CHAPTER 2 — FALL

LEANDER POV

For a moment, I felt weightless.

Time slowed down. Rain seemed to fly upward. The van's taillights looked like fading stars as they pulled away into the darkness.

I had built an empire on logic and calculated risks. I never believed in fate or anything besides my own will. I'd fired people for using words like destiny in business plans and called belief in higher powers a crutch for the weak-minded.

And yet, falling through darkness toward certain death, bleeding and broken, the end seemed inevitable. I was thirty-two years old, dying on a random road because I was too arrogant to see the attack coming.

If there's anything out there, if I survive this, I'll…

Then gravity took hold.

I crashed through a thick tree canopy. The thought ended when my skull cracked against a tree trunk. Branches whipped my face and tore my expensive tuxedo, leaving deep, stinging scratches on my skin. Something hard, maybe another trunk, maybe a jagged rock, slammed into the back of my head. White light filled my vision, and the whole world tilted sideways.

Conrad did this,* I thought with the cold clarity that came from shock and blood loss. Remember that Conrad did this.

I hit another tree with my shoulder and started tumbling down a steep slope. I couldn't stop myself from falling. Sharp rocks ripped through my tuxedo, and my broken ribs screamed with every rotation. My head hit something else, and I almost passed out. I fought to keep my eyes open.

Finally, I stopped at the bottom of the hill.

I lay in cold mud and wet ferns, staring up through the trees at the black sky. Rain fell directly into my eyes. I couldn't feel my legs anymore. Strange numbness spread through me as shock took over.

High above, I heard voices. Saw flashlights cutting through the dark like searchlights hunting prey.

"A man bleeding that much won't get far. Check the ravine."

Footsteps got closer. Leaves crunched.

"Conrad only pays for a body."

"Conrad can fuck himself. You saw the blood trail. Nobody survives that."

"We still gotta check."

I closed my eyes and willed my body to move. Nothing happened. Not even my fingers twitched.

Get up. Don't die in the dirt.

A flashlight beam cut through the darkness, passing just meters from where I lay hidden in the ferns. I held my breath. The pressure sent fresh agony through my broken ribs.

"Forget it," someone yelled. "Even if he survived that fall, those wounds will finish him. We'll tell Conrad he went over the edge."

The footsteps faded. A car engine turned over, and soon the sound disappeared into the distance.

Only the rain remained.

I let my breath out and immediately regretted it as sharp pain lanced through my chest. I assessed my injuries with the same cold logic I used for quarterly reports: broken ribs, two deep stab wounds, and head trauma. Probably internal bleeding too. Without help, I'd be dead in an hour.

Down the hill, I saw warm yellow lights. A village sat there, its windows and street lamps glowing like beacons. Maybe fifty meters away.

To me, it might as well have been fifty kilometers.

I tried to sit up. The whole world spun around me. I fell back, gasping, black spots dancing in my vision.

Move. You have to move.

I rolled onto my stomach and cried out at the fresh wave of pain. Everything hurt. Everything felt broken. But Alphas don't survive by giving up. They stay alive because they're too stubborn to die.

I dug my fingers deep into the mud and pulled.

One meter.

Then I pulled again.

The lights seemed to grow distant instead of closer. Maybe that was just the blood loss talking. I'd lost a lot. My tuxedo was soaked black, the expensive one I wore to accept my award just hours ago.

Most Innovative CEO.The irony would be funny if I weren't dying.

If I survive this, I thought, I will destroy Conrad. Not just ruin him or take his money. I'll erase him.*

Revenge had always been my specialty.

I dragged my body forward, inch by inch, until the trees finally thinned. I could see cobblestone streets and actual buildings in the distance. I could hear the ocean now too.

Just a little further.

But my strength gave out about twenty meters from the nearest house. I crawled out of the woods and collapsed onto wet grass. With one last effort, I rolled onto my back and stared at the dark sky. Rain fell directly into my open eyes.

This was the end of the road.

My hand pressed against the warm, thick flow seeping from my stomach. I felt my heartbeat slowing down.

Somewhere, Conrad was probably celebrating. Planning how to comfort his grieving wife while stealing the company.

My consciousness slipped like sand through my fingers. The cold reached deep into my bones, and my eyes drifted shut.

Then I heard running. Distant voices, muffled, as if I were underwater.

"Oh my God—Father, look!"

I forced my eyes open.

A young man stood over me. Blonde hair plastered to his face by rain, strands clinging to sharp cheekbones that made him look almost otherworldly in the lightning flashes. Wide brown eyes stared down at me, not just brown, but warm amber shot through with gold. I saw shock there, but also something fiercer. Determination.

An Omega. Even through the haze of dying, my Alpha hindbrain registered the scent: sea breeze and vanilla, but underneath something uniquely *his.* Clean linen. Sunlight on warm skin.

Home.

Which made no sense, because I'd never had a home.

Something in my chest pulled tight. Some primal part of me recognized this stranger as safe.

"He's bleeding everywhere... Father, NOW!"

An older man with military bearing appeared through the rain.

I opened my mouth to speak, but blood filled my throat.

"Shh, don't try to talk." Gentle hands framed my face. The young Omega's hands were small and careful. "You're safe now. I've got you."

Safe.

It had been a very long time since I felt truly safe.

My hand moved on its own, fingers closing weakly around a slender wrist. I needed to hold on. Make this person stay.

The Omega looked surprised at first, but then his expression softened. "Hold on. Please hold on."

"Avelin, move. Let me see him." The older man's voice was sharp with command.

"He's dying, Father."

"Call Dr. Len. This man needs immediate help; he could be bleeding internally."

Those warm brown eyes vanished when the older man took over. I wanted to shout for him to come back. I needed to know his name.

My lips moved, trying to ask, but the world was getting blurry. "Name..."

The pain started to slip away. I knew that wasn't a good sign; it meant I was dying.

"He's losing consciousness!"

The young Omega rushed back, tears in his eyes. He touched my face, keeping me steady.

"Don't you dare die," he whispered fiercely. "I don't even know your name yet."

“Leander,” I wanted to say. “My name is Leander Voss.”

But the words wouldn't come.

I fought to stay awake. I wanted to know this Omega's name before I slipped away.

But the exhaustion was too much.

I felt warmth at the end. Gentle hands held my face, and that vanilla scent filled my lungs.

Even as everything else faded, my Alpha instincts knew one thing with crystalline certainty:

Mine.

Not possession. Not ownership. Something older than language. This person, this stranger kneeling in the rain, crying over someone he'd never met, was essential, and oxygen was essential.

I tried to tell him and warn him. He couldn't save me, shouldn't try. I was already dead.

But the only thing that came out was a broken sound that might have been his name, if I'd known it.

Then darkness swallowed me whole.