Page 1

Chapter 1

Ru

My father swore nobody gave you anything for free. He was right. My gift cost a man his hands.

The scent of Christmas stained the air—pine needles, chocolate mint, and a dash of cinnamon. The shops had started decorating, the temperature had dropped, and the clouds had swapped out rain for sleet. It was a holiday where the rich cashed in on giving hearts. The bigger the family, the more you spent. It was nothing more than a ploy to take more of what wasn’t theirs, or so my father always said. Since we didn’t fall into any of those categories, he made sure I knew we were dirt poor, and never to expect anything under the tree.

We never even had one.

Frankie was a grumpy, old Scrooge. A penniless Scrooge. The thought made me laugh as the cold kissed my face. Turning against the wind, I kept walking. There was nothing he’d hated more than having to spend money on a bastard child and a cheating Omega mate. Some were lucky enough to have parents who’d severed the bond, or died. Same thing. Mine were especially toxic. They’d stayed together, at least until they died in a car accident one year ago today.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and even though they’d been gone for a year, his words always haunted me when the weather turned nippy. Some ties weren’t so easy to sever. Traffic was terrible, filled with people rushing to get last-minute shopping done. I kept my head down and continued walking; I hadn’t been able to get into a car since. Unlike my father, I loved Christmas. My mom used to love it too, but that stopped when I was young. Everything about the holiday made me happy, and now that I lived on my own, I had a little tree. I cried when I decorated it. It was my first time, but I already knew I’d keep it up the entire year.

The small town of Noelle was nestled just outside of the city. Our little town’s square had nothing on the Big Apple, but when the holidays came around, everyone gathered. Most of the square wore patches same as me—little flesh-toned circles at the throat or wrist, standard as a coat in this weather. Scenting someone, or taking their patch off without consent, wasn’t just rude, it was a crime on the books, same tier as assault. Catch someone’s real scent once and you could find them again. That’s why nobody did it in public. Get caught, and it wasn’t the cops you had to worry about—it was whoever the person belonged to. There were exceptions carved out somewhere in the fine print—fated bonds, scent matches, whatever people wanted to call the one-in-a-million case where it wasn’t really a choice at all—but I’d never met anyone who claimed it happened to them, and I didn’t know anyone who fully believed those who did.

I had a small apartment and could walk to and from work, which suited me fine. After all day on my feet, surrounded by stressed clients, I was desperate to be surrounded by the familiar scent of home. It was small, but it was mine.

I caught my reflection in the dark shop window across the street—dark hair gone frizzy at the temples from the damp, cheeks already wind-bitten pink, bun of curls high atop my head.

My foot slid on the icy concrete, and I threw my arms out to balance myself when a muscular arm wrapped around my waist. Panic spiked through my chest as my body instantly braced for a fight. I twisted in the grip, heart hammering as I prepared to shove away the stranger. Trapped between fight or flight, I caught a note of something warm, woodsmoke and something sharper underneath before it was gone again, swallowed by the cold and the patch on my neck that made sure I never leaked anything at all. His body was hot beneath my fingers.

When I was steady, I raised my eyes to the stranger and realized I knew him. My shoulders dropped, the urge to tip my head back and expose my throat rising before I caught myself. He’d been my first customer and had become one of my loyal regulars. My fingers twitched with the urge to see if his brown hair that curled at the nape was as soft as I thought it was. My eyes locked on his sinful pink lips, then the pale blue of his stare, my pulse stuttered before I could stop it. His broad shoulders, strong jaw, and the firm muscle cording beneath my fingers made heat curl in my belly. Ever since the time he’d needed a different size in the fitting room and I accidentally caught a glimpse, I hadn’t stopped salivating. I swallowed as he shifted.

I didn’t know how many times I’d fantasized about this man.

He was attractive, but my body shouldn’t react to him the way it did. The patch was supposed to flatten all of that. I’d stood this close to plenty of men since moving to Noelle and smelled nothing. Klaus was the only one who ever cut through.

“Klaus!” I gasped.

“Ru.” He rumbled, the sound vibrating so deep in his chest that the pulse point beneath my patch throbbed in response. It was a heavy, command-like note that made the thin piece of material on my neck feel completely useless. I froze with my face buried in his chest, inhaling the sudden, dizzying heat of him. Something rumbled low in my chest—a soft purr—and slick dampened my underwear in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. My eyes snapped open, and I stumbled back, mortified.

Oh, please, don’t let him have heard that.

“I’m sorry,” I laughed nervously as my cheeks and neck flushed.

“Don’t be.”

“Thanks for saving me. I’m so clumsy, I would have bashed my face in,” I gushed.

“No problem,” he said, releasing me. He winked and turned, his back disappearing into the crowd as I touched my burning cheek, my skin still tingling where he’d held me. It took my frantic heart a second to quiet down enough for my brain to process what had just happened. That warm, sharp scent—it wasn’t just strong. He hadn’t been wearing a patch at all. Pure, unsuppressed Alpha heat, and my body had reacted to it.

A scent match. Mine.

My eyes widened, and I spun back around to rush after him—

“Ru!” someone yelled, and that sudden, liquid warmth turned to ice.

My shoulders instantly hunched and my feet refused to move. Rhett didn’t wait for me to turn around, he rushed in front of me. He was tall with a swimmer’s build, but I knew what lay beneath the red sweater. I hated it when he called me that. It was familiar, as if we were friends. His shift wasn’t over for a few more hours, but here he was.

Our breaths plumed between us. His neat blonde hair was perfect, not a hair out of place since he checked in this morning. Brown eyes, an easy, practiced smile. He had the kind of face that went viral, but there was nothing going for him underneath it. My muscles stiffened as he reached out and squeezed my arm. My Omega stayed silent, the way she always did around him—no warning growl low in my gut, no hackles rising. Betas didn’t trip the wire. I used to think that meant he was safe. I knew better now.

After a movie night gone wrong, I kept my distance. There was supposed to be a group of us from work, instead, it was just the two of us, and by the time I noticed the door was already locked behind him. He kept pouring, and I kept drinking to calm my nerves, and somewhere between the second glass and the opening credits, the room tilted and didn’t come back. I woke up the next morning, fully clothed, but my skin was raw, and I had the worst headache I’d ever had.

Being this close to him, with no one to interrupt us, had my skin crawling. A tremor wracked my body, mouth drying as the image of him above me flashed before my eyes. I cleared my throat and put space between us. He smirked as he took a step closer.

I steeled my resolve and leveled him with a confident look I didn’t believe myself. “What’s up?” I peered at my phone, so he’d get the hint.

“I didn’t see you in the lunch room…” he trailed off.