2. Chapter 2 #3
He caught himself on the stone wall, one hand slamming against it hard enough to crack something, the stone or his composure, and his body did something it had never done in forty-five years of living.
Every alpha instinct he possessed detonated.
Not stirred. Not flickered. Not whispered.
Detonated — the way a powder keg detonates when the flame finds it, all at once and completely, and the shockwave tore through his system with a violence that whited out his vision for a full lurching second.
His blood went hot. His cock went hard, instantly, savagely, straining against his laces with an urgency that had nothing to do with arousal as he understood it and everything to do with something older and deeper and more absolute.
His hands curled into fists, claws pressing half-moons into his palms. His teeth ached.
His fangs, which he normally kept retracted, descended without his permission and filled his mouth with the taste of iron and the pressure of bite, claim, mine.
The scent.
The scent.
Honey. That was the foundation, warm and golden and raw, the kind that still tasted of comb and wax and flowers.
Layered over and through it, skin. Warm living skin, sun-touched and clean.
And beneath that a green note, herbal and bright, lavender and something else, something growing, something alive.
He had no words for the combination. He'd never needed words for this, because it had never happened before, not once, not in the whole long silence of his adult life.
And it was banked. That was the part his mind kept sliding off. It was muted, damped, held down under something. Suppressants. Somewhere in this garden an omega was standing under a full dose of suppressant and the leak of him alone had put a war general on his knees.
Mate.
The word slammed through his hindbrain like a battering ram.
Mate. Your mate. Here. Now. Go.
His legs moved. He didn't tell them to. They carried him forward with the same mechanical certainty that carried him toward a battle line, and the scent thickened with every step, and the hollow place in his chest, the one he'd spent two decades pretending didn't exist, cracked open like an egg and the bond poured in, molten and immense, filling every empty space with a heat and a certainty that left no room for anything else.
His mate was in this garden. Right now. Close enough to smell. Close enough to touch.
He was going to lose his fucking mind.
He rounded the corner.
Someone was kneeling in the dirt.
Slender. Warm-skinned. Silver hair past his shoulders, fine and pale, catching the garden's half-light.
Barefoot, bare feet, no shoes, his toes curled into the earth.
He wore a white linen shirt too big for him, sliding off one shoulder to expose a line of collarbone and the long elegant curve of his neck, and he was kneeling beside a flower with his hands in the soil and his head bowed and his lips moving.
He was talking to the flower.
Valdyr's hand tightened on the wall until something ground beneath his fingers. Stone dust or his self-control. Didn't matter.
The scent was pouring off him in waves, and Valdyr's cock throbbed and his fangs ached and his hindbrain screamed mine with a certainty carved into bone.
He should leave. He should turn around and walk away and go back to his quarters and sit in the dark and breathe through his mouth until whatever had just happened to his brain chemistry settled, because his higher faculties had been reduced to rubble and the only coherent thought still standing in the wreckage was go to him, put your hands on him, get your mouth on his throat and don't stop.
He should leave.
He opened his mouth.
"These gardens are usually empty."
The stranger startled. His head came up, his body tensed, a quick animal alertness, a prey response that Valdyr's instincts registered with a surge of dark possessive interest, and then he shifted onto his hip to look, and.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The face that turned toward him was fine-boned and open, with green eyes the color of new leaves in strong light, a soft jaw, a generous mouth with lips pink and full and slightly parted in surprise, and freckles, freckles, scattered across the bridge of his nose as though someone had flicked a paintbrush at him for the fun of it.
There was dirt on his cheekbone. Dirt on his hands. Dirt on his knees.
He was the most beautiful thing Valdyr had ever seen. It wasn't close.
The stranger's scent spiked. Involuntary.
Valdyr saw the faint widening of his eyes, the surprise of his own body's response, and it was unmistakable.
The honey deepened. Something new threaded through it, rich and interested, an omega scent shifting in the presence of an alpha it recognized, and the answering roar in Valdyr's chest nearly put him down again.
Mate. His mate. This dirt-covered, barefoot, flower-whispering omega kneeling in the wreckage of a neglected garden was his mate, and Valdyr could feel the certainty of it in his teeth and his bones and the marrow, in every cell of his body that had spent decades silent and was now howling.
