The list was my Ikigai.
This city gave me my first taste of living rather than merely surviving. Here, I'd become something more than Patient Lucy Graves, the girl with a rare Omega disease who shouldn't have survived to her teen years, let alone her twenties. Lucy the fragile. Lucy the bubble girl. Lucy the sister who never got to see her little brother. Lucy the daughter who took too much effort. Now everyone called me a miracle.
I’d started believing they were right.
I closed my eyes, summoning the memories I'd take with me. I held each carefully in my mind, hoping to never forget. The old woman and the painting. The moment I realized black coffee was gross, but cream and sugar could fix all woes. The feel of the silky dresses slipping between my fingers as I roamed the little boutique on Western Avenue.
Each recollection was imprinted not just in my mind but in my body too. Sensations I’d long been denied. Tastes. Sounds. Touches. The weight of cold rain on my upturned face. The way goosebumps prick along my skin against a sudden breeze. The overwhelming crowd at Pike Place Market, people shoving against one another as they haggled with vendors and bought fresh sourdough, still steaming from the oven, and winter vegetables.
"You can always come back," I whispered to myself, but the words rang hollow.
If the match failed—and I couldn’t believe it wouldn’t—I'd return to Eros. I’d get more time with Seattle. But if the match succeeded... if those five dangerous men somehow accepted me despite my medical history, my limited experience, and my body still adjusting to its new normal... then I didn’t know when, if ever, I’d get back to this Emerald City.
My Emerald City.
Where the wizards were that made me healthy again.
I wanted this place to be home. I didn’t need ruby slippers to tell me there was no place like Seattle.
A fresh wave of anxiety washed through me. Las Vegas. The desert. Heat and dust and pollution levels that ranked among the nation's worst. The climate wasn't entirely unfamiliar—not that different from Moab, where I'd spent my childhood watching red rock formations from behind sealed windows. My lungs, despite their remarkable improvement, would struggle with the transition. The doctors had been clear about that.
I moved to the small desk where my prescriptions schedule sat. I didn’t have the actual meds yet, but a nurse trained me on everything earlier in the week. My index finger traced the instructions: one weekly injection from a four-dose autopen to support my rewritten immune system, one daily pill to regulate my body's still-unstable responses to environmental triggers, all for a duration of three months. I didn’t need to start any of it until after the transitional suit was removed. So simple compared to the complex regimen that had ruled my existence at Brightfield. So minimal compared to the constant IVs, the hourly medications, the experimental treatments that had nearly killed me in their attempt to save me.
And then there was the suit. The TEPU, or Transitional Environmental Protection Unit, as the medical team called it. They’d promised that it wasn’t the bulky isolation gear of my past, but something sleeker. Yet it was still a barrier. Stillanother outfit with a helmet that kept me separate from the world.
I had to wear it for a while. I couldn’t remember how long they’d said. Hours? Days? Weeks? The thought of meeting my potential mates while encased in protective gear made my stomach twist with embarrassment, but the alternative—"a catastrophic immune response that could undo months of progress”—wasn't an option.
"It’s only temporary," I told my reflection in the window glass.
The pale girl who looked back at me—silver-white hair framing a face still too thin, skin still too translucent, veins still mapping blue pathways just beneath the surface—nodded with more confidence than she felt. I narrowed my eyes, trying to use all the willpower I possessed, hoping it would somehow make me look normal. It was stupid. My eyes still seemed too vivid, the golden bits around my pupils too metallic. Everything about me was strange and unusual.
Even my scent, incredibly potent now after Doctor Swann’s injections, didn’t feel natural yet. My Omega perfume caught me off guard each morning, swirling around me in a summery, citrus haze. Would my matches like me? Was this the smell that would make them fall in love?
It didn’t matter if they hated me, I decided.
I'd survived isolation, experimental treatments with mortality rates that would keep any sane person from agreeing, organs failing and regenerating through scientific intervention that bordered on miracle. I'd outlived every prediction, surpassed every projection, defied every limitation placed upon me by doctors who meant well but cautioned me from hoping for more. Most people in my past didn’t see a future for me outside of a hospital room. Look at me now.
Compared to all I’d endured, what was a temporary protective suit? What was a weekly injection and daily pill if I needed it to stay healthy? What was the momentary embarrassment of appearing fragile before five Alphas who made their living by demonstrating strength? What was rejection by more people who should love me?
These hardships were nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I returned to my suitcase, running my fingers over the clothing inside. Cotton. Silk. Denim. Cashmere. Doctor Swann handpicked everything, maybe because she felt guilty about my scent match. She didn’t have to feel guilty though. Because, despite the warnings about them, I couldn't deny the pull I felt toward these Alphas I'd never met. The way I was drawn to them existed outside rational thought. It was strangely primitive, something I couldn’t quite understand. DemonX was the negative pole of a magnet. And I was the positive pole of another, rushing towards connection.
Excitement bubbled.
No more caution. No more “handle with care” notations in a file.
I wanted to live fearlessly the way Xander, Nitro, Asher, Kane, and Fallon did.
I zipped the suitcase closed with a definitive motion, sealing away my brief Seattle life. Tomorrow would bring a new chapter. I didn’t know how it would unfold or how it would end. I knew the beginning though. Me arriving in the suit looking like patient zero. And, when the suit came off, they’d see ghostly skin, bulging green eyes, impossibly visible veins, and grandma hair.
I’d convince them to look past my appearance though. I’d find a way to make them realize I belonged. Whatever happened with these five dangerous Alphas, I refused to approach the opportunity with fear. I'd spent enough of my life afraid—ofgerms, of air, of contact, of death always hovering at the edges of my existence—and now was the time to be bold.
I would meet these men as an equal, not a patient. As Lucy Graves. As an Omega with a perfect compatibility match. The past shouldn’t matter, only the future.
The Seattle skyline began to glow as sunset approached, the familiar patterns of light emerging like stars in an urban constellation. I placed my palm flat against the glass, a final farewell to the city that had given me my first taste of real life.
"Thank you," I whispered to the empty room, my breath creating a small circle of fog on the window that expanded and contracted with my words. "For everything."
