Chapter 13 Mona
Warm chocolate melted over hazelnuts. Freshly baked cinnamon rolls, a toasty campfire mingling with the comforting smoke of firewood—the kind of scent that clings to your clothes for days. They all swirl together, making my mouth water, lulling me out of the strangest dream.
My muscles scream in protest when I try to stretch out.
I'm in a bed. On a real mattress. I can't remember the last time I slept in a bed. It feels amazing, soft, and cozy. My omega whimpers with pleasure, and I stretch my limbs long, despite the strain. Beep is sleeping contentedly inside me. It pulls a smile from my lips.
I blink slowly. Even my eyelids ache. The late afternoon sun spills across the room, illuminating the dust that dances between the figures hovering close to the bed.
My first instinct is to run, but Beep is relaxed.
She stirs, but that's it. I've always trusted Beep's instincts, but everything in my head startles in alarm that I'm in a strange place, being stared at by strange people. And yet… I feel calm.
Too tired to move, too sore to run, I glance around the room, taking in my surroundings.
The older man has hair like dandelion fluff. Deep wrinkles map his aged face, with kind, gray eyes that watch me with patient curiosity. Beside him stands a tall man with short, messy blond hair. Something flickers in my mind. We've met, but the details are fuzzy.
Mate, my omega whispers.
I stare back in shocked silence.
I know what the word means. I know the definition. But I can't comprehend the reverence in her tone. The meaning.
Mate. This time it's Beep that says it, as she slowly wakes.
The blond man's arctic blue eyes gleam as if he could hear her words, too.
That scent—chocolate hazelnut, sweet and rich and warm—thickens in the air.
He takes a deliberate step closer, leans down, a tentative hand reaching out to touch my bruised, outstretched leg.
His fingers flex and extend before I feel the weight on my shin, anchoring me down.
His lips don't smile, but his eyes do. They crinkle at the corners as he looks from my face to my leg where he touches me, then back to my face. Unspoken questions brew between us—his might be louder than mine, with the way his lips contort.
His face is carved perfection—high cheekbones, a long, roman nose.
Dirty blond scruff shaped into a short beard.
Cool blue eyes peer at me in wonder, like he wants to see and know everything.
It strips me down, but holds me close. His lips part as if to say something, to finally ask whatever it is he's been holding in, but a wolf's growl pulls my attention to the left.
It takes a second to register what I'm seeing through the fog of pain, waking in this strange place. And he doesn't look quite the same.
He's got the same intensity—predatory focus that makes my insides shiver. Muscles coiled tight, straining beneath his dark t-shirt. His face is sharper, cheekbones like blades beneath olive skin—darker than I remember, the tone blending with smudges of dirt he hadn't bothered to wash off.
Big, dominating, violent energy crackles around him, like there's static electricity humming through his veins. Command rolls off him in waves.
The last time I saw him, he seemed more aloof. Quiet, cunning, a hunter in the shadows.
This man defies the shadows. He controls them.
He came all this way.
Hunted me down like prey.
His green eyes narrow as if he can see right through me.
And then my omega whispers in awe… Mate.
Hands holding me down,
teeth buried in my neck,
blood pooling beneath me—
cruel, unrelenting, punishing—terror, pain, despair—
I can feel it all, like it happened yesterday.
"Get away from me!" The words tear out of me, scraping my throat raw. "Leave me alone!"
My legs tangle in the sheets as I scramble out of the bed. My foot catches, and I shriek, but before I meet the floor, the blond man catches me. Pain shoots through my ribs, ankle throbbing.
He shifts between me and the man who tried to kill me. I press my face into his chest but keep screaming. He's a wall of safety, but Beep, awake and frantic, keeps shouting nonsensically. Listen! He is our mate! Be calm! But I can barely hear her.
She just keeps yelling Mate! and I just. Can't.
My lungs won't obey, and the memory is too strong.
Every night for months, his face has plagued my nightmares.
He was the gasoline, the match, the flame. Everything I had, my entire life, burned to ash because of him.
But what haunts me the most was that split-second of calm I felt when his teeth tore into me. His scent, that fleeting look of sorrow in his eyes—I hate that I feel it now, too. Sympathy for him, connection.
There's shouting. Animalistic snarling and growling, a chair thrown across the room. I bury my head deeper into the man that smells like hazelnuts, clutching his cotton t-shirt like a life raft.
Finally, the other man leaves, but my head keeps spinning. There's no stopping it now.
Can't think.
Can't breathe.
The panic edges into my vision, black spots swallowing reality. I'm panting too fast, hyperventilating, drowning in oxygen.
The blond man yells urgently, but it sounds muffled. His arms squeeze me tight, but the older man with wispy white hair remains calm. A sharp prick stings my arm. I glance over and see a needle plunged into my vein.
Seconds pass. Blissful silence greets me, and I'm out again.