Then I was falling, the world seeming to open up and swallow me whole before I could even utter a scream.
Chapter Three
Ifyoueveraskedme what the sensation of endless falling felt like, I would never have been able to really describe it to you. At least not until now.
Cold wind whipped past my body as I hurtled into the blackness, unsure of what was up or down as I tried my best to release the scream trapped in my throat. The whispers had turned into a shouting chant as I flipped again and was facing a pinpoint of light, just barely there in the inky darkness.
I must get to that light, my brain screamed as I continued to tumble through the vast space that I was in. I reached a hand out for the circle of light, not sure how close or far it was to me and was surprised when it illuminated my fingers and the glow began to cover my entire body.
Then, like a balloon popping, I was out of the darkness and landing in a pair of strong arms. The first thing I saw was a pair of icy blue eyes blinking at me with shock as the man who caught me stumbled back a step before regaining his bearings.
“What the fuck?” the man exclaimed in a gravelly voice before he dropped me unceremoniously to the ground with a thud. My skirts did little to soften my fall and I let out a yelp, the first sound I had been able to make since touching the mirror in the Pink Room, as my tailbone struck the hardwood floor.
I rubbed my smarting behind, groaning at being treated so callously. I glanced up at him again, and was mesmerized by his icy eyes for another moment before I took in the rest of him.
He was clearly an alpha, my nose had been able to pick that up right away, and he smelled fruity, like the blackberries that grew in the woods behind Wilde Manor. He had a head of brown hair that was cropped close to his head and his short beard was shaved into sharp, intentional edges.
He was also massive in a way that I wasn’t used to. Most of the alphas that I had met at social functions had erred on the willowy side with soft curls and even softer muscles.
“Did you just see what I saw?” a new voice said to my left and I turned to find a group of men standing in front of a long counter covered with lit candles which illuminated the space.
They were all staring at me with matching expressions of shock. The man who had spoken was smaller than the behemoth that had caught and dropped me. He had dark brown skin that seemed to reflect the color of the overhead lights and his matching brown eyes were looking at me as if I had just performed some kind of circus trick.
“I figured I was just seein’ things again, Doc, but if you just saw an omega dressed in a ballgown pop out of the mirror that Rex thrifted… then yeah, I saw what you saw,” said the man next to him as he rubbed his own eyes and blinked at me like I would disappear if he just rubbed hard enough.
He looked the most dangerous out of the entire group. He had a longer beard than icy eyes, but it did little to cover the colorful art that was etched into his skin.Tattoos, my brain provided. I had never seen them in person before, but I had heard the scandalized whispers when one of the debutantes had run off with a tattoo-covered sailor.
I glanced at the other two men who were hovering just behind them and met the eyes of a blonde man with a strange contraption over his ears. His eyes were the color of granny smith apples, and as I stared into them I knew innately that he was also an omega. The last man was hovering close to the omega, a hand on his shoulder. I quickly realized with a jolt that the man was soaking wet, his long black hair dripping as he stared at me with a strange expression.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in our bar?” Icy eye’s voice brought my head swiveling back to him. His expression had changed from one of abject shock to one of suspicious anger. He reached out and grabbed me by my shoulders and bodily lifted me to my feet. I nearly stumbled when I realized that one of my feet was bare and that I had lost one of my gold shoes at some point during my tumble through the mirror.
“I—I don’t know,” I told the man honestly, a thread of fear filling my body as he yelled at me. Nothing about where I was made any sense. The clothing that the men were wearing was different from anything that I had ever seen, and even the space around me, which looked like the saloons that I had only read about in books, feltoff. “I was at the Gala and then the mirror above our fireplace started to glow, and then I was here.”
The man didn’t seem to like that answer because he gave me a rough shake, causing me to whimper.
“Rex, back off, man, you don’t need to shake her like that,” the man with brown eyes—Doc is what the tattooed man had called him—stepped in and pried Rex’s fingers from my arms. Doc gently turned me to face him, his expression much softer than his rude counterpart.
“Hey, honey, can you tell me your name?” he asked as I inhaled his soothing sandalwood scent deeply, letting it calm the sudden shakes that had overtaken my body.
“J-Juneau Wilde,” I managed to stammer, my voice croaking as I stared into worried brown eyes.
There was a noise from behind me and suddenly the other omega was at my side, a flat rectangular mirror-looking thing in his hand as he tapped the glass with his fingers.
His scent was the best of all. He smelled like fresh eucalyptus, the kind that my mother always insisted on having in the arrangements that were dotted throughout Wilde Manor. He smelled so much like home that I found myself reaching for him only to be cut off by the still angry Rex.
“Don’t touch,” Rex growled. I shrunk away from him, another whimper slipping out of my mouth as I backed myself into Doc’s sandalwood scent.
The other omega’s hands smacked into Rex’s bulk until the giant alpha stepped aside, his eyes falling to where the other omega’s fingers were flying as he glared up at Rex.
“I know she doesn’t seem like she’s dangerous, PC, but she popped out of a fucking mirror,” Rex said, seeming to understand what the omega’s hand movements meant.
The omega’s hands began to move again. “Podcast,” Rex said a little more firmly. “You know I don’t fuck around with that woo woo shit so get to your point.”
Podcast shot Rex a look full of irritation before he turned back to the square he was holding and his fingers were flying again. Then he turned the square around and he was holding up a picture of me.
I remembered when that photo had been taken because my mother had woken me up at the crack of dawn to prepare for it. I had tried to smile in it, but the photographer had scolded me, telling me that good young ladies did not smile in photos. So instead I was glaring balefully at the camera, obviously irritated.
“That’s me,” I said and watched as Podcast’s eyes widened, his finger sliding on the screen and suddenly my picture was gone and replaced with text of some kind. If I wasn’t so confused by the situation, I probably would have been amazed by what looked like a magic trick.
