Chapter 4
Chapter Four
KEIRA
I don't remember the walk home.
One moment I was running, feet pounding against pavement, lungs burning, the ghost of sunshine and citrus clinging to my skin like a brand, and the next I was fumbling with my apartment keys, hands shaking so badly it took three tries to get the door open.
I stumbled inside and slammed it behind me, pressing my back against the solid wood like it could protect me from what had just happened. Like it could protect me from him.
My legs gave out.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the cold floor of my entryway, knees drawn up to my chest, trying to remember how to breathe.
The teal strands of hair that framed my face fell forward, mixing with the black in a curtain that hid my expression from no one.
I was alone, after all. I was always alone.
That's what I wanted, I reminded myself viciously. Safe. Small. Invisible.
I didn't feel invisible anymore.
I felt seen.
The bond pulsed beneath my skin, warm and insistent, like a second heartbeat that had taken up residence in my chest without permission.
It wanted something. It wanted him. The alpha with the platinum blonde hair that glowed like white-gold in the afternoon light.
The one with the smile that could stop traffic and eyes that sparkled with warmth even behind his disguise.
The one whose scent had wrapped around me like an embrace I never asked for.
Go back.
The thought rose up from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere ancient and instinctive and terrifyingly other.
Find him. Let him hold us. He smelled so good. Like sunshine and citrus. Like summer. Like—
"No." The word came out broken, barely a whisper. "No, no, no."
I knew what that voice was. I'd spent seven years suppressing it, drowning it in medication and willpower and sheer stubborn denial.
My omega, the part of my biology that I'd never wanted, never asked for, that had felt like a curse from the moment I'd presented at sixteen and understood what it meant.
It meant I was soft. Vulnerable. Needy. It meant I was like my mother… and my mother had died.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars, trying to push the omega voice back into the cage where it belonged.
But… she wouldn't go. For the first time in years, she was awake, truly awake, and she was pressing against the walls I'd built like a wild thing testing the bars of its prison.
Alpha, she crooned inside my mind. Our alpha. So bright. So warm. His smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. Did you see how he looked at us? Like we were everything. Like we were—
"He's not ours." I said it out loud, my voice echoing in the empty apartment. "He's not anything."
Even as I denied it, my body disagreed. The bond hummed with warmth, with want, and I could feel my omega cataloguing every detail of that brief collision, the width of his shoulders beneath his oversized hoodie, the strength in his hands when he'd steadied me, the way his golden-brown eyes had gone wide with recognition before something else had flooded them. Something that looked like wonder.
I wanted to go back. I wanted to find him and bury my face in his neck and breathe him in until that sunshine-citrus smell was the only thing I could taste. The wanting terrified me more than anything else.
I don't know how long I sat there on the floor.
Long enough for my legs to go numb. Long enough for the afternoon light slanting through my windows to shift from gold to orange to the deep purple of approaching dusk.
Long enough for my phone to buzz seventeen times with messages I couldn't bring myself to read.
Eventually, I dragged myself to my feet, using the door handle for support. My reflection caught my eye in the small mirror I kept by the entryway, and I barely recognized myself.
My grey eyes, usually so carefully neutral, were wide and slightly wild, the silver tones more pronounced than usual.
Dark circles bruised the skin beneath them, testament to the sleepless nights I'd been having.
My pale skin was flushed pink across my cheekbones, and my hair was a disaster.
The teal pieces that usually framed my face in careful, deliberate streaks were tangled with the black, and the whole mess looked like I'd been running my hands through it for hours.
I probably had been.
I looked terrible.
I looked like someone who was falling apart.
Because you are, my omega whispered, her voice almost gentle now. Almost sympathetic. You're falling apart, and he could put you back together. They all could. If you just let them—
"Shut up," I hissed at my reflection. "Shut up."
I stumbled down the hallway toward my bathroom, stripping off my jacket as I went. The fabric still held his scent, sunshine and citrus, bright and warm and so achingly alive that it made my chest hurt. I wanted to bury my face in it and breathe deep.
I wanted to burn it and never think about that scent again.
