Page 17 of Roulette Rodeo
My nostrils flared instinctively, trying to capture more of it, to break it down into components my brain could process.
But this wasn't intelligence gathering…this could only be describe as pure, animalistic recognition.
Wild cherries, but not the artificial sweetness of casino cocktails. These were real, sun-warmed, with that slight tartnessthat made your mouth water. Honey, but spiced with something that reminded me of the chai my interpreter used to make in Kandahar—cardamom, cinnamon, secrets. Wood smoke from cherrywood specifically, like the pipe my grandfather used to smoke on his porch while telling war stories.
And underneath it all, something essentially feminine that made my cock go from zero to painful in two seconds flat.
I'd never reacted to a scent like this.
Never.
In thirty-two years of being an alpha, through countless omegas in heat, through professionally necessary seductions and recreational encounters, nothing had ever short-circuited my brain like this.
The tactician in me tried to maintain control, to remember why I was here.
But my body was already moving, drawn like a compass needle to magnetic north.
Thirty-two was ancient in alpha terms for finding a scent match. Most alphas found their omega by twenty-five, bonded by thirty. My pack had accepted our bachelor status after the Sophia incident. Rafe's trauma ran too deep to risk another omega, had bent his preferences toward men exclusively—though I sometimes wondered if that was preference or just safer emotional territory.
But what if?
What if this omega, this scent that was rewriting my DNA with every breath, could heal what Sophia had broken? If this mysterious aroma belong to someone who was the missing piece that could make our pack whole instead of just functional?
My legs moved without conscious thought, following the scent trail like a bloodhound.
The mission, the careful surveillance I'd planned—all of it evaporated in the face of primitive need.
Someone slammed into me.
No—she slammed into me.
The impact should have been negligible. She was maybe five-six, soft curves and feminine angles against my tactical bulk. She collided chest-first into my sternum, and for one brain-scrambled second I couldn’t tell if the thud in my chest was the impact or my own heart detonating inside its cage. But the real shock wasn’t the force of her body; it was the way her presence detonated inside my skull.
Contact turned her scent from trace element to hydrogen bomb.
My vision tunneled instantly, every sense recalibrating around her—cherry and honey, smoke and spice, and another aroma under it all that scraped at my very marrow, screamingthis one, this one, this one. I’d trained for sensory overload—flashes, bangs, the disorienting chaos of battle—but nothing in my years of spec ops had prepared me for the sensory hurricane she unleashed just by existing within arm’s reach of me.
My reflexes, always disciplined, now betrayed me: my arms closed around her like a vice, my head dipped instinctively to inhale the scent pouring off her sweat-damp skin, my mouth watering with the urge to put teeth to the delicate column of her neck and make my claim.
Fuck, I’ve never wanted to mark someone so badly in my existence…
Instinct had my hands up, catching her before she could rebound. Her body was everything my brain had promised in that first wild scent hit—lush curves, warmth, a fragile softness that felt violently out of place clashing against my bulletproof exterior. But the moment our bodies connected, the moment her scent went from trace amounts to full saturation, I knew with battlefield certainty:mine.
That’s when I noticed the way her breathing hitched. The way her wild mane of auburn hair clung to her temples, sweat-soaked and sticking to flushed skin. Her face was upturned, eyes wide with a terror that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with whatever,or whoever,she’d been running from.
I didn't think.
Thinking was for people who hadn't been trained to react in milliseconds. I caught her before her knees could fully buckle and fall, pulled her against my chest where she fit like she'd been carved from my missing rib, and moved.
The storage closet was seventeen steps away. I knew because I'd memorized every room, every exit, every potential defensive position in this building three days ago. The code—obtained through "research" that may have involved hacking their security system—took two seconds to input.
Moving with this Omega was easy. So swift and effortless that getting to the storage closet took no time at all.
The door sealed behind us with a soft click, cutting us off from whatever threat had sent her running.
And then we were alone in the dark, and I could finally, truly, breathe her in.
She was tiny against me.
