2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Anders
M y skin felt awkwardly tight, as if I was wearing the wrong meat suit.
A growl bubbled from my throat once the thought popped into my head.
Per got to me last night, talking about horror films. I didn’t want to explain why I wanted to sleep early, so I was more generous than usual and listened to his nonsense.
The other didn’t know I was here in the airport, waiting for Karl’s kid.
We learned from other packs across Europe that omegas were plentiful in other places, and the communities were being pushed to take the blood test in hopes of finding an omega across the globe.
It was Noah from the small community in Switzerland who called me, telling me the tale.
His own omega knocked at his door, and she didn’t even know who she was.
Her dad left his pack behind and married a beta, hiding his kid his whole life.
I congratulated Noah and his pack, but as soon as I was off the phone, my pack was watching me while holding their breath.
Karl. That son of a bitch left us more than twenty years ago, and I bet anything he married and lived a happy life. The last thing I wanted was to learn about him, but an omega could change people’s lives. My people deserved happiness, even at the cost of my pride.
It didn’t take long to track him down in Brazil. He was my pack brother once, and he had nothing to hide. While I’d be ashamed of leaving my community and my pack, Karl had no shame. He tried to make us go with him, saying there were no omegas anymore and going out was the only way to ever mate.
Even after two decades of solitude, I still don’t regret what I told him that day. The words that pushed him through the door and out of our lives.
“Loyalty keeps me here. I’m loyal to my people, Karl. I can’t believe I never noticed you’re not.”
He married a year later and had a daughter, Isadora. I expected to have a heated argument with him over the phone. I prepared the speech and the reasons he had to let his kid choose for herself, but I never talked to Karl.
Hearing that he died a year ago took the air out of my lungs. Karl was a year younger than me. Forty-five years old was too young, so I was not prepared for the scenario in front of me. I talked directly to his kid, who was struggling financially.
My eyes scanned the arrivals, and every woman crossing the gates had my attention. I couldn’t scent an omega’s presence, not in an airport full of people like this. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to distinguish an omega. It had been so long.
The phone pinged in my pocket, and I ignored it once again.
I should have told them I was coming here, but then I’d have to tell them I talked to the girl and was paying her to come.
The transaction was cheap and made me feel wrong.
I should have explained to her why it was important for her to take the omega test, but instead, I offered her money, and she jumped on it.
What did I expect from the result of Karl’s betrayal? Of course loyalty wasn’t going to sway her. If her dad thought he owed nothing to his people, why would she think any different when she had never even met us?
Of course, I’d have to explain to them once she arrived at our doorstep, but until I saw her with my own eyes, I didn’t dare say a word. I needed to know, and I would the second she showed herself to me.
If she ever came.
My skin prickled with awareness, and my attention was pulled right in the middle of the sea of blond people, but she was different. Soft, short, and when our eyes met, her eyebrows knitted and her full mouth closed in a flat line.
Isadora gripped her suitcase, as if ready to swing it at me, and my mouth curved in a smirk. She hated me as much as I hated the idea of her. Good.
The bold dark eyebrows reminded me of her father.
She got her light blond hair from her paternal grandmother, but her figure was full.
Curvy with ample breasts and thick thighs like an Aphrodite statue—that must have come from her mother, whoever she was.
I had never seen someone like this, perfectly feminine, from her small hands to the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips.
We met halfway. She was so small she had to crane her neck to look me in the eyes, and her scent hit me with a magnitude I wasn’t ready for. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and something else? My nostrils flared as I caught her perfume in the air.
Star anise. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. She made me dizzy. I forced my eyes to meet hers, staying away from the rest of her, and I almost flinched with the intensity of the daggers she sent me.
“You’re Anders?” she asked in Swedish.
On the phone, she was very self-conscious about her accent, but she didn’t need to be.
I understood her just fine. Instead of saying any of that, I dipped my chin.
If I was expecting to see her father’s agreeable nature, I was hit with something else.
Isadora arched an eyebrow and then walked away from me, bumping into me while she made a beeline to the exit.
"Vad i helvete..."
The curses flowed through my mouth, and she looked over her shoulder with a frown. “Dirty mouth.” She chastised me as if I were a kid.
“Where do you think you're going?” I jogged her way against my better judgment.
“Take the omega test,” she replied, not slowing down.
I cursed again and ran ahead of her, blocking her path. “Do you know the way home?”
Her jaw worked, and she rolled her shoulders. “Back in that plane and to Brazil. That’s the way home.”
The venom dripped from her plentiful lips and down her chin. I knew why I distrusted her, but why did she distrust me?
She narrowed her eyes at me, showing me she was strong even against a man twice her size, and I had to hold myself back not to swing her over my shoulder and tell her she better listen to me.
“The rest of the village doesn’t know you’re coming. Not even my pack brothers.”
She knit her brows, uncertainty showing in her features for the first time. “Why?”
“There’s a lot of resentment around Karl. I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary stress.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Her blue eyes flashed the strength behind her soft body, and with one look, I realized that, like her father, she didn’t see everything Karl did as a betrayal.
Isadora tipped her chin up in a challenge, impressive for someone who didn’t even reach my chest. One lungful and I was drowning in her scent of spices. Something warm grabbed me by the throat, and I had to step away from her.
“I’m proud of where I came from. I’m proud of my dad for choosing happiness rather than rotting in this place.”
Such a vile comment barreled into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I balled my hands into fists, my neck getting stiff as I squared her with a look. “Nothing is rotting in my home, little girl,” I spat through my teeth.
Her scent changed. She trembled as her pouty lips parted, but she didn’t apologize for her damaging words. “Let's get this out of the way. I'm here because I’m so proud of what he built that I’m not able to let it go. It doesn't matter what you think about me. I’m here to fight for my family.”
Isadora’s notions about loyalty rubbed me the wrong way.
My chest puffed, and I felt all the rage running through my body.
One thing after another, as if Karl himself were there looking at me.
The words I wanted to say to him were on the tip of my tongue, things I swallowed bitterly as the years went by.
“As long as we’re making things clear,” I told her. “The only reason I contacted you is for loyalty to my people. I don’t expect you to understand this since Karl never passed it on to you.”
Her father’s name rang between us. It cracked with static, and I saw the change in her when the name came from my lips. It was her trigger as much as it was mine.
“If I’m an omega—”
“You are,” I told her.
“I haven’t done the test yet!” She rolled her eyes as if I could be wrong about this.
The star anise, she smelled like liquorice, that was it.
I took one deep breath, and I felt her presence all over my body; she was an omega.
It had been many years since I scented an unmated omega.
Sweet enough to take a sigh out of a grown man, I stepped away from her again, and I wasn’t discreet about it.
Her eyes narrowed, and her hand gripped her suitcase.
I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know she was dreaming about punching me right in my face.
Before she could say anything that could annoy me once again, I turned on my heel. “Let’s go.”