She pulled away from me, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Z?" Kit stepped forward, his jovial mood vanishing instantly, replaced by Alpha alert. "You alright?"
The scent hit me a millisecond later. It wasn't the sour smell of fear. It wasn't the sharp spike of a heat precursor.
It was... acid. And underneath it, a strange, creamy sweetness that disrupted the citrus profile.
"Bathroom," Zia choked out.
She bolted.
She didn't run with the panicked, flight-response speed of Seattle. She ran with the purely physiological urgency ofsomeone whose gastric system had engaged an emergency purge protocol.
We froze for exactly 0.5 seconds. Then the pack instinct overrode the shock.
"Move," Kit barked.
We followed her.
The bathroom door was open. She hadn't locked it. That data point alone was significant. She was not hiding; she was just sick.
Zia was kneeling in front of the toilet, heaving. It was a visceral, violent sound.
Kit was there first. He dropped to his knees beside her, heedless of the hard tile. He didn't crowd her; he simply placed a large, warm hand on her back, rubbing slow circles. "Got you, love. Get it out. Breathe."
Alfie hovered in the doorway, vibrating with distress. "What is it? Food poisoning? Was it the eggs? I told you the eggs looked weird!"
"The eggs were fine, you muppet," Kit said over his shoulder, calmly gathering Zia's hair back from her face, holding it like a precious rope. "Just a bug. Right, Z?"
Zia heaved again, then slumped back against Kit's chest, panting. She looked exhausted.
"I don't know," she gasped, wiping her mouth with a square of tissue Alfie frantically handed her. "It hit me all at once. The smell..."
"The smell?" I asked. I was standing at the sink, wetting a washcloth with cool water. "Identify the trigger."
"The coffee," she said, shuddering. "Kit's coffee smell. It smelled like... burning tires."
Kit froze. He looked down at his shirt, sniffing the espresso stain on his collar. "It smells like dark roast, love. Same as always."
"It smells like death," she insisted, squeezing her eyes shut. "And the bacon grease earlier. I thought I was going to die."
I handed her the cool cloth. She pressed it to her forehead, letting out a moan of relief.
My brain was racing. I was running diagnostics.
Symptom: Acute nausea.
Trigger: Olfactory sensitivity.
Timeline: Post-heat cycle + 8 weeks.
Variable: Unprotected intercourse during a triple-match biological lock.
I looked at Alfie. He was chewing his lip, looking worried.
I looked at Kit. He was holding her, protective and solid.
I looked at Zia. The scent coming off her... that creamy, sweet undercurrent beneath the sickness. It wasn't a bug. It wasn't food poisoning. It was a new signal frequency. A modification to the carrier wave.
