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She shook her head and looked up with a pained smile.
“Alphas don’t notice me. Until today.”
No, they wouldn’t notice her at all without a scent. Was there something about Jonah that he could sense things others couldn’t? It was fascinating on a scientific level. Why didn’t she have a scent? I’d never heard of that happening before.
A tear rolled down her face, reminding me that she was a person, not a medical problem to puzzle over. My hand went to her cheek, and I brushed the tear away with my thumb. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy that I wanted to hold her. Could she be the one for us?
“I think you should meet my pack. I…I can’t make any promises. But if you’re open to it…”
She was having some kind of internal struggle. It was plain on her face. I caught a flash of what looked like hope, along with anger and a little fear. When she lifted her chin, I was pretty sure she was going to say no, and my anxiety went through the roof.
“Let me think about it. I’ll give you my number, and you can give me yours. I’m not saying no. I just…need to think about it.”
All my muscles that had been tensed, relaxed. This was okay. I could work with it.
“Great.”
We traded phones and put in our contact info. I listed myself asToby Martins (McAllister Pack), so she could easily stalk us online. She put inSylvie Cleese, and I wondered if she was related to the Cleese pack that ran a chain of department stores in town.
Her eyes darted back to the gallery entrance. Oh yeah—Jonah.
“Why don’t you go to that coffee shop?” I said, pointing a few doors down. “I’ll get him out of here and text you when we’re gone.”
“Okay.” She smiled and nodded at me like I’d just given her a gift.
I felt her appreciation light up my body, all the way to my suddenly stirring cock. A sensation like a purr started in my chest.
What the fuck.
I was an alpha, but I never really directed people. Not outside the bedroom anyway. Now I was telling someone what to do, feeling like it was my role in life to guide her. A confident inner voice insisting it made her feel secure, and that was my job.
This day was some kind of trip.
4
SYLVIE
Before dawn on Saturday morning, I tossed in my sheets, somewhere between dreaming and awake. Reliving the memory.
It made sense that it would be on my mind. Between the check-in at the Network and the encounter with Jonah and Toby, I had alphas on the brain. So, of course I’d think of him, of that night.
The one and only time I’d been with an alpha. Taken a knot.
In my half-awake state, the memory was hazy, but that was because the actual experience had been. It was my senior year in college, out at a huge house party with my friends right before graduation. The punch was strong, the beer was terrible, and I was loving all of it. I’d gotten away from home, lived my life on my own terms, and I was about to get my degree.
It had taken some convincing for my parents to let me attend a regular college—out of state, no less—instead of some special omega finishing school. I’d finally gotten my mom on my side when I pointed out there’d be alphas, and maybe I could match with someone through common interests rather than compatible scents. Finding a pack wasn’t my priority, but it was hers, and I used that to my advantage. I was there to get a degree and findmyself, explore who I was outside the confines of my family.
Warm cinnamon and dark chocolate, rich and sweet and spicy. After seven years, I remembered his scent more than I remembered his face. We met in the line for the keg. At first, he seemed to be ignoring me. But then I made a sarcastic comment about waiting in a long line for shit beer, and he laughed. We started to chat and joke like old friends.
He was my age, in town visiting a friend for the weekend. Tall and lanky, with dark hair and brown eyes. His shoulders were broad and muscular, and he moved with a masculine self-assurance that was incredibly hot. I remembered thinking he was handsome in a particularly rugged way, with a strong jaw and chiseled features, even if the details were a bit lost to me now.
Thanks to a medical exemption to accommodate my heats, I was one of the lucky few seniors who had a studio apartment in student housing. No roommates. We stumbled inside that night, our mouths all over each other, his scent making me wild.
I’d been with betas before, one guy I dated for about a year, but this was different. My body was made for him. I wanted to taste his scent on my tongue and crawl inside him. I ached to bare my neck for his bite.
There wasn’t much foreplay before he was rolling on a condom. Alphas and omegas were immune from most anything that went around, so that was when I suspected he didn’t know what I was. I told him I was on birth control and we didn’t need to worry. I also wasn’t having a heat, so pregnancy was impossible, but I didn’t bring that up.
When he pushed inside me, his knot bumped against my clit, and I lost all control.