I threw it in the corner of my bedroom and kept walking.
The bathroom light was harsh and unforgiving when I flicked it on.
I gripped the edges of the sink, my knuckles going white, and forced myself to look, really look, at the mark that curved from just below my left ear, trailing down my neck and across my collarbone before disappearing beneath the collar of my shirt.
I pulled the fabric aside with trembling fingers.
Five flowers on a delicate branch. Four of them were still grey—soft and muted, waiting. The fourth flower from my ear, the one positioned right over the pulse point in my neck, was different now.
It was a golden amber color.
The color was beautiful. Deep and rich, like honey held up to sunlight, like autumn leaves just before they fell, like his eyes when they'd met mine. It seemed to glow against my pale skin, warm where the grey flowers were cool, alive where they were dormant.
I hated it.
I hated how beautiful it was. I hated how right it felt, nestled there among the others like it belonged. I hated the way my omega preened at the sight of it, practically purring with satisfaction.
Our alpha, that inner voice crooned. Our first alpha. Look how pretty our bond is. He gave us that. He'll give us more pretty things if we let him. He'll give us everything.
"He's not ours," I said through gritted teeth.
"He's not anything." Even as I denied it, my fingers drifted up to touch the golden flower.
The skin there was sensitive now, almost tender, and the lightest brush of my fingertips sent a shiver racing down my spine.
The bond pulsed in response, warm, wanting, reaching toward something I refused to give it.
My mother's bond had been beautiful once too. Before she'd destroyed it. I jerked my hand away from my mark and gripped the sink again, my reflection staring back at me with haunted grey eyes.
My mother had broken one bond.
One.
It had killed her slowly over twelve years, draining her energy, weakening her immune system, leaving her fragile and prone to illness until finally her body just gave up.
I had five flowers on my mark. Five potential bonds. If my mother nearly died breaking one, what would happen to me if I had to break five?
You don't have to break them, my omega whispered. You could complete them instead. Let them claim us. Let them love us. It doesn't have to be like it was for her—
"I can't." The words came out broken. "I can't let them consume me. I can't end up like her."
I pushed away from the sink and caught another whiff of something as I moved. I froze.
That scent, it was different from the harsh bathroom soap, different from the lingering traces of sunshine-citrus on my skin. It was sweeter. Softer. Something floral and warm that reminded me of summer rain and honeysuckle vines.
It was coming from me. My heart started pounding as I lifted my wrist to my nose and inhaled. There it was—faint but unmistakable. My natural omega scent, the one I'd spent seven years suppressing with medications and blockers and sheer force of will.
Honeysuckle and rain.
It was breaking through.
"No," I breathed, backing away from the mirror like my own reflection had betrayed me. "No, the suppressants should be—they've always worked before—"
I yanked open the medicine cabinet and grabbed the orange prescription bottle, fumbling with the cap in my haste.
My daily suppressant, the little white pill that had kept my omega quiet and manageable since I was sixteen.
I'd already taken my morning dose, but maybe if I took another one, maybe if I doubled up—
The pill was bitter on my tongue when I swallowed it dry.
I waited, gripping the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles ached, for the familiar numbing sensation to spread through my body. For my omega to retreat back into the cage I'd built. For the heat beneath my skin to cool.
Nothing happened. If anything, the warmth seemed to intensify. My omega stretched and settled more firmly into my consciousness, like a cat finding a sunbeam with no intention of moving.
The bond woke us up, she purred contentedly. You can't put us back to sleep now. We're finally awake. We're finally alive. Don't you feel it? How right this is? How good?
"I don't want to be awake," I whispered, and I hated how small my voice sounded. How broken. "I want to go back to how things were." My omega didn't answer. But I could feel her there—patient, waiting, like she knew something I didn't.
I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand and stripped off my remaining clothes with shaking hands.
The water was nearly scalding when I stepped under it, the spray stinging my skin, but I didn't care.
I scrubbed at my arms with soap that smelled like nothing—generic and bland, the opposite of sunshine and citrus—until my skin was red and raw.