“Sorry, I know it’s late, old man—” Red Hair began, only to cut himself off abruptly as he took in his friend having a violent seizure on the bed, and me standing there like the world’s guiltiest hotel hookup. “What thefuck?”
“Knox!” shouted the giant, rushing forward.
I raised a hand, as though to fend him off.
“Call an ambulance!” I cried, thinking fast. “I... he just collapsed out of the blue! I think he might be having a heart attack!”
It was at that moment when the scents of whiskey and oakwood combined with baking bread and orange peel slammed into me like a freight train, swirling together with Knockley’s woodsy campfire aroma and my own sweet coffee and caramel. The suggestion ofbelongingthat had struck me earlier multiplied a hundredfold, blotting out every single thought in my head as a switch as old as time itself flipped in the depths of my hindbrain.
Everyone in the room went as still as though we’d been fossilized in amber.
Coffee laced with whiskey and sweetness, holiday bread toasted over an open flame as the sounds and scents of the forest wove around the four of us.
‘Home... home... home...’ echoed through my consciousness, tolling like a bell.
Oh, my god.
A scent match. It was ascent match.
I was scent-matched to alpha slave traffickers... and I’d just murdered their pack leader.
TWO
Jez
THE RED-HAIRED ALPHAwas the first to break free of his paralysis. “Fuck!” he snarled, fumbling a phone from his pocket. “Gage! Check his pulse and start CPR!”
The presence of two angry alphas held me frozen in place under the weight of the distant past. On top of that, the overwhelming miasma of pheromones, soured by adrenaline and fear, was making my head swim.
Ascent match? It couldn’t be! Not here, not now, not likethis.
I had to get away. Christ, why hadn’t I engaged the security latch on the damned door when I had the chance? Of course, then I’d still be trapped... but at least there would be something separating me from Mr. Sex Trafficker’s packmates.
I tried to sidle unobtrusively toward the door. Surely, they wouldn’t chase me while they were so worried about their pack alpha?
“Oh, no you don’t!” snapped Red Hair.
He took two long steps and grabbed me by the wrist, fast as a snake. I yelped in shock, trying to jerk free even as my arm tingled through my long glove at the heat of his touch. It was like jerking against an iron manacle.
“Hello?” he said into the cell phone. “I need police and an ambulance to the penthouse suite at the Aurora Hotel downtown! Male alpha, thirty-two years old, possible heart attack—he’s undergoing CPR.Get here fast.”
With that, he shoved the phone back in his pocket and rounded on me with his teeth bared. “Now, who the hell are you? What happened—what did you do to him?”
I shrank back. “Let me go! I—I’m just a hookup, all right? We were having a drink and he collapsed!”
