Chapter 19
nineteen
JULIA
The hem of my sundress was soaked through with dew, the thin cotton plastered to my calves. I didn’t care. My hands were moving on autopilot, my fingertips stained a faint, crushed green as I plucked another white flower and dropped it into the woven basket at my knees. It made thirty.
Overhead, the Wyoming sky was just beginning to burn off the flat, bruised grey of pre-dawn, giving way to warm, creeping gold. I had been out here for an hour, having walked the twenty minutes up from the house while the pack was still asleep.
Exhaustion lived deep in my muscles from five straight days of hunching over the patio table where I’d set up a mini craft lab to figure out if the scentless property of the ghost flowers could be extracted and used in the lotion I made.
Dozens of failed tests lined every available surface in mason jars.
Three different chemical solvents had stripped the scentless compound entirely, destroying the very thing I was trying to harvest. But the fourth—plain, high-proof cooking ethanol—had finally held it stable.
The formula was real. It actually worked. I just needed more raw material.
I swiped a wrist across my face, accidentally smudging dirt over my cheekbone, and stared down at my open notebook in the grass.
The pages were damp and curling at the edges from the morning moisture.
My handwriting blurred in a few spots, but it wasn’t the molecular equations I saw when I stared at the paper.
It was the text Demi had sent me at 11:47 last night while she was up nursing her baby.
Demi:
She’s not angry with you, Jules. She knows it’s not your fault. Addy’s just grieving something and she needs time. She’ll come back when she’s ready.
I had read it three times in the dark before setting my phone face-down on the nightstand, blinking back tears, and reaching for my notebook. My hands had been steadier on the paper than they had been on the screen as I worked through the next steps for my lotion.
If I could get the emulsion right, binding the ethanol extract to a simple shea and beeswax base, I wouldn’t just have a temporary masking agent.
I’d have a topical neutralizer that flattened an Omega’s scent markers at the source.
It would be infinitely better than the artificial, chemical-smelling garbage the OMA prescribed, and longer-lasting than anything currently on the market. It was absolute autonomy in a jar.
But autonomy wasn’t the only reason I was out here freezing in the wet grass before the sun came up.
The work was the work, sure. But it was also penance.
Ever since my date with River, the pack had made good on his promise.
They hadn’t crowded me or tried to pull me away from my manic hyper-focus, they had simply expanded to fit around it.
River sliding a mug of chamomile tea onto my workstation, grounding me without a single question.
August leaving plates of warm, high-protein food on the kitchen counter so I wouldn’t forget to eat.
Ransom, who usually projected his flirting to the cheap seats, dropping a quick kiss on the top of my head as he passed instead of demanding my attention.
Gideon quietly organizing my scattered notes into neat stacks when I finally crashed, leaving a fresh pen next to them for the morning.
Stetson just... watching me from the doorways, his jaw tight, tracking my exhaustion like he was waiting for a sign that it was time to scoop me up and deposit me in my bed so I would finally sleep.
Even Colt had subtly shifted, reading late into the night in the next room so I was never truly alone.
I wasn’t trying to shut them out. God, I actually wanted to be at every loud, chaotic family dinner and go on dates and spend time together as a pack.
But every time I looked at my men and felt how perfectly I fit here, guilt clawed up my throat.
I had accidentally stumbled into everything Adeline had ever wanted, and she was currently wasting away at the OMA, alone, probably feeling like she’d be trapped there forever.
I knew because that’s exactly how I’d felt.
The difference was I welcomed spinsterhood while Addy longed for a pack and family of her own.
Everything I now had.
So I couldn’t just live the fairytale and enjoy my perfect matches while she was drowning. I didn’t get to rest until I fixed this and found a way to apologize.
A cramp flared in my right hand, pulling me out of my head. The dew on the notebook pages was starting to bleed the ink of my supply list.
I sighed, knowing it was probably time to head back.
I didn’t move. Instead, I shifted my knees in the dirt, pinched the stem of another ghost flower, and tossed it into the basket.
I kept my eyes pinned to the ground. If I looked up, I’d have to see the way the dawn light caught the peaks of the mountains.
It was too beautiful of a morning, and if I let myself look at it, I would just start crying again. And I didn’t cry.
