Page 92 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
"The roses," Bells confirms, and something in his steely expression breaks. "It's been going on for years, but it stopped when I started hiding…" He trails off, correcting himself. "When I started hiding that I'm an omega. He found me recently. He knows I live in the fucking penthouse."
"Fuck," I breathe, because what else is there to say?
The roses. The threatening note Phoenix and I had read, the one signed with just 'B.' The way Bells has been jumpy and paranoid since the flowers arrived. How he checks the windows compulsively, keeps his knife within reach, looks over his shoulder like he's expecting someone to grab him.
It all makes horrifying sense.
"He's been watching you," Phoenix says, and it's not a question.
Another wave must hit because Bells doubles over slightly, a small strangled sound escaping his throat before he bites it back. The scent in the room intensifies, and I have to take a step back, putting distance between us before I do something stupid that reveals exactly what he is to me. To both of us.
Phoenix stands up from where he's been kneeling, moving to the opposite side of the room. Creating space. Giving Bells room to breathe.
"I need—" Bells's voice is strained. "I need to be alone. Please."
Every instinct screams at me to stay. To protect. To guard. To wrap myself around this omega and keep him safe from whatever the fuck is happening to him.
Instead, I force myself to nod.
"There's an adjoining room," I say, keeping my voice level despite how badly I want to argue. "We'll be right next door. You need anything, you call. Or just—just unlock the door. We'll hear you."
I pull out the key card for the second room, pressing it into Bells's shaking hand. "This is yours. Lock it from your side if you want. But we're right there. Okay?"
Bells nods, fingers closing around the key card like a lifeline.
Phoenix and I leave without another word, stepping through the adjoining door into the second room. I listen as Bells immediately engages the lock on his side.
Phoenix and I stand there for a moment, staring at the closed door, and then the reality of the situation hits me all at once.
Bells is an omega.
Bells is our fucking scent match.
Bells is in heat alone in that room, and we can smell him through the goddamn walls.
"Fuck," I mutter, running both hands through my hair and pacing to the window. The curtains are drawn, showing nothing but rain-streaked glass and the blurred lights of Seattle below.
Phoenix has moved to the far corner of the room, as far from the adjoining door as he can get. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and his breathing is carefully controlled. Too controlled.
"We should—" I start, but I don't know how to finish that sentence.
Should what? Leave? We can't leave him alone when his stalker just drugged him. Stay? We can barely function in the same room with the scent bleeding through the walls.
The heat-scent is stronger now. No windows open, no movement to dilute it. Just concentrated omega in heat, filling the air until I can taste it on my tongue.
"Holy shit," Phoenix breathes, and when I look at him, his pupils are blown wide again. "Raf, do you—can you smell?—"
"Yeah," I cut him off, because I know what he's about to say and hearing it out loud will make it real in a way I'm not ready to process. "I smell it."
But Phoenix can't seem to stop himself. The words tumble out like he's been holding them back and the dam just broke.
"He's our scent match," Phoenix says, his voice full of awe and confusion and something that might be joy if it weren't tangled up with so much guilt. "Holy shit, Raf. Bells is our fucking scent match."
I want to deny it. Want to say he's wrong, that it's just the intensity of an omega in heat playing tricks on our instincts, that it's too much of a coincidence, too serendipitous.
But I can't.
Because he's right.
