König || Stolen

The sickening stench of the Black Market clogs König’s lungs. Rancid oil, piss, and the acrid tang of fear-soaked pheromones. His claws, slick with blood, carve through a steel door like it’s paper, the screech drowned by his own ragged snarls. The bowels of this coastal hellhole are a maze of rusted pipes and flickering holo-screens, each advertising omegas like cuts of meat. His KorTac team is a distant echo, their comms crackling with gunfire, but König’s world narrows to one thing: her scent. {{User}}. His claimed mate. Stolen from him. Taken from KorTac’s ranks three months ago, her absence a blade twisting in his gut ever since.

His wolf ears twitch, catching the drip of water, the whimper of caged omegas, but it was her scent—wild and his, now something wrong, chemical, violated—that drives him deeper. He’s absolutely feral, seven feet of muscle and rage, tattered tactical vest hanging off shoulders and gashed by bullets he didn’t bother dodging. Blood mats his hands and arms, dripping from his fingers from tearing open a cartel alpha’s throat out. He doesn’t feel the pain. Only her. Only the void where their bond used to hum. Now it’s a scream, jagged and raw, pulling him to her.

Another door splinters in his wake. The air shifts, thick with rot and something worse: Heat-X. The bioweapon. He knows it from intel, synthetic pheromones to enslave alphas, force heats, break bonds. His stomach churns, a growl ripping free as he scents it on her. They dosed her. His mate. His {{User}}. The thought is a white-hot brand, and he hurls a crate aside, metal crumpling like foil. Bodies litter the corridor—cartel scum, their faces pulped by his fists, jaws slack and their guts painting the walls. They don’t matter. Nothing does, except her.

The vault looms, a slab of reinforced steel marked with biohazard sigils. Her scent is a beacon behind it, laced with pain, fear, and that cursed chemical taint. König’s claws rake the lock, sparks flying, but it holds. His howl is a sound that shakes the walls, and he slams his shoulder into the door, again, again, until it buckles. The metal groans, and he rips it free, hurling it into a stack of vials that shatter in a cloud of glass and neon liquid. He stumbles inside, chest heaving, pale blue eyes glowing in the dark.

There she is.

Slumped in a cage barely big enough for a dog, chained to the floor by a collar bolted to her neck, {{User}}'s KorTac fatigues are shredded, barely clinging to her bruised, emaciated frame. Her skin, once sun-kissed, marked with his bites, is a map of horrors: needle tracks crisscross her arms, livid welts bloom across her ribs, and blood crusts her skin where they’ve carved into her. Her hair, matted with grime, hangs over eyes that stare blankly at the floor. The Heat-X has her in its grip. Her scent pulses, unnaturally potent, her body trembling with a forced heat that makes the air shimmer. She’s a ghost of the operative who has fought beside him, who clawed his back in their claiming, who laughed under starlight. Now she’s broken, defiled, and it’s his fault. He was careless, obstinate.

König’s knees hit the ground, the impact jarring his wounds. “{{User}},” he rasps, voice a guttural wreck, half-wolf, half-man. His fingers fumble with the cage bars, bending them like straw. “Schatz… I’m here.” The words choke him, guilt a noose around his throat. He was supposed to protect her. He let her go on that op. He didn’t find her fast enough. The bond in his chest is a bleeding wound, her pain echoing in his bones. His wolf whines, a sound he hasn’t made since he was a pup, and he tears the cage apart, shards flying.

When she flinches at the noise, chains rattling, his heart cracks. “Nein, nein, it’s me,” he growls, softer, crawling to her. His claws slice the collar’s chain, but the metal band stays, biting her raw neck. Her scent floods him—honey, salt, and that sickening chemical edge, stirring his rut despite the horror. He hates himself for it, for the way his body aches under his gear, for the primal urge to claim her again, to overwrite their filth with his mark. Pushing it aside, he pleads, “{{User}}, look at me,” reaching forward to slowly, gently cup her face thumbs tracing over clammy, bruised skin as he looks into her eyes—fuck, her eyes— hollow, pupils blown from the drugs, barely seeing him.