Page 42 of The Rust in Her Hair

Worn leather and rich hazelnut. Pine and sage and lemon, and something warm underneath all of it that I can’t quite place.

It pours into me and my whole body comes awake under the flannel.

My skin prickles.

Heat rolls down through me, low and bright and good, so good that my breath catches on it.

And I fucking hate it.

My body has no right to feel anything good. Not right now. Not with my wrists gone purple and that horrible ache still sitting low between my legs where he put it.

And yet, here I am going warm and soft in a stranger's doorway.

I want to peel this feeling off my own skin. I want to scream until it stops. But instead I press my lips together and dig my nails into my palms inside the sleeves.

"Please, sit." Owen's hand hovers at my back. "You look like you're about to pass out."

I let him guide me to a gray couch, then I sink down. It gives under me, soft, worn through by years of people using it. Exhausted, my body sags into it as I curl my fingers into the cushion and hold on.

"How are you doing?" Owen lowers himself beside me, keeping a respectable stretch of space between us.

I wish he were closer. I wish he’d hold me and rub that bright lemon-sage scent all over every inch of me. I want to be coated in it. Adrian’s too.

I want to sink into my nest, and think about nothing other than the lush aromas of these men.

"Lyra?" Owen whispers my name.

I open my mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Footsteps come down the hall, even and quick, and then an alpha appears.

I know him from the photo in Owen's office.

Nico.

He's big with black hair pushed back off his face, a plain gray shirt pulled tight across his shoulders, and the second my eyes land on him, awareness sparks under my skin.

Heat floods me. Fast and hard and wrong.

He's gorgeous.

The thought surfaces through the fog, stupid and clear. Dark stubble shadows his jaw, his mouth is set in a hard line, and his forearms are thick and corded where his sleeves are shoved back. He's sexy in a way that pulls low in my belly, and my eyes drag over every inch of him before I can stop myself. Some sick part of me wonders what the weight of him would feel like pressed down on top of me.

My stomach turns over as slick gathers between my thighs, warm and shameful. My face burns with it, and I press my knees together, but it only drags at the ache, making it worse.

What the fuck is happening to me?

I want to hit myself.

I want to hit myself until my body quits doing this.

Nico is a stranger to me, and I'm wet for him on his own couch, not even a full day after another alpha held me down and violated me. Disgust climbs my throat so fast I nearly gag on it.

"You must be Lyra." Nico’s voice is so gentle. It reaches me from far off, through the roar of my own pulse. "I'm Nicolás, but you can call me Nico. Any friend of Owen's is welcome here. Stay as long as you need."

I nod.

Or at least I think I nod.