Chapter 5

Sage's POV

I heard Zane call my name as I reached the service stairs.

Not Omega. Not you.

My name.

I didn’t turn around.

The stairwell door slammed behind me, cutting off the music and the sound of his footsteps. I gathered the sides of the ridiculous skirt and ran down six flights, my shoes striking the concrete hard enough to hurt. By the time I reached the employee exit, my lungs were burning.

Cold air hit my bare shoulders, but it did nothing to clear my head.

I could still feel Zane’s mouth on mine and the weight of his hand at my waist. Worse, I remembered the way I had grabbed his jacket and kissed him back.

The men who had cornered me in that room made my skin crawl. Zane’s touch should have done the same.

It hadn’t, and that was the part I couldn’t forgive myself for.

My regular clothes and Sloane’s hoodie were still in the staff locker upstairs. Going back meant passing through the party and risking Zane seeing my face, so I left them behind. At least I still had my phone and keys in the small pouch attached to the uniform.

Three missed calls from the event agency glowed on my screen. I ignored them and sent Sloane a message.

Heading home. I’m okay.

Her reply came almost immediately.

That is not the same as telling me how the shift went.

I stared at the message.

It was bad. I’ll explain tomorrow.

After a pause, three dots appeared.

Call me if you need me. Any time.

I slipped the phone away and started walking.

The synthetic pheromones clung to my skin despite the cold, sickly sweet and impossible to escape. Beneath them, I could still smell cedar and smoke.

Zane had been blindfolded. The perfume had hidden my scent, and the room had been too dark for him to see my face. He couldn’t know for certain.

But he had said my name.

I walked faster.

—

The light in our kitchen was on when I reached the apartment.

My mother sat at the table in her hospital scrubs, a cold cup of tea beside one hand and a stack of research forms beside the other. Her hair was coming loose from its bun, and exhaustion had drawn shadows beneath her eyes. She should have been sleeping after another double shift.

Instead, she looked at the clock on the wall.

“You’re late.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Her gaze moved over the short skirt, the bare strip of skin above my waist, and the red marks beginning to show around my wrist. It stopped at my mouth.

I resisted the urge to cover it.

“I thought you were serving drinks,” she said.

“It was a themed event. They changed my assignment after I arrived.”

Her expression sharpened. “Who grabbed your wrist?”

The question was so direct that I looked down. Faint bruises marked the place where someone had caught me in the dark.

“One of the guests had too much to drink. I handled it.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

Naomi stood and crossed the kitchen. She took my hand, examining the marks with the calm precision she used on patients, although the tension around her mouth belonged entirely to my mother.

“This isn’t nothing.”

“I got away.”

“From what?”

I couldn’t tell her.

If she knew Blaire had deliberately sent me into that room, she would confront the university. If she learned Zane had been there, she might confront him too, without understanding how easily he could threaten her contract or our provisional membership in Nightfall.

And if she asked why my mouth was cut, I would have to decide how much of the truth I could bear to say aloud.

“It was a stupid campus game,” I said. “Someone put my name on the list as a joke. I left before anything happened.”

My mother’s eyes stayed on mine. She had spent years learning to recognize pain in people who insisted they were fine, so I knew my lie wasn’t fooling her.

Still, she didn’t force me to explain.

“That perfume isn’t yours.”

“They sprayed it on the hostesses.”

Her nose wrinkled. “It smells synthetic.”

“It is.”

The control in her expression slipped for an instant. “Sage—”

“I didn’t know what it was until she had already sprayed me.” The truth escaped before I could stop it.

“She?”

“One of the students.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters if she used pheromones on you without your consent.”

“I’m home, Mom.” I squeezed her hand, hoping to soften the refusal. “I’m safe. Please don’t make this worse.”

Pain flickered across her face, followed by an understanding that somehow made me feel even more guilty.

“All right,” she said at last. “For tonight.”

She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and took out a bottle of unscented cleanser. “Use this before you shower. Synthetic compounds bind to the oils on your skin, and hot water alone can make the scent linger.”

Of course my mother knew how to remove it. She could probably identify the manufacturer from one breath, but she didn’t ask another question.

Her attention returned to my lower lip.

“What happened there?”

My fingers rose before I could stop them. The cut was small, left where one of Zane’s silver rings had caught my skin.

“I bit it when I fell.”

Another lie. Another thing placed between us.

Naomi took a small ice pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, and handed it to me.

“Hold that against your mouth. Ten minutes.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

That earned me the ghost of a smile, but it disappeared almost immediately. She looked down at the research forms she had left on the table. Blackthorn General’s clinical review seal was stamped across the first page.

“Did they approve your study?” I asked.

“Not yet.” She turned the forms facedown, though not before I saw several pages covered in handwritten calculations. “The review board agreed to examine my latest results. If the next trial confirms what I found, they may approve limited emergency use.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It could be.” Her fingers remained on the papers. “The compound encourages damaged wolf tissue to repair itself, but the neurological effects are harder to predict. I don’t want to promise anything before I know it’s safe.”

“You’ve been working on it for years. They’d be idiots not to approve it.”

“Research boards generally prefer data to a daughter’s confidence.”

“They can have both.”

This time her smile lasted a little longer.

Then her gaze returned to me, and something in it shifted.

“Your birthday is next week.”

“I know.”

“You forgot.”

“I temporarily misplaced the date.”

“You’re turning eighteen, not renewing a library card.”

I lowered the ice pack. “I’ve had a complicated day.”

Naomi came closer and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture so familiar that for a moment I felt six years old again.

