Page 14 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
The blow had smashed his nose against the fabric of the man’s coat, and the first inhalation was involuntary, a reflex action of the diaphragm as it recovered from the impact, and the scent washed over him like a river.
Raisins. Nuts. Golden butter. Cinnamon. Warm dough.
Cookies.
Ren blinked. The fragrance wasn’t perfume. It wasn’t cologne, or soap, or any product designed to mask or seduce. It was the scent of that body itself, the chemical signature every alpha exuded and every omega read like a language without words, and this scent said things Ren’s mind couldn’t process while his body understood them instantly.
Warmth. Shelter. Safety.
Home.
His legs gave way. It wasn’t a decision. It was a muscular betrayal, a mass desertion of every fiber that had kept him standing for the past few hours. His tendons slackened, his muscles stopped responding, and Ren collapsed. His knees hit the floor of the guardhouse with a sharp thud that sent two identical jabs of pain up his thighs, and he stayed there, on his knees, his forehead almost touching the man’s shoes, his lungs filled with that scent that was tearing him apart inside.
He knew that smell.
Not that one. Not that body, not that precise combination of raisins and walnuts and baked dough. But the category. The olfactory family. His grandmother smelled like that. His granny, who died when Ren was seven and was the last person to hug him, wanting nothing in return, smelled of butter cookies and winter afternoons and thick blankets and a world where being an omega wasn’t a sentence.
A sound escaped his throat. It wasn’t a sob. It was something older, more animal. The involuntary groan of a body that has borne too much weight for too long and that, upon encountering a scent its nervous system associates with safety, gives in.
Ren remained on his knees, oblivious to passing time, his fingers clenched against the cold floor of the guardhouse, breathing in that scent of cookies and lies, because it had to be a lie. There was nowhere to take refuge. No alpha smelled like that for no reason. His body was playing tricks on him. Exhaustion was taking its toll. He was at his absolute limit, ready to collapse.
Get up. Get the hell up.
“You’re safe.”
The voice came from above, deep, with a raspy texture like someone who hadn’t slept. Ren didn’t lift his head. He saw the shoes: black boots made of worn, unpolished leather, planted on the ground.
“I’m Brody Kovac. This is my property. You have nothing to fear here.”
Kovac.The surname ran down his spine like ice-cold water and almost laughed at the irony. He was running from one Kovac, only to fall into the hands of another.
He forced himself to look up.
The man was large. Larger than the impact had suggested. Pale skin, almost translucent in the dim light of the small room, straight black hair combed back, and clear gray eyes looking down at him with an expression Ren couldn’t decipher.
Brody Kovac was on edge. His jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out on his skin, his shoulders stiff beneath his dark coat. Every line of his body screamed control, the kind you exercise when what you want to do and what you must do are pulling in opposite directions.
Ren perceived this with the absurd clarity that exhaustion sometimes grants. That man was holding himself back.
“Can you get up?”
“Can you tell me why your last name is the same as the pig who auctioned me off?” Ren muttered.
“We’re distant relatives, but we don’t do the same thing, as you’ll soon see. Can you get up?” he repeated.
He didn’t wait for an answer. Brody crouched down and offered him his hand as if he were approaching a wounded animal. Open. Fingers spread, palm facing up. Ren stared at that hand for three full heartbeats. Large, broad knuckles, short nails. A whitish scar ran across the back of it from his index finger to his wrist.
Get up. On your own. You don’t need his hand.
He took it.
Brody’s fingers closed around his with measured firmness, enough to pull him up but not to immobilize him, and Ren stood before his pride had time to protest. His knees trembled. The ground swayed beneath his bare feet, and he staggered forward.
And then Brody slipped an arm over his shoulders.
It wasn’t rough. It was almost gentle, the weight of the arm spreading over him like a heavy blanket, the large hand resting on his opposite shoulder, and the alpha’s body pressed against his, hip to hip, and the scent intensified tenfold.
Raisins. Walnuts. Home.
