7. Kain
CHAPTER 7
KAIN
I thought I’d prepared for Titus’s strange second interview with his sister, but I don’t think that anything in my life could have fully prepared me for what had gone down on this random Tuesday afternoon in the Institute cafeteria.
Was there anything that could have prepared me to meet with her?
Chloe Stryker.
She was fucking gorgeous.
Yes, my pack mates had agreed that we wanted to get into Titus Stryker’s pack, like many others. Yes, it was in part because of his legacy, and the job prospects that had been lined up…
But to be perfectly honest, there was one little fact that might have factored in a bit more than all of that.
Titus Styker was built like a god.
He was obscenely perfect. It wasn’t exaggerating to say that he put the Vitruvian man to shame. If Titus wanted to get into a lucrative modeling career, he could have a contract tomorrow. Honestly, his face belonged on the bottle of every high end perfume. On cereal boxes. On the packaging for all of my boxers and any other unmentionables.
His divine body was like a renaissance sculpture perfected.
I’d been anything but close to being properly prepared for a meeting with his sister.
She had a beauty that sort of snuck up on you.
Something about those long lashes of hers, and the delicate splatter of freckles across her nose.
While Titus might have had the kind of gorgeous face that was so overtly handsome, it was as if someone walked straight up to you and smacked you upside the head with his sex appeal…
Chloe had a sweetness that was so subtle and sneaky that it managed to slip through your pores without you noticing. Not until she was already swimming in your bloodstream straight into your beating heart. Making it pound all the harder for her.
She had the girl-next-door kind of appeal that managed to sink somewhere deep into my soul… until without even noticing it, somewhere in the course of a three minute conversation, something shifted within me. Until she somehow pierced straight into the center of all of my motivation. All of my plans for my pack. For my life.
Which didn’t even make any fucking sense. I barely knew the girl. She could be a straight up psycho. She could force us all to delete all of our female contacts off our phones (including mothers and cousins) and call us satanic murderers if we didn’t instantly switch to becoming level five vegans. Or she could be like an actual psychopath. I’d heard about them sneaking into packs and causing all sorts of trouble for people.
Before this conversation, I was idly curious if my pack could join up and expand. Were we enough to be a part of the Styrker pack? Honestly, I was mildly annoyed that we would have to jump through a bunch more hoops. That was on top of all the formal meetings and paperwork that the Institute already expected from the alphas.
That was all before I’d caught her scent.
I’d never dared to find my scent match.
I’d read all the news articles on it and ran the numbers. I knew the likelihood that I would be able to just bump into my scent match without help from the Institute’s Valentine Division (which was honestly kind of stupidly expensive. I mean, you can’t put a price on love… but boy did the guys in charge at the Institute like to upsell it).
But I digress.
Chloe smelled divine.
Sweet. Rich. Syrupy. Creamy.
Her scent was sugar cookies in winter and a hug after a hard day. Her scent was everything light and heavenly. Like being all wrapped up in a thick cloud of comforting softness.
More than anything, her scent reminded me of the best flavors within everything. The essence of sweetness. The luxurious cream within the coffee. The frosting on the birthday cake. With smokey notes that were slightly floral and spicy sweet.
Hers was the scent that gave life to all other flavors. The one flavor that gave texture and life to so many others. Arguably, it was simply the best flavor.
Vanilla.
But it was the way that her scent managed to wrap its way around me… not like a vice but a warm embrace. If a scent could be a fucking sign post, hers was neon bright and vibrating. Pointing straight down at this beautiful slip of a girl. Letting me know that she was the source of all of my future happiness. All of my joys. The mother of my mother-fucking children.
Her scent was home.
My scent match.
She was currently staring at me like I was the shit that the dog dragged in. Smeared across her newly mopped floors, after a hard day of cleaning.
“You’re here to talk to me because you want to get into a pack with my brother?”
“Well, I was, but obviously—”
“I will send him the best fucking recommendation that you have ever seen. Don’t worry, you’ll get into his pack. You will bond with him, and we’ll never speak of this again.”
I had to pick my jaw up from where it had fallen somewhere down on the floor. Somehow, the two of us got our wires crossed. The only thing that was stopping my heart from tumbling out of my chest and breaking apart into little pieces, was the look of pure disappointment on her face.
Not that it was pointed at me. It was pointed at her food.
What? She didn’t want to leave her waffle to get away from me?
Whatever. My baby girl could be sad about leaving a perfectly good waffle behind. It gave me an opening.
I just needed a couple of minutes with her. Just enough to figure out why she was staring at me like I’d just punted a kitten like a football while personally taking a dump on all of her hopes and dreams.
The combination of her scent, and her lovely appeal, had me rock hard. I was sitting at the table so it wasn’t noticeable, but Chloe was staring at me like she wanted me to leave. If I got up she was going to notice it.
