Chapter 24 – RAFAEL
Chapter
Twenty-Four
RAFAEL
The scent hits me like a freight train made of honey and spice.
Not the faint traces I'd been catching over the past weeks, the ones I'd written off as residual omega from hookups or maybe just my imagination playing tricks on me.
This is real.
This is undeniable.
This is vanilla and cinnamon concentrated into something so potent it bypasses my brain entirely and goes straight to my hindbrain.
Every alpha instinct I possess roars to life at once.
Phoenix has gone completely still beside me, his massive chest expanding with another deep breath like he's drowning and Bells's scent is oxygen. His pupils are blown so wide his blue eyes look almost black in the streetlight.
"Please." Bells's voice cracks on the word, and the sound of it—desperate, afraid, vulnerable—makes something protective and possessive surge through my chest. "You can't tell anyone. Please."
My hand is still on his elbow from when I guided him outside, and I can feel him shaking through the fabric of his white button-up. Not the violent tremors of someone losing control, but fine tremors like he's fighting with everything he has to hold himself together.
"Okay," Phoenix says immediately, his voice rough. "Okay, we won't. But Bells, you need—"
"A hotel." Bells cuts him off, his eyes wide and pleading. "Just take me to a hotel. I can handle this if you just—fuck. Please."
The scent is getting stronger. My mouth waters involuntarily, and I have to actively fight the urge to lean in closer, to bury my face in the crook of his neck and just breathe.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I've never—never—been attracted to men. Not once in my entire life. The occasional acknowledgment that a guy was objectively good-looking, sure, but attraction? Desire? The kind that makes my cock press uncomfortably against my slacks and my fingers itch to touch?
Never.
Until right fucking now.
"My car's this way," I manage to say, my voice coming out strangled. "Come on."
I guide Bells toward where we parked, Phoenix following close behind. Bells stumbles slightly, and I tighten my grip on his elbow to steady him. The contact sends heat racing up my arm, and I have to grit my teeth against the reaction.
Get it together, dumbass. He's drugged and terrified and needs help, not you losing your shit over how good he smells.
We reach Phoenix’s car and I climb into the back seat, leaving the front for Bells. Giving him space.
Bells slides into the passenger seat, and the enclosed space of the car immediately fills with his scent. It's overwhelming, making my head spin and my thoughts scatter like leaves in a hurricane.
I crack the windows as Phoenix starts the engine. Fresh air helps marginally, cutting the concentration enough that I can think semi-clearly.
"Which hotel?" Phoenix asks, pulling out of the parking spot with more care than necessary. Every movement feels deliberate, measured, like we’re both operating on autopilot while our actual brains are too busy processing omega scent match holy shit to function properly.
I don’t have to ask Phoenix to know he’s having the exact same experience. I can see it in the tightness of his jaw and shoulders.
"Any." Bells has his arms wrapped around himself, curled in on his seat like he's trying to take up as little space as possible. "Just not—nowhere anyone else can find out about this. Not even Rex."
So I guess that's not what Rex is blackmailing him over. That's a fucking relief.
"We got it," Phoenix says, his voice gentler than I've ever heard it. "No one will know. We promise."
We drive to the first decent hotel we can find, a mid-range place that's clean and anonymous. The kind where they don't ask questions as long as you pay cash. Which I do, getting two adjoining rooms and trying not to think about why my hands are still shaking as I hand over the bills.
The clerk doesn't even look up from his phone.
The rooms are on the third floor, connected by a door that can be locked from both sides.
Standard setup for families or groups traveling together.
Phoenix helps Bells to the first room while I deal with the keys, and by the time I join them, Bells is sitting on the edge of the bed looking like he might shatter into pieces at any moment.
"We should take you to the hospital," Phoenix says, squatting down in front of him so they're eye level. Even squatting, Phoenix is three times Bells's size. Our normally devil-may-kiss-my-ass bandmate is hunched in on himself, looking strangely vulnerable.
Bells shakes his head hard.
Phoenix tries again. "Bells, if someone drugged you—"
"No." The word comes out sharp, panicked. "No hospitals. Nobody can know. Do you understand? Nobody can know."
"Is this what Rex has on you?" Phoenix asks quietly.
We both look at him. Bells's jaw works, and I watch the internal debate play out across his face. How much to tell us. How much to keep hidden.
"He knows I'm..." Bells swallows hard. "He knows something. But he doesn't know I'm a fucking omega. He can never know about that. You have to promise. Both of you. You can't tell him. You can't tell anyone."
"We promise," I say immediately, and Phoenix nods his agreement.
