The Scent of Sin (Blood & Omega #1)

Chapter 1

The pill bottle rattles when I shake it. The sound is hollow, plastic against plastic, too loud in the quiet bathroom.

Three left.

I stare at the orange plastic in my hand, counting backward.

The label's been peeled off—torn away weeks ago in a moment of paranoia, leaving only sticky residue and faint paper fragments.

Refill's due in five days, but I still have three pills.

That's fine. That's manageable. I'm not cutting it close.

You're always cutting it close.

I twist the cap off and dry-swallow the suppressant without water, tilting my head back, throat working as the pill catches halfway down. I feel it scrape down my throat. Bitter. Chalky. Like swallowing dust. Like swallowing chalk and shame. A taste I've known for eleven years.

The bathroom mirror shows me what I always see: too-pale skin, almost translucent under the harsh fluorescent light, shadows under my eyes that never quite disappear, dark hair that needs a cut.

It falls into my eyes, long enough that I can hide behind it when I need to.

I look tired. I am tired. But that's normal. That's just how things are.

I trace the scar on my collarbone through my t-shirt—thin, white, barely visible. My finger follows the line from memory, knowing exactly where it starts and ends even through fabric. One of many. Some I can hide. Others I can't.

The pill sits heavy in my stomach. A weight that doesn't belong there. Foreign. Wrong.

You're disgusting. Filthy. Unnatural.

Linda's voice. Still sharp after all these years.

Still cutting. Even four years after Margot took me away from her, I still hear it.

Still feel her hand cracking across my face when she caught me without my shirt, saw what I was becoming at thirteen.

The sting. The shock. The shame that burned hotter than the pain.

"Max?" Margot's voice drifts up the stairs. Warm. Gentle. Everything Linda's wasn't. "Dinner's ready, sweetheart!"

I shake my head, fingers gripping the edge of the sink hard enough that my knuckles go white, and push the memories down where they belong. Linda's gone. I'm safe. I have Margot.

I have a home.

"Coming!" My voice cracks on the word. I clear my throat, try again. “Coming.”

I shove the pill bottle into my pocket—habit, paranoia, whatever——feeling the hard plastic press against my thigh through thin denim, and head downstairs.

Our apartment is small. Cozy, Margot calls it.

We've lived here for four years, just the two of us, and I know every creak in the floorboards, the loud groan on the third step that I skip automatically, every water stain on the ceiling, every chip in the kitchen tile.

The one near the stove where Margot dropped a pot last winter.

It's ours.

Or it was.

Margot's set the table with actual placemats tonight, the nice ones she saves for special occasions.

Deep blue fabric ones with embroidered edges, not the everyday cork ones with coffee rings.

Two plates. Two glasses of wine—well, one wine, one sparkling cider for me because she's a stickler about the drinking age.

She smiles when I walk in, and it's the smile that saved me. Warm. Real. The kind that reaches her eyes, makes them crinkle at the corners. The kind that makes you believe someone actually gives a shit whether you live or die.

"Sit," she says, pulling out my chair like I'm someone worth caring for. "I made your favorite."

Chicken parmesan. Garlic bread. The smell hits me—tomato sauce, basil, melted cheese—and my stomach growls despite the pill sitting heavy inside it. Plus the salad I'll pretend to eat.

I sit. The chair scrapes against the linoleum, too loud.

We eat in comfortable silence for a minute—Margot's never been one to fill space with meaningless chatter—but I can tell she has something on her mind. She keeps glancing at me, then away. Her fork pauses halfway to her mouth. She sets it down. Picks it up. Sets it down again. Nervous.

Margot doesn't get nervous.

"So," she says finally, setting down her fork. The metal clinks against the plate—a sharp, decisive sound. "I need to talk to you about something."

My stomach drops. The food I just swallowed turns to lead.

Here it comes.

"Okay," I say, forcing my voice to stay level. Calm. I set down my own fork carefully, line it up perfectly with my knife. Like I'm not already cataloging worst-case scenarios.

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her palm is warm. Steady. Her thumb finds my pulse point at my wrist, rests there like she's checking I'm still alive.

"Richard proposed."

I blink. Once. Twice. My brain can't process the words.

"I said yes."

The world tilts.

No—not tilts. Shifts. Everything goes sideways for a second, my vision swimming. Like someone picked up the entire apartment and moved it three feet to the left, and now nothing's quite where it should be.

"Max?" Her thumb strokes across my knuckles. Gentle. Soothing. The way she used to when I'd wake up screaming from nightmares. "Say something, honey."

"I—" My throat's too tight. I swallow hard. Once. Twice. "That's—congratulations. I'm happy for you. I am."

And I mean it. I do.

Richard Graves is... fine. He's good to Margot. Makes her laugh. A real laugh, the kind that throws her head back and shows the happiness in her face. Takes her to fancy restaurants and weekend getaways she'd never spend money on herself. He's successful, stable, everything Linda wasn't.

But marriage.

Marriage.

"You're not happy," Margot says softly. Her eyes search my face, reading every micro-expression I'm trying to hide.