I was still staring at her and… was my mouth hanging open the entire time I’d been plotting and thinking? Goddamn it.
“Screw your brother.”
“Exactly, that is the idea,” Chloe muttered.
Damn her obnoxiously hot brother, fucking this up for me without even being here .
“No. Fuck fucking him. I don’t fucking want him.” He was nothing compared to Chloe. The moment that scent bond snapped into place, it was like Titus Stryker no longer existed.
“Really?” Her tone was drowning in skepticism. “All my spare time for the past week has been taken over by alphas desperate for my brother. The only reason we are even talking is because you’re trying to get into his pants. Don’t even bother trying to deny it.”
“I want you.”
She didn’t believe me. The disbelief was as clear on her face as if she had said the words out loud.
If she could take a peek into my mind, the force of my desire would probably scare her off faster than whatever concerns she’d had that I was here for her brother. I could barely even think straight. With the cafeteria full of rich foods, Chloe was here and smelling better than anything I’d seen on any menu. What I wanted to eat more than anything else, was Chloe, thighs spread, right here on this picnic table. Fuck it, in front of everyone, I didn’t give a fuck. Just so I could get a taste of that cream in her dripping pussy, and see if it was as sweet as the rest of her scent that was threatening to overpower me.
Her scent was driving me wild. Pushing me to do something I’d regret. Something that could make us lose her forever.
But what could I say that would make her mine? Now when she was glaring at me. When it was clear that she wanted to run?
She belonged with us. To me and my pack.
But for some reason, I could see the unease clear across each of her features.
“It’s nothing personal,” Chloe said with a glare that suggested it was definitely personal, “but I don’t have time for a pack right now. ”
She took a deep breath and something in my heart dropped.
Unbelievable. She was not going to just—
“I, Chloe Stryker, officially reject you as my scent match.”
Ah. So it took me approximately two minutes to annoy my scent match enough for her to want to reject us. Forget dying of a broken heart. My pack mates were going to kill me as soon as they found out.
Well, I’d managed to fuck everything up. Which was good. Since it was already fucked, I didn’t have to worry about fucking things up. It would either stay the same or miraculously get unfucked.
“No.” I sounded like a cocky asshole.
“What do you mean no?”
“I reject your rejection.”
“You can’t just reject a rejection. Why would you do that?”
“Why would you reject us without even giving us a reason?”
All of the alpha instincts within me were screaming at me to stay. Here. To protect my scent match, even if I had to protect her from my mate herself. Even if I had to haul her over my shoulder like a caveman. Run away with her and claim her. She was our omega.
I kind of wanted to pull some toxic shit, like growling at her. Tell her that we weren’t done… because she was mine. That I would personally castrate, eviscerate or maybe just emasculate any other man who came close. Who dared to even breathe too close to the girl who’s scent was my match.
Guys as hot as Titus could probably pull that off. Even though it was like… kinda misogynistic? More than a bit misogynistic. More like some of it was illegal. Like something that could end in criminal charges and a little bit of jail time if you weren’t sexy enough to get away with it…
Speaking of her family, her dads and most of her brothers were pretty built. Strong enough to kill every member of my pack eight or nine times over if we hurt a single hair—no, not even—a single split-end on Chloe’s perfect little head.
I was her scent match… and currently just staring at her like I had a screw loose. More than that, like I was completely unhinged.
“I’m not asking for you to accept us, you don’t even know anything about us. All I’m asking is that you give us a chance.”
“Fine.” Chloe abruptly speared her waffle like it was threatening to come back to life and escape off her plate. “So here is how this is going to go. I am busy. I have a demanding academic course load on top of this stupid interviewing task for my brother…”
My scent match wanted to prove herself? Academically? I knew that they assigned homework at the Institute, but I’d never been under the impression that the teachers actually ever expected their omega charges to do all of it. Or any of it, really.
Shit. Focus. My scent match might be accepting my rejection of her rejection. I had to keep my head in the game.
“I will give your pack a chance… ” Chloe might have said the words begrudgingly, but a weight I hadn’t even noticed lifted off my heart, “but only as long as you aren’t fucking up my studies. As soon as you piss me off, we’re done. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. I would have agreed to anything, as long as it meant I still had a chance with her. To be perfectly honest, I had to have her. I wanted her. Now. To haul her back into our beds. To show her everything that I couldn’t quite put into words. How we would be so good together. That my body was made to please her.
All I had to do was seduce her around her rigorous academic course-load.
Wait …
I’d heard about the kind of academics that omegas worked on at the Institute.
Okay then. I held back a smirk that was not going to win me any favors.
Maybe I could find a way to make this work… show her a whole new learning experience.