5. Bo #2
“Okay,” she said finally. “If my ankle heals, and if the snow clears, and if you're still willing... I'd like that.”
“Then it's a deal.”
I held out my hand without thinking about it. She hesitated for a second, then reached out and took it. Her grip was firm, her palm calloused from work. Not soft, this omega. Not delicate. A hand that knew tools and labor and the rough edges of the world.
The moment our skin touched, something jolted through me. Heat and want and recognition, all tangled together into something I couldn't name.
Her hand was small in mine but strong, and I had a sudden, visceral image of those hands on my skin, gripping my shoulders, pulling me closer. Her scent filled my lungs, rain and honeysuckle and pine, and my body responded before my brain could catch up.
A tightening low in my gut. A hunger I hadn't felt in seven years.
I wanted her.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. Not just her scent, not just the biological pull of alpha to omega. I wanted her. This stubborn, sharp-tongued woman who looked at me like she was deciding whether to trust me or run.
I let go faster than I should have. Stepped back.
Put distance between us before I did something stupid, like pull her against me and find out what those lips tasted like.
She was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read.
Her hand had dropped back to her lap, but she was flexing her fingers slightly, like she'd felt it too.
Like the electricity was still running through her the same way it was running through me.
“I should check on the goats,” I said. My voice came out rough, wrecked. It was a lie, and we both knew it. I'd already checked on the goats twice this morning.
“Okay.”
I turned and walked away, feeling her eyes on my back the whole time. The mudroom felt like a refuge, cold and quiet and free of her scent. I stood there for a long moment, staring at my hands, trying to understand what had just happened.
Seven years since Ellis. Seven years since I'd felt anything like that pull, that instinctive recognition that said this one, this one is important.
I'd thought that part of me was dead. Thought Ellis had killed it when she used our bond to cage me, to manipulate me, to turn my own instincts into weapons against my will.
But it wasn't dead. It was just sleeping. And this omega, this sharp-tongued, stubborn, wild-eyed stranger, had woken it up.
I didn't know what to do with that. Didn't know if I wanted to pursue it or run from it or pretend it hadn't happened. All I knew was that something had shifted, and there was no going back to the way things were before.
I grabbed my coat and went back out into the storm.
The cold helped. It always helped, burning away the complicated feelings and leaving only the simple ones. Survival. Movement. The basic animal need to keep going, keep breathing, keep existing in a world that didn't care if you lived or died.
I walked the perimeter again, even though I'd done it an hour ago. Checked the henhouse, the goat shed, the woodpile, the generator. Everything was fine. Everything was exactly the way I'd left it. But I kept moving anyway, kept burning off the restless energy that her touch had sparked.
Ellis had been beautiful. I remembered that, even though I tried not to remember anything about her.
Beautiful and cunning and utterly ruthless.
She'd chosen me because I was strong and loyal and too stupid to see what she really was.
She'd bonded me because it gave her control, a direct line to my emotions that she could pull whenever she wanted something.
For three years, I'd been hers. Her protector, her enforcer, her faithful hound.
I'd done things I wasn't proud of, things that still woke me up at night with my teeth clenched and my fists balled.
And through it all, I'd thought I was in love.
Thought the bond was proof that we belonged together.
Thought the sick feeling in my gut when she asked for more was just what love felt like.
It wasn't until she threw me away that I understood the truth.
Until she found someone else, someone more useful, and broke that bond as she told me to leave and never come back.
The breaking had nearly killed me. Would have killed me, if Calder hadn't found me wandering in the mountains, half-feral and three-quarters dead.
He'd brought me back. Slowly, painfully, over months that felt like years. He hadn't asked questions. Hadn't demanded explanations. Just gave me a place to exist and the space to figure out who I was.
I'd sworn I'd never let anyone that close again. Never let anyone have that kind of power over me. Most people didn’t know that a bond could be used as a weapon, and I'd learned that lesson in blood and broken pieces.
But this omega... she wasn't Ellis. I knew that with a certainty that went beyond logic.
Ellis had been calculated, every smile designed to manipulate, every touch intended to control.
This one was genuine. Prickly and defensive and difficult, but genuine.
What you saw was what you got, and what you got was a fighter who'd rather die than admit she needed help.
I understood that. I was the same way.
The storm howled around me, snow driving sideways, visibility down to almost nothing. I stood in it and let the cold scour away the last of my confusion.
When I finally went back inside, I was steadier. Not calm, exactly. But steadier.
She was asleep when I passed through the main room. Curled in her blankets with the book fallen to one side, her face relaxed in a way it never was when she was awake.
Without the walls, without the defensive posture, she looked younger. Softer. The firelight traced the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the shape of her mouth.
I stopped. Couldn't help it. Just stood there like an idiot, staring at her, feeling that pull in my chest that I'd been trying to ignore all day.
She was beautiful. Not in the polished, careful way that Ellis had been beautiful. In a real way. A wild way. The kind of beauty that came from living hard and not apologizing for it.
I wanted to cross the room and brush the hair from her face. Wanted to slide under those blankets and pull her against me and breathe her in until her scent was the only thing I could smell. Wanted things I hadn't let myself want in seven years.
I made myself move on. Made myself keep walking. But I felt her presence like a physical weight, pulling at me, drawing me back.
I thought about her for the rest of the day.
Thought about her all through dinner, all through the quiet evening hours when Calder read by the fire and Shepherd worked on one of his papers.
Thought about her as I lay in my bed that night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the storm rage outside.
She smelled wrong. Missing wrong. And I was pretty sure I knew what it meant.
Suppressants. She was on suppressants, or had been until recently. That was the gap in her scent, the missing note in the song. The chemicals that blocked an omega's natural cycle, smoothed out the peaks and valleys of their biology into something flat and manageable.
Except she'd lost her pack in the creek. Lost everything. Including, probably, whatever suppressants she'd been carrying.
Which meant that sooner or later, her body was going to remember what it was supposed to do. And when it did, she was going to be stuck here, in a cabin with three alphas, with no way to stop what was coming.
I should tell the others. Should bring it up, make sure we were all prepared for what might happen.
But something stopped me. The fear in her scent when I'd mentioned she smelled wrong. The lie she'd told when she said she didn't know what I was talking about. She knew. She knew, and she was terrified, and she wasn't ready to admit it.
If I told the others, it would force the conversation. Force her to confront something she wasn't ready to confront. And maybe that was the right thing to do. Maybe we needed to talk about it, plan for it, figure out how to handle it.
But I remembered what it felt like to have someone else make decisions about my body. To have my choices taken away, my autonomy stripped, my instincts used against me. I wouldn't do that to her. Not even for her own good.
She'd tell us when she was ready. And until then, I'd watch. I'd wait. I'd make sure she was safe, even from herself.
It was all I could do.
The storm howled on, and I lay in the darkness, and I tried not to think about how much I wanted to protect an omega I'd known for only than a day.