JIN-OH
The conference room door was still swinging when I finally remembered how to breathe.
She was gone.
The woman with the grey eyes and the teal-streaked hair and the scent that had wrapped around my senses like a spell… she was gone. Fled through that door like I was something to escape from, like the bond that had just snapped into place between us was a threat instead of a gift.
I stood frozen in the middle of Conference Room 3A, my hand still outstretched toward the space where she'd been sitting moments ago, and tried to make sense of what had just happened. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, indifferent to the fact that my entire world had just shifted on its axis. Her chair was still pushed back from the table at an awkward angle, evidence of how quickly she'd moved.
Her scent remained.
Lilies and rain.
It clung to the air like perfume, like a promise, like something I wanted to breathe in until it became part of me. Sweet but wrong, there was something beneath the floral notes, something distressed and frightened and sick. The scent of an omega in trouble. The scent of my omega in trouble.
The bond burned in my chest, new and raw and undeniable.
I pressed my hand against my sternum reaching for someone who was already blocks away and getting farther with every second. It wasn't painful exactly, or rather, it was painful in a way that also felt like completion, like a puzzle piece clicking into place after years of searching for where it belonged.
She ran, my alpha snarled, pacing inside my consciousness like a caged animal.Our omega ran from us. Why? Why would she run from her own soulmate?
I didn't have an answer.
The memory of her face played behind my eyes on an endless loop. The way she'd looked when I first walked in, professional, composed, a little nervous but hiding it well. The way her grey eyes had lit up when we started discussing lyrics, when she'd argued with me about word choices and meter and the emotional arc of the song we were supposed to be creating together. She was brilliant. I'd known that before meeting her, had studied her work for years, but seeing her mind in action was something else entirely.
Then our eyes had met properly. Really met. And the world had stopped. I'd felt the bond snap into place like a key turning in a lock. Had watched her pupils blow wide, watched the color drain from her face, watched something that looked like terror flood her expression.
Terror.
Not wonder. Not joy. Not even surprise.
Terror.
Like the bond was a death sentence instead of a beginning.
She's ours, my alpha insisted, wounded and confused.We would never hurt her. She has to know that. The bond is right there, singing between us. How can she run from something this perfect?
She had run. And I'd been too stunned to stop her.
I pulled out my phone with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
The pack needed to know. Now.
Something instinctive made me call Hwan first. Maybe it was the pack bond, that constant low-level awareness of my brothers that hummed beneath my skin like background music. Maybe it was because Hwan had been strange since yesterday — quieter than usual, his trademark sunshine dimmed by something he wouldn't talk about. He'd skipped dinner last night, claimed he wasn't feeling well, spent hours alone in his room instead of bouncing between the rest of us the way he usually did.
That wasn't like him.
He answered on the first ring.
"Hyung?" His voice was alert, almost eager, like he'd been waiting for this call. "What's wrong? You sound?—"
"My bond triggered." The words came out rougher than I intended, my carefully measured voice cracking around the edges. "During the meeting. With the lyricist."
Dead silence on the other end.
I could hear him breathing, short, sharp inhales that didn't sound like simple surprise. There was something else there. Something that sounded almost like recognition.
"Jin-ho-hyung." His voice was strange when he finally spoke, tight and strained in a way I'd never heard from our sunshine member. "What does she look like?"
