Stranded (Super Sweet Omegaverse #2)

2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Scarlett

Taking off my over-ear headphones, I wince at the sound of Karma’s anger as my friend snaps out a flurry of curse-word-coated complaints, right outside my bedroom door.

She’s not knocking the hell out of my door, so clearly, she’s going off on Cleo.

Must be a day that ends in Y.

Setting the headphones down next to my laptop, I stretch a little before I accept my fate with a weary sigh.

Despite how well she can usually handle Karma, when it comes right down to it, Cleo’s a real sweetheart without a vicious bone in her body.

In this kind of rage, if I don’t intervene, there’s a good chance Karma will reduce our glamorous roommate into a sobbing wreck.

I need to get out there so Cleo has a chance to escape.

Maintaining the delicate balance in the house is a job that found its way onto my shoulders virtually from day one. I didn’t exactly sign up for this, but I know it’s a necessary evil to avoid the consequences of a real fallout.

If Cleo moved out, we’d have to find a new roomie.

There’s no one else out there who Karma wouldn’t scare off within minutes.

I haul my door open and lean in my doorway casually, clearing my throat as loud as I can, until Karma’s tirade slows to a stop and she turns to glare at me.

“What’s with all the shouting out here?” I ask, not blinking.

Karma’s nostrils flare before she opens her mouth to start yelling all over again.

“It’s her!” She points at Cleo. “She didn’t do her damned …”

I hold up a hand, cutting her off with our long-held signal to stop.

She huffs, narrowing her eyes.

“We don’t need to shout,” I remind her, in the soft warning tone that usually works to take the heat out of her anger. It’s subtle enough not to provoke her instinctive need to argue, I think.

She rolls her eyes, but those high emotions are starting to go down.

“I wasn’t shouting,” she says, in a low, calmly pissed-off tone.

Cleo snorts, looks surprised about it when we turn to her, and shrugs. “I definitely wasn’t shouting.”

I bite my lip, glancing at Karma for her reaction.

She’s glowering at Cleo, silently.

That’s a whole lot better than what she was doing a few minutes ago.

We might be past the rough part already.

“Okay,” I tell them, knowing there’s still a problem until we fix whatever Karma was pissed about. “What actually happened?”

Cleo nods at Karma, knowing she can’t be the one to speak first.

Karma flips her long dark hair over her shoulder and crosses her arms in front of her chest. The designer top she’s wearing is comprised of flowy holographic fabric at the front, and I know it has a whole mess of criss-crossing lightweight silver chains on the back.

It was kind of a pain to wear, especially when the chains got caught on stuff, but I’m sure she’ll find that out for herself, now that she’s wearing it instead of letting it go to waste hanging there in her overstuffed closet.

“Cleo ignored the cleaning schedule,” she states, as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

The oddly-pretty contraptions sticking out from under her baggy silver pants are made of black rubber and silver spikes.

They look impossible to walk in, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying, if only she didn’t have the tiniest feet I’ve ever seen on a grown-ass woman. A size or two out, I can work with. This isn’t workable. It’s so damn sad.

I can borrow her clothes, but all I can do is envy her heels.

Cleo sighs. “I didn’t ignore it.”

Oh, right, yeah.

I’m supposed to be refereeing an argument, not looking for my next party outfit.

“You’re lying,” Karma mutters, gaze fixed on Cleo.

I stop admiring Karma’s expensive clothes, lifting my gaze so I can set her straight without the distraction. The spoiled rich girl of our group is getting wound up over nothing, as usual.

“I’m not lying,” Cleo protests.

Our sweet-hearted roommate, who dresses like a fifties lounge singer and always has her hair perfectly styled and a full-face of smoky glam makeup applied, is really starting to take offence with Karma’s attitude, and I don’t blame her for the hurt feelings.

She’s always ready and willing to help us out, no matter the situation.

Cleo would never ignore the cleaning schedule. There’s just no way.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, and I’m sure you would have already heard it if you’d given her a chance to talk.”

Karma frowns at me.

Reasonable isn’t a word in her vocabulary.

