Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
NOA
I turn toward Ollie, who was at my house bright and early to hear about the details of my date last night on my way to work. She hangs around the store some days, and I always appreciate her presence. Especially on days I’m working in my workshop in the back.
This smell, though, is off, but familiar. I’ve smelled this before; it brings an instant headache to my brain, and I can’t quite place the smell. It’s the seasoning. Like mint? No. Basil?
Oh no. Is the scent-blocking spray I put in the humidifiers defective? I turn to Ollie in shock. “Does it normally smell like this to you?”
“No, absolutely not. It normally smells like… nothing. Maybe a hint of metallic-ness, but normally nothing.”
So, it’s not normally like this… meaning someone was in here. I turn on my heel, going to rush to the back, but Ollie yanks my arm.
“What if they are still here? Are you insane?” she hisses as she drags me back out of the store and quietly shuts the front door. I wring my hands around my neck, my nails digging into my skin. Did someone break in?
“Come on, this way,” she whispers. Her eyes are wide as she drags me a few feet away from my store.
My baby. My face scrunches as I take in the daunting idea of someone actually breaking into my store.
I can’t get over the idea of someone being inside without my permission.
It makes my skin crawl, and I could vomit at the thought of the violation.
If someone broke in, it would have to be from the back. I always come in through the front since I hate walking through back alleyways. I triple-check the lock every night, and I swallow the building-up nausea in my mouth as I look back at my building. Robberies were low in this area, but not zero.
Why would someone rob a blanket store?
None of the blankets appear unaffected, but how I can be sure. I can’t trust they haven’t been tainted.
I’ll have to wash them all. I’ll have to close for the day.
At least it’s not a game day, those days, I make the most money.
But with this — washing the blankets and cleaning my store from top to bottom — I won’t get anything else done today.
My mental to-do list keeps adding up as Ollie rants about how unsafe it was to rush into my store.
“Let’s call the police-” Ollie says, but I cut her off.
“No. No, I can’t,” I say. Panic crawls at my neck with the claws of a tiger as the panic of a report being made sends shivers down my back. We can’t go to the police. Isn’t everything traceable? All reports, arrests, everything? That can lead them right to me.
The Fallon Pack. My abusers. The Pack made me their personal punching bag for two years. Two years of beatings and never living up to their perfect image of an omega before I finally had enough to escape.
Derrick Fallon was a policeman. A bad one. One who’d take advantage of his resources if the situation called for it. If we had the police here, there’d be a report. What if he finds me? What if they find me?
The Fallon Pack could be searching, waiting for the perfect opportunity, and my name popping up in their database could mean having to run away again.
“Worthless omega, even mommy and daddy didn’t want you anymore.”
I gulp and zone out as Ollie starts one of her mama bear rants. She knew I ran, why I ran from Ohio, who I was hiding from, but she didn’t… she didn’t know how resourceful the Pack I’m hiding from could be.
“Kneel, and don’t fucking get up until I tell you to.”
“Ladies, is everything okay?” My head darts from Ollie to the group of men walking by. My eyes instantly connect with deep brown ones, the same ones I was staring into as I came with Thorne’s tongue between my thighs at the restaurant last night.
“Silas?” His name drops off my tongue like a secret, and my face flames with heat as I hear Ollie’s cough, as she must have recognized the name.
He’s carrying a full duffel bag, dressed in a hoodie and sweats, and my gosh, does he wear them well.
He ventures off from the group of maybe four guys he was with as he jogs toward us on the sidewalk.
I recognize Ollie’s mates and fellow Scented Scorpion players, Kane and Timber, who come rushing over too.
Timber easily stands out, despite his best wishes not to.
He’s tall and beefy, and there’s no hiding that constant scowl on his face.
Kane is always nearby, and with his whole handsome Italian playboy energy, he’s also hard to miss.
Ollie and her Pack recently mated, so I’m sure they were scouting for a reason to come see her, maybe even parking down here, away from the arena, hoping they’d get a glimpse of her.
Who knew hockey players could be so romantic?
“Someone broke into Cozy Bear—” Ollie is quick to blurt out my problem, and by the instant face changes, from lighthearted to stern on all the alpha’s faces, this could go from bad to worse in seconds.
“Someone might have broken in, but we don’t know for sure,” I correct Ollie. Despite my nausea tempering down at the mere sniff of his scent, dragging Silas into my problems isn’t at the top of my to-do list this morning. I didn’t want to scare him off with the baggage I carried.
“So what are you both doing here, standing this close? Did you call the cops?” He doesn’t touch, but he hovers his hands by our arms, herding us even further away from my store, and my hackles rise even though I know he has the best intentions.
That’s my store. Mine. I need to get inside and make sure it’s safe. My blankets, my workshop, all of it — I need to know it’s okay.
I nod my head in answer to his question as I drag my eyes away from my store and back to them. They both look at me as if I’m crazy for not calling the cops, but they don’t know.
They can’t know.
“Would you check the back just to make sure no one is there?” Ollie asks, her arms wrapped tight around me. Silas instantly nods and heads inside. I grab his arm.
“No, I can go in—”
“Absolutely not.” Silas instantly interrupts me, shaking his head. “Stay right here; it’ll only be a minute.” His lips drop down onto my forehead, rendering me shocked as I watch him slip away from me and inside Cozy Bear.