"Nobody knows," Bells continues, and his voice cracks slightly. "Just my immediate family. That's it. Not even Stephen. I'm serious."
The pieces start clicking together in my head, forming a picture I really don't like.
"If nobody knows you're an omega," I say slowly, "then how did someone drug you with something specifically designed to trigger omega heat? You never set your fucking drink down all night."
I'd know, because I was watching. I told myself it's nothing more than I'd do for anyone else I was going out with for the night, and that's true, but my protective instincts toward Bells go deeper than that. And now I fucking know why.
Bells goes very still.
"Someone knew," I continue, the logic unavoidable.
"Someone targeted you specifically. There were no other omegas at that party, no reason for anyone to spend that kind of money hoping they'd catch someone.
That shit's expensive, luckily. And yet they paid a small fortune to drug every drink at that party just to get to yours. Which means—"
"My stalker." The words are barely above a whisper. "My stalker knows."
Phoenix sucks in a sharp breath. "The roses."
"The roses," Bells confirms, and something in his steely expression breaks. "It's been going on for years, but it stopped when I started hiding…" He trails off, correcting himself. "When I started hiding that I'm an omega. He found me recently. He knows I live in the fucking penthouse."
"Fuck," I breathe, because what else is there to say?
The roses. The threatening note Phoenix and I had read, the one signed with just 'B.' The way Bells has been jumpy and paranoid since the flowers arrived. How he checks the windows compulsively, keeps his knife within reach, looks over his shoulder like he's expecting someone to grab him.
It all makes horrifying sense.
"He's been watching you," Phoenix says, and it's not a question.
Another wave must hit because Bells doubles over slightly, a small strangled sound escaping his throat before he bites it back.
The scent in the room intensifies, and I have to take a step back, putting distance between us before I do something stupid that reveals exactly what he is to me. To both of us.
Phoenix stands up from where he's been kneeling, moving to the opposite side of the room. Creating space. Giving Bells room to breathe.
"I need—" Bells's voice is strained. "I need to be alone. Please."
Every instinct screams at me to stay. To protect. To guard. To wrap myself around this omega and keep him safe from whatever the fuck is happening to him.
Instead, I force myself to nod.
"There's an adjoining room," I say, keeping my voice level despite how badly I want to argue. "We'll be right next door. You need anything, you call. Or just—just unlock the door. We'll hear you."
I pull out the key card for the second room, pressing it into Bells's shaking hand. "This is yours. Lock it from your side if you want. But we're right there. Okay?"
Bells nods, fingers closing around the key card like a lifeline.
Phoenix and I leave without another word, stepping through the adjoining door into the second room. I listen as Bells immediately engages the lock on his side.
Phoenix and I stand there for a moment, staring at the closed door, and then the reality of the situation hits me all at once.
Bells is an omega.
Bells is our fucking scent match.
Bells is in heat alone in that room, and we can smell him through the goddamn walls.
"Fuck," I mutter, running both hands through my hair and pacing to the window. The curtains are drawn, showing nothing but rain-streaked glass and the blurred lights of Seattle below.
Phoenix has moved to the far corner of the room, as far from the adjoining door as he can get. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and his breathing is carefully controlled. Too controlled.
"We should—" I start, but I don't know how to finish that sentence.
Should what? Leave? We can't leave him alone when his stalker just drugged him. Stay? We can barely function in the same room with the scent bleeding through the walls.
The heat-scent is stronger now. No windows open, no movement to dilute it. Just concentrated omega in heat, filling the air until I can taste it on my tongue.
"Holy shit," Phoenix breathes, and when I look at him, his pupils are blown wide again. "Raf, do you—can you smell—"
"Yeah," I cut him off, because I know what he's about to say and hearing it out loud will make it real in a way I'm not ready to process. "I smell it."
But Phoenix can't seem to stop himself. The words tumble out like he's been holding them back and the dam just broke.
"He's our scent match," Phoenix says, his voice full of awe and confusion and something that might be joy if it weren't tangled up with so much guilt. "Holy shit, Raf. Bells is our fucking scent match."
I want to deny it. Want to say he's wrong, that it's just the intensity of an omega in heat playing tricks on our instincts, that it's too much of a coincidence, too serendipitous.
But I can't.
Because he's right.
I know what a scent match feels like. Know the way it bypasses every rational thought and goes straight to the bone-deep certainty that this person is mine.
Alphas hear about it our whole lives—from our families, from our friends, from songs and poems and movies and TV and every word of romantic bullshit ever written.
And now a male omega is smelling like every fantasy I didn't know I had wrapped in vanilla and cinnamon and mine mine mine.