the intruder into the soil, never to trouble him. He owed nothing. He wanted nothing.
And yet, his feet moved forward.
The Alpha groaned faintly as Seonghwa crouched beside him. His face was pale beneath the mud and rain, his lips tinged blue with cold. Younger than Seonghwa had expected, though built with the strength of someone trained for battle. His pulse fluttered weakly at his throat.
“Damn you,” Seonghwa muttered, though the words were directed at himself more than the stranger.
He sheathed the knife and shifted to grab the Alpha under the arms. His body protested instantly—this man was heavy, dense with muscle even half-dead. The mud sucked at their feet, the rain blinding his path. Step by step, he hauled the deadweight toward the hut, every movement a battle.
Several times he nearly dropped him. Several times he thought of turning back, leaving him where he fell. But each time, he clenched his jaw and pushed forward, breath tearing ragged from his lungs.
By the time the clearing came into view, Seonghwa’s vision swam with exhaustion. His shoulders screamed from the strain, his palms raw from gripping soaked fabric. The Alpha’s head lolled against him, unconscious.
Seonghwa dragged him the last few feet, stumbling into the hut and collapsing both of them to the floor in a heap. The door slammed shut against the storm behind them.
For a long moment, he lay there, chest heaving, the stranger’s weight crushing against him. His entire body trembled from effort and adrenaline.
Then the scent hit him again, stronger now in the confined space. Alpha. Rich, sharp, undeniable. His stomach lurched, instincts flaring with heat and panic.
He shoved the body off him, scrambling to his feet. His knife was in his hand again before he’d even thought, blade pointed at the unconscious man sprawled on his floor.
The storm raged outside. Inside, only the sound of Seonghwa’s ragged breath filled the space.
He should kill him now. While he had the chance. Before the Alpha woke. Before anything could change.
But Seonghwa just stood there, knife trembling in his hand, staring down at the stranger fate had delivered to his doorstep.
The knife stayed in his hand for longer than it should have.
Seonghwa stood over the unconscious Alpha, chest still rising and falling with shallow breaths, mud streaked across his face, blood seeping steadily from the torn flesh along his side. Every instinct screamed that this was danger—that the moment this Alpha woke, the fragile peace of his exile would be shattered.
He could end it here. A single thrust of the blade. No more storm, no more questions, no more tangled scents filling the air.
But his hand shook. His throat burned. He lowered the knife with a sharp exhale, cursing under his breath. “Damn it all.”
Seonghwa dropped the blade on the table and forced himself into motion. Survival had no patience for hesitation. If the Alpha bled out here, it would still be Seonghwa’s problem—rot stinking up his home, blood drawing scavengers, disease crawling in the air. And if he lived? …Then Seonghwa would face that, too.
He fetched his satchel of herbs from the shelf, the worn leather soft from years of use. His hands moved on instinct: lamp oil turned higher, cloths boiled in the kettle, tools laid out in grim precision. The motions were steady, practiced, though his breath remained shallow and quick.
When he returned to the Alpha, kneeling by his side, the scent hit him again. Stronger, now that the storm no longer washed it away. It coiled around Seonghwa’s senses—iron tang of blood threaded with the deep scent of pine resin and crisp apple. His Omega body shuddered against his will, instincts whispering submit, submit.
“Shut up,” he muttered to himself, as though his instincts were a voice he could argue with.
He cut the Alpha’s shirt open with careful, clean strokes. The fabric peeled back, revealing the full extent of the wound—a jagged slash running from rib to hip, raw and deep. The edges were dark with clotted blood, dirt ground into the torn skin. Too wide to ignore, but not instantly fatal.
Seonghwa pressed his lips together and forced his focus narrow. He cleaned the wound first, soaking cloth after cloth in boiled water, dabbing away filth and blood. The Alpha groaned faintly under his touch, body twitching with half-conscious response. His hand shot out once, reflexive, fingers closing around Seonghwa’s wrist with startling strength.
Seonghwa froze. His breath stuttered in his throat. The Alpha’s grip was iron, unyielding even in delirium. For one dizzying second, Seonghwa saw himself pinned beneath that hand, the weight of a bond he never chose crushing him again.
“Let go,” he hissed, panic sharpening his voice.
The Alpha didn’t answer, eyes fluttering but unfocused. His grip trembled, then slackened, hand sliding away to the floor.
Seonghwa sat there for a long moment, breathing hard, staring at the red marks left on his wrist. Then he pulled back, rubbed the skin once, and forced himself to continue.
He packed the wound with crushed comfrey and goldenseal, herbs pungent and bitter. The scent of them fought against the Alpha’s scent, though it never fully drowned it. His fingers worked swiftly, pressing poultice into torn flesh, binding it tight with strips of clean linen.
The Alpha stirred again, lips parting, a hoarse sound tearing from his throat. Not words, just a noise of pain.
Seonghwa bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want to listen. Didn’t want to acknowledge the humanity in it. It was easier if this man remained a stranger, a burden, not a person.
But still, he found himself muttering under his breath as he worked, voice low and sharp: “You’re a fool, whoever you are. Running yourself into the ground, bleeding all over my floor. Alphas always think they’re unbreakable until they’re not.”
The Alpha shifted, brow furrowing faintly as though he heard. His breath hitched when Seonghwa tightened the bandages, a weak groan spilling from him.
Seonghwa’s hands trembled again. He hated the flicker of sympathy sparking in his chest, hated the way it made his movements gentler, hated that he lingered to brush sweat-soaked hair from the Alpha’s forehead.
He sat back finally, wiping his blood-stained hands on a cloth. His muscles ached from the effort, his heart still racing. The Alpha’s chest rose and fell in a shallow rhythm, bandaged tightly, color still drained but no longer as deathly. Alive, for now.
Seonghwa stared down at him, jaw tight.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he said aloud, as though to the storm itself. “I didn’t save you. I saved myself from your corpse.”
The Alpha didn’t answer, didn’t stir. His breathing remained slow, uneven.
Seonghwa pushed to his feet and stumbled back toward the fire. His body shook with exhaustion, damp clothes clinging cold to his skin. He stripped off his soaked outer tunic, tossed it near the hearth, and wrapped himself in a thin blanket.
He should sleep. He needed sleep. But his eyes kept flicking back to the figure on his floor.
Every shift of breath, every groan, every subtle flare of his scent had Seonghwa on edge. His instincts warred within him—half of him aching to curl close, to offer comfort; the other half screaming to flee, to drive a blade through the source of danger before it woke.
So he sat. He sharpened his knife again, the steady scrape of metal on stone his anchor against the storm inside and out. His gaze never left the Alpha.
The fire burned low, shadows creeping across the hut. Outside, the storm raged on, wind howling like the forest itself cried warning.
And in the midst of it all, Seonghwa repeated the words he had carved into his survival, the words that had kept him alive through exile and solitude alike:
I don’t need anyone. I don’t need anyone. I don’t—
His gaze lingered on the unconscious Alpha one last time, throat tight.: Exile
“…I don’t need anyone,” he whispered, softer now.
But his hand trembled on the blade.