Page 80 of Written in Scent

I let him buy it for me. When the cashier hands it over in a little velvet pouch, Adrian slips it into my palm and closes my fingers around it. The gesture feels so tender it makes my chest ache in the best way.

The drive back to campus passes in the sweetest kind of silence at first. The fall scenery rolls by in blurs of gold and crimson, and I keep stealing glances at Adrian’s profile while he drives. After a while he reaches over and rests his hand on mine where it lies on my thigh.

“I love how passionate you are,” he says, thumb brushing circles against my skin. “The way your whole face lights up when you talk about compound eyes or pheromone trails. I never want you to dim that part of yourself. Not for anyone.”

His words settle deep inside me, absolute. I turn my hand over so our fingers can lace together.

“This date has made me feel truly seen for the first time,” I admit. “Not just as an omega or as someone in a pack. But as me. The girl who gets excited about stag beetles and luna moths. You really listened, Adrian. You asked questions like you actually wanted to know the answers.”

He squeezes my hand gently. “I always will.”

We pull up outside my dorm building as the early evening light turns everything golden. Adrian parks and walks me to the door, his hand never leaving mine.

When we stop on the path he cups my face again, the same gentle way he did in the museum, and presses a lingering kiss to my forehead. His lips stay there for a long moment, decadent and full of promise.

“I’m already counting down until our next time alone,” he whispers against my skin.

I watch him walk back to his car, heart full and fluttering. Then I step inside the dorm and close the door behind me. My fingers drift up to touch my lips without thinking, replaying the tender, deep kiss we shared in the gallery. The memory sends a fresh wave of heat through me.

I am starting to fall for him. Deeply. For the brilliant alpha who understands my love of bugs so completely, who looks at me like my passion is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

The archives wrap around me the moment I push open the heavy wooden door. Late afternoon light filters through the narrow high windows, turning the dust motes into fluttering golden sparks. The familiar scent of old cedar and paper and faint ethanol from the specimen jars folds over me like a hug. I breathe it in and feel my shoulders drop for the first time all day.

I walk to my station in the corner, everything is exactly as I left it, neat rows of pinning boards and empty labels waiting like old friends. I set my bag down and begin the ritual that always centers me.

First the notebook, opened to a fresh page. Then the small tray of pins sorted by size. The fine-tipped labels. And last, the new luna moth pendant from Adrian. I place it carefully beside the lamp so the pale green glass catches the light and glows, a tiny reminder of our date that makes my chest flutter.

I choose a fresh specimen from the tray, a delicate moth with wings the color of moonlight. My fingers move with practiced care, sliding the pin through the thorax, spreading the wings flat against the board. The work is delicate and precise, the kind that lets my mind wander without losing focus.

And wander it does.

I am back in the quiet museum gallery with Adrian. The dim lighting. The way he went very still while I talked about luna moth pheromones.

The moment his hands lifted to cup my face, sure but trembling just slightly against my jaw. The slow, deep kiss that felt like it held every unsaid thing between us. The way he whispered against my forehead that I was beautiful in my element. Safe. Seen. Wanted exactly as I am.

My cheeks heat even now, days later, at the memory. The kiss didn’t rush or demand. It simply existed, exactly what we needed after our initial heated meeting in the library.

I can still feel the faint tremor in his fingers and the erratic beat of his heart when I pressed my palm to his chest. His scent lingers in my memory too, crisp and clean and so perfectly him that I find myself breathing deeper just thinking about it.

I finish pinning the specimen and slide the board into its drawer with a click. The archives feel even quieter around me, the golden light shifting across the wooden cabinets.

Part of me wonders if this is what balance could look like, my passion for these small specimens sitting comfortably beside the growing warmth I feel for Adrian. For all of them.

The thought doesn’t frighten me the way it once would have. It feels possible, maybe even right.

I reach for the next specimen and let myself smile while the cedar and dust scent of the archives holds me close. My date with Adrian didn’t pull me away from this world. It simply made the colors brighter.

I think about what Adrian told me in the car. How he grew up as the quiet, bookish one in a pack full of louder, more athletic alphas. How he never quite fit the mold everyone expected until he found science. The way he said it with such vulnerability made something in my chest ache with recognition.

I understand that feeling so well. The sense of being different in a world that seems to reward everything you’re not.

I set down my pin and open my notebook to a fresh margin. The satisfying scratch of my gorgeous pearl fountain pen joins the symphony of the archives as I begin to write.

Across the dark miles a single scent thread pulls

feathered antennae tremble toward a call they were born to answer

Your hands on my face beneath the museum glow