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Is that even possible? They seem so real, and I honestly doubt my imagination is this good.
All blurred together, I can’t even tell where one scent ends and another begins. There’s the summer-sweet grass and orange blossoms that I thought belonged to Tristan, but it’s layered with a cool freshness. Rain and wet stone. Dew-soaked gravel or a wet brick road. The electric snap of a thunderstorm on my tongue.
That ominous, otherworldly scent was the smell clinging to Spencer’s dress shirt. It overlaps perfectly with Tristan’s—almost like they’re one scent instead of two.
Avery’s masculine perfume winds through it in a teasing, mysterious sort of way. A lazy curl of jasmine smoke. Musky amber. Spicy and sweet.
Or… or is that sweetness from something else? Jonah, the big, burly one, made my mouth water just as much as he made my body gush. Sticky and toasted, but rich and golden, too. With… chocolate?
What is that?
In the end, I decide I have to figure out what the hell is happening. I can always blame it on my stomach later.
Keeping my eyes shut, I scrabble upright, my trembling hands sifting through something soft and sumptuous piled around me. Once I’m sitting, I blow out a long breath and crack one lid open.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Where am I?
This couldn’t possibly be… a guest bedroom? My guest bedroom?
Who lives like this?
Politicians, my brain sneers. And NFL players. Not to mention the professional MMA fighter and a professor at some prestigious university.
So maybe the room makes sense.
If my hazy memory serves, I didn’t see much of their townhouse, but everything I saw was black. This room has the same luxurious, impenetrable feel, and the palette is every bit as dark. But the similarities end there.
Because this room is… cosmic.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Big and open and beautiful.
Midnight walls stretch high on three sides. The paint is a rich, purply black infused with some sort of sheen—glittery and subtle. It reminds me of the photos of constellations I’ve seen in books, the way stardust seems woven into the darkness but also stands apart from it.
Not that I need a picture of the stars in here.
Not when the entire back wall and ceiling are made of windows.
My neck cranes back while I follow the matte metal frames and clear, shining glass—all the way from the floor of the back wall to the ceiling seam over the entrance.
“Wow,” I murmur, awed.
“You’re awake.”
I jump, screeching. “Holy fuck!”
A dark rumble answers across the room. From the broad shape of a man sitting on the chair in front of the room’s antique vanity.
He stands slowly. Shadows shift until the tailored lines of Tristan Thorne’s body come into view. My stomach plunges to my feet.
“You’re real.”
It is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing I’ve ever said. Tristan’s face creases into a frown, the expression more intimidating than before, with shadows surrounding his square jaw and settling over the thick ledge of his brow.
“I am real. You’re in our pack house. And you’ve been asleep for about two hours.”
Okay. That makes sense. Or, at least, it all fits with the fantastical story I thought I’d made up. I nod, but the motion is shaky.
