I forced myself to sit back down, to focus on the professional conversation instead of the way his scent was wrapping around me like a velvet blanket. He took the chair across from me, setting his notebook on the table between us, and I caught a glimpse of handwritten lyrics on the open page—messy and cramped, like he'd been writing too fast to keep up with his thoughts.
"Thank you," I managed. "I wasn't sure if it was too dark."
"That's what makes it good." His amber eyes met mine, and I felt the weight of his attention like a physical thing. "Most lyricists try to soften the edges. You sharpened them."
He understands, my omega whispered.He sees us. He?—
I shut that voice down and made myself engage with the actual topic at hand.
We talked about the song. It should have been safe, purely professional, just two artists discussing their craft. And in some ways, it was. Jin-ho was clearly passionate about lyrics, about the intersection of music and meaning, and I found myself drawn into the conversation despite myself.
We debated word choices, whether "surrender" was too strong, whether "consumed" was too obvious. We discussed meter and rhythm, how certain syllables would sit against the melody, where the emphasis should fall. We analyzed theemotional arc of the song, the descent into darkness, the desperate reaching for something solid to hold onto.
For a few minutes, I almost forgot. Almost forgot about the bonds. Almost forgot about my mother. Almost forgot about the omega instincts that were screaming at me to lean closer, breathe deeper, let him in. Then our eyes met properly. Not the glancing contact of professional conversation—the kind of eye contact that felt like falling.
The world stopped.
I felt it happen.
The bond snapped into place with an almost audible click, like a puzzle piece finding its home. Warmth flooded through me, different from the golden sunshine of Hwan's bond, this was deeper, darker, like sinking into a hot spring on a winter night. It filled spaces I didn't know were empty and created new aches I hadn't known I could feel.
On my neck, beneath my sweater, I knew without looking that another flower was blooming. I didn’t know the color yet, but I could feel it.
Yes, my omega keened, her voice rising in triumph.Yes, yes, another one, ours, OURS?—
Jin-ho's amber eyes widened. I watched his pupils blow wide, the honey-gold swallowed by black, and for a split second I saw something flash in his gaze?—
Gold.
Alpha gold.
The color of instinct and claiming andmine.
"You're—" he started, his deep voice rougher than before, his elegant composure cracking for the first time since he'd walked in. I was already moving. I grabbed my notebook and shoved back from the table, the chair screeching against the floor. The door was right there—I just had to get through it, get away, get out…
"Wait—" Jin-ho was on his feet, reaching for me with those long, elegant fingers. "Please—" But I was already gone. Through the door, down the hallway, past the gold records and the promotional posters, into the elevator and down and out into the street. I didn't stop until I was six blocks away, gasping for breath in an alley that smelled like garbage and rain.
Two bonds burned beneath my skin. Two members of the same group. The realization hit me like ice water. Hwan and Jin-ho. Both from SIREN. Both alphas whose bonds had triggered with me. If two of them were my soulmates, what were the chances the others weren't?
Five flowers on my mark. Five members in SIREN.
No.The thought was too horrifying to contemplate.It's a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence.
My omega didn't believe in coincidences. She was already purring at the possibility, already imagining five alpha scents surrounding us, five sets of hands holding us safe.
Pack, she whispered, the word reverent.They're a pack. And we're theirs.
"Shut up," I gasped, pressing my back against the grimy alley wall. "Shut up, shut up, shut up."
My omega whimpered, confused and hurt by the constant flight from what she craved.
Why do we keep running?that inner voice asked, small and sad.Why won't you let them catch us?
I didn't have an answer.
I just stood there, shaking, two incomplete bonds aching in my chest, and wondered how long I could keep running before it killed me.
Chapter Five
