Chapter 3
I woke to the coldest silence I had ever experienced. The goddess I had taken to bed was nowhere to be found, though the taste of her still lingered on my tongue and her scent clung to my skin. It was different from last night—no longer the simple sweetness of an omega on scent blockers—with elements of buttery baked goods fresh out of the oven and the sharp, sweet tang of lemon. Each breath locked in the knowledge that she was meant to be mine, the scent branding itself into my brain.
Except I didn’t even know her name. How the hell was I supposed to find her again and convince her we should be together?
I rolled over, shoving my face into the blankets to inhale what remained of her scent, memories of her perfect sounds and the feel of her body giving way to mine playing over and over in my head. Whoever had invented blockers needed to be smacked upside the head. In the old days, before that advancement, scent matches would recognize each other the moment they met, but now it was fucking luck of the draw depending on who was muting their scent at the time and how strongly.
Not much would’ve changed last night if I had known, except I would’ve made damn sure I had all of her contact information. Did she not know she was my match? My scent was all over my room. She could be on the industrial-strength variety that muted her ability to scent others. I couldn’t conceive of any other possibility that would have her disappearing before I woke.
“Good morning, sunshine!” The call carried through the apartment, my packmate, Dylan, sticking his head into my room. “I gave you that warning so you could cover up your cock. It’s way too early for me to see that.”
“Shut up.”
“Grumpy today?”
Fuck. What if I had missed out on the scent match for my whole pack? We had almost given up hope of finding a compatible omega. None of them ever seemed to click with all of us, plenty more thinking Dylan and Eduardo’s jobs were too childish, and even more than that put off by the financial issues we had been facing of late. My pack loved their jobs, and I did too. It wasn’t my fault I’d inherited a failing business I couldn’t even sell because it was my grandfather’s legacy. A scent match wouldn’t fix all the issues, but she should at least like every member of the pack.
“Rough morning,” I replied slowly. “I thought I would have a guest for breakfast, but apparently she didn’t have the same idea.”
“That’s rough, buddy.” He held a box aloft. “More donuts for us, then.”
I didn’t want donuts. I wanted the blonde goddess who rocked my world and cried all over me because she had chosen me as her first step in her sex life after a divorce. I wished I had known I had that honor in advance, but that didn’t change that she had chosen me. Fate had walked her right into that club and I’d been too stupid to ask the right questions to keep her.
I would keep that knowledge to myself for now. No sense in disappointing the others when I had no information to track her down. It was possible she didn’t even want to be found. Maybe she had tried to take that step too early and regretted everything. The thought of that made me queasy.
I forced myself into the shower, loath to scrub the scent of her from my skin, but I couldn’t give my pack false hope right now.
Both Eduardo and Dylan were in the kitchen when I emerged, Eduardo pouring all of us coffee, and Dylan already halfway through a Boston cream. He nudged the box toward me and I plucked out a lemon curd–filled powdered donut. It didn’t come close to the sweetness of my lemon meringue duchess, but it was better than nothing.
“How was your luck last night?” I asked.
“We hooked up with a pair of roommates,” said Eduardo. “Flexible sweethearts. They do aerial arts. You?”
“I took absolute perfection to bed,” I told them.
“What made her so perfect?”
“You’d have to meet her to know.”
“Seeing her again?” Dylan asked.
“I fucking wish. Didn’t get her name or her number.”
“Dumbass.” Dylan chuckled. “You gotta let the big head lead in these situations. The little one doesn’t get info like that.”
“I wasn’t expecting her to disappear into the night,” I defended.
“Better luck next time.” Eduardo sipped his coffee that was so strong he could probably stand a spoon up in it. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll see her again. And if not, there’s plenty of fish in the Vegas sea.”
It was this fish or nothing. I would have to keep my eye out and hope that fate was feeling merciful. If I was pathetic enough, perhaps it would take pity on me and have us cross paths at the grocery store or something equally mundane one day.
“Have you heard anything about the investor funding?” Eduardo asked.
“Nothing yet. It’s been so long that I’m pretty sure they’re just brushing us off.”
