Chapter 6
Chapter Six
JIN-OH
The conference room door was still swinging when I finally remembered how to breathe.
She was gone.
The woman with the grey eyes and the teal-streaked hair and the scent that had wrapped around my senses like a spell… she was gone. Fled through that door like I was something to escape from, like the bond that had just snapped into place between us was a threat instead of a gift.
I stood frozen in the middle of Conference Room 3A, my hand still outstretched toward the space where she'd been sitting moments ago, and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, indifferent to the fact that my entire world had just shifted on its axis.
Her chair was still pushed back from the table at an awkward angle, evidence of how quickly she'd moved.
Her scent remained.
Lilies and rain.
It clung to the air like perfume, like a promise, like something I wanted to breathe in until it became part of me. Sweet but wrong, there was something beneath the floral notes, something distressed and frightened and sick. The scent of an omega in trouble. The scent of my omega in trouble.
The bond burned in my chest, new and raw and undeniable.
I pressed my hand against my sternum reaching for someone who was already blocks away and getting farther with every second.
It wasn't painful exactly, or rather, it was painful in a way that also felt like completion, like a puzzle piece clicking into place after years of searching for where it belonged.
She ran, my alpha snarled, pacing inside my consciousness like a caged animal. Our omega ran from us. Why? Why would she run from her own soulmate?
I didn't have an answer.
The memory of her face played behind my eyes on an endless loop.
The way she'd looked when I first walked in, professional, composed, a little nervous but hiding it well.
The way her grey eyes had lit up when we started discussing lyrics, when she'd argued with me about word choices and meter and the emotional arc of the song we were supposed to be creating together.
She was brilliant. I'd known that before meeting her, had studied her work for years, but seeing her mind in action was something else entirely.
Then our eyes had met properly. Really met. And the world had stopped. I'd felt the bond snap into place like a key turning in a lock. Had watched her pupils blow wide, watched the color drain from her face, watched something that looked like terror flood her expression.
Terror.
Not wonder. Not joy. Not even surprise.
Terror.
Like the bond was a death sentence instead of a beginning.
She's ours, my alpha insisted, wounded and confused. We would never hurt her. She has to know that. The bond is right there, singing between us. How can she run from something this perfect?
She had run. And I'd been too stunned to stop her.
I pulled out my phone with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
The pack needed to know. Now.
Something instinctive made me call Hwan first. Maybe it was the pack bond, that constant low-level awareness of my brothers that hummed beneath my skin like background music.
Maybe it was because Hwan had been strange since yesterday — quieter than usual, his trademark sunshine dimmed by something he wouldn't talk about.
He'd skipped dinner last night, claimed he wasn't feeling well, spent hours alone in his room instead of bouncing between the rest of us the way he usually did.
That wasn't like him.
He answered on the first ring.
"Hyung?" His voice was alert, almost eager, like he'd been waiting for this call. "What's wrong? You sound—"
"My bond triggered." The words came out rougher than I intended, my carefully measured voice cracking around the edges. "During the meeting. With the lyricist."
Dead silence on the other end.
I could hear him breathing, short, sharp inhales that didn't sound like simple surprise. There was something else there. Something that sounded almost like recognition.
"Jin-ho-hyung." His voice was strange when he finally spoke, tight and strained in a way I'd never heard from our sunshine member. "What does she look like?"
The question made my heart stutter. "What?"
"The lyricist. Describe her. Please." I closed my eyes, and she was there behind my lids. Every detail burned into my memory like a brand.
"Dark hair. Black, mostly, but with teal streaks framing her face — faded, like she hasn't touched them up in a while.
Grey eyes, almost silver in certain lights.
Pale skin, sharp cheekbones, delicate features.
Small build." I swallowed hard, the next words coming out barely above a whisper. "She smelled like lilies and rain."
Hwan made a sound like he'd been punched in the gut.
"That's her." His voice cracked on the word. "Hyung, that's her. The woman I bumped into yesterday. Outside the café."
My heart stopped completely.
"Your bond—"
"Triggered. Yesterday afternoon." The words tumbled out of him in a rush, like he'd been holding them back for hours and couldn't contain them anymore.
