Chapter
Six
SIMONA
After spending my life up to now in a veil of manufactured expectation, days of studying subjects that genuinely interest me—followed by longer hours with my new group of girlfriends (officially dubbed the Scorned Girls)—leave me feeling like a different person.
And I love this version of me.
Never before would I have the freedom, or courage, to keep messaging a freaking rock-star, but it’s happening. Daily too. His newest DM brings a blush to my cheeks.
Koded.R.Genuine—thinking of you today.
SinDaBella—Just today? ouch.
Koded.R.Genuine—IMAGE
Two photos come through. First a milkshake glass overflowing with copious amounts of melting cream and tiny Oreo biscuits. The second image is pornographic. Well, itmakes me blaze in lust. A heavily edited image of a man’s mouth, he’s sucking on messy fingers, ice cream and cream dripping down his hand and covering his chin.
SinDaBella—I’d mess you up more than that ;)
I act on impulse, sending a response straight back, not even thinking if I should. Hiding behind this persona is liberating but at the same time every message we share, I also feel he’s getting the real Simona.
I sound like a broken record, but I am giving myself the freedom to chase whatever I want. Whether it’s right or wrong, that includes chasing him, or this thing we share. Back home I never would have engaged, heck, I probably wouldn’t even admit to anyone I like Koded because that music is not what they listen to, at all.
In the span of a few weeks, everything has changed, and I’m embracing it my way. My way includes having different personas, each one a genuine part of who I am. I’m not pretending to be anyone else. I’m just not giving all of me to any one person—everyone gets a piece instead. That includes the salacious Simona that Koded.R.Genuine sees, the loyal and compassionate Simona the Scorned Girls get, and the studious Simona the teachers at Unity recognize.
The Omega Mothers, unsurprisingly, are encouraging of my newly acquired zest for life. They help me work around all the endless subjects, electives, and committees I want to be involved in. I know the Scorned Girls buck against the ideology of attending Unity. Heidi and Raney are particularly cynical of the government’s requirement for Omegas to attend, but I’m one of those students absolutely overflowing with gratitude at the chance I have been given.
In a sense, I’m lucky the founding family are so elitist and driven by pretension. They were insistent on me attending thevery best/most expensive finishing school available. If they’d sent me to a school closer to home, I wouldn’t have found the girls. And I never would have been on that flight, and somehow crossing paths Mel and then with Koded.
Lost in thoughts about a certain rock star’s mouth, I push the doors open to the small study rooms without thinking. The chatter of other students reaches my ears, but their voices register only as noise. As I step farther into the room, something shifts—my vision flickers and my eyes struggle to adjust.
Nothing really makes sense, until it does.
Every cell in my body locks on to the Alpha standing in front of the class—like a bloodhound catching a scent, surging forward into the hunt.
His presence pulses off him, bright like a shooting star streaking across a clear night sky. The draw is so intense, I nearly fold in on myself, the only thing holding me upright is his scent. It’s dense in the room, thick as clouds of candyfloss. But it’s not sweet, not gentile. It’s brash and impulsive, dangerous and lethal—like the crack of thunder before the storm breaks.
I shut my eyes, willing my racing thoughts to slow, but until I can figure out exactly what his scent is, I’m at the mercy of my designation. One heartbeat and I breathe more of his scent in. And then it clicks—he smells like the image that formed in my mind the instant I stepped inside.
He is the threat of a thunderstorm itself.
His scent hits like a sledgehammer, sending me spiralling and lost in a series of abstract visuals; where claps of thunder rattle through me, and I’m blinded by bolts of pure white lightning. It is that consuming, but there remains a part of me not lost, more focused and anxious for the immediate period after the initial violence of a storm breaking. The time when the rage has passed, and the air is clean, full ofbeautiful, gentle notes of fresh rain on the earth, and oakmoss.
The longer I keep my eyes shut, the more aware I become of how he’s unwittingly rewriting who I am. His scent isn’t just a presence—it’s an aspiration. Something to strive towards, even as it unravels everything I thought I knew.
I don’t have an Alpha; I have an obligation.
This man is pack. He is my obligation too, but it’s an obligation based on the beautiful, heart-rendering promise love whispers, driving the person who shares the love with you to always be better.
I should turn and walk away, but that in itself is impossible. On so many levels. I made a vow to myself to live every day to its fullest while I was at Unity. If this is the only chance I have being with him, then I will damn well be present and brave enough to face the fallout.
Peeking through my eyelashes, the rest of the class is as enraptured with our visiting Alpha as I am. Though it is on a much different scale, it would be like saying we all like blue. Every one of the other students are smiling up at him, none of them even aware I am here, but I’ve seen them looking like that at the other Alpha who runs this program as well.
“Sorry I’m late,” I offer quietly. Keeping my eyes anywhere but in his general direction. I’m worried I’m going to trip on my own two feet, but I manage to sit without embarrassing myself.
Turning slightly to watch him interact is the first real chance I see him for who he is. Before it was his presence and scent that drove me half feral.
