It was just supposed to be a dramatic pause.
But then the unthinkable happens.
Something distracts me.
The scent is like jasmine, sandalwood, vanilla—sweet and complex. It can only be one thing. An omega.
HR couldn’t have known, couldn’t have warned me—it’s illegal to ask employees their status. And only an alpha or another omega could scent it, and HR has neither.
The beast’s possessive snarl is distant, thanks to the very suppressants that I synthesized in that lab fifteen years ago. The suppressants that still aren’t perfect. There’s so much work left to do.
My eyes find him so easily, primal brain reading the shiftof the scent and the air currents of the room. Maybe it’s not evenjustsmell, but the closest thing we have to describe this very specific experience.
He’s in shadow, towards the back, but it doesn’t matter. I find him anyway. Coppery waves flow down around his sweater-wrapped shoulders, bright green eyes clear and wide, spray of freckles across his clean-shaven face.
My pause is too long. Claire determines I must be waiting for more applause, and all it takes is one clap from her hands to send the audience roaring again.
Bless her.
The omega doesn’t move. His hands stay wrapped around his elbows, his eyes wide.
He’s locked in my gaze, frozen.
Like prey.
Chapter 2
JAMIE
One month earlier
I think small-town life agrees with me.
I’m on my way home, windows cracked to let in a bit of crisp mid-spring air, with zero worry of accidentally scenting an alpha. There are some asshole drivers, of course, but regular assholes I can deal with.
It’s a nice day. Lingering snow piles melt along the side of the highway, and the trees have put out their leaf buds, on the cusp of bursting back to life.
The commute isn’t great—forty minutes each way—but I make the best of it. Listen to podcasts. Audiobooks. I get a little crinkle of nostalgia remembering the books on tape Mom and I swapped out at each Biscuit Barrel restaurant when we road tripped our way across the country. She did everything she could to make that trip less frightening. I’d been quaking until Treehouse of Magic stories crackled over the van stereo.
Now, I’m listening to a pair of academics debate the finer points of small-molecule synthesis. It’s my best way to keep up with my actual field of study these days. My quality assurancejob is science, but only on a technicality. I mostly push buttons and fill out paperwork, but the job is the best I could get on short notice, and it’s close to Mom, which is what matters.
Mom says I ought to be careful, that this boring science chatter would put her to sleep at the wheel. I got her hooked on podcasts when she was first recovering from her foot surgery and in too much pain to wear her glasses. Now she sends me recommendations—all her favorites. I add them to a playlist and sprinkle them in between the dry science episodes. It’s a nice change of pace.
Taking care of Mom in general has been a nice change of pace. This commute is long but worth it. Mom lives in a small town basically in the middle of nowhere, population under two thousand. The closest grocery chain is a twenty-minute drive, the halfway point on my commute, so I stock up twice a week. Currently, my trunk is laden with milk and eggs and freezer pizza.
The town is called Pleasantwood, and it’s an unofficial omega haven. One of a handful across the country, and why we drove so far to move here.
There are no unbound alphas here. The mayor, the sheriff, and the fire chief are all mated with kids. Some of those kids are omegas. Not everybody trusts or can afford the pharmaceuticals. So those three keep a nose out, sniff out any intruding alphas, and make sure they stay outside of town limits. But that doesn’t happen often. Like all the omega havens, we’re so far out in the boondocks that no alpha in their right mind would even want to be here. Unmated alphas are drawn to cities, to the bustle, the opportunities. Not quiet, semi-rural places where every other house has pet chickens, like Pleasantwood.
Omegas can live in peace here. Omegas like Mom.
And me.
I’m lucky that there are no alphas where I work, either.Well, maybe it’s not luck. I have a boring, tedious, dead-end job at a contract manufacturer with only two goals: cut costs, don’t get sued. Not exactly something alphas would be interested in.
As I pull into my neighborhood, fragrant lilacs cast their gentle scent into the air. When I was upstate for college and my PhD, I could never keep the window open. Too much alpha scent on the wind. I kept the window tightly closed and an air purifier constantly running on max. I didn’t think much of it—it’s just what omegas do.
But now, a year into taking care of Mom, I’m getting used to it. I could live like this, I think. For a long time.
