It was the only thing I wanted, but the wish was based on nostalgia and nothing more. I wanted the feeling of security more than anything, rather than the leaky roof and the white walls. I never knew to be sentimental, but as I told the stranger that my price was my childhood home, I felt like a soft little girl holding my memories tight in my hand.
Anders agreed right away.
The deal was what brought me here, packing the memories of my father away, while ignoring the guilt that weighed in my heart. The guilt was so great that I didn’t have the heart to throw anything away. Boxes upon boxes lined the floor, waiting for collection to go to the storage I had no business paying for.
Anders fixed all my problems with the snap of his fingers, but he created so many more instead.
Dad used his dying breath to warn me against ever stepping foot in the place he came from. What a horrible daughter I was because it only took me money and a plane ticket, and that was exactly where I was going.
Chapter Two
Anders
My skin felt awkwardly tight, as if I was wearing the wrong meat suit. A growl bubbled from my throat once the thought popped into my head. Per got to me last night, talking about horror films. I didn’t want to explain why I wanted to sleep early, so I was more generous than usual and listened to his nonsense.
The other didn’t know I was here in the airport, waiting for Karl’s kid. We learned from other packs across Europe that omegas were plentiful in other places, and the communities were being pushed to take the blood test in hopes of finding an omega across the globe. It was Noah from the small community in Switzerland who called me, telling me the tale. His own omega knocked at his door, and she didn’t even know who she was. Her dad left his pack behind and married a beta, hiding his kid his whole life.
I congratulated Noah and his pack, but as soon as I was off the phone, my pack was watching me while holding their breath.
Karl. That son of a bitch left us more than twenty years ago, and I bet anything he married and lived a happy life. The last thing I wanted was to learn about him, but an omega could change people’s lives. My people deserved happiness, even at the cost of my pride.
It didn’t take long to track him down in Brazil. He was my pack brother once, and he had nothing to hide. While I’d be ashamed of leaving my community and my pack, Karl had no shame. He tried to make us go with him, saying there were no omegas anymore and going out was the only way to ever mate.
Even after two decades of solitude, I still don’t regret what I told him that day. The words that pushed him through the door and out of our lives.
“Loyalty keeps me here. I’m loyal to my people, Karl. I can’t believe I never noticed you’re not.”
He married a year later and had a daughter, Isadora. I expected to have a heated argument with him over the phone. I prepared the speech and the reasons he had to let his kid choose for herself, but I never talked to Karl.
Hearing that he died a year ago took the air out of my lungs. Karl was a year younger than me. Forty-five years old was tooyoung, so I was not prepared for the scenario in front of me. I talked directly to his kid, who was struggling financially.
My eyes scanned the arrivals, and every woman crossing the gates had my attention. I couldn’t scent an omega’s presence, not in an airport full of people like this. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to distinguish an omega. It had been so long.
The phone pinged in my pocket, and I ignored it once again. I should have told them I was coming here, but then I’d have to tell them I talked to the girl and was paying her to come. The transaction was cheap and made me feel wrong. I should have explained to her why it was important for her to take the omega test, but instead, I offered her money, and she jumped on it.
What did I expect from the result of Karl’s betrayal? Of course loyalty wasn’t going to sway her. If her dad thought he owed nothing to his people, why would she think any different when she had never even met us?
Of course, I’d have to explain to them once she arrived at our doorstep, but until I saw her with my own eyes, I didn’t dare say a word. I needed to know, and I would the second she showed herself to me.
Ifshe ever came.
My skin prickled with awareness, and my attention was pulled right in the middle of the sea of blond people, but she was different. Soft, short, and when our eyes met, her eyebrows knitted and her full mouth closed in a flat line.
Isadora gripped her suitcase, as if ready to swing it at me, and my mouth curved in a smirk. She hated me as much as I hated the idea of her.Good.
The bold dark eyebrows reminded me of her father. She got her light blond hair from her paternal grandmother, but her figure was full. Curvy with ample breasts and thick thighs like an Aphrodite statue—that must have come from her mother, whoever she was. I had never seen someone like this, perfectlyfeminine, from her small hands to the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips.
We met halfway. She was so small she had to crane her neck to look me in the eyes, and her scent hit me with a magnitude I wasn’t ready for. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and something else? My nostrils flared as I caught her perfume in the air.
Star anise.I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. She made me dizzy. I forced my eyes to meet hers, staying away from the rest of her, and I almost flinched with the intensity of the daggers she sent me.
“You’re Anders?” she asked in Swedish.
On the phone, she was very self-conscious about her accent, but she didn’t need to be. I understood her just fine. Instead of saying any of that, I dipped my chin. If I was expecting to see her father’s agreeable nature, I was hit with something else. Isadora arched an eyebrow and then walked away from me, bumping into me while she made a beeline to the exit.
"Vad i helvete..."
The curses flowed through my mouth, and she looked over her shoulder with a frown. “Dirty mouth.” She chastised me as if I were a kid.
