Chapter 5
chapter
five
I sense an alpha looming outside the door.
He’s wearing a suit. Which, in this place, means he’s probably a lawyer. Or, at best, a nice doctor to inject the crazy omega who won’t speak with tranquilizers. Or truth serum.
My heart flies in my chest, beating so hard I swear I can see it tick when I glance down at the pale-brown boobs smushed under my teddy. Fear tastes familiar, a bitter tang welling behind my teeth while I try not to shake out of my seat.
What if this guy’s a detective? What will happen to me? Will they figure out where I came from and call Wally?
You’re my property . I have paperwork that says so. Anyone who found you or tried to help you would just hand you right back to me .
It’s the main reason I didn’t try to leave sooner. That and the super-perfume. And the whole no-money, no-phone thing.
Now? No words, either.
This alpha looks word-y. He’s as fancy as Wally always pretends to be, only his wealth seems genuine—bespoke suit with shiny thread, polished shoes. A full head of slicked-back espresso-dark hair. Under thick, matching brows, his eyes burn—intense, even from the other side of the door’s glass inlay.
The prickles in my gut bloom into full-on ripples. They roll out to my fingertips and toes until I’m pretty sure even my hair is quivering.
I don’t get it. I spend every miserable night walking around rooms full of the most despicable alphas on the planet. Why would some pretty lawyer make me feel like I’m coming out of my skin?
He doesn’t even have his dick out!
The crease between his brows quirks tighter. His gaze drops to the old-fashioned telephone bolted into the interrogation room table, then shifts to something hanging beside the door.
When he moves, I flinch. Chagrin burns through my gut as I realize he isn’t attacking me . He’s just reaching up to take a matching telephone handset off the wall. He holds it up where I can see it and then nods at the one beside my hip.
He wants to talk to me .
Fear rears up, an instinctive flash of fuck no . But then I realize—he could have just waltzed right in.
Everyone else has. This alpha is trying to give me a choice .
Which is… a first.
My hand vibrates while I paw at the phone, my numb fingers barely capable of grasping the smooth plastic. I bring it up to my ear and hold my breath, afraid to even let him hear me breathe .
The alpha doesn’t seem to have the same concern, though. He exhales into the receiver, still staring hard through the slice of glass in the heavy metal door.
“Hello.”
It’s such a normal thing to say; I find myself answering automatically. “H-hi?”
His mouth is chiseled and sort of… stern . But it curls up at the corners slightly. “They said you were having trouble speaking.”
If he weren’t looking at me with a deep kind of concern in his eyes, I’d almost think he was teasing me. My fingers twitch around the phone handle, clammy sweat misting my palms. “I-I am.”
This time, I get a small smile. “Could have fooled me, Miss Swanson.”
Miss Swanson.
No one has ever called me that before. It sounds so strange that I blurt a correction, although it’s barely loud enough to qualify as a whisper.
“Serena.”
The lines around his eyes soften. “Serena,” he repeats.
It’s the first time my own name has ever made me short of breath. I press a sweaty palm to my chest to make sure my lungs still work and end up clutching the necklace dangling there. Fisting it has always been my nervous habit—one Wally didn’t mind because it drew attention “where it belonged”—my mashed-down tits.
But this alpha doesn’t even glance at them. He just stares at my face… and then stares some more.
His frown is fierce, and it occurs to me that I really ought to be afraid of him. But I’m just…
Not .
There’s something else happening inside of me. It sends a shiver through my whole body while the alpha watches on. His brows tweak tightly, and he starts to move for the door.
But then he… stops himself? Again. He looks through the glass, that dark gaze more intense and his voice an octave deeper. “May I come in? ”
Some desperate part of me wants to scream yes .
I don’t understand that impulse at all. I usually hate having alphas around me. I went through this whole miserable night just to get the hell away from them. So why is my body suddenly clambering for this one to come closer?
I try to shrink down, making myself smaller and hiding my quivers. “Why?”
When he sees the wariness in my expression, his goes soft again. “You look cold. I can lend you my suit jacket.”
I really am. It’s freezing in here, and I’m sitting on a metal table in a rubber thong. Which suddenly makes borrowing a jacket all the more appealing.
“I—I guess that’s fine.”
He nods and hangs up. I do the same. A sudden burst of nerves shakes me off the cold surface and onto my feet. Scuffed silver platforms scrape the laminate while I back away from the door, moving instinctively.
But I’ve gotten good at reading alphas, knowing how aggressive they’re feeling at any given moment. I’ve had to learn the hard way a few times. And this one doesn’t look like a brute.
Powerful and dominant; but not angry .
If anything, he seems more agitated on my behalf than his own.
The door snicks open. He steps inside. Harsh fluorescents bounce off all the polished parts of him. A gold Rolex. Shined leather shoes. The gleaming belt buckle that matches his tie-clip. His thick mahogany hair.
I can’t open my mouth. To talk or breathe.
It goes against every impulse urging me to lower myself in submission, but I have to know—what color are those dark eyes? So I raise my gaze to his.
The navy irises are unique. Almost fascinating. They seem alive . Swirling, shifting. Shades of silver moonlight slicing through a restless sea.
He holds himself with authority and strength, even as compassion shifts in his depths. Somewhere, down in the deep, dark hole burrowed under my stomach, I feel a stir. It’s indistinct and as wordless as the rest of me, but for the first time in years, I feel it .
My Omega has been hiding for a long time. I don’t know much about her, but I know she’s silent and scared. She’s been that way for a long time.
So it’s weird for her to poke her head out now. When I’m in a strange place, alone, with an alpha, who doesn’t seem to have any bond marks on him…
The TV shows I used to sneak mentioned this sort of thing all the time. Some cross between fairy tale and biology that supposedly makes certain alphas and omegas destined for each other.
A scent-match, they call it.
Or, in really serious cases, scent-sensitive mates .
That word sinks through my middle, clicking into the place where my Omega likes to huddle down.
Mate.
There was a time, years ago, when a group of strong, sexy mates swooping in to rescue me was my literal dream. A secret hope I never even had the courage to admit in my own head.
Could this be… that ?
My brain loops as fast as my heart pounds. And I don’t know much , but I know there’s only one way to test the insane theory that’s taken root in my mind.
So I breathe.
And he’s perfect .
Summertime, without the heat. Fresh-cut grass, young mint leaves, the faint brush of orange blossoms.
It’s lush and cool. A shaded hammock, maybe.
Or a dew-damp garden just before sunrise.
It’s more than how good he smells, though. It’s a feeling . A memory I don’t really have, but loved to pretend I did. A fantasy that kept me sane in the darkest moments.
And the fact that this alpha’s scent immediately brings me back to the only peace I’ve known in years feels like it means something.
My body reacts first. A deep, sucking sensation yanks his scent from the bottom of my lungs, pulling it so far into me that I don’t know where it goes. I gasp, dizzy from it, needing more. A high-pitched whine scales up my throat.
The more I breathe, the less control I have. My quivers turn into outright spasms. Everything below my navel contracts on a painful pulse of emptiness, then gels in a way I’ve never experienced.
It feels wet and hot . Like melting wax, only more slippery. Sliding out of me, into the thin red strap where most people would probably have panties.
The space around me tilts and blurs. My gaze loses focus, going dark at the edges. My perfume—the true, sharply sweet, richly creamy version—floods our small room.
Through my soupy tunnel of vision, I can only focus long enough to make out the alpha I thought might be an exception to all my rules.
Lunging right at me, with his teeth bared to bite.