Lilacs. Her scent had been so faint I'd almost missed it, buried under layers of stress and exhaustion and the sharp tang of fear. But it was there, underneath everything else. Delicate. Sweet. The kind of scent that made you want to lean closer, breathe deeper, bury your face in the curve of her neck and?—
I cut that thought off before it could go anywhere dangerous. I hadn't leaned closer. Hadn't breathed deeper. I'd stayed exactly where I was, crouched in the hay, and let her decide whether to run or stay.
She'd stayed. For a few minutes, at least. That had to mean something. Or maybe it didn't mean anything at all. Maybe she'd just been frozen with fear, too tired to run, too wary to do anything but stand there and wait for the threat to pass.
I was still turning it over in my head when I reached the main house. Reid's truck was parked out front, which meant he was probably in his office doing paperwork. Good. I needed to talk to him anyway about Bella's treatment plan.
Maybe about something else too.
The front door was unlocked, as always. I let myself in and headed down the hallway toward the back of the house, my boots loud on the hardwood floors. The house was old but well-maintained, full of furniture that had been here for generations and photos on the walls of Reid's father and grandfather and the ranch in its earlier days. It smelled like Reid—whiskey and leather and woodsmoke, that steady, grounding scent that had become as familiar to me as my own over the years.
We'd known each other for five years now, ever since I'd taken over the large animal practice in town. What had started as a professional relationship had turned into something more—friendship, trust, the kind of bond that forms between Alphas who respect each other. We'd talked about pack, about someday, about finding the right fit. About how four Alphas was unusual but not unheard of, about how we'd know when we found the right Omega, about all the theoretical ways a future might unfold.
Never quite taken the leap. Never quite found what we were looking for.
Maybe that was about to change.
Reid's office door was open, and I found him exactly where I expected—behind his desk, frowning at a stack of invoices like they'd personally offended him. His black hair was disheveled, silver threading through at the temples, and there was a smudge of dirt on his jaw that said he'd been out working before he'd come inside to deal with paperwork. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle, andeven sitting behind a desk he radiated that quiet authority that made people want to follow him.
He looked up when I knocked on the doorframe, those dark eyes sharp and assessing before they softened into something like welcome.
"Nolan." He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight, his voice low and steady the way it always was. Reid didn't waste words, didn't raise his voice, didn't need to. When he spoke, people listened. "Bella okay?"
"She's fine." I stepped into the office, dropping my kit by the door and running a hand through my hair. "Mild inflammation in her front legs, probably from the extra weight. I gave her something for the swelling. She should be good to foal in a few weeks."
Reid nodded, his broad shoulders relaxing slightly at the news, one hand coming up to rub absently at the stubble on his jaw. "Good. I was worried about her." He paused, those dark eyes studying me with the same careful attention he gave everything—the look that said he was reading between the lines, seeing what I wasn't saying. "Something else on your mind?"
I shouldn't have been surprised. Reid had always been able to read me like a book. It was one of the things that made him a good leader—and one of the things that made him impossible to lie to. I moved further into the office, lowering myself into the leather chair across from his desk. Tried to figure out how to say what I needed to say without sounding like I'd lost my mind.
"The new worker." I kept my voice even, casual, though my fingers drummed against my thigh in a rhythm I couldn't quite control. "In the stables this morning. Dark hair, green eyes. Aster."
Something flickered in Reid's expression—a sharpening of focus, a subtle shift in posture that most people wouldn't notice. Interest, maybe, or recognition. "Hank hired her yesterday. Saidshe showed up looking for work, didn't ask too many questions." He tilted his head, watching me with those knowing dark eyes, his fingers steepled under his chin. "Why?"
"She's an Omega." The words hung in the air between us. Reid's eyes sharpened, his whole body going still in that way he had—the predator's stillness, the Alpha's focus. I watched him process the information, watched his nostrils flare slightly as if he could catch her scent from here, watched his hands flatten against the arms of his chair.
"You're sure?" His voice was carefully neutral, but I could hear the undercurrent beneath it. The same thing I was feeling. His dark eyes hadn't left my face.
"I'm sure." I rubbed a hand over my jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palm, remembering the way that faint lilac scent had hit me. "Barely there, almost impossible to catch. But it's her. She's Omega."
Reid was quiet for a long moment, processing. His fingers tapped against the arm of his chair—the only sign of agitation he ever showed, that rhythmic drumming that meant his mind was working through something complicated. I watched him think, watched the calculations happening behind those dark eyes. He wasn't the kind of man who reacted without considering all the angles first.
"Hank didn't mention it." He said it slowly, thoughtfully, his brow furrowed slightly as he turned the information over.
"She probably didn't tell him. And her scent—" I shook my head, searching for the right words, my hands spreading in a gesture of uncertainty. "It's faded. Stress, malnutrition, who knows what else. Most people probably wouldn't even notice. I almost didn't, and I was ten feet away from her."
"But you did notice." Reid's voice was quiet, his dark eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that made me want to look away. It wasn't a question.
I nodded anyway. "I did."
Reid's gaze held mine, steady and searching, like he was trying to see something underneath the surface. "What else?"
I thought about how to answer that. Thought about pale green eyes and defensive posture and the way she'd growled her own name like she expected me to use it against her. Thought about the calluses on her hands and the shadows under her eyes and the way she'd stood with her back to the wall like she was ready to fight her way out if she had to.
"She's feral." The word felt inadequate, but it was the closest I could get. I leaned forward in my chair, elbows on my knees, my voice dropping low. "Not aggressive feral—defensive. Like she's spent years learning how to survive on her own, and she's forgotten how to do anything else. She looked at me like I was a threat, Reid. Like she was calculating exactly how much damage I could do before she could get away."
Reid's jaw tightened, the muscle flexing beneath his weathered skin. It was a subtle thing—most people wouldn't have noticed—but I'd known him long enough to read the signs. He didn't like hearing that. Didn't like knowing there was someone on his ranch who'd been treated badly enough to end up in that state.
"She's also half-starved." I continued, because he needed to know all of it, my voice rough with something I didn't want to name. "Exhausted. Running on fumes. I don't know where she came from or what happened to her, but whatever it was—it left marks. Deep ones."
