Anticipation swells in my chest at the idea of a man like the one they’re offering me taking me apart. I take the stylus and scrawl my name across the bottom of four different pages. I’m signing away my safety for the chance to not be empty for an hour. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, and for the first time all day, the math finally feels right.
“Very well,” the nurse says, her tone turning somber. “Please step into the neutralization chamber. Once your scent is stabilized, you’ll be escorted to Suite 404.”
The walk to Suite 404 is a blur of gray corridors and muffled silence. I feel like a condemned man, or maybe a sacrifice. The neutralization spray was cold and smelled of ozone, stripping away my personal scent and leaving me a blank slate. By the time the nurse stops in front of a heavy, reinforced steel door, I can barely breathe.
“He’s already inside,” she whispers. “There is a panic button in every corner and on the table by the door. We’ve never had an issue with compatibility matches so you shouldn’t need it.”
I frown, thoroughly confused. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m F-Class. I don’t... how...”
The woman smiles. “Mr. Renwick, our blood tests reveal nothing more than a sexual compatibility over a few hours. You are not here to guide anyone and you as sure aren’t going to be mating anyone tonight. Good luck, Mr. Renwick.”
The lock chirps, a high, digital sound that seems to vibrate through my teeth. The door slides open with a heavy thud, and I step through, still thoroughly confused but also a little wired. The air in the room hits me all at once, thick with the scent of black cedar, whiskey, and something dark and electric that makes the hair on my arms stand up. The lights are dimmed to a low, amber glow, casting long, jagged shadows against the soundproofed walls.
That’s when I seehim,the Alpha standing by the far wall, his back to me, his shoulders so broad they seem to swallow the light. He’s stripped to the waist, his skin glistening with sweat, and I can see the muscles in his back twitching with a tension that looks like it’s about to snap his bones. Even from here, I can feel the current coming off him, a low, thrumming vibration that makes my own blood feel like it’s beginning to boil.
The door slides shut behind me and locks with a final, echoing clunk. He turns slowly. His eyes aren't normal. They’re dark, the pupils blown wide, ringed with a flickering corona of violent energy that I recognize from the news reports on S-Class flares. He looks less like a man and more like a disaster that hasn't happened yet. His face is all sharp angles and desperate restraint, his jaw locked so tight I can hear his teeth grinding together from across the room.
The only thing that doesn’t seem to fit is the bright orange hair sticking out in all angles across his head.
“You,” he rasps. The word comes out as a growl, a low, tectonic sound that vibrates in my chest. “You’re the match?”
“Asa,” I manage to say. I’m staring at him, at the raw power radiating from his skin. “I’m... I’m here for the session.”
He takes a step toward me, and the air between us crackles. I can feel the static crawling over my skin, a thousand tiny needles of energy. He stops five feet away, his chest heaving, his hands fisted at his sides. He smells like the woods after a fire—charred,wild, and intoxicating. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, but my feet are rooted to the floor. My Omega side is singing, a high, clear note of recognition that drowns out the panic.
He sniffs at the air and then tilts his head to the side. “You’re an F-Class,” he says, his voice thick with disbelief and a hunger so sharp I can almost taste it. “They sent an F-Class to handle this? You’ll burn. You’ll break before I even touch you.”
“The machine said we match,” I say, finding a sudden, stubborn spark of defiance. “Ninety-nine percent. I don’t care what my classification is. I can handle it.” Ineedit. That simmering heat in my stomach drops lower, my cock throbbing with desire. I tilt forward, a gush of slick coating my underwear as I try to keep my face neutral.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he growls. He takes another step, the Alpha so close I can feel the heat radiating off him like a furnace door has been thrown open. He’s taller than me, forcing me to tilt my head back to look into those violet-ringed eyes. I’ve never been around an S-Class anything before but he feels... likemore.Like something that’smoreAlpha than just... “This isn't relief, Omega. This will be a storm. I’m going to ruin you.”
“Then ruin me,” I whisper, a small whine following my words.
I close the last of the distance, my hands reaching out to find the burning heat of his chest. The second my palms hit his skin, the jagged energy coming off him flows into me, finding the empty spaces I’ve been hiding for thirty-two years and filling them with a terrifying, perfect pressure.
He groans, a deep, pained sound as his hands come up to catch my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks. He leans down, his forehead pressing against mine, and for a second, we just breathe each other’s air. The scent of him is everywhere,drowning out the clinical neutrality of the room, turning the world into cedar and whiskey and the taste of a coming storm.
“Last chance,” he murmurs against my lips. “Walk out. Now.”
I answer him by pulling his head down, stumbling into a messy, desperate scramble of teeth and tongues and raw, unadulterated need. It tastes like whiskey and salt, and it feels like the end of the world. I’m a man of logic, but there is no math for the way his power is surging into me. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, wanting to be swallowed by the dark current humming through his body.
He breaks the kiss to trail his mouth down my throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin over my scent gland. I let out a low, broken moan, my knees buckling as he catches me, his arm wrapping around my waist, holding me upright.
His mouth drags from mine to the corner of my jaw, rough enough to make me gasp, then lower, teeth catching just beneath my ear. “You smell like vanilla,” he purrs against my throat. “Like pear. Like you’ve been walking around all day begging someone to notice.”
“I wasn’t,” I manage, which would be more convincing if I weren’t clutching his shoulders.
He laughs against my skin, then kisses down the side of my neck, over the racing pulse there, to the slope of my shoulder. His teeth scrape once, not enough to break skin, just enough to make my knees forget their responsibilities. “No?” His hand slides down, fingers digging into my ass with bruising force as he pulls me harder against him, letting me feel the fullness of his cock through his pants. “Then why do you smell like this?”
His lips move back up my throat, slower this time, like he’s tasting every place my scent has gone sharp and sweet. He kisses along my jaw, catches my mouth for half a breath, then pulls away before I can take more. “I’m going to fuck you so hard,” hegrowls, his hand still locked on me. “I’m going to knot you until you scream for me.”
I can tell the Alpha’s holding back by a thread, his rut slowly taking over his rational mind. In some twisted way, he’s asking for my consent. And fuck, I’m going to give it. “Please,” I sob, my hands fumbling with his belt. “Now. Please.”
I don’t care that I don’t know his name. I don't care that this might be the only night I ever have. All I know is that for the first time in my life, I am not a mistake. I am the answer to the question he’s currently asking.
He lifts me, my legs automatically wrapping around his waist, and slams me back against the reinforced wall. The impact should hurt, but the adrenaline and the heat make it feel like nothing. He fumbles with his fly, his movements frantic, his breathing coming in ragged, animalistic gasps.
“Look at me,” he commands, his free hand coming up to wrap around my throat. It’s a possessive, terrifying grip forcing my head back, exposing my neck to his hunger. “Look at what you’re taking.”