Timber follows Silas as Kane wraps his arms around Ollie. Pulling her away from me, but Ollie doesn’t let go of me completely, taking my hand in hers. “Are you okay, sweetness?” he murmurs to her.
“I’m fine.” She rolls her eyes but leans into him as he kisses her hair, and for a moment, I see myself in them. I can visualize myself and the Gray Pack, but that euphoric feeling doesn’t last long.
My fear keeps me rooted in place next to Ollie, who holds my hand as we watch Silas and Timber search my store through the glass windows.
Kane is murmuring questions in Ollie’s ear, and she turns to talk to him as I tune them out, watching Silas’s figure look around my store. If it were a person, they’re probably long gone, so we should all stop worrying so much.
I’m sure it’s fine.
I’ll just get better locks? Cameras? Maybe there was never anyone in here. Maybe we are overreacting.
“I think that was a—um, like a watered-down rosemary scent. It was spicy.” I hear Ollie whisper to Kane as I completely freeze. Like a dam breaking in my mind, it releases all the memories associated with the smell, and I can’t believe I didn’t catch it earlier.
Rosemary. I could never forget that scent. How could I not recognize it? My feet move faster than my brain as I rip my hand from Ollie’s and dart inside. The bell rings, but all I can focus on is the smell of rosemary.
Jackson Fallon smelled of rosemary.
Rosemary. A scent many liked, but I hated. I couldn’t stand the smell, even before I met Jackson, the lead alpha of the Fallon Pack.
Oh, no. “Silas.” My voice carries through the empty store. Not a light on or soul in sight. I hear Ollie calling after me, but she doesn’t come. Maybe Kane stopped her.
I don’t look back to find out. Silas comes running from the back, panic in his eyes, and my heart drops.
“What? What’s wrong?” he asked as his arms came up around my shoulders, and he hugged me close to his chest. His dark coffee scent floods my system as my nerves instantly soften in his presence.
“Are you okay?” I ask as my eyes check over him. Jackson was here, and if he knew about me, about them, he’d hurt them.
He’d hurt them worse than he'd hurt me. How could I have been so stupid? How could I risk them like that? The Gray Pack doesn’t deserve my mess.
I should run. I need to. I can’t go back. Not when—
“Noa, answer me, baby, what’s wrong?”
“Um,” how in the world do I explain this? I look over his shoulder. “Was anyone there?”
He sighs and lets go of my shoulders. My omega sighs in defeat at the loss of contact, but it’s probably for the best.
“No, no one was there; everything is safe.” He stares at me, and I know he wants to ask me. He wants to know what I was so panicked about. But I can’t- I’m not ready to share this part of my life with him.
“Thank you,” I mutter, grabbing his hand and kissing the back of it. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help myself. “Oh, my- I’m sorry.” I instantly drop his hand. I’m making such a fool of myself.
My bright pastel sweater doesn’t help the building sweat on my forehead.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he says, grabbing both my hands and bringing them to his soft, thick lips.
I love the feeling of them against my skin, and I know I want more. I almost step forward, but then the bell to my door rings, signaling a customer.
My eyes dart to the digital clock above the register. I have a lot of work to do to clean this place up before opening.
But I don’t want him to leave. The conflicting feelings of want and need battle inside me.
I should let him go and pretend he never existed.
If the Fallon Pack found me, I'd need a plan. I need to keep my scent matches safe, and I can’t do that if I’m putting them in the direct fire of the Fallon Pack.
Holding back a whine at what I have to do, I push Silas towards the door. Dread fills my stomach knowing this is goodbye, and tears bubble behind my eyes.
“Promise to text me every hour.” His voice is calm with an edge, and it makes me snap to meet his eyes. His deep, beautiful brown eyes. Can he tell something’s wrong? Is my scent giving me away?
“Every hour? No,” I say, and as soon as the words leave my lips, he stops in his tracks. I try to push him again, but he doesn’t budge—damn hockey strength.
“I’m serious. I want to hear the ding of a notification every hour, and when I pick up my phone, it needs to be your name on my screen.”
“I don’t even have your number,” I mutter, as if he’d hear the ding at the hockey arena, anyway.
He holds out his hand, waiting for my phone. I slide it out of my purse. My brain is yelling at me to refuse, as if I could refuse my scent matches. The creeping feeling of failure crawls over my shoulders as I imagine all the worst scenarios of the Fallon Pack finding me, finding me with them.
I’ll just have to block his number. I have to keep them safe.
My hands find my neck, not as rough as before, but I can feel the heat radiating off my skin as I wait for Silas to type in his number. As he hands the phone back to me, his fingers slide against mine. The brief touch brings sparks shooting down to my core. For what I know is the last time.
Fuck, my chest hurts. I smile tightly. Hoping my scent isn’t perfuming the air.
“Every hour, Noa. I mean it.” He lands another quick kiss on my forehead, for the second time today, as he leaves me stunned at the door.
“Come on, Noa, I’ll help you clean,” Ollie says as she comes in and locks the front door. Her alphas wait until we walk away to head to their practice, and I’m rendered mindless as I take in my new reality.
I found my scent matches. The few people I was destined to be with, and I can’t have them.