My heart hammers as I take in his black clothes and jet black hair that hangs down to his mid-back. His eyes seem to almost glow a deep amber, but as he takes a step, he stumbles and crashes to the ground.
The scent gets stronger, and I lean in despite myself. This is an alpha and one who isn’t wearing suppressants. His scent is intoxicating. Strangely, I think of snow, but I’ve never seen it before.
“Who are you?”Bear growls.
My own mind echoes his question, but I can’t tear my eyes away from this stranger.
I step past the Resistance leader, ignoring his hiss and lean in close, my fingers touching the alpha’s hand. I don’t know how I know, but I know he won’t hurt me.
“Alpha,” I whisper the word, and his head snaps up, that gaze colliding with mine, punching me in the gut because I feel like I should know this alpha. Because, for the first time in my life, I am responding to an alpha as an omega.
Slick pools in my underwear, my body trembles, and my scent turns a little sweeter.
“Fuck, he’s going to get us caught for sure,” Bear says and rummages in his bag. He pulls out a patch and slaps it on the back of the alpha’s exposed neck.
The technology of the past might be gone, but we’ve remembered the chemical compounds to neutralize scent still. Wet paper with a bit of gum from certain trees will hold the patch on for a few hours.
It’s not elegant, but it works in a pinch. I’m relieved when his scent is almost instantly less potent.
“Right, let’s go.”
He moves to help the alpha, but the man in front of me lets out a deep and elegantly beautiful growl that makes me shiver. His hair curtains his face, but I can see his beautiful lips curl slightly in warning.
I inhale and try to let go of whatever hypnotized episode I’m having.
“Hey!” I snap.
His eyes flick up to mine. Intense eyes that make me almost forget what I want to say. Not amber, but more of a red colour? Unusual eyes. Who are you? I want so badly to ask where he’s been. I want to throw myselfat him and bury my nose in his neck, breathing in that rare alpha scent until I’m drunk.
“We need to run. We’re deep in beta territory, and you are giving away our location.” I brush my hair behind my ears, conscious of the dirt and bruises that mar my skin.
He cocks his head to the side and stands up. He’s taller than me with a trim waist but with broad shoulders. His clothes are more expensive than any I’ve ever seen.
“Let’s go,” Bear hisses. “Before we’re all packed up and sent to the butcher.”
I cast the Resistance leader a quelling glare, but he ignores me. He lives and breathes his mission, his resistance.
I reach out and grab the dark-haired alpha’s hand, and, to my surprise, he lets me hold it and lead him out. I don’t normally help alphas; they have a tendency not to listen to me, but this one obeys me without thinking.
I want to save him.
Bear leads us through the buildings, guiding us past packs of people and merging us into the outside world. The alpha struggles, taking it all in with wary and suspicious eyes.
“Where did you come from?”
“I think they forgot about me,” he says in a raspy voice that somehow is both dark, deep, and absolutely gorgeous.
I make a sound of surprise. “You got away? That’s incredible.”
He grits his jaw and studies everyone. Every now and then, I see him inhale deeply, but the tension in him grows and grows. He’s unhappy with something, but he won’t say.
“You will not find alphas or omegas here. We’re in Beta City, in the heart of their stronghold. The only place worse than here is the Culling Grounds,” I tell this new alpha, trying to figure out what he’s searching for.
The stranger looks at me sharply. “The Culling Grounds?”
“Foreen, the city of the doomed. Where they send omegas and alphas to die.”
“Foreen,” he murmurs. “That was ground zero for the Ravage Virus, too.”
