Page 133 of Sawyer

The woman’s pupils blow out, and she shudders. She damn near scrambles over to the glass, pressing a hand there.

“I’ve waited so long. Is Sin with you?” There is a hope in her voice that I instinctively don’t want to crush. “Is he here? He came for me, didn’t he?” There is something about her that is fundamentally broken.

I don’t want to talk, so I lie and shake my head.

“He’s nearby, isn’t he? I can feel him.” She’s so childlike and full of an innocence that can’t be real. “I’m Dorothea, but you can call me Thea.”

One moment in time, and she shatters me.

Thea.

She was alive this entire time.

I inhale. It’s involuntary, and I can’t help it, but her scent fills my nostrils and lands on my taste buds—spun sugar.

Biology screams at me that this woman is my mate, but logic deems otherwise.

My heart already loves another.

“You pulse for me,” she says in wonder. “If you ask them, they’ll lower the barrier, and we can consummate our connection.”

“No,” I bark at her and cover my nose. This can’t be real.

“But look, it says we are a match.” She points to the wall, where blinking red letters declare that this is real and I’m not living a waking nightmare.

“No, I reject you.” I shake my head, trying not to breathe her in.

“Your cock says you want me.”

I’d cut the fucking thing off if I could. Again, I shake my head, telling her, “No.” This entire situation is too fucked up to even acknowledge.

A hiss begins again, and more fog fills the room.

Thea squeals. “Oh, this is so exciting!” She spins in a circle before slowly stripping. “I’m getting a pack!”

“Put your clothes back on!” I bark at her, but when I speak, I inhale. It’s a mistake, because the fog fills my lungs.

Pheromones. They are manipulating this entire situation.

No, this can’t be happening.

Slowly, I slide down the wall as a haze settles over my mind and my cock pulses painfully with the stimulants they are pumping into the room.

The mirror sinks into the floor. In all of my life, I have never dealt with anything this fucked up. This is cruel.

Fates, no.

Biology is strange. It pulls two people together by a string, tugging and tugging until there’s no avoiding the inevitable. It doesn’t matter what my heart wants, because her scent tells me she is a match, and that the woman crawling over the mirror could very well be an omega for our pack.

Except she isn’t, because she isn’t my Sawyer.

Perhaps I’d have scented Thea and wanted her in another life, in another timeline, but I’m rejecting her even just from looking at her. I can’t help but think I’d reject her even if I never met Sawyer in the woods all those years ago.

“Alpha?” she whimpers, dropping to all fours. She crawls toward me naked, the scent of her slick permeating the air.

She’s perfuming for me, and I don’t want her.

It isn’t her fault. It’s this place, these circumstances.

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