Page 47 of Savage Surrender

“There would be gaps in the data.”

“That assumes I ever let you touch me again. You all need mental help.”

“Undoubtedly.”

He grabs the notebook while I’m still deciding whether to throw it out the window. Over his shoulder, the woman from the chip aisle stands at the end of the pumps with a phone to her ear, staring at our car.

“We need to go. Now.”

Owen starts the engine before I can finish telling them I got into it with the omega staring at us. Two miles down the road, a cruiser appears across the median.

The cop passes going at least fifty, slows, then taps the brakes. Owen takes a right without signaling, then a left into a neighborhood where every house is dark.

Only when the cruiser fails to appear after ten minutes does Tristan whisper in my ear.

“What could you possibly have to fight about in less than ten minutes with a total stranger?”

“She was putting the moves on Freddie.”

Tristan’s thumb pauses. “Ah. A territorial dispute.”

“She said he didn’t smell taken.” I fold my arms and hear how petulant that sounds. “Which is stupid. He’s been sleeping on me all week. I’ve been stuck in that house with you. This entire car smells like us⁠—”

“It does,” Weller says.

“Then why couldn’t she smell me?”

He takes his time turning toward me, which means I’m about to receive an education I did not request. “Scent by proximity is ambient. More of a suggestion than a claim.”

I sit up. “So the bond isn’t enough.”

“Not to a stranger,” he says. “A bond is felt more than smelled. An alpha’s nose is better. Most would register four claims on you and reconsider. If the claim reads faint, some will still try. Same for us.”

“Let me understand. I’m wearing your marks, you’re wearing mine, and I’m still expected to rub all over you all the time so random omegas get the memo?”

“Pretty please,” Tristan says as Freddie makes a noise into his fist.

I hate that I have no clue how to do this part. My life has become a list of things I taught myself: how to hunt, how to disappear, how to make my body useful when fear rendered it frozen.

Nobody handed me instructions for being theirs.

“How do I fix it?”

Weller’s gaze drops to my mouth. “All contact counts, but especially sexual contact. Outside of that, use your wrists. Your throat. Press your scent into our skin.”

“Daily,” Tristan offers, without a shred of professional integrity.

“Hourly,” Owen says, “is better.”

“Nobody asked either of you.”

“You asked how to fix it.” Owen’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I’m strapped into this seat for the next few hours, Princess. You want to practice, you can come sit in my lap, start at my throat and work down. Really take your time with it.”

Tristan leans close enough that burnt amber moves over my cheek. “I’ll hold still for you too. As long as you want.”

Embarrassment should make me want to disappear. Instead, my palms itch with the need to put my scent everywhere that woman failed to find it.

Apparently I’m going to learn this the same way I learned everything else.