"No! I am. Really." I squeeze her hand. My fingers tighten around hers, maybe too hard. "You deserve this. You deserve someone who—who treats you right."

"But?"

I pull my hand back, the loss of contact immediate and cold, reach for my cider. Take a sip I don't taste. The bubbles burn my throat. I don't even register the flavor.

"What does this mean?" I ask. The glass is slippery in my palm, condensation making it hard to grip. "For us?"

"Nothing changes between us," she says immediately. Fiercely. She leans forward, both hands flat on the table, eyes locked on mine. "You're my son, Max. Adoption papers, last name Carter like mine, everything—you're mine. That doesn't change just because I'm getting married."

"But we'll move."

It's not a question.

She nods. Slow. Deliberate. "Richard has a house. An estate, actually. There's plenty of room—"

"An estate." I laugh, but it comes out wrong. Hollow. More like a cough. More like choking. "Margot, I work at a bookstore and take night classes at community college. I don't do estates."

"You'll fit in fine."

"Will I?"

The question hangs between us. Heavy. Suffocating.

Because we both know the answer. I don't fit anywhere. Never have.

"His sons live there," Margot says carefully. Her voice drops, goes softer, like she's trying to cushion the blow. "Three of them. Atlas is the oldest—twenty-nine, I think. Then Zero and Bane. They run the family business with Richard."

Three sons.

Successful men with successful lives who won't want their father's new wife's charity case hanging around.

"They're excited to meet you," Margot adds. But her eyes don't quite meet mine when she says it.

"Liar."

She smiles. "Okay, maybe not excited. But Richard's talked about you. They know you're important to me."

"I'm sure they're thrilled."

"Max." Her voice goes soft. Serious. She reaches across the table again, both hands this time, palms up in offering. "I need you to hear me, okay? Nothing about this changes how much I love you. You're not losing me. You're not being replaced. We're just... expanding."

Expanding.

Like I'm a business acquisition. A line item in Richard Graves's portfolio.

I force a smile. Feel my lips curve up even though nothing inside me feels like smiling. "When's the wedding?"

"Three weeks."

Jesus.

"Fast," I manage. The word comes out strangled.

"When you know, you know." She's watching me too closely. Reading me the way she always does. "You can tell me if you're not okay with this."

But what would that do? Make her choose? Make her give up her happiness because I'm too fucked up to handle change?

No.

"I'm okay with it," I lie. The words taste like ash. "I want you to be happy."

"I want you to be happy too."

I take another sip of cider. Just cold. Just wet. Just something to do with my hands.

"I will be," I say.

And maybe if I say it enough times, it'll be true.

Later, after Margot goes to bed, after I help her with the dishes and hug her goodnight and tell her again that I'm fine, really, I'm fine, I sit in my room and stare at the walls.

They're covered in things I've collected over four years.

Posters from bookstores. Dog-eared and faded at the edges from sunlight.

Postcards from places I've never been. Paris.

Tokyo. Iceland. All places I'll probably never see.

A corkboard filled with story ideas scribbled on index cards—characters, plot threads, worlds I build when this one gets too heavy.

Some cards are so old the ink is fading.

Some are fresh from yesterday. A constellation of maybes and what-ifs.

My laptop sits open on my desk, a half-finished short story blinking at me. The cursor blinks. Blinks. Blinks. The cursor mocks me from the middle of a sentence I can't finish.

Creative Writing major, the course catalog said. For students passionate about storytelling.

I'm passionate. I'm just also terrified.

Because writers are supposed to be brave. Supposed to bleed onto the page and call it art.

And I'm good at bleeding, but I'm shit at being brave.

I pull the pill bottle from my pocket and set it on my desk. Three left.

Three little pills between me and everything I've spent eleven years hiding.

You're disgusting.

I close my eyes. Press my palms against them until I see spots. Until the pressure builds and builds and almost hurts.

When I open them, I close the story document. The cursor disappears. The blank white screen goes dark. I can't write. Not fiction. Not when my own life is imploding.

Instead, I pull out the notebook from my desk drawer—the one with the worn cover and pages soft from use. Brown leather, cracked at the spine. The corners are rounded from being shoved in backpacks, from being held too tightly. My diary. The only place I can be honest.

I open to a blank page and start writing. My hand moves almost automatically, pen scratching across paper in the quiet room.

Three weeks. That's all I have left of the life I know. Three weeks before everything changes and I have to become someone else. Someone who fits into Richard Graves's world. Someone who belongs in an estate with marble floors and chandeliers that cost more than I'm worth.

I'm happy for Margot. I am. She deserves this. She deserves love and stability and a man who treats her like she's precious.

But I'm terrified.

What if his sons hate me? What if I don't fit? What if they see through me and realize I'm just—

I stop. My hand freezes mid-word. Cross out the last line. Hard. Violent scratches of ink that tear the paper slightly.

Start again.

What if I can't keep pretending I'm normal?

The pen trembles in my hand. I can see it shaking, making the letters uneven, childish.

I write until my hand cramps. I can see it shaking, making the letters uneven, childish. Until I've emptied every fear onto the page.

It doesn't make me feel better.

But at least it's out of my head.