The Omega Knotting a Stranger

10

JAMES

S leep is impossible. I stare at the cabin’s dark ceiling, my mind racing with thoughts of her. Of all the places, of all the storms... Lily. My Lily. It has to be her—how many Omega bakers named Lily could there be in Whispering Grove who run a shop with their sister? The coincidence is too perfect, too precise.

Her scent still lingers in my nose from earlier—vanilla and peppermint, warm like freshly baked bread. Exactly how I’d imagined she’d smell during those long nights exchanging messages, when I’d lie in my cell, dreaming about the woman behind the words. But the reality of her is so much more than I could have pictured.