Page 14 of My Begrudging Scent Matches

Caleb narrows his eyes on Alice, but she forces herself to look away from him as the blush creeps up her neck.

“I’m packing up.” Alice kicks off her pumps and retrieves the boots she commutes in on really snowy days, stuffing her feet over the backs until her heels slip in.

“Did you walk here? I’ll drive you home,” he says.

“Bus,” Alice says. “I prefer it.”

Caleb looks as though every bit of him wants to insist she never take the bus again, but he holds his tongue. He must recognize that when it comes to Alice, they are already on rocky ground as it is.

Alice pulls on her coat, despite being on the verge of a heat flash the whole day. “Let’s talk on the roof.”

Again, if Caleb wants to object, he doesn’t. He blindly follows behind Alice at a safe distance as they pass through the mostly empty floor and towards the stairs. They pass Grant who smiles warmly but doesn’t follow.

“Are you and him a pack?” Alice asks once they’ve climbed a flight of stairs.

“Yes,” Caleb says. “We’ve been together for a long time.”

Alice doesn’t know if he meant together as in just living together or together as in. . . together. . . Biblically, or whatever. It’s not uncommon for two Alphas to be in a relationship, but rarely for long without an Omega joining the mix. Her own fathers shared romance through their whole unit, not only with her mother.

“What about you?” Caleb asks as Alice pushes open the door onto the roof. Cold air touches her face, and she relishes in it. “Do you have a pack?”

“No,” she admits. “Lone wolf.”

Caleb obviously is unable to hide just how startling this news is to him.

“How old are you?”

Alice walks to the wall, him following behind a step closer than she’d like. The concrete bricks are frigid beneath her palms as she looks out over the city. During this time of year, the sun is already half set by 5:30—it’ll be mostly dark within the hour.

“I’m twenty-six,” she says, ever aware of her spinster status. It’s rare to meet an unmated Omega her age, and she’s never met someone who’s delayed their first heat as long as she has.

“Who helps you through your?—”

“Nobody,” Alice cuts him off before he can say the word heat. Just the fact that he’s thinking about her in heat is doing strange things to her body. She takes a step further away from him. “And really, that is none of your business.”

“Don’t you think it is now? At least a little?” Caleb leans closer. She steps backward again until her lower back is pressed against the wall. She’ll explode if she gets too close to him, she knows that she will. “You feel it, I know you do. You’re my scent match.”

“I don’t see why you being my scent match means you now have a say in who helps me through my heat.” Caleb huffs a laugh like she might be joking, but her expression tells him that she in fact couldn’t be any more serious.

“I don’t know where you grew up, but where I’m from, Alphas are supposed to be the ones to help their Omegas through their heats. Isn’t that what you want? Instead of some sterile heat clinic? How can you not be happy about this?”

Alice tries not to scoff because Caleb truly has no idea. He’s just like her parents and every other Alpha or Omega she’s met, ushering her to settle down, to be happy to find an Alpha who will look after her so she doesn’t have to work.

Like breeding is all she’s good for when she has a lot more to offer. Plus, doesn’t she deserve an Alpha who actually likes her? One who picks her for her finer qualities and not just how good she smells to them?

“I’m an Omega, Caleb, but that doesn’t make me your Omega.”

“The scent match indicates otherwise!” Caleb finally loses the cool composure he wears so well. Alice says nothing, just crosses her arms, and looks out at the city.

He will never understand what she feels, and she was stupid to even humor him being able to. How could he? A scent match is a life sentence to him, one he wouldn’t dare try to fight.

Caleb takes a few breaths and looks out at the city, too. Lights inside of apartments and offices shine through windows as the sky turns a deep periwinkle.

“I’m just as surprised as you, but don’t you think we should at least investigate this? I mean—just—you’re my scent match.” He says this like it’s a wonder and a miracle, instead of the heady burden and affliction it feels like to Alice.

“I don’t want that,” Alice says. “I don’t want to join a pack and be the perfect little Omega, I’m. . .” she trails off before she can admit how broken she feels when she compares herself to other Omegas. Like somehow when she was designated as an Omega, she wasn’t bestowed any of the sweet, trusting, and demurring instincts she knows she should have, or something went wrong when she was born and she got all of the strong-willed stubbornness and none of the other traits that she was meant to have as an Omega. “I don’t want my scent to dictate the rest of my life. I want to choose my path, my people.”

Alice finally peers at Caleb.

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