Page 94 of Omega Hunted

I wanted him to love me as much as I loved him.

“I tried.”

There wasn’t an ounce of pride in his voice, nor any expectation that I’d praise him for it. The fire crackled, and the forest stretched away into darkness beyond its light, silent beneath the snow.

“It’s been so long,” I murmured, staring into the flames.

He squeezed my hand, then tugged me close and kissed me. Eight years since I’d last shifted the night I’d presented.

I remembered the panic more clearly than the pain. My cat had fought to get free, confused and frightened, while people I’d never met pinned me down and filled my body with drugs until every instinct simply… disappeared.

Not gone.

Never gone.

Buried.

Over the last few weeks, I’d begun to feel stronger, and my cat had become more than a flicker at the edge of my thoughts. Then came dreams filled with golden eyes watching me from between snow-covered trees. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the brush of a thick tail against my legs.

Tonight he paced beneath my skin with quiet purpose, not impatient, not frightened, simply waiting.

Safe.

The word drifted through me so gently I almost thought I’d imagined it. “I know,” I whispered.

Cassian smiled at me. “What?”

“My cat.”

Understanding softened his expression and my eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know how to do this.” I frowned. “In the past, alphas believed they could force an omega to shift. I mean, command them. Push them through it.”

He shook his head once, then cradled my face and pressed a kiss to my nose. “I wouldn’t even if I could, because this isn’t mine to take from you.”

Something tightened in my chest because my entire life everyone else had decided what happened to my body. Whether I shifted. Whether I carried a child. Whether I lived. Whether I obeyed.

Tonight, for the first time since I was fourteen, the choice belonged to me.

“I’ll look after Asha,” he said after a pause.

“But you’ll stay here for a while and watch me?” I asked, unable to keep the uncertainty from my voice. Would he love my cat? Would he think I was beautiful in my fur? “Just… until it happens.”

Or until it didn’t.

What if I’d waited too long?

What if I was broken beyond repair?

What if my cat had come back only to disappear again?

Cassian studied me for a long moment before giving a single nod.

“Only if you allow me to.”

“I do.”

He didn’t move closer or touch me again, instead he settled on the log opposite the fire, elbows resting on his knees, giving me space while making it clear that if I needed him, he was there.

I closed my eyes.