Page 30 of Traded

The scent match movesin, and the previous omega movesout.

They move on to matching events and glossy brochures full of omegas with hopeful eyes and broken hearts, to carefully curated scent cards and a parade of potential homes that might not work out either, but you move through them like revolving doors until someone decides to try you out like a sweater in a second-hand store.

I never thought I would be one of them.

“Rosie,” Liams says gently.

“I’d like it to be quick.” I keep looking at Jonas. His face crumples as I push the words out. “I don’t—I can’t draw this out. You can arrange that for me, Miles. Right?”

Now I understand why he’s here. To manage this, like he manages everything. To manage the optics, the message, to contain whatever media frenzy it’ll cause when the omega that always belonged to the Blackwater Titans gets returned like a parcel.

To manage me, without the messy emotion that goes with an alpha moving on.

I can’t think about that either. Abouther.

If she’ll stand in my locker room at the start of each season and gift a little bit of scent to every member of my team—to my family—for good luck. If she’ll sit with Eddie and wrap sticks, if she’ll get lunch with Ness and tease Georgio over coffee every morning and buy jelly doughnuts for Sonny before every match.

I’m going to break. So completely that I doubt there’ll be anything left resembling Rosie Johnson when this is done. “I need to pack.”

“Rosie.” Liam reaches for me, and I flinch. But he takes my chin, nudging it toward him. “You’re not leaving, baby.”

I’m not—

Vicious, painful hope flares brightly before disbelief stamps it out. “I don’t understand.”

“Let them explain,” Carter says tightly. “Please, Ro. Listen to them. It’s going to be okay.”

I don’t acknowledge his words. It hurts more, impossibly more, from him.

It was us first.

But I let my eyes slip to Liam, waiting.

“Yes, Lauren is our scent match.” His hand stays steady on my face, keeping me there when I try to pull away. “Mine, and Jonas.”

My lips part. “And Carter.”

“We don’t know that,” he says roughly behind me. “I didn’t pick anything up.”

“I don’t understand,” I say finally. “She has to be.”

One pack equals one scent match. That’s how it works. How our biology works.

“Maybe,” Carter admits. “I just—I don’t know yet, Ro.”

“It can take time,” Liam says softly. “You know that.”

I know what I’d hoped, but that possibility is gone too. Still, the thought holds, my harsh breathing steadying as my brow furrows and I try to work out where this is going. “So…”

Liam clears his throat. “We can make this work. All of us.”

My stare is uncomprehending.

“A dual omega pack,” Jonas murmurs. He plays with the end of my ponytail, drawing it through his fingers as my head swivels to him. He nods. “We want to try, Ro.”

A dual omega pack.

Twoomegas?