Page 4 of The Honor of Being Hers
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.
Rachel crouched in front of her, steadying hands on her knees.“Talk to me.”
Lauren closed her eyes.
“It’s him.”
“Who?”Justin asked, low and sharp.
“Lauren,” Samantha said gently.“Who?”
Lauren exhaled once.“Ryan Monroe.He’s...he’s my scent match.All three of them are.”
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
Rachel was the first to speak.“From school?”
Lauren nodded, throat thick.
Justin swore under his breath.
“I need a shower,” Lauren whispered.“I need to get their scents off me.”
“You didn’t touch them,” Samantha said gently.
“I know.I still need to scrub.”
The three of them exchanged looks but didn’t argue.Rachel stood and kissed her forehead.
“We’ll guard the door.”
And they did.
Back near the registration table, the three Alphas stood quietly after they had watched her walk away.Ryan still looked like he’d been hit by a truck.William’s sharp gaze, which normally catalogued exits and potential threats, was laser-focused on the space where Lauren had been standing.Tyler’s gentle presence seemed to anchor them both, though he wasn’t any less affected.
“Did we just meet a scent-sympathetic Omega?”Tyler murmured, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
William nodded, but Ryan kept staring after her like the world had just turned upside down, and as if every careful plan he’d ever made had just turned to ash.
3
Ryan Monroe stood frozen in the conference hall, his broad frame rigid with tension as he watched Lauren Langford disappear into the crowd with her protective circle of friends.His hands had formed fists at his sides without him realizing it, knuckles white beneath the expensive fabric of his charcoal suit.The scent of her wild honey and night-blooming jasmine lingered in the air like an accusation.
“Ryan.”William’s voice was low, careful.“You need to breathe.”
He wasn’t breathing.Hadn’t been since the moment he’d caught her scent and every rational thought had fled his head.His chest felt tight, constricted, like someone had wrapped steel bands around his ribs.She was here.She was here, she was his scent match, yet she’d looked at him like he was her worst nightmare.
Which, he supposed, he was.
“That was her,” he said, voice hoarse and rougher than usual.“That was fucking Lauren.”The profanity slipped out before he could stop it, his careful control cracking.
Tyler moved closer, close enough that his calming presence helped Ryan’s racing heart slow marginally.“The Lauren?From high school?”
Ryan nodded, jaw clenched so tight it ached.The Lauren he’d made miserable for three years.The Lauren he’d cornered in empty hallways, demanding she explain her homework, so he could copy it, then mocking her when she stammered through the answers.The Lauren he’d made cry in the library, in front of half their class.He’d been seventeen, full of hormones that made him even more stupid than you’d expect, and he hadn't been able to stop trying to dominate the most gentle and intelligent person in school.
The Lauren he’d driven away from the linguistics program she’d loved.Probably forcing her into online mathematics courses only to avoid him because he’d made it clear that he was looking forward to seeing her at university.
“She perfumed,” William said quietly, but there was something troubled in his voice.
