"So you are really related to him," I mutter, the reality of it settling in my brain with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. "You are actually Rafe's brother. The older one. From Paris."
He chuckles.
"I hope that works in my favor, given the level of animosity in your voice."
I groan, reaching up and pressing my palm flat against his face, pushing him backward.
"You need to move back," I insist, my hand smooshed against his features in a way that is neither graceful nor dignified. "I cannot think when you are this close. Your scent is literally scrambling my brain and I need at least three feet of clearance before I do anything else I will regret in the morning."
He smirks against my palm.
Then he kisses it.
A soft, deliberate press of his lips into the center of my hand that sends shivers cascading down my arm and throughmy entire body. The gesture is intimate in a way that the actual kisses were not. Tender. Unhurried. The kind of thing a man does when he is not trying to seduce you but is simply unable to stop touching you.
"Now," he says, finally leaning back enough that I can breathe without inhaling his pheromones directly into my bloodstream. "What are the chances that Miss Mae Rose has a pack?"
My face erupts in heat so fast I am amazed I do not burst into actual flames.
"I do not have one," I mutter, staring at the ceiling because looking at his face while answering that question feels like handing him a loaded weapon. "Packless. Obviously. If I had a pack, I would not be living in a closet-sized room with three Alphas who cannot agree on what to eat for breakfast."
His smirk widens.
"Then what do I need to do to have my scent match all to myself?"
Oh God.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I am red all over. Crimson from scalp to sternum. My mouth opens and closes twice without producing a single syllable, and I am in the process of formulating a response that will be clever and sharp and will definitely not sound like the incoherent babbling of an Omega who just got kissed stupid when the curtain slides open.
Cal and Etienne stand on the other side.
They take in the scene with the evaluative precision of two Alphas who have arrived at exactly the wrong moment and know it. Their eyes flicker between Raphaël, who is leaning against the bed rail with infuriating nonchalance, and me, who is sitting on the mattress with swollen lips and a blush that could guide ships through fog.
Cal pouts.
"Damn," he says flatly. "He is like the smooth version of Rafe."
"Meaning we are fucked," Etienne mutters beside him, his storm-blue eyes assessing Raphaël with the guarded curiosity of a man evaluating a threat that also happens to share half his DNA.
"Hearing you swear is so damn weird," Cal notes, momentarily distracted from the crisis at hand to address Etienne's increasingly colorful vocabulary.
He shakes it off, returning his amber gaze to Raphaël with the directness of an Alpha drawing a line.
"So, older version of Rafe." He crosses his arms. "Can you move from our roommate? Thanks."
Raphaël does not move.
He chuckles, the sound confident and unbothered, his gray eyes moving between Cal and Etienne with the measured assessment of a man who has dealt with territorial Alphas before and found the experience more amusing than threatening.
"Roommate," he repeats, tasting the word like it is a vintage he finds underwhelming. "Or Omega?"
Cal's jaw tightens.
Etienne's eyes narrow.
"If it is not the latter," Raphaël continues, his tone casual but his words precise, "then I am rather comfortable right where I am. Trying to make my claim before you gentlemen suddenly realize you are rooming with an Omega who could change your entire world."
