And beneath that, fainter but still there, Luca's scent. Cedar and ice from yesterday's encounter at the arena.
Both of them.
All over me.
My body recognized them. Wanted them. Was calling out for them even as my mind screamed to run.
I grabbed my phone from the bedroom with shaking hands. Six missed calls from Shayla. Three texts.
You okay? You're never late.
Reina, seriously, where are you?
If you don't text me back in ten minutes I'm sending a search party.
I typed out a response, deleting and rewriting it three times before settling on something that didn't sound completely unhinged.
Sorry, woke up feeling awful. Some kind of bug. Can I work from home today? I can edit the photos from both teams.
The response came back almost immediately.
Of course! Feel better. Send me the files when you're done.
Thanks. Sorry for the short notice.
Don't apologize. Just rest. Text me if you need anything.
I set the phone down and immediately wished I hadn't. The silence of my apartment was deafening, broken only by my own ragged breathing.
I needed to think, to figure out what to do.
The suppressants weren't working well. My body was entering pre-heat. And I was in a city with not one but two Alphas who my biology recognized as mates.
This was exactly what my mother had warned me about.
"You're dangerous, Reina. Your scent makes Alphas violent. You saw what happened at that rink. You'll destroy them. You'll make them destroy each other."
I'd believed her for twelve years. Let her bundle me into a car and drive me away from everything I'd ever known. Let her pump me full of suppressants and move us three states over where no one would recognize my scent.
And it had worked.
Until now.
I made it back to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet with trembling fingers. Emergency suppressants. The kind you weren't supposed to take unless absolutely necessary because they were strong enough to make you sick.
I was already sick.
I swallowed three pills dry and waited.
Five minutes later, I was throwing them back up.
My body was done. Done with the chemicals, done with the suppression, done with fighting what it had been trying to tell me for over a decade.
I needed my pack…
My alphas.
I needed Luca and Jaxon and if I didn't get them soon, my body was going to tear itself apart trying to reach them.