“Assholes.” Dylan snorted. “They’ve got more money than sense and won’t use a single dollar to save a city staple. It’s not our fault we got fucked over.”
No, it wasn’t ours . The legion of people who had sensed blood in the water were the ones to blame. They’d swooped in when my grandfather’s dementia had started to show enough to make him vulnerable, but not enough that anyone knew to intervene. I could only hope the guilt ate them alive.
My grandfather had moved into a care facility and handed the reins over to me since I already worked for his company. Night of Knights was built into all my happy memories with its jousting, dancing, and revelry that nothing else has ever been able to match for me. I had practically grown up in the arena. My first job was there, and I had learned everything about business, horse care, and theatricality from my days working alongside my grandfather. Now I was shackled behind a desk most of the time, trying desperately to salvage all the damage that had been done.
“We could look for investors elsewhere,” suggested Eduardo. “Surely some rich bitches in the big cities dream of being a knight? Financing one could be the next best thing.”
“I don’t doubt they exist, but finding them isn’t that simple.” Investors sensed blood in the water with me too, feeling my desperation to save this business, and rooting out all of the gaps in my knowledge I hadn’t learned because I hadn’t expected to take over yet.
“That’s what the Internet is for, my friend,” Dylan said with an easy smile.
“You do it, then, if you’re so confident.”
“Okay, I will.” He polished off a honey glazed, his mouth sticky with sugar. “So tell me about Miss Perfect. I need to visualize.”
I supposed it couldn’t hurt to give them that much. “Dark blonde hair, hazel eyes, looks a bit like she’s never seen the sun, and about this tall.” I leveled my palm perpendicular to my chest.
“Okay, okay, what else?”
“Curvy-ish. Cute as fuck stretch marks.”
“She a mama?” Dylan asked.
“I didn’t ask and she didn’t offer. Recently divorced, though. Ex sounds like a real piece of shit.”
Eduardo tilted his head, examining me. “How old is this divorcée?”
“Forty-two. Her birthday is next month.”
“You learned when her birthday is but not what her name is?” Dylan laughed.
“She’s the one who said it. I don’t know the exact date.”
“Scent?” Dylan asked. “I need the whole picture here.”
“Closest I can come is probably lemon meringue pie. Buttery, sweet, and citrusy.”
“Shame you fumbled her,” said Eduardo smoothly. “Her scent would fit with ours.”
He wasn’t wrong. We both had citrus elements—orange liqueur and clove for me, and lemon oil and black pepper for him—and she would complement us. Dylan was a tiny bit of an outlier with his leather and cherries, but the warmth and fruit lingered through all of us.
“Well, if you see a gorgeous lady matching that description who smells like pie, chat her up for me and get an actual name.”
Eduardo bit into a cinnamon-and-sugar confection, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. “I’ll keep an eye out. Are you going into the office today?”
“I don’t know why you even ask that anymore.”
“In the vain hope that you’ll actually take a full day off.”
“You and I both know I can’t do that.”
“Grinding yourself into the dirt isn’t going to save the business any faster.”
I knew he was right, but resting felt like a betrayal. Surely if I worked hard enough, the answer to all of my problems would appear.
“I’ll come in with you,” said Dylan. “Applesauce needs a good groom anyway.”
Applesauce was Dylan’s horse: a gorgeous golden Palomino he’d had for about ten years now. He used to do jousting with her at the renaissance fairs before taking a steady job with Night of Knights. He catered to our numerous horses like they were a pack of princesses.
“Well, if we’re all going…” Eduardo stood and transferred his coffee into a to-go mug.
We took the remaining donuts with us to bribe our part-time stable hands. It was still weird to consider that we had a stable inside Vegas when the two seemed so incongruous in my mind, but it did make the horses very adapted to loud noises.
The traffic was god awful, but then it always was around the Strip. Even in low season, about ten times the amount of people I would’ve preferred congregated there. I shouldn’t really complain. Having them there meant they could come to our show, and if they came to our show, then maybe I wouldn’t lose everything my grandfather had worked for.