"I was getting coffee and she came around the corner and we collided and the bond just…
it snapped into place. I felt it happen, hyung.
I felt it like lightning in my chest. And she felt it too, I know she did, I could see it in her eyes.
But then she looked at me like I was a monster and she ran.
Dropped her notebook and just ran before I could even tell her my name. "
Yesterday afternoon. Less than twenty-four hours ago. I opened my eyes and stared at the conference room wall, seeing nothing, processing everything.
"Hwan." My voice came out barely above a whisper. "You know what this means."
"She's ours." His voice cracked again, raw with emotion I rarely heard from him. "She's the one we've been waiting for. All of us."
"And she's terrified of us." I told him with a sigh.
"Two bonds in less than a day, hyung. Two bonds triggered and both times she ran." I could hear him moving, pacing probably, burning off anxious energy the same way I wanted to. "Why? Why would our omega run from us?" He asked and I could hear the raw hurt in his voice.
I didn't have an answer….I knew we needed to find one.
"We need to tell the others. Now." I was already pulling up the group call. Five phones connected. Five alphas breathing in sync across the distance, the pack bond thrumming between us like a shared heartbeat.
Jae-won spoke first, his deep voice steady and commanding even through the phone's tiny speaker.
That was our pack alpha, always the calm in any storm, the anchor that kept the rest of us grounded when everything else was spinning out of control.
"What's going on? I can feel something through the pack bond. Something's happened with both of you."
"We found her," I said. "Our omega."
Stunned silence. Then everyone talking at once.
"What?" Tae-min's voice pitched high with shock, the youngest member's excitement bleeding through even the tinny phone audio. "Where? Who is she?"
"Are you sure?" Min-jun asked, his gentle voice threaded with concern. "How do you know?"
"Explain," Jae-won cut through the chaos, pack alpha authority settling over the call like a weighted blanket. "Everything. Now."
Hwan and I laid it out together, our words overlapping, filling in each other's gaps the way we always did when something important needed to be communicated.
"Yesterday afternoon," Hwan started, his sunshine voice dimmed to something softer, more vulnerable.
"I was getting coffee at that café near the company.
She came around the corner, we literally ran into each other.
Our eyes met and the bond triggered. I felt it lock into place like it had always been there, just waiting for us to find each other. "
"She felt it too," I added. "She must have….but she panicked. Dropped her stuff and ran before Hwan could even speak to her."
"I didn't know who she was," Hwan said miserably. "Just that she was ours and she was running. I couldn't chase her through the streets, there were people everywhere, phones everywhere, and she looked so scared..."
"Then this morning," I continued, "the company set up a meeting. I wanted to vet the lyricist they'd chosen for the comeback, standard procedure. I didn't think anything of it.” I paused for a moment before I continued.
"I walked into the conference room and she was already there." My voice tightened at the memory, at the way my chest ached even now with the distance between us. "It was her. The same woman who ran from Hwan yesterday." I took a deep breath.
"We talked about lyrics for maybe twenty minutes," I said. "Professional conversation. She's brilliant, her understanding of music is incredible, the way she thinks about words and meaning and emotional resonance. I thought maybe... maybe I could get to know her through work.."
"But then?" Jae-won prompted.
"Our eyes met. Really met." I pressed my free hand against my chest, where the violet thread still burned with reaching. "The bond triggered. Just like it did for Hwan. The same immediate, undeniable connection."
"And she ran," Hwan finished grimly. "Again."
"Same woman both times," I confirmed. "Same scent. Lilies and rain. Same reaction, pure terror, immediate flight." The silence that followed was heavy with implications none of us wanted to voice.
"Two bonds in less than twenty-four hours," Min-jun said slowly, and I could hear the worry threading through his usually gentle tone. "If she triggered with both of you..."
"Then she's pack omega," Jae-won finished, his voice flat with the weight of certainty. "She's meant for all of us."
More silence.
"But…she keeps running," Tae-min said, confusion evident in every word. "Why would she run from her own pack? From her soulmates? That doesn't make any sense."
None of us had an answer.