Chapter 2
two
GIDEON
The roar of the descending jet engines rattled the windows of my dusty Ford.
I crossed my boots at the ankles, leaning back against the hood as the aircraft banked sharply against the rugged Wyoming skyline.
The sleek, multi-million-dollar private jet that easily cost more than this entire small municipal airfield was a ridiculous sight.
But the reality of who was sitting inside it was even more surreal.
A mafia princess who happened to be an Omega, about to touch down in Coldwater Creek.
But the real kicker wasn’t the money, the private jet, or the danger tied to her family name.
It was the fact that out of every pack in the country, her perfect scent match was a house full of rough cowboys who wouldn’t know an Armani suit from a burlap feed sack.
To us, a clean pair of Carhartts was considered “dressing up.” We were dirt, sweat, and barbed wire, and she was high-rises and silk. It shouldn’t have made a lick of sense.
And yet… she belonged to us.
My cinnamon scent warmed, curling around the collar of my denim jacket with quiet, smug satisfaction.
A solid, warm weight pressed against my denim-clad thigh. I glanced down. Dusty, our blue merle Australian Shepherd, stood in the gravel beside my boots. His tongue lolled out, and his mismatched eyes—one ice blue, one warm brown—tracked the massive metal bird dropping out of the sky.
I reached down, burying my hand in the thick, scruffy fur behind his ears. Dusty leaned heavily into the scratch, a low whine vibrating in his chest as his nub of a tail wiggled his entire back half.
“The guys are gonna kill me for this, buddy,” I muttered, my voice carrying just under the mechanical whine of the plane.
Dusty gave a soft huff, bumping his wet nose against my knuckles in solidarity.
“I couldn’t exactly tell Stetson the truth,” I added, keeping my eyes locked on the lowering aircraft. “Trust me, boy. There’s really no good way to casually drop that I’m bringin’ a city-girl Omega home to live with us into regular conversation.”
Which was true, but I also hadn’t willingly offered up the information.
And I’d had plenty of opportunity. Like when I’d stolen their scents and filled out the OMA’s application for packs looking for an Omega.
Or when I’d forged Stetson’s signature on the damn form.
Or even this morning when I’d left for the airstrip.
Hell, slipping away from the ranch this afternoon had been criminally easy.
I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter, told Stetson and Boone I needed to run into Laramie for a tractor part, and walked right out the door.
No one even blinked or questioned me. The Alphas in my pack were a protective, territorial bunch, but they trusted their Beta implicitly.
And I used that blind trust to take care of them, even against their will…
The guys were convinced we didn’t deserve an Omega.
That no woman in her right mind would look at our pack and want what we had to offer.
But I was the Beta, which meant I was the one watching them slowly fracture.
I felt the restless, unsettled energy humming under their skin every day.
I saw how my Alphas were splintering off in different directions, pulling further and further away from each other.
A pack without an Omega wasn’t really a pack at all—it was just a house full of volatile men without a center of gravity.
They needed an anchor. Something to pull them back in and hold them together.
So, I decided to be the one to give it to them.
At first, the OMA sent over a perfectly pleasant profile. Sweet, quiet, uncomplicated. I figured she would be a gentle addition to patch the quiet holes in our house.
Then came the frantic phone call from an agency rep stuttering about a last-minute match, followed by the overnight delivery of a brand-new scent card.
Her card.
Julia. The daughter of one of the most notorious mafia families on the East Coast, not that I’d known the Cristenello name until a few days ago.
That world didn’t touch us all the way out here.
Or… it hadn’t. Until now. Until today. But I didn’t give a damn about who her family was, how dangerous they were, or how much money and power they had.
All that mattered was that this Omega smelled like fucking heaven, marking her as mine. Ours. If she’d have us…
God, I’d never forget peeling back the film on her scent card, her signature hitting me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
Secretly, I’d marked some of her scent onto the kitchen doorframe, knowing the whole pack would filter in throughout the day and catch a whiff of her.
It had taken a few hours, but when Stetson walked into the room, he froze mid-stride.
His pupils had blown wide and his scent had aggressively flooded the space.
Since he had no idea the OMA was even a factor, his brain scrambled for a logical explanation for the intoxicating hint of warm fig and sweet fruit.
