My mother's voice echoed in my memory: "The bond wanted me. It almost consumed me."
I pushed open the conference room door. The room was empty. The breath I'd been holding rushed out of me in a whoosh of relief. I was early, of course I was, I was always early, it was one of the few things I could control and Jin-ho wasn't here yet. I had a time to compose myself. To remind myself that I was a professional. That I could do this.
That I could sit in a room with a member of SIREN and convince him I was good enough to write their comeback, and not fall apart in the process. I sat down at the conference table and pulled out my notebook, a new one, since I'd dropped the last one when I'd collided with Hwan. The thought sent a pang through my chest. My old notebook was gone. All those lyrics, all those half-formed ideas, lost.
Unless he'd kept it.
I shook my head sharply, dispelling the thought, and flipped to the pages of lyrics I'd been working on. "Eclipse" was coming together, slowly but surely. The words were dark and desperate, full of drowning metaphors and surrender imagery, and I wasn't sure anymore if I was writing about the song's concept or my own life.
Drowning in the eclipse of your voiceLosing myself in the darkness you bringI never asked to be chosenBut here I am, surrendering everything?—
The door opened behind me. My head snapped up, my heart lurching into my throat, and I spun around in my chair expecting to see…
But it wasn't Hwan.
Relief and something else—disappointment? no, that couldn't be right—flooded through me as I took in the man standing in the doorway.
He was striking in a way that was completely different from Hwan's golden warmth. Tall and lean, with the kind of elegant bone structure that photographers must dream about. His hair was silver-grey with hints of lavender, falling across his forehead in artfully tousled waves that probably took longer to style than my entire morning routine. His skin was pale, porcelain pale, the kind of pale that looked ethereal rather than unhealthy and his face had the sharp, refined features of someone who could have been carved from marble.
It was his eyes that made me catch my breath. They were amber. Not brown, not hazel—amber, like honey held up to sunlight, like aged whiskey in a crystal glass. In the fluorescent light of the conference room, they seemed almost golden, and they were fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to squirm.
He was dressed in all black, jeans, turtleneck, blazer—and silver earrings glinted at his ears, multiple piercings catching the light. A beauty mark sat just below his left eye, and his long, elegant fingers were wrapped around a leather notebook that looked worn with use.
Jin-ho.
Lead vocalist.
And, if my mark was any indication, one of my other potential soulmates.
Alpha, my omega whispered, suddenly very awake.Another alpha. Look at those eyes. I've never seen eyes like that. He's?—
No. Please, no.
I could already smell him. The scent blockers should have prevented it—should have muted any pheromones to a levelbelow my perception, Something had changed since yesterday, something in the bond I'd triggered with Hwan had heightened my senses, because I could smell Jin-ho as clearly as if he'd bathed in cologne.
Woodsmoke and rain.
The scent was completely different from Hwan's bright warmth, this was deeper, darker, like a midnight forest after a storm. It made me think of leather-bound books and whispered confessions and secrets shared in candlelight. It made me want to lean closer and breathe deep.
It made my omega practically melt.
This one, that inner voice crooned.Oh, this one is different. This one?—
"You must be Keira." His voice matched his aesthetic, deep, measured, every word chosen with care like he was composing sentences the way other people composed music. There was a slight rasp to it, like he'd spent too many hours singing or too few hours sleeping, and it did something complicated to my insides.
I realized I'd been staring.
"Yes." I stood up too fast, nearly knocking my chair over in my haste. "Sorry. Yes. I'm Keira. The lyricist. For the comeback track. Nice to meet you." Heat flooded my cheeks. I sounded like an idiot.
Jin-ho's lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. The expression softened the sharp planes of his face, made him look almost approachable instead of intimidatingly beautiful.
"I know who you are," he said, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him. He moved with a fluid grace that reminded me of water—smooth and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. "I've read and listened to your work. All of it, actually."
Something warm flickered in my chest at that—professional pride, I told myself. Nothing more.
"Oh." I clasped my hands in front of me, not knowing what else to do with them. "Thank you. I've don the same with yours too. Obviously. You're brilliant."
The almost-smile deepened by a fraction. "So are you. We got the small snippet you emailed to us. We don't usually work with outside writers, but your style…" He paused, those amber eyes studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "It feels like it could have come from one of us."
