Chapter 190

“But probably the hardest thing for me to believe is the whole scent thing.” This time, my laugh was more honest and less nerves. “How stupid is that? The only people who could love me the most smell me?”

Charles let out a growl. “How can you doubt the goddess?” He scowled. “If you weren’t going to take anything she said seriously, then why even go there and get her advice? You wanted her to give you information. Then you got it, and now you don’t believe it.”

“And you do?” I arched an eyebrow at him and crossed my arms. “That’s so ridiculous. How can a smell bring peace to everybody? I mean, I understand if she was talking about the work that I do. I try very hard to make sure that the truth brings closure to people and that it ends badness. But how is my smell supposed to do anything?”

Charles started to get up, but Theo put a hand on his shoulder. He sat back down and glared at me. “I can’t believe you value yourself so little that you just choose not to see it,” he said, disappointment rippling through his tone.

“It’s so unbelievably frustrating,” Charles continued. “How many times do I have to tell you what your scent does for me? It’s soothing. It’s home. It calms me down when my alpha temper would like to run wild and rip through people. You somehow managed to smooth that away and bring out rational thought instead. Now imagine if the goddess was right, and you could do that for an entire country? Imagine the good that you would bring to Orlune through your scent?”

“Now who’s spouting foolishness?” I countered. “How exactly were you going to project my scent to everyone in Orlune? Send out scratch and sniff letters?”

“Can I say something?” Theo interjected.

Charles and I gave each other each other glares but didn’t stop him.

“Elena. I think you seriously underestimate your scent.”

“What?” I gawked at him, not entirely sure what to say. I had expected him to come to my defense, not Charles’s.

Charles immediately looked pacified. “Go on,” Charles said, urging Theo to continue.

Theo looked uncomfortably at me. “I’ve been able to smell you since the day we met you. Not telling you how amazing you smell has been difficult this entire time. But we were ordered not to say anything—if we couldn’t smell it at all.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I thought it was kind of a weird order at first. Then, when I smelled you, it got me wondering. And there were so many times when I thought it might boost your confidence if you knew how amazing you make me feel but there were so many hesitations at the beginning. I’m sure you can understand.”

I nodded, still at a loss for words. This revelation seemed to short out my brain.

“I’ve been able to smell you since a while ago, as well,” David added. “Not at the very beginning, like Theo. But after you helped Theo’s sister… From the moment that we met Theo in the park… It was amazing.”

He shook his head. “At first, I thought the scent was something at the park, that maybe spring was coming early. But then, when Charles and I were back in the apartment that night, I was positive it was you. I could smell it when I walked through your apartment to get to ours, and it was even stronger when you arrived home. Whatever the goddess wants you to do with your scent, I think it’s real.”

I gaped at all three of them. “I just… I don’t know what to say,” I mumbled. “What am I supposed to do with this? Let everyone in Orlune sniff me? I thought I found a direction. Now I’m so lost again.”

Charles reached over and gripped my hand, pulling it to his lips, sniffing me, and then kissing the back of my hand. “I think you’re just supposed to be who you are,” he said. “I’m sure that the people that you’ve met with could smell you, too.”

“The first thing people want to do is bask in your scent because it puts them at ease. If you want proof, think of every time you went out on interviews where people opened up to when they wouldn’t to anyone else. And think of all of the friends you made along the way. They’re probably due in large part to your scent without you even realizing it. Did you want them all to wear signs that say ‘We love Elena’s smell?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Charles kissed the back of my hand again and let go. Then he turned his focus on David and Theo. “So, you are actually ordered not to mention Elena’s scent?”

Theo shrugged. “It was all very vague,” he said. “I honestly couldn’t tell after that first night we met you guys why we weren’t supposed to say anything. When we first got the orders, I thought for sure not saying anything was to make her uncomfortable.”

“The order went out to everyone that she works with,” David added. “So, everyone at the Palace Press were all told the same thing. I know because the same email went out to all of us.”

“We were to treat her with respect,” Theo continued, “but not say anything about her scent. Assuming any of us could smell it. The way the email was worded made me feel uncomfortable. It made it feel like the respect that we were supposed to give her was more about mocking her than actually respecting her.”

“But then, after I met you, everything shifted, and I thought maybe I had read the email all wrong. I thought that we were honestly supposed to respect you and that, for some reason, maybe you were sensitive about your scent, or it was some sort of secret since it didn’t seem like everybody could smell you.”

“David and I even talked about it the first night—”

“You didn’t answer. Who gave the order?” Charles demanded, cutting in.

Theo looked ashamed and stared hard at the table. “The order came directly from the king,” he whispered.

“How would the king know about me?” I exclaimed. “Did you say anything to him, Charles?”

Charles shook his head. “That is weird. Governor Kruck always made fun of you for being a scentless freak. It makes sense that he wouldn’t be able to smell you. But then, why wouldn’t that have been the information that the king got? How would he know that you had a scent based on Kruck’s report? Because at this point, I assumed that two of them were in bed…uh, business, together.”

Charles snickered. “Who knows? Maybe the king was in bed with Kruck, literally. They certainly deserve one another. And they seem like they’d prefer men since they don’t give women much respect.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop making fun of the monarch. It’s safe enough here, but don’t let it become a habit.”

I picked at the buttons on my shirt. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why would the king issue such an order? I really got the feeling that I’d disrupted everything for him… And that I was a bad thing... And then he’s the bad person, but maybe he’s protecting me… And—”

I stood up so fast that my chair clattered backward to the floor. “Ugh. I can’t stand this anymore.” I gripped my head and turned for the bedroom. “I can’t tell if he’s the bad guy or the good guy. Or if he’s kind of a bad guy and kind of a good guy at the same time. And if he’s out to get me or out to protect me, and I can’t handle this ambiguity anymore. I’m going to lie down. I need to think and rest.”

I made my way to the hotel bedroom and shut the door on the suite’s living space and the confusion on the faces of my companions. I had enough of that on my own.