“She thinks she’s broken,” Asher says. “The accident, uh, I guess something happened in her brain. The impact or the trauma or something. Ever since that day, she hasn’t been able to smell a thing. I guess her aunt took her to all the specialists and doctors in the area trying to get her help, to—using her words—fix her, but nothing ever stuck.”
Rourke’s suspicion was spot-on. If the root of it all was different, I’d be amazed at the über’s ability, but since the topic is Jess and her well-being, amazement is the last thing I feel.
Mostly, I’m sad for her, so goddamn sad. For an omega to be unable to smell… I imagine it’s nearly as bad an omega who stays locked away their entire lives, never knowing what it’s like to be touched by someone else. Smell-starved instead of touch-starved.
“Fuck,” Rourke mutters as a frown tugs on his mouth. “I knew it.”
“I told her she’s not broken, but I don’t think she believed me,” Asher says, his sorrowful gaze resting on his plate. He hasn’t touched his food. None of us have since he returned. “I hate that she feels like that, and I hate that I had no idea about any of it. I feel so stupid. It’s literally our job to make her feel better.”
Or it would be if she was our omega, but I don’t say that to him, because it doesn’t matter. She might not be ours in name, there might not be an official agreement in the works, but the matter is as good as settled as far as I’m concerned.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, Jess grew on me. It was unwanted at first, like a fungus, but now… now she’s much more like a flower that pops up after winter, something that blooms without interference, but if you want that bloom to last all season, you need to nurture it, take care of it, fertilize it.
She’s our flower, our omega, our mate, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
“We’ll make her feel better,” Rourke says with confidence, and it’s that confidence that lends me to believe him. “One step at a time, though. We need to get her through her heat. While you were making dinner, I called my boss. He’s going to see about getting a copy of the will and having the company’s lawyers read through it.”
If that will strictly says if she’s matched before her first heat, then that opens up some doors for us. We can tell her that we can help her through her heat, if she wants us to. Whether or not she’ll agree to our help is up in the air.
“She smells great though, doesn’t she?” the other über asks my brother.
Asher nods. “She does.” Softer, he adds, “It’s a shame she can’t smell us.”
I’m the only one who hasn’t had a whiff of her, apparently. Their walk back in the rain started to wash away her scent-blocking cream, but I imagine if she neglected to reapply after her bath, her scent was full and as strong as ever—and since I’m the only one who hasn’t stepped foot in her room since, I’m the only one who hasn’t smelled her.
It’s hard for me not to be super jealous of that fact. I want to smell her. I want… well, to do more than just smell her, obviously. Nearly kissing her had ignited something in me, something I’ve honestly never felt before.
Desire. Heat. The spark of life.
I wanted to kiss her that night, wanted to pull her onto my lap and hold her as she leaned into me, to lose myself in her and never find the surface again. Who needed to come up for air? Not me. My cravings for her are almost enough to make me forget why I came up to this cabin in the first place.
The three of us eat dinner. I’m the first done, mostly because I don’t finish the food that’s on my plate. Once I put my plate away, I head to my room. I really would like to visit Jess, but I don’t want to push things. She probably needs some time to think everything over.
A lot has changed.
I’m standing next to the window in my room when my brother joins me. I smell him before I hear him, and when I turn to face him I watch as he gently closes the bedroom door—meaning whatever he wishes to talk with me about is a private matter not fit for Rourke’s ears. I have zero idea what that something could be.
He walks toward me, his green eyes holding a weight I can’t quite discern. He goes to lean on the wall near me, glancing out of the window for only a few seconds before he says, “Jess mentioned something else. She, uh, brought up being a little depressed.”
With everything she’s lived through, who the hell could blame her for being depressed? I sure as shit couldn’t.
Asher looks at me. “She also said she thinks you two might connect because…” He trails off, like whatever it is he’s about to say is challenging, something he’s not prepared to say. “Because you’re also depressed. Is that true? Are you?”
My first instinct is to mentally swear at myself for not hiding it better and at Jess for not keeping her mouth shut, but that instinct dies immediately. I can’t be mad at Jess for saying something. So, in the end, all I do is shrug.
“Have you told our parents?” My silence is my answer, causing him to say, “Of course you haven’t. Is that why you came up here? You weren’t here to… to hurt yourself, were you?”
“No,” I say, and I don’t know if he believes me or not. “Fuck. I don’t know.” I can’t keep looking into his eyes, so I gaze out at the yard. “I needed to get away from everything. I’m not like you. I don’t have my life figured out. There’s nothing that calls to me out there, no career I can think of that would make me happy.”
I chuckle, although it’s a mirthless sound. “I don’t think I’ve been happy for a long time, actually. Some days it’s hard to keep going—and I know it’s stupid. I don’t have anything to be sad about. It’s not like we’re struggling. Our parents would always help me out. Maybe I am depressed like Jess, but at least she has a legitimate reason, fucking trauma. What do I have? Nothing. Nothing but a fucked-up sense of self.”
Asher steps closer to me and sets a hand on my arm, a gesture meant to be comforting. I suppose it is, in a way. All those words just tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop and think, before I could put up my walls and shut the conversation down.
Maybe being around Jess has changed me a little. Maybe I’m more willing to open up now. Fuck, that’s just crazy to think, isn’t it?
“It’s okay,” he says, no judgment at all in his tone. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. We can get you help.”
“I don’t want our parents to know.”
