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I started for the door.
It was full, immediately, with Sinclair Doyle. He lounged in the doorway, not shaved, not dressed, wearing an unzipped hoodie over a stained clingy black tank top, his dark curly hair hanging in his eyes, unkempt and greasy. He smelled like, well, Sinclair, and also at least three other men’s semen, which was probably drying on various parts of his skin. He looked the omega over.
“What a little sparrow,” he said. “Nice. That scent, too. Draws you right, in, eh, Rohan? Moths to the flame.” He laughed, making a face to show he was being dramatic.
“Prince Sinclair,” said the omega in a very breathy voice. “You… oh.”
“What’s your name, sparrow?” said Sinclair. “I think I was supposed to read the press release, but I don’t do anything they tell me to do.” He gave her a rakish sort of grin.
The thing about Sinclair was that you wanted him.
Everyone wanted him.
But he was, you know, emotionally stunted, selfish, unavailable, toxic… the list went on.
The omega trembled a little, and then she perfumed, very intensely, all through the room.
For Sinclair.
Which… fuck.
I was a little hurt that she hadn’t perfumed for me, but I was mostly glad Devlin hadn’t witnessed it, because that would have messed him up.
“I’m Eleri,” said the omega.
Sinclair’s eyes had gone foggy with the scent of her overpowering perfume. He looked a little unsettled, actually. I’d never seen him unruffled, not once. “Eleri,” he repeated, his voice low and affected. “I’m Sinclair.”
“I know,” she said.
He laughed, but it sounded nervous, embarrassed. He pushed off the door frame and fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. “I’m a mess. They gotta shave me, probably hose me down.” He backed out of the room, back into the hallway.
I let out a relieved breath. He was gone, good. The less of Sinclair there was, the better.
He was back, filling the doorway again. “Uh… I meant to say, um, I have to go. And goodbye and all that.”
“A-all right,” breathed Eleri, and fuck, fuck, fuck. Because of course she wanted Sinclair. Everyone wanted him.
“Yeah, but I wanted to say that it’s nice to meet you,” he said. “And you’re, um, you’re really fucking pretty and I, um…” He ran a hand through his mop of unruly curls and let out a laugh. “Shit.” Then he backed out of sight again.
Well. Sinclair wanted the omega. So, this was all kinds of fucked.
eleri
I COULDN’T TAKE my eyes off Prince Sinclair.
He was loitering near the table of refreshments in the room where the press conference was going to take place. He had a croissant in his hand which he was occasionally nibbling. He was mesmerizing to me, and I was horrified by the way I was drawn to him.
By this point, I had met essentially everyone with a designation. The Queen had come by with her harem, and all of the king consorts had alpha scents—I could tell what an alpha scent was now—and then I’d met Prince Mark, and his scent had been remarkably alpha also.
But I’d reacted differently to the scents of Devlin, Maguire, and Rohan. All of them had hit me in a way that soothed me and buoyed me up. They felt like home and safety and sex and goodness. They were delicious and wonderful. And it was bad enough to have that for two other alphas besides Devlin, who was supposed to be my one-and-only mate. The Sinclair thing, that was adding insult to injury.
Sinclair’s scent was stronger than the other scents. It was more powerful, but it wasn’t soothing or comforting and it didn’t make me feel safe. It made me feel alternately frightened and excited. Sinclair was some wild stallion I wanted to fling myself at. Maybe I’d ride him, maybe he’d trample me. I had to take the risk. I needed to know if I could get on top of him.
Fuck.
No, what was I thinking?
This had to be simply an idea that had been planted in my brain or something, because of Sinclair’s tabloid reputation as the bad-boy prince. He was always plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, eyes bloodshot, arm around some half-dressed man or woman, or a man and a woman, with headlines about how he had drug problems, that kind of thing.