“I requested the day off,” she said. “We’ll celebrate properly, even if it’s only the two of us.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“If anything changes before then, you tell me immediately.”

I frowned. “What kind of changes?”

“Your senses. Your temperature. Your sleep patterns.” She hesitated. “Any unusual dreams or changes in your surroundings.”

“You mean if my wolf finally wakes up.”

“Among other things.”

The answer sent a quiet chill through me.

“What other things?”

Naomi’s gaze shifted toward the dark window above the sink. For one strange second, the shadows reflected in the glass seemed deeper than the kitchen behind us.

Then a car passed outside, and light swept across the window. Everything looked normal again.

“Nothing you need to worry about tonight,” she said. “Go shower. We can talk after your birthday.”

I wanted to press her, but exhaustion had settled into every part of me. Whatever she wasn’t saying could wait until I no longer smelled like someone else’s idea of an Omega.

“Good night, Mom.”

“Leave the bathroom door unlocked.”

“I’m taking a shower, not undergoing surgery.”

“Humor me.”

I nodded and took the cleanser.

—

The uniform went into a garbage bag the moment I reached my room.

I tied the top twice and shoved it into the back of the closet, but the artificial sweetness still seemed to fill the room. In the bathroom, I scrubbed my neck, wrists, and shoulders with the cleanser until my skin turned pink. Then I washed my hair twice.

By the time I stepped out of the shower, the perfume had faded to a trace at the ends of my hair.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

The agency had left a voice message informing me that I had abandoned my assignment, the rest of my pay would be withheld, and any future bookings would be suspended pending review. They also expected the uniform returned.

I deleted the message.

The money mattered. Losing the weekend shifts mattered. Tomorrow, I would have to find another way to cover Mom’s prescriptions.

Tonight, I couldn’t make myself care.

I climbed into bed and touched the cut on my lip.

The sting brought everything back at once: the black blindfold, the silver rings, and Zane’s body curving around mine while his voice silenced the room.

She’s mine.

He hadn’t known who he was holding when he said it.

That should have made the words meaningless. Instead, they had settled beneath my skin like a secret my body wanted to keep.

I remembered his question against my mouth.

Who are you?

If I had spoken, would he have released me? Would disgust have replaced the hunger in his expression once he realized he was kissing the girl he believed had tried to kill him?

Perhaps he would have dragged me back to the garage and demanded a confession. Maybe he would have reminded me that my mother’s future could still be destroyed with a few calls.

That was the Zane Wilder I knew.

Not the blindfolded boy whose hands had gone still the moment I flinched. Not the one who had asked what happened after realizing I was afraid.

I rolled onto my side and pulled the blanket higher.

He had called my name after I ran. He suspected.

If he checked the staff list, he would learn that I had worked the event. If he found the hallway footage, he might recognize my hair or the uniform. Blaire knew exactly whom she had sent into that room, and if Zane questioned her—

My phone lit up again.

For one panicked second, I expected an unknown number and an order to report to the garage.

It was only Sloane.

Still awake?

I typed yes, then deleted it. If I answered, she would call. If she called, I might tell her everything, and I wasn’t ready to hear the story in my own voice.

I turned the phone facedown.

Sleep did not come for a long time.

—

By morning, the entire campus knew.

I could feel it before I heard the details. Conversations lowered as I passed. Girls clustered around phones in the corridor, watching the same grainy video of Zane leaving the Meridian with blood on his mouth.

Sloane found me near the east stairwell before first period. Her eyes swept over my hood, my damp hair, and the shadows beneath my eyes.

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you. Your kindness continues to inspire me.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. You should write greeting cards.”

She fell into step beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched. “You said the shift was bad.”

“It was.”

“How bad?”

I kept my eyes ahead. “I lost the job.”

“Sage.”

“I’ll find another one.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Before I could answer, a group of students passed us. One of them was saying Zane had ordered the Vance family to examine every camera in the Meridian.

My stomach tightened.

Sloane waited until they were gone before lowering her voice. “Did you hear what happened at the party?”

“Several things happened at the party.”

“I mean Zane Wilder.”

I forced my hands to stay loose inside my pockets. “What about him?”

“Apparently, he ignored every girl who approached him during Blindfold Kiss. Then he knocked some guy across the room over a mystery Omega, announced she was his, kissed her, and got bitten for the trouble.”

“Sounds like a balanced evening.”

“On the mouth,” Sloane added. “Hard enough to draw blood.”

“Maybe she had good survival instincts.”

Sloane gave me a sidelong look. “Nobody saw her face, but people think she was one of the hostesses. Zane is searching for her.”

“So?”

“So half the Omegas on campus are suddenly claiming they attended the Meridian, and the other half are buying black skirts.”

Despite myself, I almost laughed.

“Blaire isn’t laughing,” Sloane continued. “She’s been questioning every hostess assigned to the east side. Apparently she’s taking Zane’s romantic confusion personally.”

The humor vanished.

Blaire knew what she had done. Even if she hadn’t seen the kiss, it wouldn’t take long for her to connect the mysterious hostess to the girl she had covered in synthetic pheromones.

“She’ll get bored,” I said.

“Blaire doesn’t get bored. She gets destructive.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Sloane stopped walking.

I made it two more steps before realizing she was no longer beside me. When I turned, her gaze was fixed on my face.

More precisely, on my mouth.

I touched the cut without thinking. The guilty movement was too quick to disguise.

Sloane’s eyes narrowed.

“Sage,” she said slowly. “What happened to your lip?”