She tends to fly off the handle the second something goes wrong.

Stopping to think about why something isn’t how she expects it to be doesn’t enter her mind.

Something’s probably bothering her that has nothing to do with the cleaning schedule.

I should have thought about that before I came out here.

I’m about to be on wet-shoulder duty for the night.

“Like I tried to explain,” Cleo starts, her soft voice warm and soothing.

“I was offered a last-minute slot at the club, and I had to go straight over. I wasn’t trying to leave the dishes for someone else to deal with.

I got home five minutes ago. I only wanted to take my earrings out before I got started. ”

She opens her hand. The big clip-on earrings she wears when she works are in her palm.

I know they hurt, and it’s not because I’ve tried to borrow them.

Her lobes have deep red marks.

The earrings are the only part of her elaborate dress up that she ever complains about.

Karma shakes her head. “Whatever.”

The heat might be out of her anger, but it’s still there, and I’m willing to bet it has nothing to do with Cleo, or the tiny pile of dishes we’ve got sitting in the kitchen sink.

Cleo glances at me, and I’m not sure exactly what to say.

Something’s going on with Karma, and whatever that something is, it looks like it’s my headache to bear. There’s no way our spoiled little rich girl is going to be vulnerable with the sweetheart she just offended because of her own hurt feelings.

If she’s going to confide in anyone, it’s going to be me.

Weariness settles in as I accept that fate silently.

I could have ignored this whole thing.

Stayed in my bedroom.

Kept working on the song that’s been kicking my ass for weeks.

But no. I had to take the excuse for a break to come out here and play peacekeeper.

Was it worth it?

Probably not, but I guess not every decision is a good one.

“This house is a mess!” Karma blurts, her cheeks flushing as she raises her voice. “Stick to the damn schedule!”

She turns swiftly, grabs the door handle to her bedroom, stumbling slightly before the door opens. With one last dissatisfied glower, she leaves our sight, in a swirl of long dark hair and a light rattling of chains, slamming her door shut behind her.

Cleo winces. “Well, that was about as fun as a long walk off a short pier.”

“Yeah. Don’t take it too personally …”

“She doesn’t mean it?” Cleo asks, letting out a sigh. “Where have I heard that one before?”

“I’ll talk to her,” I start, feeling guilty for trying to excuse Karma’s behavior.

I’m not the one who always gets yelled at. Most of the time, she takes it out on Cleo.

There’s no excuse for that. She doesn’t deserve it.

Cleo nods. “Rather you than me. I’d better go clean up the kitchen before she storms out of her room again.”

She swishes past me and goes down the stairs, earrings still in hand.

I stare at the door that slammed in front of me moments ago.

I doubt I’ll be able to coax Karma out of her room now, but it’s best not to trigger her if I do, so I reach back and close the door to my bedroom, concealing the mess from view.

It’s kind of crazy that I even thought about that.

She doesn’t actually care about mess.

Anyone who’s seen her closet would know that.

She’s not OCD.

She’s just … Karma.

Anything that’s out of place is a target for her derision.

I raise my hand to knock, but I stop myself before my fist can touch the wood.

We’re past the softly-softly approach.

Coaxing and cajoling are off the table.

I take the knob in hand and inhale deeply while I summon the strength to deal with whatever demon has her all worked up today, and within two seconds, I know exactly what’s wrong.

It couldn’t be more obvious.

The light, bitter-sweet scent is exactly how I imagined her perfume might smell.

It’s like inhaling a taste of dark chocolate with a dash of strawberry fondant buried inside.

Moody and mysterious on the outside, with an oddly sweet centre that she hides from the world.

Karma has perfumed.

How did that happen?

And when?

I slip inside the room quickly, where I discover Karma scowling at me from where she’s lying on her bed, arms wrapped around one of the dozen scatter-cushions she usually has stacked up there. Most of the rest of them are on the floor right now, where she clearly threw them.

“Are you crazy?” she hisses, her gaze hardening. “Close the damn door!”

