That’s when he smelled it.
Strawberries and cream.
It didn’t make sense. Nothing in the Neutral Zone smelled like strawberries and cream, but the scent was unmistakable, cutting through the ambient griminess like the memory of something good. Cass followed it without thinking. He was too tired to question why the scent felt like safety, and after months of nothing feeling safe, he would have followed it anywhere.
It led him around a corner, past abandoned machinery, and directly into what felt like a wall of solid muscle.
The impact knocked him backward, and his wounded arm hit the ground first. The pain was bright enough that for a moment, he couldn’t see anything else. By the time his vision cleared, someone was looming over him—enormous, blood-spattered, backlit by the fading sun.
Cass’s brain noticed the details in disconnected fragments: tall, so tall, maybe the tallest person he’d ever seen. Broad shoulders straining against a white undershirt that was more red than white, a flannel jacket hanging off one arm like he’d been in the middle of taking it off—or having it torn off. Pale skin under all that blood. Freckles.
Freckles?
Cass blinked, and the image resolved into something even more confusing. The man’s face didn’t match his body at all. It was almost boyish—a scattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, a mess of copper-red waves that caught the dying light like fire, with features that belonged on a farmboy or a friendly neighbor. Not someone who was probably six feet and eight inches of blood-soaked muscle looming over Cass in a dirty alley.
Then Cass met his eyes, and the farmboy illusion shattered.
They were a bright, vivid green with flecks of gold that seemed to reflect light from somewhere, almost glowing in the shadows. But there was something wrong with them. Something flat and watchful, predator-still, like whatever lived behind those pretty eyes had learned a long time ago that the world was something to be survived rather than enjoyed.
And beneath the strawberries, cutting through the sweetness: cordite.
Oh heavens. He’s a Berserker.
“I’m sorry,” Cass gasped, scrambling backward. His wounded arm left smears of blood on the concrete. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, please don’t—”
“Stop.” The Berserker’s voice was rough, but he wasn’t advancing. He was standing very still, his bloody hands held slightly away from his body. “You’re making yourself bleed more.”
“You’re going to kill me.” Cass’s back hit a wall. “Please, I know what you are—”
“And what exactly do you think I am?”
“A Berserker. You smell like cordite. The training materials said—” Cass’s voice cracked. “Please. I’ve already had such a terrible day. I got hurt and I got lost and I don’t want to die before I can prove I’m not broken.”
The Berserker stared at him. This close, Cass could see the blood on his split knuckles, the cut on his lip still seeping red, the way his chest heaved slightly like he’d been running.
“You got hurt,” he repeated flatly.
“Not by you. Earlier. Someone was upset about their sister.” Cass gestured weakly at his bloody arm. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“And now you think I’m going to kill you?”
“Aren’t you?” Cass’s voice came out very small. “That’s what Berserkers do. I’m an Omega. Berserkers hurt Omegas, that’s what the pamphlets say—”
“I’m not—” The Berserker stopped. His jaw tightened. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Cass wanted to believe him, but the man was covered in blood, and his knuckles were torn, and everything about him screameddangerexcept for those silly freckles and that coppery hair and the way he smelled like something sweet underneath all the violence.
“Your hands,” Cass heard himself say.
The Berserker blinked. “What?”
“Your hands are hurt.” Cass’s eyes had fixed on the split knuckles, the raw skin. “You’re bleeding.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” Silence stretched between them. The Berserker was staring at Cass with an expression he couldn’t read.
“I’m going to reach for my bag now,” Cass said, his voice steadier than it had any right to be. “I have medical supplies. I want to help.”
