Chapter 12
chapter
twelve
It startswhen I get out of my car.
There’s a current in the air. Snapping, crackling, pulling me closer to the unfamiliar building housing Forever Matched.
If I looked down and found a steel tether sprouting from my middle, I wouldn’t be surprised. It would make sense, given the insistent tug I feel. Every time I inhale, the air seems to seep right out of the bottom of my lungs, adding to the sensation yanking me toward the double doors.
The second I step inside, I know.
Thisis why my Alpha had no interest in any other omega. Because somewhere, out there, we knew this was waiting for us.
Cake batter, honey, and lavender, all baked into warm, heavenly perfection.
Softness and sunrise and the sweetest edge of ecstasy.
Omega.
Everything inside of me lurches. I barely have the wherewithal to hold myself in check, collaring the beast inside of me trying to snap its binds. He fights at the stranglehold, pushing pure need into all of my pulse points.
Rut. Knot. Bite. Claim.
I freeze, locking myself down as every urge that’s been dormant for years surges to the surface. The world is a blur, fading into background noise as my eyes finally focus, taking in the quiet, calm lobby laid out in front of me.
There’s no one here.
Am I… crazy? Have I had some sort of break with reality?
Maybe. Because there actually is a beta woman at the front desk. I hear her speak to me, but I can’t see her. My eyes are locked on the door to the right, as if I can somehow see through it.
The woman keeps talking, ignorant to the fact that my ears are buzzing with urgency. When she gestures to the same portal I can’t stop staring at, I practically tackle the goddamn thing out of my way, bursting into a hallway where a well-dressed alpha woman waits with her arms crossed.
Instead of offering resistance, she waves me toward a room and casts me a well get the hell in there look.
My mind races, trying to process the perfume in the air. Is it real? Am I in control? God, what if go in there and hurt them?
I hate the answer my body gives me. Because it does not care. Nothing short of dropping dead will stop me from getting to the omega filling the air with gentle lavender and bubbling honey.
The door disappears. Did I open it? Melt it with the heat pouring off my body?
Who gives a shit?
I step inside the plush hotel-like suite, finding my most self-involved, least-emotionally-mature packmate cuddled into the sofa with a small omega bundled in his arms.
The way he’s holding her, I can’t see her face right away. But her sweet, honeyed scent strokes its way into my lungs, curling there until my nerves vibrate in pure pleasure.
Holy fuck.
Was that a purr?
I swear to God, I’ve never made that noise before.
They both startle at the sound, turning in unison to look at me.
Damon could be a piece of furniture for all that he fades into the background. My eyes loop over the omega’s face, desperate to drink it in. She’s beautiful and delicate, with the most unique honey-brown complexion and shining black curls and hazel-blue eyes that look like?—
Butterfly’s wings.
“Remi?”
The name is torn out of the very bottom of my soul. I haven’t said it in years.
Now, as it rolls off my tongue, it feels like some secret hope I didn’t know I had. Could it really be her? Here? Now?
Where is “here”? I don’t know. I can’t remember where I am or how I got here.
All I know is her.
That skin. Those eyes.
And this is her scent???
The lush aroma of fresh honey cake swirls off her. A complex, deeply sweet fragrance; almost caramelized, but with the distinct edge of something delicate and floral. I hear myself grunt, but I don’t have enough blood left in my brain to parse why.
Because my cock and knot are throbbing.
The need to rut prowls under my skin, pushing its way to my blood, stripping my sanity away beat by beat.
For one manic moment, it seems like I might not be the only one on edge. The omega scrambles to her feet. She makes a strangled sound, confirming that she’s the girl I used to know when she breathes my name.
“Cassian?”
Before I can find the ability to think, fresh sweetness soaks into the air. Thick and warm and hot—each lungful is straight from an oven full of my favorite things. I feel the scent roll into my entire body. Every nerve crackles, a wash of hot sensation blazing over my skin.
Fuck. Fuck.
The moan that pours of out her is new. Very fucking different from the little giggles and sighs she used to make when we were teenagers.
No, this is the sound of a full-grown woman who’s just scented something that’s making her wet and weak.
How is this?—
Am I?—
Is she real?
A mirage, maybe. She always looked like one, even back then. If I feel her face, will she shimmer and disappear?
One of my hands floats up, fingertips grazing the smooth skin of her rounded cheek.
It—
She feels real.
Warm. Soft. Shaking like a leaf.
So much is the same. Her colors. Her fine-boned hands wringing together. Those blue fucking eyes.
And the clip in her hair.
She starts to speak but winds up pressing her mouth closed. Those lips… I remember those, too. So plush and pink. And I remember thinking they couldn’t possibly be as soft as they looked.
They move, now. Forming the only word that could convince me any of this is actually happening.
“Bear? Is it really you?”
She gave me that nickname as a joke after I told her all of the guys on the team called me Beastly, and confessed I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it.
“You’re not a beast!”she’d huffed, adorably indignant. “You’re a… bear.”
I remember blinking at her. “…excuse me?”
She had flashed a smile, the small, impish one I liked best. “Yeah, you’re a big, snarly, furry guy,” she’d said, gesturing at my long hair. “But then, when we’re on the roof and I get cold, you keep me warm. Big bear.”
My eyes trace over the clip holding her black curls away from her face. Breaths heave in and out of me, but the rest of my body is frozen in place. Numb lips move without my permission, speaking the nickname I only had the balls to call her a handful of times back then.
“Butterfly.”