Page 5 of The Florist and Her Alphas

“My sourdough’s about to overproof. I’ll see you at lunch,” she says, grabbing her coffee, pushing through the back door, and is gone, the sound of her shoes clipping across the alley fading into the morning.

As I wipe the sugar from my fingers, I check the clock on the wall. Seven minutes until I officially open. Seven minutes of quiet before the bell rings.

My first customer of the day is well-dressed. She’s in her early sixties, maybe. Cashmere coat the color of camel, elegant silver bob cut sharp at her jawline, a leather tote.

Beta. I know it before I register her face. My body knows before I do. No alpha scent. No threat. Just expensive perfume and the faint green note of morning mint tea on her breath.

“I need a centerpiece,” she says, setting her tote on the counter. “For a dinner party. Saturday. Something... elegant but not too formal. Peonies, but not too pink. Ranunculus, but not too tight. Absolutely no carnations.” She wrinkles her nose. “I absolutely cannot stand carnations.”

“Of course I can help with that,” I say, nodding quickly. Her eyes are watching hawkishly as I gather pale pink peonies first, the ones that are just starting to crack open. White ranunculus with centers the color of fresh butter. A few sprigs of eucalyptus for height. The woman watches, making small approving noises as the arrangement takes shape.

“Your shop is lovely,” she says approvingly. “So authentic. You don’t find places like this in the city anymore.”

“Thank you,” I say. The warmth blooms in my chest at her compliment. I love my shop, and I love it even more when someone else appreciates all the work I put into it.

I need kraft paper. The roll is on the top shelf behind the counter. My soft cream blouse has wide cuffs, loose from three years of washing. The left sleeve slides down my forearm as I stretch, past my wrist, toward my elbow.

The silvery, jagged crescent of teeth marks on the inside of my left forearm is fully exposed.

I don’t realize. I come down with the kraft paper, smiling, ready to wrap.

The woman has gone very still.

She is staring at my forearm. Her face has lost color. Her hand has flown to her own throat without her noticing, fingers pressed against the smooth, unmarked skin there as if checking to make sure her own is intact. Her eyes are wide. Horrified. Pitying.

I follow her gaze. Look down at my own arm. Fuck. I hate this scar. Evidence of Magnus Thornton’s failed claiming, and it’ll never fade.

I set the kraft paper down on the counter, trying to be smooth as glass.

“The peonies are gorgeous this week, aren’t they?” I say, trying to shift the awkward atmosphere.

The woman looks flustered. Looks at the half-built arrangement. At me. At my wrist where the sleeve is now firmly back in place. At the door.

“You know what,” she says too quickly, grabbing her tote. “I just realized. I’m so sorry. I think I left my car running. I’ll come back. Thank you.”

She leaves. The bell rings. The door closes.

I stand alone at the counter with the half-built arrangement, and the kraft paper and the smell of peonies, and my hands begin to shake so badly I have to set the shears down.

I flip the small handwritten Back in 10 sign on the door and step outside.

The cool, soft, controlled air of Marsh Florals gives way to the bright, alive, chaotic hammer of a May morning. Yellow cabs honking down the avenue. A delivery truck unloading boxes onto the curb, the driver shouting into a headset in what might be Russian.

I press my back against the brick of my own building and close my eyes. Breathe. My hand finds my opposite forearm, fingers pressing over the place where the sleeve covers the bite.

It’s been three years of hiding from the pack that kidnapped me. And yet the nightmares never stop, and the judgmental stares at my failed claiming bite, like I was some sort of freak who’s incapable of finding a mate.

“Lia?” Mira pokes her head out of the bakery two doors down. She walks down the sidewalk in her bakery apron in slippers.

She’s carrying two more coffees. Leans against the brick beside me, hands me a fresh cup, and waits.

“I had a customer,” I say. “And she left.”

“Did she steal something?”

“She saw my arm.”

Mira goes still for half a second. Then she sips her coffee, calm as anything, and says, “What an asshole. Did she at least buy something on her way out?”