Cristenellos never cried.
Except that my hormones were a wreck and I couldn’t seem to stop tearing up anytime I thought too hard about my best friend and the fact that this was the longest we’d ever gone without talking.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Sniffling, I threw my head back, shook out my hair, and closed my eyes, composing myself.
The rhythmic thud of hooves against the earth broke through my silent moment.
I kept my eyes squeezed shut for a fraction of a second, failing to place the sound immediately.
I hadn’t expected anyone to be out here this early.
This patch of the meadow was supposed to be mine, especially since I’d left the guys a note letting them know where I’d be so they wouldn’t worry.
I swiped roughly at my nose, bracing my damp hands on my thighs, and finally looked up.
Colt sat motionless on the back of a huge bay gelding, maybe twenty feet away at the edge of the tree line. He wasn’t moving to dismount. He was just watching me from under the flat brim of his Stetson, framed by the sharp, golden morning light.
My brain immediately short-circuited into a rapid-fire spiral of confusion, because Colt was the last man I expected to see.
Why is he here?
Did Stetson send a search party?
Why is he looking at me like that?
And, most annoyingly…
Why does he have to look like a goddamn whiskey ad right now?
Meanwhile, I was sure I looked like a total disaster.
I was sitting in wet grass, my hair was a bird’s nest, my dress looked like I’d forgotten to put it in the dryer before putting it on.
My fingertips were coated in ghost flower juice, my eyes were probably puffy since I’d been fighting off intermittent tears for at least an hour, and of all the men in this pack to witness my little breakdown, it had to be the one who spent ninety percent of his life avoiding me.
He swung down from the saddle with the kind of fluid, easy grace that made my stomach do a stupid little flip.
Looping the thick leather reins over a low-hanging pine branch, he walked toward me.
He didn’t rush. His boots crushed the wet grass, stopping a careful, respectful distance away.
His gaze swept over the messy pile of plucked flowers in my basket.
Then it shifted to the open, dew-soaked notebook.
He didn’t crowd my space as he closed the last few feet between us and crouched down near me, his large frame folding until we were eye level.
He didn’t pretend to look past my red, puffy, watery eyes I’d just tried to clear.
His storm-grey gaze locked onto mine, his expression intensely serious but overwhelmingly gentle.
“You alright, Darlin’?”
The endearment slipped out of him so naturally I sat there stunned, just staring at him, wondering if I’d hallucinated it.
“I’m fine,” I lied, my voice cracking on the first syllable. “I just... I ran out of flowers.”
Colt wasn’t stupid. He knew damn well I hadn’t walked out here in the dark just to cry over flower petals. But instead of calling me on my blatant lie and forcing my walls down, he tossed me a lifeline. His gaze shifted from my face to the damp notebook in the grass.
“Did it finally hold?” he asked quietly.
The pivot to a logical, scientific problem was a godsend.
“Yes,” I breathed, practically scrambling for the topic.
“The first three solvents destroyed the compound, but ethanol trapped it. I plan to synthesize it into a long-lasting lotion, but ultimately, I’d love to turn it into a systemic pill because it will mean absolute autonomy.
Complete control over our scents,” I explained.
“The lotion is the priority—something temporary yet long-lasting that an Omega can apply before she leaves the house. Something better than what’s currently on the market.
But I’m also working on a concentrated version.
A pill that can be taken daily would solve a need for so many Omegas.
Maybe even a lozenge, something sublingual that dissolves fast.” I tapped my notebook.
“In case the lotion fails. In case you’re out in public and your blocker breaks down and you need something that works in seconds, not minutes. ”
Colt listened intently, his focus unwavering. He didn’t patronize me or tell me to rest. He just nodded slowly, offering quiet validation. “That’s good work.”
Because he didn’t push, and because he made me feel seen and respected, the walls I was trying to put back into place to guard all my vulnerabilities dissolved into thin air.
“Imagine if someone like Adeline could have that,” I whispered, the words spilling out before I could stop them. I snapped my mouth shut, kicking myself for oversharing.
Colt let the silence sit for a long beat, giving me room to breathe, before gently asking, “Who’s Adeline?”