I can tell she wishes she’d kept more cushions up there so she could launch them at me, so I slap the door shut and lean back against it, taking in one more curious taste of her perfume before I switch to breathing entirely out of my mouth.

“It’s shut. Relax, okay? I don’t think anyone’s going to notice.”

An Omega’s perfume is made to act like a disarming intoxicant, luring Alphas and Betas closer and convincing them to do whatever it takes to get a real taste.

It’s like a siren’s song, except the goal isn’t to kill whoever it attracts.

I think I’d cope better with the concept if it was.

I have no idea if the intoxicating effect works on Omegas and considering I’m not interested in mating bonds at all, and especially not with Karma, I’m going to play this safe and keep breathing out of my mouth.

“My life is over,” she mutters.

“That bad?” I ask.

She groans. “I just flushed my business down the toilet, Scar. And now that this crap has started, everyone’s going to find out what I am.”

“Whatever happened…”

She sits up on the bed and stares back at me. “I perfumed for a client.”

“You were triggered?” I ask, my voice rising.

The warning look she gives me makes me press my lips together tightly.

Her perfume might be faint, but Cleo could hear us if we start to get loud in here.

Erin, too, if the quiet photography student is even home.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, lowering my voice and moving over to the bed.

“No touching,” she warns, before I sit down at her side, leaving enough space for a whole other person between us.

“As if I’d dare mess with the lines of this outfit,” I joke, making her lips twitch for a fraction of a second.

“It’s already ruined,” she says. “I crushed it to death when I lay down.”

“Not when you perfumed for your client?” I ask, bringing the conversation gently back to the point.

She sighs. “Luckily, it was right before he left. I cancelled my next appointment before he could arrive, and I came straight back home. I thought I had it under control, but clearly that was temporary.”

“Who’s the client?”

“An Alpha, obviously,” she murmurs.

“Omegas can perfume for Betas,” I remind her.

She snorts. “Can you see me getting mated to a Beta?”

Hm. Can I see a regular guy coping with her moody mysteriousness for long enough to get through to her sweet, gooey centre?

Maybe not.

“Not really,” I admit. “But you said the M word. It’s that serious?”

“Isn’t it always?” she asks. “That’s what it means when an Omega perfumes. Right?”

She looks at me, her dark eyes lost. This is all new to her.

Unfortunately, it’s not something I have any experience with, so I can’t offer any real assurances.

All I can really do is go with what she’s feeling, which is definitely that she likes the client she perfumed for, and echo that back at her.

“Right. You’ve found your mate.”

She blinks at me. “I’ve found my mate.”

Her emotions warm up.

She’s trying to get used to the idea, but she doesn’t hate it.

That client of hers must really be something.

I can’t imagine feeling this good at the thought of being bonded to another person for the rest of my life. If it ever happens to me, it’s going to feel like my life has turned into a horror movie.

“I’m fine now,” she tells me, setting the cushion down and getting up.

She feels better, for sure.

“Well, if you need anyone to talk to…” I tell her, as she heads to her bedroom door.

“I’ve got my fellow Omega,” she finishes for me. “Thanks, Scar. This helped. I should go apologize to Cleo while my perfume is under control. I’d rather we didn’t talk about this again, at least until I’ve figured out how to navigate… everything.”

I haul myself up, feeling weirdly deflated.

Usually, I get a boost around people when they feel happy.

It’s like she drained my energy just by talking about mates.

“Are you okay?” she asks, showing a hint of her caring side.

I shrug. “Talking about mates gives me the creeps, I guess. No offence.”

“None taken.” She shakes her head. “You’re such a stereo-typical musician. No man can tie you down. They’re just fuel for your songs. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Fuel for my songs.” I nod. That sounds about right.

Karma opens the door, and I escort myself out into the hallway when she motions for me to go first.

“It’ll be different when you meet him,” she assures me.

“When I meet him?” I ask, as she steps out of her room.

“Your M word,” she reminds me.

Right. My M word.

“No thanks. I don’t want one of those.”

I move away, going back into my room.

She laughs lightly as I close the door.

Yeah, she didn’t exactly want one, either.

It didn’t stop him from finding her.