Chapter 7
Zephyr
Ah. There’s my crimson-haired beauty.
They say that, long ago, my homeland was filled with fair-skinned redheaded women. That they were the most beautiful females in the world.
As Nyx sits alone on a stone bench outside the training grounds furthest from the academy building, I know that last part is a lie.
This Omega in front of me is the most beautiful woman ever to grace the planet.
It took me a bit longer to find her today, but I’d follow her scent anywhere.
It screams for me in the way I wish she would, sensual notes crying out across the campus wherever she goes.
Thought you could get away from me, hm?
The smile that spreads broadly across my face makes my cheeks ache.
Then, with a sigh, it’s gone.
A pack.
I, Zephyr O’Connor, Lab Rat Extraordinaire, have a pack.
And my, are they all beautiful.
So much so, it could put a nick in my ego.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’m too fabulous for that to ever happen.
The Brit counselor with evergreen eyes is never around long enough for me to get any kind of read off him, which is odd. He has to have known Nyx for years. Why wouldn’t he want to be around his Omega?
And that fire-wielding Erich is hot as fuck with those black flame tattoos and piercings, but he’s a fecking cunt in need of an attitude adjustment.
How does a man both want a woman and treat her so badly? Wanker.
Nyx, though… she’s magnificent. Like an angel come to earth. Gorgeous and kind—I know from the way she interacts with friends and strangers alike—and all I want is to be near her.
It’s strange enough to know I have a pack, but even stranger that they all knew each other long before I arrived, yet they move around like there’s an invisible barrier between them, never getting too close.
When I feel the rawness of my lower lip, I realize I’ve been gnawing on it, staring Nyx down from my hiding spot in the woods. I watch as her shoulders rise high, then drop dramatically.
She lets out a long sigh and looks up from her tablet, gaze settling in my direction, almost right into my eyes. “I know you’re there,” she calls smoothly, if a bit agitated. “Even if I can’t see you, I feel you watching. Plus, I can smell you.”
I grimace. Guess I’m not as stealthy as I thought.
Begrudgingly, I rise to my feet from the bushes, watch as her eyebrow rises in question, head tilts, a bemused smile plays on her lips. With a glint in her dark eyes, she waves me toward her.
Well, if she’s amiable to my company…
I shuffle over the brush and weeds, and when my feet touch the stone pathway below, I make a show of straightening my shirt and brushing off my jeans.
I approach this goddess and gingerly sit on the bench beside her. When I peer at her from under my eyelashes, my breath gets caught in my lungs.
She’s even more beautiful up close.
Her pale skin is smooth, her cheeks just barely rosy. Her eyes are the color of dark chocolate—my favorite treat—and her hair, long and straight, the color of fresh spilled blood with bits of copper strands mixed throughout.
She bites her lower lip, and I’m not proud of the little gasp that escapes me at the move.
This woman will be my undoing.
She already is.
“So,” I sing on a cough. “Come here often?”
She lets out a puff of laughter to pity my horrible line, then her head shakes. “I do, actually.”
“Ah. Are you studying?” I gesture at her tablet.
She nods in the affirmative. “I’m looking into the history of packs.”
My eyebrow twitches. “Find anything interesting?”
“Packs are fated, and always have been. They were only outlawed in the past few hundred years.”
A growl builds in my chest. “Betas.”
Nyx frowns, head bobbing in agreement. “Anything for power.”
I scoff, let my head drop as I look at my feet. “Tell me about it. If you would, please.”
She shifts beside me, and in my peripheral, she places her tablet on the other side of the bench. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, Zephyr. But I am always here if you need someone. And I’m not just saying that because of our connection.”
My head shoots back up to look at her. The way she says my name is like a warm balm to my soul. “May I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“I…” I swallow, my eyes grow tight. “I never knew what love was, what it felt like, until setting eyes on you.”
She gapes a bit, lips parted.
“It isn’t just your beauty, although, look at you,” I wave my arm at her form beside me.
“How lucky could a guy be?” I grin. “Your scent haunts my dreams in the most delicious of ways, Nyx. I never imagined finding anyone I’d feel safe and happy with, but you changed all that. Even if we don’t know each other.”
Her lips press between her teeth a moment. “I want to know you, Zephyr. Can we spend time together?”
Pure elation coursed through my veins.
She wants to know me. Wants to be near me.
My vision swimming, I nod at her, yes, but don’t trust my voice.
She releases a relieved laugh. “I’m so glad.” Her smile is brilliant. “I thought you’d resigned yourself to always creeping in the shadows.”
Well, that made me wince a bit.
“Would you…” My voice trails, and I purse my lips. Perhaps this is too big of an ask.
Fuck it.
“Would you exchange clothing with me?”
I want her scent with me, in my room, in my bed. When I dream of her scent, I want to wake with it right beneath my nose.
She blinks in surprise, then in a beat, rises from the bench. “Absolutely.”
Hardly daring to believe this is reality, I rise to my feet beside her, noticing just how much larger I am than this small young woman.
She grabs her tablet, then reaches her free hand out to me. I tentatively slide my palm against hers, slowly grazing our skin together, and a shiver rolls through me.
“Come on,” she says, twining our fingers and giving me a tug forward.
Her hand feels so delicate in mine as she leads the way back into the looming castle they call a school, through the back door, and to the stairs.
As she climbs, never releasing my hand, I watch her round arse sway in front of me, and universe, the control it takes me not to reach out and rub my face against it.
This woman brings out desires in me I’ve never experienced.
When we reach the third floor, I let her guide me to her dorm room, although I know precisely where it is. Once there, she regretfully releases my fingers.
“I’ll just be a second.” She smiles up at me before disappearing into her room, and I know my responding grin is more than goofy.
She did not exaggerate, as the door swings back open a blink later, her blue tee shirt replaced with a black one, and she’s still pulling her hair from under the collar as she walks through the door.
When she hands me the blue fabric she’d been wearing, I pull it to my face, elation coursing through me as I inhale deeply of her rainy autumn afternoon scent, and swallow the whine that threatens to escape my chest.
When I peer at her over the shirt, her eyes are wide, lips parted but silent.
That’s when I grab the back of my white tee and pull it over my head, shake the hair from my eyes as I hand it to her.
Nyx’s mouth opens a little wider as her eyes rove over my bare torso, and pride wells inside me when she bites her lip, her gaze growing hooded before she hugs my shirt to her chest.
The thought of my scent on her elicits more of those desires I’ve never felt before. Dangerous ideas of pushing her into her room and locking the door behind us. Taking her. Marking her.
But even as these thoughts flood my mind, and her perfume increases to meet mine, I’m reminded of all the things I wish I could do for her, but can’t.
And I have to live with that. Forever.