Mated to the Apex Three
The chemical reek of the false scent, meant to mask my biology and mimic the flat, gray aura of a rankless Omega, was evaporating into the air.
In its place, something ancient, pristine, and intoxicatingly powerful began to bleed out from my skin.
It was a scent like crushed silver-mint caught in an alpine frost, cut through with the sharp, crisp ozone of a high-altitude mountain wind before a thunderstorm. It was clean, terrifyingly pure, and utterly alien to the low-tier dust and sweat of the southern camps.
Valerius inhaled again, his entire body trembling as the true scent hit his senses. The wild, unbridled wolf inside his bloodline reared up in sudden, instinctive submission, recognizi