A large alpha walking down the sidewalk, broad-shouldered and impossible to miss. There’s a male omega at his side—obviously his mate. The omega’s body stays close, leaning into the alpha and laughing easily at something the alpha just said.
My stomach knots.
I don’t really spend any time around alphas.
Very few alphas work at Danvers, and even the ones who do aren’t allowed to get too close to the omegas. They mostly work in the admin office, and they’re required to wear scent blockers.
I’ve haven’t been this close to a free-moving alpha inyears. At least, not one I’m not related to.
What if his pheromones hit me?
What if my body betrays me right here in broad daylight?
I don’t want to go back inside. Not yet. But I can’t stand here and wait for his scent to slap me in the face.
I glance around, desperate to escape for a second or two. And that’s when I spot a narrow alleyway between the Silk Den and the artisan chocolate shop next door. It looks narrow and dark. The perfect place to hide.
Without thinking, I rush toward it.
The alley is barely more than a seam between buildings. I press my side against the cold brick, trying to force my body to shrink into something smaller. Someone must have thrown out a stack of shipping boxes recently.There’s a clean cardboard smell beneath the usual city grit.
The alpha’s footsteps draw closer, and I hold my breath. My pulse thunders in my ears, adrenaline spiking as I wait.
Don’t breathe.
Don’t react.
Don’t let your body notice him.
Seconds later, the alpha drifts past the mouth of the alley. A slip of crisp air follows in his wake, stirring my hair, carrying his scent away with him.
I don’t move. I don’t even blink. I stay wedged in shadow until the sound of their voices thins out down the sidewalk. Until all I can hear is the city again, distant and uninterested.
Only then do I let myself breathe.
I pull in a careful inhale. Then another. My shoulders loosen by a hair, my spine uncoiling like I’ve been holding myself together with sheer will.
I’m okay.
I’m—
Then I freeze as the scent of alpha hits me like a fist to the gut.
It’s not the fading trace of the one who just passed. This is immediate. Dense and whole. It fills the narrow alley around me like it’s been poured into the tight space.
My body reacts before my brain catches up.
An instinctive pull tightens low in my belly, ugly and unwanted. Sweat blooms across my forehead, and my heartbeat stutters, then lurches into a sprint like it can’t decide if it wants to run or collapse.
No.
No, no, no.
I shift—half a step, a desperate pivot toward the street,toward the Silk Den, towardlightsandrulesand my mother’s awful, predictable control?—
—and something moves behind me.
A presence. Too close.
