That scent, it was different from the harsh bathroom soap, different from the lingering traces of sunshine-citrus on my skin. It was sweeter. Softer. Something floral and warm that reminded me of summer rain and honeysuckle vines.
It was coming from me. My heart started pounding as I lifted my wrist to my nose and inhaled. There it was—faint but unmistakable. My natural omega scent, the one I'd spent seven years suppressing with medications and blockers and sheer force of will.
Honeysuckle and rain.
It was breaking through.
"No," I breathed, backing away from the mirror like my own reflection had betrayed me. "No, the suppressants should be—they've always worked before?—"
I yanked open the medicine cabinet and grabbed the orange prescription bottle, fumbling with the cap in my haste. My daily suppressant, the little white pill that had kept my omega quiet and manageable since I was sixteen. I'd already taken my morning dose, but maybe if I took another one, maybe if I doubled up?—
The pill was bitter on my tongue when I swallowed it dry.
I waited, gripping the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles ached, for the familiar numbing sensation to spread through my body. For my omega to retreat back into the cage I'd built. For the heat beneath my skin to cool.
Nothing happened. If anything, the warmth seemed to intensify. My omega stretched and settled more firmly into my consciousness, like a cat finding a sunbeam with no intention of moving.
The bond woke us up, she purred contentedly.You can't put us back to sleep now. We're finally awake. We're finally alive. Don't you feel it? How right this is? How good?
"I don't want to be awake," I whispered, and I hated how small my voice sounded. How broken. "I want to go back to how things were." My omega didn't answer. But I could feel her there—patient, waiting, like she knew something I didn't.
I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand and stripped off my remaining clothes with shaking hands. The water was nearly scalding when I stepped under it, the spray stinging my skin, but I didn't care. I scrubbed at my arms with soap that smelled like nothing—generic and bland, the opposite of sunshine and citrus—until my skin was red and raw.
It didn't help. His scent clung to me anyway, embedded somewhere deeper than skin. Embedded in the bond itself.
Ours, my omega insisted.He's ours, and we're his, and this is how it's supposed to be. Why are you fighting so hard? Why won't you just let yourself want this?
I sank down to the floor of the shower, letting the hot water pound against my back, and finally let myself cry. I cried for my mother, for the woman who had loved so fiercely that she'd torn herself apart to choose my father, and then spent twelve years fading because of it. I cried for myself, for the girl who had watched her mother die and learned that love was a trap, that bonds were chains, that the only way to survive was to stay small and safe and alone.
I cried because I could feel the bond in my chest, warm and wanting, and some part of me wanted to let it in. That was the most terrifying thing of all.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, until my fingers pruned and my tears ran dry and the bone-deep exhaustion set in. Then I dragged myself out, wrapped myself in the biggest, softest towel I owned, and shuffled toward my bedroom on unsteady legs.
I intended to collapse on my bed and sleep for approximately one thousand years. I stopped dead in the doorway.
My bed looked different.
It took me a moment to figure out what had changed, and when I did, a cold chill ran down my spine despite the warmth still clinging to my skin from the shower.
The pillows—I had four of them usually, lined up neatly against the headboard—had been rearranged into a loose circle in the center of the mattress. The extra blanket I kept folded at the foot of the bed was bunched up inside that circle, creating a soft barrier. The throw pillows from my living room couch were tucked into the gaps, and the fuzzy cardigan I'd tossed over my desk chair last week was wadded up in the middle like a centerpiece.
It was a nest. An actual, honest-to-god omega nest. I had built it without even realizing.
"No," I breathed, stumbling backward until my shoulder blades hit the doorframe. "No, no, I didn't—I wouldn't?—"
But I had. I could remember it now, in hazy fragments—getting up in the middle of the night last night, unable to sleep, padding around my apartment and gathering soft things. I'd thought I was just restless. Anxious about the upcoming project, stressed about the mark and what it might mean… anxious about talking to Jeni…
I hadn't realized my omega was taking over.
Overriding my conscious decisions. Acting on instincts I'd spent years trying to suppress. Nesting was what omegas did when they were stressed. When they were scared. When they were preparing for heat or seeking security or craving the comfort of their alpha's scent.
I hadn't nested since I was sixteen, right after I'd presented. Our maid had found me building a fort out of blankets in my closet, and she'd sat with me for hours, stroking my hair and explaining what it meant in her soft, patient voice.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of," she'd said. "It's just biology. It's how omegas cope."
I had been ashamed. Ashamed of my designation, of my instincts, of the way my body wanted things I'd never askedfor. I'd started taking suppressants the next week, and I hadn't nested since.
Until now.