But the stranger didn't flinch. Didn't draw back.
He looked at Valdyr, at the horns, the scales, the size of him, the fangs he was barely managing to keep retracted, and his startled expression softened.
Not into fear. Into curiosity. Open, warm, fearless curiosity, the sort that looked at a demon in the dark and thought interesting instead of dangerous.
"I'm sorry," the stranger said. His voice was low and clear and sweet, with a huskiness that might have been the evening air or might have been the scent shift doing things to his throat, and the sound of it hit Valdyr somewhere below the ribs.
"I didn't realize anyone else came here.
I know I probably shouldn't be out. I just needed some air. "
Valdyr's mouth was dry. His tongue felt thick. Every sophisticated, articulate thought he'd ever had in his life had apparently packed its bags and fled, leaving him with blunt honesty and the hope that his voice wouldn't crack.
"You're sitting in the dirt."
"I'm kneeling, actually. There's a distinction. Sitting implies leisure. Kneeling implies purpose."
Valdyr had used that line on Brell not nine hours ago and it had come back to him out of a barefoot stranger's mouth, and he did not know what to do with that.
"And your purpose is talking to a flower."
"She's had a very difficult few seasons." The stranger's expression shifted into mock gravity, so transparent it landed as charm rather than absurdity. "I was offering encouragement."
"She."
"All lilies are she. I don't make the rules."
Valdyr stared at him. The omega stared back, dirt-smudged and barefoot and entirely unembarrassed, and his mouth twitched at the corner, and the twitch became a smile, and the smile was the sun clearing a ridge at the end of a night march.
"She's called a naked lady, if you're curious," the stranger said. "The flower. Amaryllis belladonna. Common name, naked lady."
Valdyr's eyebrow went up before he could stop it.
The smile widened. "Don't be scandalized."
"I'm not."
"Don't be bashful either. It's just a name. It refers to the blooming habit. She sends up flowers on a bare stem, no leaves at all. Naked. It's perfectly innocent."
Something fired in Valdyr's chest. Some combination of the word naked in this man's sweet earnest mouth and the moonlight on his bare shoulder and the honey thickening in the air between them. He stepped closer before he'd decided to move.
"I assure you," he said, and his voice came out low and rougher than he intended, scraped raw by the effort of keeping the rest of himself leashed, "I have never been bashful in my life. Let alone scandalized."
"No?" The omega tipped his head, considering, and the movement spilled silver hair across his bare shoulder, and Valdyr's gaze tracked it the way a predator tracks movement. "Not even a little? You seemed surprised."
"I was surprised to find someone in the garden at this hour, kneeling in the dirt, talking to a flower. The flower's name is the least surprising part."
"Kneeling. Good. You were listening."
The barest twitch pulled at the corner of Valdyr's mouth. He killed it immediately.
The omega saw it anyway. His eyes brightened and his scent pulsed warm, delight, sweet and startled, and the note hit Valdyr's system like a belt of strong liquor.
"You must be scandalized," the stranger said, gentle and teasing and certain of himself in a way that had nothing to do with arrogance. He had simply never learned to be afraid of his own warmth. "I've shocked you with my naked lady."
Something cracked loose in Valdyr's chest. The iron restraint clamping down on every instinct since the scent hit him didn't release, wouldn't release, couldn't, he'd die before he lost control in front of a stranger.
But it shifted, and into the gap slipped something unexpected.
The part of him that wasn't a general, wasn't a weapon, wasn't the blunt instrument the world had made him.
The part that was a man standing in front of something beautiful and wanting, badly, to be worth looking at.
He stepped closer. Close enough that their scents tangled in the air, woodsmoke and iron meeting honey and lavender.
"I could show you something scandalous," he said, low and deliberate and fully aware of what he was doing, "if you'd like."
The omega blushed.
It was catastrophic. The color started at the tips of his ears and swept down across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose and flooded his throat and the bare skin of his shoulder, and his scent went molten, the honey deepening into something thick and heated and so sweet Valdyr could taste it on his tongue.