The scent

Elara did not stop running until she was outside.

The cool night air hit her the moment she pushed through the side door of the estate and she welcomed it, pressing her back against the outer wall and dragging in a long breath. Her heart was hammering. Her hands were shaking slightly at her sides and she pressed them flat against the stone wall behind her to make them stop.

She could still smell it.

That was what frightened her most. She had put a wall and a door and a crowd of people between herself and whatever had just happened in that room and she could still smell it — warm and deep and threaded through with something ancient that bypassed every rational thought she possessed and went straight to the part of her that was purely wolf.

She pressed her eyes shut and focused on her breathing.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

It was the wrong thing to do. Breathing in meant the scent came with it, clearer now somehow even out here, even with the night air moving around her. Her wolf surged in response and Elara gritted her teeth and pushed back firmly.

Stop, she told herself. Think.

She had felt the mate bond. She was certain of that much. She had felt it the way every wolf was told they would feel it from the time they were old enough to understand what fated mates were — like recognition, like something slotting into place that you had not known was missing, like your wolf reaching toward something and finding exactly what it had been searching for without ever having to be told where to look.

She had felt all of that.

And the man standing at the center of it had been Alpha Darius Thorne.

Elara opened her eyes and stared at the dark sky above her.

The most powerful alpha in existence. The ruler of the Old Blood Moon Pack. The man whose name made other alphas straighten their posture and choose their words carefully. The man whose sister had made Elara's life a slow and steady misery for years without a single consequence or apology or moment of remorse.

That man was her fated mate.

The Moon Goddess had made a mistake. She was certain of it. There was no other explanation that made any sense whatsoever. Selene had mixed something up, crossed some invisible thread in her grand design, assigned the wrong soul to the wrong person — because there was absolutely no universe in which Elara Robin, omega, lowest of the low, the girl the pack looked through rather than at, was the fated mate of Darius Thorne.

It was not possible.

Except that she had felt it. And her wolf was still pressing forward inside her even now, reaching toward the estate at her back, reaching toward him, refusing to accept the distance Elara was desperately trying to put between them.

She pushed off the wall and started walking along the outer edge of the estate. She needed to move. Standing still with her thoughts was making everything worse and moving at least gave her body something to do while her mind tried to catch up with what had just happened.

She had come to this party because Lily had invited her. Because Lily had said it would be good for her. Because Elara had wanted one evening that was not about getting through something.

She almost laughed out loud at that.

Her wolf stirred again, sharp and insistent, and Elara pressed a hand briefly to her chest as if she could physically hold it back. The bond was pulling at her in an almost uncomfortable way — a kind of pressure she had no reference for, no previous experience to measure it against. She had heard people describe resisting a mate bond as painful. She had always assumed that was an exaggeration.

She was beginning to understand it was not.

She rounded the corner of the estate wall and stopped walking.

Lily was standing ten feet ahead of her with her arms crossed and an expression on her face that mixed relief with alarm in roughly equal measure. Clearly, she had come looking for Elara the moment she disappeared from the room.

"What happened," Lily said immediately. Not a question. A demand.

Elara opened her mouth. Closed it again.

"Elara." Lily crossed the distance between them quickly and took both of Elara's hands in hers. She looked at her face in the dim light spilling from the estate windows and whatever she saw there made her expression shift into something more careful and more serious. "Talk to me right now."

Elara looked at her sister. At the steadiness in her eyes and the firmness of her grip and the way Lily had always, always shown up — every single time, without fail, no matter what.

"I found my mate," Elara said quietly.

Lily's eyes went wide. "You — what? Tonight? Here?" She glanced back toward the estate. "Who? Where are they? Why are you out here instead of—"

"Lily." Elara squeezed her hands to stop the cascade of questions. She looked at her sister steadily and said it plainly the way she had taught herself to say hard things. "It is Darius Thorne."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Lily stared at her. The estate hummed with music and voices behind them. Somewhere in the distance a wolf called out to another across the pack territory and was answered. The world continued with complete indifference to the fact that Elara Robin's entire life had just tilted on its axis.

"Darius Thorne," Lily repeated. Her voice was very careful. "The alpha."

"Yes."

"Our alpha. The alpha of the Old Blood Moon Pack. Cara Thorne's brother."

"Yes, Lily. That one."

Lily was quiet for another long moment. Then she exhaled slowly and pulled Elara into a hug that was tight and warm and said everything that words were not yet ready to say. Elara stood inside it and let herself be held for just a moment before pulling back.

"I need to go home," Elara said.

Lily looked at her carefully. "Okay," she said. No argument. No pushing. Just steady, reliable Lily reading the moment and giving Elara exactly what she needed. "Let me get Roman."

"Tell him I'm sorry for leaving early."

"He will understand." Lily was already moving back toward the estate door. "Stay right here. Do not move."

Elara turned back to the wall and pressed her hand against the cool stone. Inside the estate somewhere, separated by walls and distance and every reason in the world why this could not be real, was the man her wolf had already decided belonged to her.

She closed her eyes.

The scent still lingered at the edges of everything, quiet now but present. Patient. Like it knew she could not outrun it forever.

It was simply waiting for her to stop trying.