Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Shade
I’m the careful one.
The balance to all the crazy on our squad.
Everyone expects me to be the sensible, guiding force. Usually, I’m happy to fill the role. Right now, I don’t want to be sensible.
Her perfume is the most delicious scent. It’s teased us relentlessly since she arrived, wafting from her like a tantalizing cloud.
It’s fascinated me since the hours spent in the transport vehicle, with her scent enveloping me.
The way it makes me feel isn’t something I’ve encountered before, and like most things I don’t understand, I have an unshakeable need to discover its secrets.
I want to pick it apart and discover what about Halley Sparks’ scent has driven me and my team mad.
I’ve spent days meticulously unraveling what components make up that delicious scent of hers.
My drill instructors would be horrified to know what I’ve used my ‘intellectual gifts’ to research.
I’ve fallen down a deep rabbit hole of perfume analysis.
I have a tendency to obsess and hyper-focus on a topic that catches my interest.
This isn’t one of those instances.
I think.
It’s important for the sanity of my team and the success of the mission.
A key to figuring out the progression of the mysterious O-space conundrum.
Probably.
Lavender is her perfume’s top note. The scent that hits you first when she walks past. A delightful floral bouquet that brings to mind a cute country cottage and a sweet woman sitting on your lap. When she first arrived, I could see Halley embodying that role.
Now that I’ve spent time with her, I know better.
It’s the lower rumbling, deep unnamed scent that truly tells you who she is.
The others say it smells like an oncoming thunderstorm.
I can do much better than that. I can accurately describe exactly what Omega Halley Sparks smells like and why.
Ozone, petrichor, rain.
I know the science behind it.
As a storm approaches, the air becomes charged with electricity, and the humidity rises. The electrical discharge of lightning generates ozone. It’s a sharp, clean aroma, slightly metallic and reminiscent of the clean, cool scent after a rain shower.
As the rain begins, it enhances the release of petrichor, the earthy scent produced by rain hitting the dry ground. It’s a combination of damp soil, vegetation, and wet leaves, which creates a rich, earthy fragrance.
Drops in atmospheric pressure and temperature accompany thunderstorms. These changes affect the way they carry scents in the air.
The cooler, denser air makes the scent more intense and concentrated.
Wind, which precedes a storm, carries these scents to your nose, and the static electricity in the atmosphere intensifies the overall sensory experience.
Halley Sparks is the storm on the horizon. A promise of passion and strength.
Yet, despite my efforts, I still cannot pin down the last teasing fragrance.
It’s something entirely Halley. The Omega has a sweet balm that is all her own. I know I’ll never unpick the technical terms to describe it, but it smells like… fate.
Yet, no matter how delicious her perfume is, it has nothing on how her slick smells.
It’s her scent, but dialed up to eleven.
A distilled vintage of pure Halley.
And it’s sweet. So, so sweet.
I can tell the moment she sees my tongue piercing.
She doesn’t hide her reaction. Her eyes widen, her chest heaves, and a flush creeps up her chest. I watch as two pebbles form beneath her shirt, and the smell of her arousal thickens.
“Halley?” My voice shakes, tension straining in my vocal chords.
“I’ve never seen one before,” she murmurs, her eyes fixed on my mouth.
A warmth floods through me.
I can’t name the thrilling emotion surging through me, but it’s a close cousin of pride. In all the time Halley has been with our squad, surrounded by three virile, horny-as-fuck Alphas, she’s mostly kept her cool.
Sure, she’s had a few moments of weakness where her fingers desperately seek release, but mostly she’s kept it together.
“Would you like to see it up close?” I hear myself asking, my voice a low rumble. The rational part of my brain is hollering for attention and the big red ‘danger’ button flashes brightly. I can’t hear the blaring sirens of alarm over the rushing of blood to my cock.
She nods, a shy smile curving her pretty pink mouth. She rises to her knees and leans forward on her hands to get closer to my face.
A gorgeous, rare Omega is on her hands and knees for me. A mere Beta.
If I leaned forward, I could kiss her. Let her feel what the piercing feels like in her mouth, dancing with her tongue.
Her scent shouldn’t be affecting me this much as a Beta. But it’s not just her scent. It’s her. She’s captivated me from the moment she climbed into the back of the vehicle.
I’ve watched her handle the difficult personalities in our team with grace and understanding.
Her bravery and toughness continue to impress me.
