THE HAVEN

ONE

>Donghyuk had never heard of an alpha like Mark, yet alone met one<

ONE

Donghyuk ran as fast as his feet let him.

The trees were flying by him and became blurry around him and the wind lashed into his face while he ran deeper and deeper into the woods.
He knew he wasn't safe there and he remembered all the times his mother had told him to never flee into a forest, especially not by himself.
But that wasn't everything that was wrong about his situation. He already crossed those lines and ran deeper into the dark, not risking to look back, because that would just cost him time.
While he was completely by himself, he was far from being himself.

It had all started two days ago, with an unfamiliar warmth spreading in his lower stomach and something he firstly mistook for hunger. The last two days he had eaten double the meals he usually ate and still only felt this hunger grow and he had taken cold showers every hour, but the warmth spreading through his whole body got worse by the second.
And the result of these two days of unknown symptoms and confusing need was this.
The heat.

He knew just so much about the heat:
You had to get through it and there was no way around it. His mother had warned him about it.

'Fear the heat', she used to tell him. "And don't let the heat fool you."

And Donghyuk feared the heat like he feared nothing else in this world. He had been through it once and the experience left him disgusted and bruised.
His childhood had been over in a heartbeat and he knew there was no going back. He could be lucky that he was such a late bloomer.
His mother told him her first heat came in the age of only thirteen and Donghyuk was already twenty one.

Life was quite difficult as an omega in this town.
There just weren't enough of them, nobody who could tell him how to stay safe and nobody who could possibly be a friend.
There were so many alphas and even if they wouldn't be able to smell his scent from miles away, it was impossible to avoid them in such a small town.
But Donghyuk would never leave the apartment he grew up in. It was the only thing that reminded him of his beloved mother and it was the only home he ever had.

So the only choice he had was running, as far as his feet could carry him. Running from the alphas who were already chasing him, so the few others, who weren't as hungry, wouldn't start chasing him as well.

And mostly running from his own desires which he knew weren't really his own.
That wanting and that hunger and lust which could never be satisfied with food. That need to be dominated and the need to bow down to an alpha who'd have all the control over him.
He was scared shitless.
His mother taught him to be scared. She said fear was the only thing that could keep him safe.
Could keep him sane.

But Donghyuk's strength had its limits and he had no idea how long he had been sprinting, the branches of trees cutting his skin open on his way and his feet bruising painfully, when he felt his speed lessen.
There was no way he could run from them until his heat was over and he knew it.

He could already smell them, coming closer and they were approaching from different sides, so Donghyuk had no idea where to go. He heard himself panting and whimpering, while panic took over his chest.
The panic was paralyzing.
While fear usually sharpened his senses and helped him concentrating and seeing clear, panic did the opposite. Panic wrapped its hand around his throat and pressed its fingers into his flesh and the air was gone.
He couldn't breathe.
And his feet slowed down a little more.

The trees were dark and cold and it didn't take long for the first alpha to catch up to him and there was no use in running anymore.
He was caught and he knew it.
Instead he stumbled around, looking for his chasers and while he desperately tried to get a bit of air into his lungs, he could see a man with broad shoulders and muscular calves and arms getting closer, emerging from the thicket.