My cock throbs against my trousers. An inconvenience. A biological reaction to a potent stimulus. Nothing more. I have trained my body to obey my mind for years. This is no different. It’s a matter of discipline.
I close my eyes, leaning my head back against the cool leather. I try to reconstruct the mission parameters in my mind. Helena’s deadline. The list of names. The sheriff as the primary obstacle. The apothecary, June, as the source of the magical counter-measure. That was the plan. A clean and logical progression of objectives.
But now there’s another variable. Caroline.
Not June.
The Omega with the hazel-green eyes that went wide with a mixture of fear and something else. The one with freckles scattered across her nose like a dusting of cinnamon sugar. The one whose body had trembled when I touched her.
I had smelled her arousal. It was unmistakable, a note in the symphony of her heat scent, cutting through the sickness and the fear. When my thigh had pressed between hers, the way her hips had rocked forward, that small, instinctive motion… it was a confession. A purely physical, honest response.
If I was anyone else. Anywhere else…
The thought surfaces unbidden, a dangerous current in the carefully controlled stream of my consciousness. If this wasn’t amission. If she wasn’t an asset in a town I needed to break. If I wasn’t Silas Thorn of the Council, I would have peeled those jeans down her legs.
I would have tasted the sweat on her skin, found out if the cinnamon flavor was real. I would have spread her out on that worn sofa and fucked her until the only thing she knew was my name, until the fever was replaced by the exhaustion of a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
I would have made her a whimpering mess.
The image is so vivid it’s disorienting. My breath catches. My cock pulses angrily. This is unacceptable. A loss of control. This town, this place, it’s getting under my skin. First the defiance after the Town Hall meeting, and now this. This… distraction.
“Sir?” The driver is a distant reminder of the world outside my head.
“Change of plans,” I say, my own voice sounding foreign to my ears. “Drive.”
“Where to?”
“Just drive. Around the lake. And then back to the hotel.” I need a minute. More than a minute. I need to get this under control before I face anyone. Before I have to make another call.
The car starts to move, the motion smooth and silent. The streetlights of the town slide past, smears of gold in the darkness. I focus on the road, on the mundane task of navigating the quiet streets. I try to think of Kayla. Kayla, with her cool beauty and her sharp mind. Kayla, who understands the rules of the game.
Our arrangement is one of mutual convenience. We fuck, we discuss strategy, we part. There are no strings attached. There’s no scent that clings to your clothes and makes you feel like you’re losing your mind. There’s respect, ambition, and a satisfying physical release. It’s clean. It’s controlled.
What I just felt in that apothecary was not clean. It was messy and primal and utterly foreign. It was a feeling, not a calculation. And feelings are liabilities.
The car turns onto the road that circles the lake. The water is a black expanse under the moonlight, the trees on the opposite shore a dark, jagged silhouette. The scenery is meant to be calming. It isn’t.
I pull out my phone. I need to check in. I need to send an update. I need to re-establish the framework of my mission, to remind myself of the stakes.
My thumb hovers over Kayla’s contact. I could call her. Hear her voice, maybe ask for more of her pictures, maybe tell her some trivial piece of Council business… Maybe that might be enough to reset my system. To remind me who I am.
I press the call button. The line connects, a faint ring in my ear.
She answers on the second ring. “Silas.”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words won’t come. The scent of the Omega—of Caroline—is still in my head. It’s overriding everything. I can picture her face, the flush on her cheeks, the way her dark auburn hair was sticking to her damp skin. I can remember the feel of her trembling in my arms.
“Silas? Are you there?” Kayla’s tone is one of mild impatience.
I can’t do it. I can’t have a conversation with her. Not like this. My mind is a battlefield, and the scent of a stranger is winning.
“A complication,” I manage to say, the words feeling like stones in my throat. “I’ll call you back.”
I end the call before she can respond. I toss the phone onto the opposite seat. It lands with a soft thud on the leather. My control is a frayed rope, and that scent is the blade that’s cutting through the final strands.
I’m buzzing. It’s the adrenaline of the encounter, the aftershock of the scent, the frustrated energy of my own arousal. It’s all tangled together into a knot of pure, undirected energy. I need to untie it. I need to release the pressure before it shatters something.
I press the intercom button. “Stop the car.”
