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I’m not about to make Lilah my guinea pig, but when I twist a little, testing my pheromone flex, I sense the same-old kill button.
Only it’s not an on-off switch anymore.
It feels more like a dial.
Alone with my best friend in the dim-lit hospital room, the dial stays happily parked at zero. I rub the tingles in my throat, trying not to get too excited before I’m sure I understand my body’s newest trick. “Hypothetically. If you were forced into a partial mate bond, but instead of fading, the bond stuck around after a traumatic heat—”
“What the fuck? Sol,” Lilah grabs for one of her hidden blades. “Who was it?”
“Already handled.” Twice. “But, in theory. Even if you weren’t an omega. Would something like that affect your scent?”
Lilah’s grey eyes narrow. “It would screw your whole system. Hormones. Cycles. Perfume.”
“Even if you’re not an omega?” I press, glad one of us paid attention during the boring classes.
“Mar. I. Sol,” she enunciates my syllables. “If you’re telling me you had a ghost bond—which is really fucking rare for a reason—it would mean that your body hadn’t healed the incomplete bites. And so, hypo-fucking-thetically, you would’ve been physiologically perma-stuck in the moment the bite was forced. So, yeah. Existing in constant fight-or-flight mode would be traumatic for a slime mold, let alone an omega or anyone else.” Her grip rattles the bed rail. “I don’t know if I should shake you or hug you until your head pops off.”
“One more thing.” I inhale the lemon rising off my skin like a total grinning loon. “Do siblings or half-siblings usually have the same scent to their perfume?”
“Not always, but it’s pretty common.”
I float higher and higher, tingling and light-headed.
Apparently, my body’s been spamming the panic button non-stop since the moment I awakened as a gamma.
Now that the Orlovs are dead, dead and their ghost bond is exorcised, I can still whip out my neurotoxin when I’m threatened.
But when I’m safe and happy, surrounded by people who support my right to continue living free and breathing, my scent doesn’t default to nightmare.
It’s plain, normal lemon, and it’s a freaking dream.
Because Meadows Pack loves some lemon, and I’m starting to think my flavor was always the one they craved.
Finally.
I have a real scent.
I always had a real scent.
Now everything that was ever meant to be mine is coming back.
I can have my pack.
I cackle until Lilah shakes her head. “I’m going to grill you so hard when you’re not in a hospital bed.”
“Same. How did you even find me?”
“Like I was going to let you stay disappeared?” Lilah wrinkles her nose. “Turns out your mates trained with my mates. I came to pick you up as soon as we realized. Now—”
A door knock interrupts her. “Miss Marisol?”
“Come in,” I call.
This time, I’m ready for the danger alarm.
I full-body clench, but when a middle-aged beta with her scent suppressed strides into her room, my body has enough common sense not to spike an alert.
It’s too busy spiking my temperature.
