4. River
River
What the hell?
The Omega has just fallen onto my lap, giving me a mouthful of her thick, long black hair, and what a complete clutz.
A defensive growl vibrates in my throat, but I swallow it before she gets the wrong idea. That was not meant to be an intimidating sound, but the Omega shies up all the same, freezing in place.
Still, when I said she could brush past, I didn’t mean she could throw herself on top of me.
I’m used to women throwing themselves at me, but this just takes the cake.
I am not interested.
At least, that's what I keep telling myself. One awkward encounter on a plane isn't going to change my life; I've got a connection to catch after we land, after all.
Whatever this is, it'll be forgotten about the moment we go our separate ways.
Just as I’m about to protest, though, telling her off for being so clumsy, her scent takes me by surprise. It does something strange to my hindbrain as my growl soon turns into something else.
It becomes a purr.
I’ve certainly never done that before…
But her scent… I know it from somewhere, yet in my moment of delirium, my brain can’t quite place it.
I get the brief flash of a woodland next, and the pleasant sound of morning songbirds as I find myself alone in a meadow. The grass is wet and dewy after a soft rain, leaving the air fragrant and sweet.
The sky may be gray, yet through the breaks in the clouds, there comes a patch of blue. A shaft of warm sunlight.
A ray of hope.
I know exactly where I am.
I’m standing in an English meadow.
The clumsy Omega who has just fallen onto my lap smells exactly like an English meadow after a soft rain, and my Alpha can’t take it.
In fact, my Alpha leans toward that impossible memory before I even realize what I'm doing.
It's as though he'd been wandering that meadow for years, waiting for someone to return.
The feeling is so powerful that it leaves my chest aching, like I'm remembering a life I've somehow forgotten.
Focus, River.
“S-sorry,” the Omega mutters, still too shy to look at me.
I’m still trying to calm down my Alpha and shit—that sweet, soft voice. And the accent too. She has the dialect to go with that beautiful meadow scent, and now I have a fucking hard-on.
Once again, I envision sprawling, green fields, stone cottages, and rain-soaked mornings. It's ridiculous. A scent shouldn't be able to paint pictures inside somebody's head like that... yet hers does.
And I want to sketch it right away.
Worse, my Alpha refuses to settle.
He isn't interested in lust alone. No, he wants to know everything about her. He wants to follow her, to ask her name. Every instinct I possess suddenly screams at me to never let this woman disappear from my sight ever again.
Also, I know I’ve heard her voice before and smelled her scent... I just can’t figure out where.
It’s driving me insane.
“Is everything all right?” a flight attendant asks us both next, bringing me back to reality.
Of course. I’m not standing in a meadow.
I’m sitting on the aisle seat of a freaking plane.
“All...all good here,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
The Omega seems to come back to herself, finally scrambling off my lap to get to the toilet. I wonder, did she disappear to a fantasy realm, too? Because I sure did.
That couldn’t have just been me who felt that magic now.
Now I sit frozen in my seat as she scurries off to the toilet, and I take that moment of reprieve to collect my thoughts.
The hard-on still won’t budge, and people are still looking at me.
“What?” I bark to the row across from me.
At the sound of my irritation, they return to their reading or crossword puzzles, and nail clipping, too, by the looks of it. What is wrong with people?
This is why I hate flying.
You're trapped in a cabin beside complete strangers for the better part of a day, pretending not to notice one another's films, conversations, and questionable food choices.
Somewhere behind me, a baby starts crying, while the man across the aisle has somehow managed to fall asleep with his mouth hanging wide open.
Flying really does bring out the strangest side of humanity.
I roll my eyes. Another eight hours of this hell. When I check the flight itinerary at the back of the seat, I choke back a growl.
We’ve barely passed Southern Ireland.
The Omega soon returns, and I get up, offering her passage again. I make sure not to look at her again, and I definitely make sure that our bodies don’t brush.
Her scent is bad enough.
I don’t even want to know how pretty her eyes are. I bet they are a bright ocean blue, and I always loved a woman with jet black hair and bright blue eyes.
Simply bewitching.
It’s just too bad that I will never learn what hue her eyes are. Because I’m not foolish enough to look.
She mutters a quiet thanks to me, returning to her window seat, and I can practically feel her burning with embarrassment.
It just makes her scent all the more enticing. I didn’t know I even liked shy girls until I laid eyes on her.
Now I try to get her off my mind, searching through the in-flight entertainment until I settle for some stupid action movie with just an adequate number of explosions.
That ought to take my mind off this hellish flight.
She keeps fidgeting on her seat, trying to get her small legs and feet comfortable, but I pretend to be interested in my movie. I’m not. I can’t even pay attention to the shitty dialogue.
She’s far more interesting. She has a neck pillow and several blankets, and it looks as if someone came prepared.
My eyes land on the tablet on her folded-out table. The screen is black, but there’s no missing all the bookish stickers.
Someone is a fan of romance novels, I see.
But what do I care? She’s just another stranger on a plane, like toenail clipping girl. After this flight, we will never see each other again.
And then I will move on with my life.
Hours and hours pass by, and I’ve already watched four more movies. But at least we’re finally across the Atlantic when I check the flight itinerary.
I’ll be watching that thing like a hawk.
Unfortunately, she gets up yet again, and I grit my teeth. I guess this is what I get for not thinking ahead, booking an aisle seat instead of a window, but still—is this going to be a recurring thing?
“Let me guess,” I say, barely looking away from my screen. “You need to go?”
There’s no missing the bite in my tone, but when she bows her head, muttering a shy, “Yes,” I start to feel a little guilty.
But just about.
I suppose not everyone can hold it in as I can.
So, in the end, I get up, letting her pass, and I don’t even bother sitting down again until she returns. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to stretch my own legs as I try to get the blood flowing through them again.
She’s taking her sweet time, though.
That’s when I make the choice to go to the toilet myself. I may as well now that I’m up.
I find her waiting in line for the toilet when I make my way over, and she tenses up the moment I step up behind her.
Five minutes pass. And then twenty, and seriously… what is taking the current occupant of the toilet so long?
My eyes drift over to the Omega, and I stifle a snort. She’s wearing slippers and black compression socks, and she really is prepared for long-haul travel.
I’ve traveled to and from the UK most of my life, so I’m used to it by now. This time, I came to England to meet up with some old school friends, but now it’s back to the States for me.
The door of the toilet finally opens, and a prim woman steps outside. No wonder she took so long; she was doing her makeup.
Unbelievable.
The Omega waves her hand at the toilet, indicating for me to go first.
I sigh. “No, you go. You were here first.”
She nods quickly, then vanishes inside, slamming the door as if she’s in a slasher movie, and I’m the knife-wielding maniac hellbent on killing her.
Okay.
She shuffles about inside for a while, and I take it she is shy about peeing. Maybe I should move away so she can tinkle in peace.
Yet she’s soon finished. On her way out of the toilet, though, she bumps into me yet again, falling straight into my arms, and it seems to be an awful habit of hers.
I catch her by instinct.
It’s only when I get a look at those wide, ocean blue eyes that I finally remember where I have seen her face.
The memories don't return all at once. No, they go by in slow-motion, like an old black-and-white movie reel. At first, I see a quiet girl hiding behind long, black hair. Then I recognize thick glasses slipping down a pert, upturned nose.
Then I’m hit with the smell of fresh rain whenever she walked past the hallway at Silver Grove High.
Then comes the final memory.
A trembling confession.
My own voice.
Cruel. Far crueller than it ever should have been.
Well, well, well.
If it isn’t Saylor Murphy.
It’s been a while.