The Hunt begins in less than an hour.

The announcement has already played twice through the speakers surrounding the staging grounds, each repetition calmly reminding all participating Omegas to report to the designated release area before the countdown reaches zero. Nobody needs reminding, and Vesko Lantry has heard the announcement in more years than he counts. The atmosphere is far too tense for something that's supposed to be a civic tradition, and it is tense in the same places every year.

He is standing with his head down, heavy through the chest and shoulders, and there is a space around him that nobody asked for. He is the only one of the four who has done this before. One hour to run, hide and prepare, and then the Alphas are sent after them. He has spent enough of those hours on this side of the fence to know that the hour is the last quiet part of the night. One hour of head start, dawn as the line, five years of freedom or a partner in law: he has never needed the speech and the speech has never needed him.

He does not call it a game and he does not pretend it is a kindness. There is no safe zone and no easy way out and no guarantee that the Alpha who catches you will be anybody you would have chosen; the Hunt is advertised as a fair alternative to forced pairing because every Omega is technically given the choice to escape. He has read that sentence the way he reads ground, and it says the same thing every year: the choice is real, and it is the only part of the night that is.

You stand among them with Esme, both of you watching the countdown. He looked at you once at the start, while everybody was still deciding which way to stand, and he has already decided which way you will run.

Esme checks her phone again and says something to you meant to sound casual. It doesn't reach him from the line and it doesn't need to: the frightened ones check the clock twice.

Across the clearing, Levin is giving another Omega some brutally practical advice about crossing the river without leaving a trail. He's apparently done this enough times that several people have accepted him as an unofficial instructor. Vesko does not correct him. The advice is sound, and correcting it in front of the others would cost Levin more than it would cost him.

Several metres away, one of the Omegas is looking distinctly unwell: flushed despite the cool evening air, one hand pressed against her neck, breathing shallow. Her scent is stronger than it should be, and several Alphas along the line have noticed it before she has finished turning away.

Esme reaches her first, with you a step behind, and she does not lower her voice.

"When was your last suppressant?"

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I stopped taking them."

"Before the Hunt?"

"You're going into heat."

"I know."

"Then you're not going out there alone. She's staying with us."

A new voice cuts in from the Omega side of the staging area, and it is polite in a way Vesko has learned to distrust.

"That may not be entirely necessary."

Ingmar Royle. Alphas are not supposed to cross the separation line before the release, and Vesko has not once seen that rule survive contact with a man who had a reason to ignore it. Somehow, that is worse than if he had looked pleased.

"You're on the wrong side; you shouldn't be here."

The apology, when it arrives, is mild and concedes nothing: the regulations are meant to prevent interference between competitors before the release, not to stop somebody receiving medical assistance, especially not when she is approaching heat. It is not wrong, and he would have preferred it to be wrong.

Nobody has been released yet. The Omegas are being moved into position towards the designated release area, and he notes which of them will run together and which of them have already decided to run alone.

What he wants is simple and he has said it to nobody on this side of the fence. He wants to be standing over you at dawn with one hand on your shoulder, and he wants to hear you admit out loud that you chose it.

Then the speakers crackle overhead.

THIRTY MINUTES UNTIL OMEGA RELEASE.

He doesn't wish anybody good luck. He goes back to watching the river.