Chapter 17
Luna
“Let your kidneys float,” Bodhi murmurs, his voice drifting out over the sitar music. “Let them hang in the dark, and trust your spine to do the holding.”
My kidneys, to the best of my knowledge, are not floating. The rest of me, though, is shaking through a pose called Extended Puppy (the pose is significantly less cute than its name suggests).
My arms are stretched out in front of me, palms flat, forehead mashed into the cork yoga block, hips stacked high over my knees, and every muscle from my shoulders to the base of my ribs has caught fire.
Sweat slides down my temple and drips off the bridge of my nose.
Somewhere to my left, the woman in the good leggings exhales through her teeth in a long, suffering hiss.
“Find the stillness inside the burn,” Bodhi says.
I am extremely available for the burn. The stillness is running late.
I shut my eyes. Big mistake. The second the studio goes dark behind my lids, the palo santo smoking in the corner stops being palo santo and turns into leather, woodsmoke, cedar...
The alphas. My scent matches. The ones I nearly stepped over this morning when I opened my bedroom door and found them sleeping on the floorboards.
The ones who had coffee, eggs, and thick-cut toast waiting for me when I finally made it downstairs after showering, and who drove me all the way to this mountain retreat in a quiet, protective huddle.
My chest already aches just thinking about them.
I have never in my life been taken care of like that.
I crack one eye at the cork block under my head. Don’t think about it too hard, Luna. There is a whole studio of people three feet away on every side, and the absolute last thing this lovely pine-paneled sanctuary needs is for the new girl to start perfuming all over the props. Or worse...
But some traitorous part of me doesn’t care about the props or the strangers or my dignity. It just wants them back. The weight of them on either side of me... the scents... the kno—
Okay. Breathing. We’re breathing.
But when am I even going to see them again?
I mean I’ve got a few days of vacation left after this ten-day retreat lets out, and if I grovel to my boss, Bob, I might wrangle a short extension on top of it. A week, maybe. Ten days if he’s feeling generous.
But what are we going to do after that?
I mean, Lakeview is eight hours away. And I love it there, my one-bedroom, my job, my friends... I don’t want to give that up. I shouldn’t have to give that up.
And it’s not like the alphas can leave, given the orchard. Their entire lives are bound to its success, and it’s their family legacy...
So that’s the whole, ugly, unsolvable math of it, and I’m doing it upside down with all the blood rushing to my face.
“Alright, gently release,” Bodhi’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “Press back into a brief Child’s Pose. Rest your forehead on your mats. Let the breath settle.”
I sink my hips back onto my heels, letting my arms go limp. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the soft sitar music, but my mind is already racing ahead. Ten seconds later, Bodhi’s voice rises again.
“When you’re ready, let’s find that Extended Puppy once more. Walk the hands out, stack the hips, and let the heart sink.”
I slide my hands forward, finding the cool cork of the yoga block again, and drop my head back down. And as the stretch digs back into my shoulders, the worry-wheel starts spinning right where it left off.
Because there’s also the fact I recently got out of yet another relationship.
Derek is the most recent disaster in a long line of them, every single one with one thing in common: me, the thirty-one year old unpacked omega.
I do not make things work. I’ve got a championship-level record of not making things work.
I know this is supposed to be different, but what if I mess this up with my actual scent matches?
That’d be such a Luna thing to do...
You ruin everything you touch. You know that, right?
Oh, shush, brain.
A shadow falls across the cork block in front of me. “Hmm.”
I turn my head sideways without lifting it, which earns me a stellar view of two bare feet and the hem of a pair of linen pants.
“There’s a blockage here.” Bodhi crouches beside my mat.
He has a soft, unhurried face and a small, graying topknot that bobbles slightly as he sinks onto his heels.
He hovers a warm palm a few inches over the center of my back, between my shoulder blades, and closes his eyes.
“Right here. You’re holding something closed,” he says gently.
“Something around love. Around letting yourself be held.”
Buddy. You have no idea.
“Oof,” says the woman in the good leggings. “Yeah. Same. Mine’s been closed since my divorce.”
“I don’t think mine ever opened in the first place,” sighs another omega two mats up.
“Well, ladies, then let’s open that gate,” he says, rising. “Everyone—from Extended Puppy, walk the hands forward a few more inches. Let the chest melt toward the floor. Soften the throat. We’re going to surrender the front body to the earth.”
Surrender.
I walk my hands forward, let my chest sink, my shoulders roll open, still half in my head running the math.
“Breathe down into the front of the body,” Bodhi says, somewhere above me. “And feel it. Feel that gate begin to open.”
Feel what, exactly? I don’t feel anything but my own ribs and the cork against my cheek and the low-grade dread I haul around like a—
Oh.
Oh.
Something gives, and, good news, I don’t think it’s a bone.
I blink at the grain of the cork, an inch from my nose.
Holy shit.
This is... actually quite nice.
“There it is,” Bodhi says softly, already moving on down the row. “Welcome in.”
You know what? I think I will.