“What is that,” he’d growled, gripping the edge of the butcher block like he was trying to snap the wood. “Did someone get a pie?”
A sharp screech of tires against asphalt yanked me back to the present.
The jet kicked up a thick cloud of Wyoming dust as the reverse thrusters whined down to a heavy hum.
The sleek, gleaming aircraft taxied toward the small hangar, eventually coming to a stop a few dozen yards from my dirt-caked Ford. The contrast was almost comical.
I scratched behind Dusty’s ears one last time before dropping my hand.
“Well, Dusty,” I murmured, watching the cabin door unseal with a sharp hiss. “We’re definitely underdressed for this.”
I pushed off the hood of my truck, and my pulse gave an anxious kick against my ribs.
I had staked my pack’s trust on a reckless gamble, and as the metal stairs slowly lowered to the tarmac, the reality of it finally crashed down on me.
Until this exact moment, it had all been paperwork and scent cards.
Now, it was real. I had risked a hell of a lot for this, and I suddenly had no idea what to expect.
If I was wrong about this—wrong about her—it wouldn’t just be a mistake.
It would end in a heartbreak I wasn’t sure any of us could survive.
This wasn’t just any Omega. This was our true scent match, and that changed everything.
I wasn’t usually a praying man, but I sent one skyward just in case.
Adjusting my hat against the brightness, I kept my gaze fixed on that open door and braced myself, fully expecting a terrified, demure city girl, or maybe a snooty heiress wrapped in layers of cashmere.
Instead, a literal vision stepped out into the afternoon sun.
Tight denim hugged the flare of her hips and long legs. A bright pink top whipped in the wind, and sitting perfectly on top of a cascade of dark brown hair was a glamorous, violently sparkly cowboy hat.
“Damn, boy,” I murmured to the dog. “Isn’t she a pretty thing?”
Pretty wasn’t the word for it. The woman possessed the kind of devastating beauty that could start a war. Olive skin, full lips, and dark, assessing eyes that swept the airstrip like she owned it.
Then, the wind shifted.
Her actual, living scent slammed into me. Bright neroli tangled with the comforting warmth of fig, deepened in the most addictive way by the rich, vibrant sweetness of black cherry.
The hit physically knocked the wind out of my lungs.
I was a Beta. My biology wasn’t wired for the possessive mating instincts of an Alpha, but the potency of her signature stole my air.
My scent flared in response, desperate to meet hers in the open space.
I gripped the cold metal of my truck bed in an effort to keep my damn footing as a bone-deep satisfaction settled through me, rooted by the unique, heady blend of our signatures twining together.
If a single breath of her wrecked me this thoroughly, my Alphas were going to lose their fucking minds.
I couldn’t believe my luck.
She descended the metal steps with poised grace, though the way she white-knuckled the leather portfolio against her chest like a shield gave away her nerves.
The moment stretched, a weighted beat of mutual awareness as we drank each other in.
Her dark eyes locked onto mine the second her designer boots hit the tarmac, and she unapologetically dragged her gaze all the way from the dust on my boots to the brim of my worn hat.
A slow smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. I squared my shoulders, puffing my chest out just a fraction. A hot surge of male pride spiked in my blood when the dark cherry note in her scent flared with an undeniable flash of approval.
I hooked my thumbs into my front pockets, letting out an easy, “Welcome to Wyoming, Sweetheart. I’m Gideon.”
“Julia,” she said, stopping a few feet away. Despite her bold appraisal, the rapid pulse jumping at the base of her throat gave her away. The neroli note of her scent spiked—sharpening and giving away just how overwhelmed she was, probably by the weight of what she was doing.
My grin softened as the primal Beta instinct to soothe immediately overrode my need to flirt.
I closed the distance between us with slow, sure steps, taking my time so she wouldn’t see my advance as a threat or an invasion of her space.
I saw the moment my signature wrapped around her, the cinnamon edging out the vetiver in an effort to offer comfort.
“I know this is all sudden. I’m sure it feels like base jumping and hoping your parachute opens,” I murmured, keeping my voice low and steady.
Her grip on the manila folder loosened just enough that I didn’t think she was going to snap it in half. She let out a shaky exhale, her dark eyes dropping to the space between our boots.
“More like being pushed out without one,” she whispered.