She gives a wave, stepping back into the crowd and disappearing in the rush of movement.
And I feel amazing. I wasn’t being a downer, I really havehad a good day and now I’m ready for the next part, which is away from all the people. The energy is electric; it nips against my skin, and on a different night when there weren’t literally hundreds of thousands of people around, I’d probably get used to it. Right now, though, it’s more draining than energising.
Sticking to the edge of the path into the venue, because there’s a near stampede of everyone wanting to get in, I step off the main thoroughfare and take a smaller one. The street I can see on the opposite end helps give me my bearings; it also looks a lot safer than fighting against the crowd.
Except, I completely missed the mesh fence. It’s high and goes from one side to the other and normally I’d turn around and go back the way I came, because I’m not a rule breaker, but the sheer number of people around has me freezing up. Perhaps this is the part where I pretend to be someone I’m not, but I fix the hem of my dress into my panties, making them a little more like shorts, before I climb up on the dumpster. I have to jump, and it takes a couple of tries, but I eventually manage to pull myself up. I sit up on the cross bar. It’s high, but the air is easier to breathe and the crowd seems less intimidating.
Crawling to the other side, I’m anything but graceful—my feet tangle, and I barely manage to avoiding crashing down. I laugh at myself because, honestly, it’s ridiculous—just like the last few hours have been.
As I walk down the lane, I spot another fence at the far end, but since I conquered the first, I’m confident I can handle the second. I’m about halfway there when a door behind me cracks open. A man stumbles out, coughing and spluttering. I’d keep my distance, but he trips even worse than I did and ends up falling down.
“Are you okay?” I rush to him, a little late because he’s butt up on the ground.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Where’d you come from…” he barks, but his voice is all hoarse and cracks. You can tell he’s sick by the way it croaks. His face is flushed, and his eyes are all feverish but there’s surprise in them when he sees what I’m wearing. “You’re a Princess?”
It takes me a second to respond, honestly my head is spinning. For a few reasons. All of them centred around him. A voice in my head gets overly loud, confirming how much the people back home would loathe someone like this.
The light spilling out from the door silhouettes him, but instead of hiding his features, it seems to highlight them. His black, mussed up hair is clipped short on the sides, but in the front, I want to drag my fingers through the soft curls as they fall forward onto his face. His eyebrows are as dark as his hair—one of them is pierced—and the colour of his eyes is like polished amber—so golden and deep like warmed honey. Which insanely is what he scents like—honey. Not one of the floral types of honey, it’s more textured with overlapping tones of dense woody and earthy smokiness. It suits him.
And it’s endlessly appealing.
I lean back a little in complete shock. Never in a million years would I expect to find someone whose scent spoke to me. And it’s a lot to take in. But even the small distance does nothing to dispel how overwhelming his scent is. What the distance does is give me the chance to see him properly, or better.
He’s dressed in black dress pants but is wearing a singlet top and the white fabric contrasts in near poetic proportions with his golden, honey coloured tan. The colour provides a perfect canvas for the kaleidoscope of numerous tattoos he wears. Words and phrases are interspersed randomly, set amongst flowers and swirls that lean into a mix of tribal and intricate detail, but they sit right alongside both geometric and more abstract ones.
He should be an exhibit at an art gallery—his tattoos are that mesmerising and unique. But his eyes are his drawcard, and not because of the colour. It sounds cliché, but it’s like I can see past the colour, and the glimpse of what I see in his soul is both enough, and not nearly enough. It’s difficult to describe, but the instant I look at him, a wave of connection hits me—intense, almost intimidating. And yet, I think it’s the very feeling every person alive yearns for.
I’m struck silent by a wave of jealousy, which is absurd. No matter how inappropriate it is, there’s no denying I wish I was the person who got to know him and keep him forever. But my path is set, determined by others and cast in stone.
My gaze settles back on his face. There’s a question in his eyes—a reminder that he spoke.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
But just like before, one look into his amber eyes, and my sensibility crumbles even further. My thoughts tunnel, spiralling beyond my control.
Scent. Match. Alpha. Mine. How?
I adjust the mask I’m wearing to hide the way my face flushes. As I move, so does he. It’s like he’s leaning in, searching for reasons.
“It’s you,” he says quickly as he starts coughing.
Before I can go to help him, we’re interrupted by a second person who uses the same door. I get startled, but instead of being intrigued by the tattooed man, a rush of awareness skates over me.
An Alpha bellows at me. “Who the fuck are you?”
I stand up, facing the newcomer. My survival instincts come out of nowhere and kick through the fear. I’m swamped by a need to protect, so much so my fingers ache at how they claw as I get ready to face off with the stranger in order to give the sick man a chance.
It’s not me. I’m usually the ‘yes’ person. I don’t rock theboat; I don’t open my mouth, but I’m ready to throw all that out. Before he can take another step, I take one of my own, blocking his path to the man behind me.
And the Alpha in front of me doesn’t like that one bit.
“Who are you?” I ask, ignoring the question he barked at me. I’m hoping I give the sick man the chance to get to his feet and to make his own decisions about how he handles the newcomer.
I somehow sense the build up of his presence as he climbs to his feet. Then, every hair on my skin stands straight up as he presses a reassuring hand to my back stepping up beside me, still coughing.
“I’m good. I needed some air, Dale. I slipped. Cinderella was helping.”
“Yeah, well I’ve called the cops on Cinderella,” he replies to the sick man, levelling his aggressive focus at me though. “This is a restricted area. The fence should have been the first clue you were somewhere you shouldn’t be.”