She’s not righteously independent. I can tell how much she likes it when Blaze brings her breakfast or Viper holds her close.
Yet, she doesn’t back down when Knox is being excessively dickish.
I’m protective of my team, but she doesn’t feel like a threat. She feels like one of us. Maybe Blaze is right. Maybe she belongs with us.
Pack. The word swims in my mind, but I bat it away. Packs don’t exist anymore. They were shunned from society and exiled from the country.
But the word sticks, buzzing in my brain until a connection I’ve spent weeks trying to create finally clicks into place.
Realization comes like a lightning bolt.
I know what O-space is.
The relief and thrill of figuring out an almost impossible puzzle floods me. Pure intellectual vindication. The rush of endorphins encourages me to act reckless.
I open my mouth and stick out my tongue.
Blaze pierced it after I lost a bet many years ago, and I barely notice it these days. I certainly would have yawned a lot around Halley if I knew she’d have this reaction to it.
She’s breathing fast, her eyes wide as saucers. Her gaze is fixed on my tongue, and she bites her bottom lip.
“What–why?” she asks breathlessly.
I shrug and scrape my teeth down my tongue until they catch on the little metal ball before pulling it back into my mouth.
She watches every movement with a hungry intensity that makes me shiver.
Another wave of her sweet smelling slick surges from her, and I swallow hard.
Even for my Beta senses, it’s intoxicating.
I know my Alpha brothers wouldn’t stand a chance of resisting.
They’d snap. Usually I’d say Blaze would lose control first, but the way Knox and Viper have been behaving around her makes me think it might send them all crashing over the edge.
“Baby girl,” I croak, barely registering the pet name spilling from me. “You can’t do that.”
She leans back on her haunches. “Do what?”
The way she tilts her head so innocently, I’d almost believe she doesn’t know what she’s doing. The burning in her gaze tells me otherwise.
I run my hand through my black hair, grunting as I watch her squirm and rub her thighs together. “You smell so good, baby girl.”
She swallows, her throat bobbing.
“So do you,” she replies, and my stomach flips.
I shake my head, unable to hide a wry smile. No one has ever told me that before. “No, I mean, you smell really fucking good. Like slick.”
“Oh.”
The pretty blush is back, crawling up the sliver of skin I can see beneath her bite collar. Her cheeks are pink, and she looks like she does after we put her through her paces. Flushed and breathless and entirely fuckable.
“Fuck.” I scrub my face with both hands, dragging my palms down to cup over my nose and mouth. It does nothing to block out the needy smell from the Omega. This is ridiculous. Biology says I shouldn’t be reacting this way. I’m not an Alpha.
“We can’t go back to camp with you like this,” I murmur, my mind whirling with solutions. She’ll create a frenzy in this state. The mission will go out the window. She’ll be taken away and we’ll be back on the front lines waiting for when Blood Lust finally takes Viper from us.
But damn. The orgy we’d have beforehand would be epic.
Fuck, just the thought of her little Omega pussy taking the monster inside Viper’s pants makes my cock leak.
Halley gently rocks her hips back and forth, the faintest needy whine escaping on her next shaky inhale.
“Halley?”
Her head tips back and she lets out a tiny sigh of acknowledgement.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes flicking to focus on me. Her pupils are blown wide. “I’m… I can’t stop it…”
My protective instincts flare. “It’s okay, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s natural.”
“I just don’t get any private time to, you know, let off some steam,” she admits with a shy grimace.
I nod. I understand, ’cause I swear our team has never jerked off so much in a short span of time before. We’ve been ducking off into the forest to find relief, but I never considered she’d need private time for such activities too.
“Shade? Please, I need…”
My whole body jerks in surprise.
She’s asking for me. By name. I thought for sure the word ‘Alpha’ would slip from her lips. It’s what Omegas need, isn’t it? All the research I did in preparation for her arrival suggests Omegas look to an Alpha to take care of their sexual needs.
She taking on that same dreamy expression we’ve dubbed Omega sub-space—O-space.
She usually seeks comfort and protection from the Alphas.
Well, Blaze and Viper; Knox is a different story.
Viper in particular seems to forget himself, and the big lug does his duty with what I suspect is sheer joy.
Viper is besotted with her, but still tries to play it cool around her. He’s not fooling anyone.
However, right now, she’s looking at me with a different kind of instinctual need. It’s not soft cuddles and words of affirmation that she craves.
“Do you need to take the edge off, baby girl?” I ask softly.