Real Scent

Several people screamed. I slapped both hands over my mouth to keep from making a sound, biting down on my own palm so hard I tasted blood. My heart was beating so fast against my sore ribs that I thought my chest was going to split open.

Panic. Blind, total, animal panic.

My body got hot fast. I started sweating, burning from the inside out even with the freezing wind. My stomach cramped hard.

No. No, no, no. The pills. My body was eating through them because of how scared I was. I could feel the wall they built in my blood starting to break. The bitter taste in my mouth was fading fast, replaced by something sweet. Something very heavy.

Vanilla. Crushed orchids. And warm honey.

My real scent.

I wrapped my arms around my stomach and curled into a tight ball in the snow, pushing my face into my knees. Please, Goddess, no. Hide it. Keep it in. The scent poured out of me, a scared, desperate signal from an Omega whose pack Alpha had just been killed. I couldn't stop it any more than I could stop my own heart from beating.

The wind shifted, blowing right from where the "weaklings" huddled toward the Lycan King.

Cillian Vane went completely still.

He had been wiping Thorne's blood off his hands with a dark cloth. His big shoulders went tight, the fabric of his shirt pulling across his back.

Every single Blackwood soldier stepped back at the same time. They felt the change in their King. The air in the yard got heavy and thick and charged, like before a storm.

Slowly, Cillian turned his head.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move.

His eyes were completely, fully gold. The color of melted coins and hungry predators. The old, undeniable sign of a Lycan recognizing his fated mate.

He moved toward our group like a hunter. The scared Silvermoon women scrambled out of his way, screaming and pushing each other into the snow to avoid him.

They split apart, leaving me completely alone in the middle of the yard, kneeling in the dirt.

My brain was screaming at my legs to get up and run into the trees. The weight of his Alpha aura hit me like a physical hand, pinning me to the ice. I couldn't even lift my head.

His boots stopped inches from my bruised knees.

Then a massive, burning-hot hand grabbed the back of my neck. I gasped as he pulled me to my feet. He pushed me forward, his other hand gripping my jaw hard, tilting my face up to meet his.

Up close, the gold in his eyes was terrifying. It was a blazing fire of instinct fighting with pure, raw fury.

He breathed in deep, his nose brushing my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting. I waited for him to smell the vanilla.

Heart beat faster than normal.

silence.

But he didn't.

The freezing wind, the overwhelming smell of my dead pack, and the bitter chemical sweat of the pills covered my true nature just enough. He smelled a weak, terrified, broken boy.

Relief washed over me like water.

My life was not yet over yet.

But.

He felt the bond.

The old, crushing pull of the Fates snapping into place between us.

His grip on my jaw tightened until I let out a small, broken sound.

"A male as a mate," Cillian growled.

The sound moved through my chest, thick with dark hatred and a held-back rage that felt like a ticking bomb.

"A weak male!. The Fates are laughing at me."

He shoved me backward, throwing me hard into the freezing snow in front of his entire army.

"Chain him," Cillian said to his guards, his golden eyes full of disgust as he turned his back on me.

"Throw him in the cages with the rest of the garbage."