Chapter 15
Blake
I rip off my tie as I kick open my bedroom door, already halfway to face-planting on my bed.
Best. Birthday. Ever.
Twenty fucking years old. We're official Alphas now. Which means I'm officially allowed to do whatever the hell I want without Dad breathing down my neck about "responsibility" and "setting an example."
That blonde from Eclipse—Tiffany, I think—had been very clear about what she wanted to do to celebrate with me. Part of me wishes I'd taken her up on the offer instead of letting Asher drag us home.
"We have the ceremony in the morning," he'd said in that stick-up-his-ass tone. "We need to be presentable."
Fuck presentable. I'm a goddamn Alpha now. If I want to show up to my own coronation hungover and—
The thought dies mid-formation.
Because the smell in my room is wrong.
Not wrong. Different.
I freeze three steps from my bed, every sense suddenly screaming at attention despite the alcohol still buzzing in my veins.
Gunpowder and leather—that's mine. That's normal. That's my scent saturating every surface after twenty years of living here.
But there's something else now. Something sweet and gentle and completely fucking alien to this room.
White musk. Like the expensive soap Mom special-orders from Paris. But softer. Warmer.
And underneath it—snow. Pure and clean and cold as the arctic air outside.
The whiskey fog evaporates from my brain like it was never there.
My wolf slams to the surface so fast I actually stumble, catching myself on the bedpost.
"MINE."
What the fuck—
"OURS. MATE. FIND HER."
My wolf has never spoken to me like this. Never with this kind of absolute, primal certainty.
I follow the scent on instinct, nose twitching, pupils dilating. It's strongest near my closet—specifically near the pile of leather jackets I keep meaning to organize.
Someone stood here. Someone small, based on the height of the scent concentration.
Someone who smells like heaven.
I press my face against my favorite jacket—the one I wore two days ago—and breathe.
The scent is faint here, just a ghost of contact, but it's enough to make my knees weak.
She was here. She touched my things. She—
My brain finally catches up to what my wolf already knows.
Kara.
It's Kara's scent.
The realization hits me like a lightning strike.
All those months of watching her move through the house. All those times I caught myself staring at the curve of her neck, the sway of her hips, the way her hair caught the light—
This is why.
Not because she's "not ugly anymore" like I told myself tonight. Not because the dress and makeup suddenly made her attractive.
Because she was always supposed to be mine.
Ours, my wolf corrects fiercely.
The bond was there all along, buried under years of deliberately not looking at her. Years of treating her like furniture, like a burden, like something less than—
Because if I'd let myself really see her, I would have known.
And I wasn't ready to know.
But she came here tonight. My heart is racing, my hands shaking as I clutch the jacket. After her first shift, she came to our room. That means—
I'm grabbing my phone before I can finish the thought, fingers flying over the screen:
something's wrong with my room
it smells like
fuck I can't even describe it
get out here NOW
I throw open my door and nearly collide with Asher, who's already in the hallway, looking like he's seen a ghost.
Or a miracle.
"You smell it too," I say. Not a question.
"Yes." His voice is rough, raw in a way I've never heard from my controlled, composed older brother. "In my room. On my bed. I thought I was going insane—"
"It's her." The words burst out of me. "It's Kara. She was in my room, she touched my jackets, she—"
Cole's door opens.
---
Cole
They're both staring at me when I step into the hall, my heart still hammering from what I just found in my room.
I'd barely made it through my door before the scent hit me—peppermint and ozone, my own familiar markers, but threaded through with something new. Something that made my wolf whine and my chest ache with longing I didn't understand.
White musk and snow.
"Please tell me," I say slowly, my voice shaking slightly, "that you two also have a strange, incredibly beautiful scent in your rooms that you've never encountered before and are trying very hard not to completely freak out about."
"Peppermint," Blake blurts. "Does yours smell like peppermint?"
"And ozone," I confirm. "Like the air right before a lightning strike. And underneath that—"
"White musk and snow," Asher finishes, his voice barely above a whisper.
We stare at each other.
The alcohol is completely gone from my system now, burned away by adrenaline and shock. Through the mind link—that private channel only the three of us share—I can feel their emotions crashing against mine: shock, confusion, desperate hope, and underneath it all, the howling of three wolves who have just found their mate.
She was in all three of our rooms.
The implications slam into me like a physical blow.
"This means—" Blake starts.
"Don't." Asher holds up a hand. "Don't say it yet. We need to think. We need to—"
"Track her."
The command comes from all three of our wolves simultaneously, primal and undeniable.
The scent trail is faint in the hallway—just wisps, really, like she moved quickly. But it's there, leading away from our rooms, down the corridor toward—
"The storage closet," I whisper.
We follow it in silence, our footsteps synchronized. Any trace of drunkenness from the club is gone now, replaced by razor-sharp focus and mounting dread.
When we reach her door, Asher tries the handle.
Unlocked.
Of course it's unlocked, I think bitterly. She doesn't even have a lock. Doesn't have privacy. Doesn't have—
Asher pushes the door open.
The scent that pours out is so concentrated, so overwhelming, that all three of us actually take a step back.
This is her space. Her den. Her scent is everywhere—in the thin foam mattress, the threadbare blanket, the pile of secondhand clothes in the corner.
And mingled with it, faint but unmistakable, are traces of our own scents.
She brought us back with her. On her skin, in her hair, absorbed through contact with our rooms.
"She's not here," Blake says unnecessarily, his voice hoarse.
The room is empty. No Kara curled up on that pathetic excuse for a bed. No Kara clutching that snow wolf plushie I've seen her sleep with since she was eight.
But her scent remains, warm and alive and absolutely perfect.
I step inside first, my feet carrying me to her mattress without conscious thought. I crouch down, running my fingers over the worn fabric.
This is where she's slept for ten years. This fucking closet. This—
"She came to us," Asher says quietly from the doorway. His voice is shaking. "She went to each of our rooms tonight, after her shift. Why would she—"
"The mate bond," Blake interrupts. He's leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed tight over his chest like he's physically holding himself together. "Her wolf recognized us. That's what happens after the first shift—the senses awaken, the instincts kick in. She would have been drawn to our scents without even understanding why."
"And then she ran." I pick up her snow wolf plushie, bringing it to my face. Her scent is strongest here—she holds this every night. "She came to us, realized what it meant, and ran."
"Can you blame her?"
Asher's voice cuts through the room like a knife.
He steps fully inside, his face pale in the dim light from the hallway. All the whiskey-fueled celebration from earlier feels like a distant memory now.
"Look at this place," he says, gesturing to the cramped, freezing space. "Look at what we let her live in for ten years. Look at what we—"
His voice breaks.
"We abused her. We terrorized her. We made her life hell. And tonight, her wolf woke up and told her that the three people who hurt her most in this world are her fated mates."
The words hang in the air like a verdict.
Blake punches the wall with a snarl that makes me flinch. His knuckles split, blood dripping onto the floor, but he doesn't even seem to notice.
"Fuck. FUCK."
"We can't change the past," I say quietly, still holding her plushie. "But we can—"
"Can what?" Blake whirls on me, eyes wild. "Can make it better? Can apologize and expect her to just... what, forgive us? Accept this?"
"She might not have a choice." Asher's voice is flat, clinical—the tone he uses when delivering bad news. "If she rejects the mate bond, if she tries to run—"
"We'll all suffer," I finish. "Rejection sickness. For all four of us."
Silence falls, heavy and suffocating.
Through the mind link, I can feel Blake's rage, Asher's guilt, and underneath it all, the bone-deep terror we're all experiencing:
We found our mate. Our perfect, fated mate. And she has every reason to reject us.