"Hello? Anyone here?" I stopped in the doorway to the back room. Watched her.
She stood in the middle of my shop like she belonged there—wild auburn hair, pale skin scattered with freckles, wearing cutoff shorts and a tank top that showed off tanned shoulders. She picked up a jar of my 1987 moonshine and held it up to the light, examining it like she knew what she was looking at.
Her scent hit me then. Apple cider—sweet and crisp with warm spice underneath and something wild that made every instinct I had sit up and take notice. Omega. But not like any Omega I'd ever encountered. There was nothing soft or submissive about the way she moved, the way she held herself.
I moved closer without meaning to. Silent, the way I'd learned to be. She didn't hear me coming.
"Can I help you?" The words came out rougher than I intended, and I was standing right behind her. She didn't jump. Didn't startle. Just turned slowly, still holding the jar, and looked up at me with green-gold eyes that saw too much.
"Sneaking up on people seems like a bad business practice." Her voice was honey and smoke, amusement curling at the edges. She set the moonshine back on the shelf with a gentle clink. "What if I'd dropped this? 1987 was probably a good year."
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. She was looking at me like I was a puzzle she wanted to solve, one hip cocked against the counter, completely unintimidated by my size.
"You didn't drop it." The words scraped out of me, rough and graceless.
"No." She tilted her head, studying me. "I didn't."
Silence stretched between us. I should have said something—made small talk, asked what she needed, acted like a normal person. Instead I just stood there, hands curling and uncurling at my sides, fighting the urge to step closer, to breathe her in, to?—
"I'm looking for apple brandy." She took pity on me, her voice going businesslike. "Something aged. My client's husband was apparently very particular about his brandy, and she wants to honor that for his memorial."
A task. Something concrete. I could do that.
"How aged?" I moved past her toward the counter, giving her a wide berth. Two feet of space at least. Her scent washed over me as I passed—apple cider and spice—and I had to force myself to keep walking.
"Old as you've got." She followed me, leaning against the counter to watch me work. "Mr. Landry died at eighty-three. I figure anything younger than him would be an insult." Thecorner of my mouth twitched. Almost a smile. I ducked behind the counter and pulled out the bottle I already knew I'd give her—dusty glass, handwritten label, liquid dark with age.
"1962." I set it on the counter between us like an offering. "My grandfather's recipe. My grandmother's handwriting." She picked up the bottle, turning it over in her hands. Pulled the cork. Closed her eyes as she breathed in.
"Beautiful." Her voice went soft, reverent. "This is someone's whole heart in a bottle." Something fluttered in my chest. No one had ever said that before. No one had ever looked at my family's work and seen the love in it, the generations of care. I stared at her, my careful walls crumbling, and she opened her eyes and caught me looking.
She saw. I knew she saw. That crack in my facade, the hunger underneath. She asked the price. I named a number too low. She paid in cash, counting out bills and laying them on the counter.
I reached for the money.
Our fingers brushed.
The shock ran up my arm like lightning. I jerked back, a low sound escaping my chest—more vibration than noise. For one second, my control slipped completely. I felt my pupils dilate, my nostrils flare, every muscle in my body tense with the effort of not reaching for her.
Then the walls came back up. I gathered the bills without touching her again, my hands shaking slightly. She tucked the bottle into her bag and headed for the door, sandals clicking against the wooden floor. At the threshold, she paused. Looked back at me over her shoulder.
"You should talk more." A smile curved her lips—slow, knowing, wicked. "I bet you have interesting things to say. When you're not too busy brooding."
Then she was gone, the cowbell clanging behind her, and I stood there with my hands braced against the counter likeI needed it to hold me up. I didn't know her name. Didn't know where she lived, or what she did, or anything about her except the way she smelled and the way she'd looked at my grandfather's brandy like it was something sacred.
It took me three days to find out. Artemis Delacroix. Fortune teller. Lived alone in the bayou with a nine-foot alligator. People in town talked about her—the wild one, the Omega who didn't act like an Omega, old Marguerite's girl.
The weeks after that, I couldn't stay away.
I found myself driving past her property at night, just to make sure the lights were on. Just to know she was safe. I left supplies on her dock when I noticed she was running low—rope, lamp oil, a bag of cornmeal. I fixed the fence posts on the far side of her property line when I saw they were rotting.
I never let her see me. Never announced myself. The thought of talking to her again, of fumbling through another conversation while she looked at me with those knowing eyes, made my throat close up.
So I provided in silence. Protected from the shadows. It was what I knew how to do.
Then I heard about the developers.
Crescent Holdings. Some corporation from New Orleans buying up bayou land, pressuring families who'd been here for generations. I started asking questions—quietly, carefully—and the name kept coming up in connection with properties along the water. Including the stretch of land that bordered Artemis's cabin.
