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Arc 1 – Omegaverse: The Hunter and the Omega Prince
Day 3 – Forest Ride (Wolf Encounter, Continued)
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The wolf's eyes never left Kyle — not when the captain's horse snorted, not when Aldric shifted his weight, not even when a branch above cracked and dropped wet leaves.
It wasn't hunger in its gaze.
Not entirely.
It was… focus. Single-minded and unshakable, as though Kyle was the only thing in this damp green world worth seeing.
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The air felt thick. His fingers tightened around the reins without meaning to.
He knew — logically — that this was dangerous. But the way it looked at him, the quiet patience in its stare, made his mind foggy.
Like it had already decided something about him.
The horse beneath him shuffled again, head jerking nervously. Kyle's seat wobbled. His boots slipped against the stirrups — the leather slick from the mist.
Before he could correct himself, the wolf moved.
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A sudden, fluid leap forward — not an attack, not yet, but fast enough that the horse panicked.
It reared, hooves slicing the air. Kyle gasped — hands losing the reins for a split second — and the world tilted.
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He saw it happen in fragments —
The wolf's lunge.
The horse's violent rear.
The pale figure of the Omega sliding sideways, hood falling back, braid swinging like a silver ribbon.
Aldric was already moving, but the ground between them was uneven and slick.
Kyle hit the earth with a dull thump, breath leaving his body in a startled gasp.
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The shock of landing stole his voice.
His palms stung — gritty with damp earth and tiny stones. One knee burned where it had scraped.
And then he saw it.
The wolf had closed the gap, only a few strides away now. Its head was low, tail straight, that strange unblinking gaze pinning him in place.
Every drop of sound in the forest seemed to have gone still — except his own uneven breathing.
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The scent was sharper now — bruised grass, the metallic thread of skin just grazed.
Underneath, that distinct warmth that made the rest of the world irrelevant.
The others were noise. The small one was center. The wolf thought.
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The bowstring sang.
The arrow struck the earth just to the wolf's left, close enough to send a shiver through the soil.
The wolf's ears flicked, but it didn't break eye contact with Kyle. Not until Aldric took a deliberate step forward, voice low and lethal.
"Go."
For a long second, the wolf didn't move. Then — one slow step backward, eyes still on the Omega, before it turned and slipped into the treeline as if melting into it.
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Later — Back at the Hunting Lodge
The fire was too warm against Kyle's flushed skin. His braid had been loosened to ease his neck, and he sat bundled in a thick wool blanket, sulking into a cup of honeyed water.
His scraped knee was already cleaned and wrapped, but he kept glancing at it with exaggerated misery.
"It still stings," he complained, lower lip jutting.
"You fell two feet, Omega," Aldric replied, crouching to adjust the blanket more securely. "Your pride took more damage than your body."
Kyle shot him a wounded look, like he'd just been told his favorite dessert was banned.
"I hit my head, too. What if I get brain damage?"
The captain, passing by, muttered under his breath, "If you had any to begin with—"
Kyle gasped. "I heard that!" and pulled the blanket tighter around himself like a fortress.
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That night, his temperature spiked — not dangerously, but enough to leave him pale and shivery. The healers blamed damp air and shock.
Kyle blamed the wolf.
"The way it looked at me… it's like it wanted to own me."
Aldric, sitting in the chair beside his bed, didn't argue.
He'd seen that look before.
Just not from an animal.
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