Page 37 of The Rust in Her Hair

My hand is already on the handle.

"Adrian, what are you⁠—"

I pull the door open, and that sweet scent slams right into me, thick enough to make my head spin for a second, and then the base of my cock pulses hard.

Desperate to know the source of the delicious aroma, I slap at the wall, finally hitting the light switch. A bare bulb overhead flickers once, then floods the closet in harsh yellow light, and I have to squint against the sudden brightness burning through my skull.

But then I see her.

An omega is curled on the floor of the closet, folded small between a mop bucket and a stack of paper towel boxes. She’s wearing a white tennis skirt gone gray with dust, and the top button is missing. Dark bruises ring both her wrists, four fingers wide, like someone was holding her down.

My gaze drops down to her bare legs and I immediately see dried blood streaking the insides of both thighs. Her hair looks a little ratty, with a few leaves stuck in some tangles, and her breathing is so shallow I have to watch her chest for a full second before I'm sure she's still breathing at all.

Then her scent hits me again, that warm vanilla and toasted almond, and my cock goes from half-hard to steel in a single, painful throb.

It presses against my jeans, an insistent, demanding pressure that makes my head spin.

And I hate myself for it.

This omega is clearly hurt, curled up on a dirty closet floor, but all I can think about is dropping to my knees and burying my face between her legs.

I want to taste her, to lap the blood off her skin, then press my tongue against her pussy and breathe her in until my lungs are full of nothing but her.

Stop it, I tell myself, but my mouth won’t stop watering at the sight of her.

It’s confusing and horrifying, a primal urge so strong it overrides every decent instinct I have.

"Adrian?" Owen inches closer. "What is it?"

The sound of his voice wakes the omega.

Her little body jolts, eyes flying open, and for one suspended second she stares up at me from the floor, glassy and unfocused, like she doesn't know yet whether she's still dreaming.

Then in one swift second, her scent immediately shifts. The sweet vanilla and almond turns sharp and acrid, souring with a terror so potent it should be repellent.

It would be enough to make any decent alpha back away, to soothe the protective instinct and cool the blood. But it does nothing to me. If anything, the bitter edge of her fear only sharpens my hunger, twisting it into something darker and more urgent.

The need to claim, to override that fear with my own scent, to make her safe by making her mine, is a physical ache.

"Please," she whispers, her voice cracking on the single word. Then our eyes lock, and every muscle in me pulls tight.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Every instinct I have surges toward her at once, screaming at me to drop to my knees, gather her up, and promise to kill whoever did this to her.

But her face doesn't match any of that.

Instead, she scrambles backward, kicking her feet out, her back slamming into the metal shelving hard enough to rattle the bottles lined up on it. Both hands fly up in front of her, palms out, fingers shaking.

"Please." Her voice cracks, barely more than a whisper. "Please, don't hurt me."

Found

Lyra