No one ever offered.
Not the social workers. Not the shelter managers. Not the handful of Alphas who expressed passing interest in the pretty Omega with the sad eyes before losing interest when they realized I came with baggage too heavy for casual entertainment.
No one stood in a nurse's office and told a medical professional to take my injury seriously.
No one said whatever she needs, we will handle it.
Not until today.
My eyes sting.
I blink the sensation away before it can become visible, focusing on the nurse's hands as they rotate my knee through its range of motion. The joint protests, tight and sore, but the sharp locking sensation from the ice has faded.
I remain quiet.
But in my mind, I look at the three Alphas surrounding me, and a thought forms that is so fragile I am afraid to hold it too tightly.
Is this what it would feel like to be in a pack that cares for your safety?
CHAPTER 19
Fun Five Weeks
~RAPHAËL~
Ilean against the hallway wall with my eyes closed, arms crossed over my chest, trying to ignore the fact that this Omega's scent is still nagging at my senses despite being outside the examination room.
It clings to me.
Vanilla sugar and frosted roses and the faintest trace of warmth beneath it all, lingering in my nostrils like a ghost that refuses to be exorcised. I can still taste her on my lips. Can still feel the way her mouth softened under mine, the way her body curved toward me like I was the answer to a question she did not know she was asking. The memory of her moan vibrating against my tongue is going to haunt me for the foreseeable future, and I am simultaneously irritated and fascinated by how thoroughly one Omega has disrupted my equilibrium in under an hour.
This was not the plan.
None of this was the plan.
I came to Valenridge University at the special request of Coach Mercer. A professional consultation, he called it. A favor between colleagues who had crossed paths at international tournaments and maintained a mutual respect born from recognizing excellence in each other's approaches. He had highhopes for his senior and junior teams this season, but there were problems. Several of them. Communication breakdowns, territorial conflicts among key players, a captain whose ego was writing checks his skill could barely cash.
Standard team dysfunction, in other words. The kind of issues that plague programs on the cusp of greatness but cannot quite push through the ceiling because the players are too busy fighting each other to fight their opponents.
Mercer requested I attend for five to six weeks. Aid in coaching. Observe the dynamics. Provide an outside perspective from someone who had captained his own team through similar growing pains and come out the other side with a championship. If I could help the Wolves get their shit together in time for the seasonal playoffs, it would be a significant achievement for the university. The kind of accomplishment that attracts sponsors, recruits, and national attention.
They paid for my flight from Paris.
They covered my accommodations, though the specifics remained vague. Something about finalizing a dorm assignment in one or two weeks, which left me with the option of crashing at a hotel or improvising in the meantime. A minor inconvenience I was prepared to handle with the flexibility that comes from spending half my life bouncing between countries and making temporary spaces feel like home.
What I was not prepared to handle was catching a speeding Omega mid-air and discovering that she smells like the physical manifestation of everything I have ever wanted.
A scent match.
I have heard of them. Read about them in the academic papers that get circulated through professional athletic programs, the ones that discuss pack formation and biological compatibility with the dry precision of scientists who have never actually experienced the phenomena they document. Scentmatches are rare. Statistically improbable. The kind of biological lottery that most people assume is exaggerated by romance novels and Omega wishful thinking.
And yet here I am.
Standing in a hallway outside a nurse's office, separated from my scent match by a door and a university policy that requires pack approval for Omega medical treatment, trying to convince myself that the hunger clawing at my chest is a temporary side effect that will fade once my pheromones recalibrate to the new environment.
Bullshit.
It will not fade. I know it will not fade because I have spent the last ten minutes trying to make it fade and it is only getting stronger. Her scent is imprinted on my nervous system now. Permanently. Like a brand burned into the part of my brain that governs attraction and attachment and the irrational desire to protect someone you have known for less than an hour.
