Aiden opens the door with cash in his hand. In front of him, a woman in a puffy black coat holds a pizza box. She is stamping snow off her boots. Her scent slams into me.
Rain-washed earth and wild honey pour off her skin and hit me so hard I cannot process anything else.
My Bouda goes perfectly still. Not the lazy quiet of boredom or the cautious freeze of something dangerous nearby. He holds it in our shared lungs for three heartbeats. Then he detonates.
MATE.He is screaming, roaring, throwing himself against the walls of my head.THAT IS OUR MATE. THAT WOMAN. SHE IS OURS.
Suddenly, I am on my feet. I do not remember standing. My body is moving toward the door and I am not controlling it. Aiden takes the pizza and hands over the cash tip. He says something I cannot hear because the roaring in my head is too loud.
She looks up. Dark skin, tired eyes, hair pulled back. My claws punch out of my fingertips without permission, and I grip the back of the chair to keep from crossing the room. The wood groans under my hands. Steam curls off my shoulders where the furnace inside me has spiked so high that the air around me shimmers. She is beautiful, and she is mine.
Go to her,my Bouda demands.Touch her. Claim her. Do not let her leave this building without knowing who we are.
She gives Aiden the polite smile, but her eyes look so tired.
Aiden takes the pizza and starts to close the door. She turns to walk down the hallway.
“Kojo?” Aiden is staring at me. “You okay?”
I push past him and open the door, staring into the hallway. She is walking toward the stairs, her back to me. The scent trails behind her, and I follow it before my mind catches up.
Call to her,my Bouda begs.Say anything. Do not let her disappear.
I do not know her name. I know nothing about her except that she smells like the rains of my childhood and the honey my mother used to harvest from wild hives.
My throat locks. My Bouda throws everything he has at my legs, roaring at me to move, to call out, to do anything but stand here like a fool while our mate walks away. I manage one step. Then the stairwell door swings shut behind her, and the scent fades to a ghost of what it was, and I am standing alone in a hallway that smells like bleach and loss.
I walk to the window at the end of the hall and press my palm to the glass. The parking lot below is white with snow. A few seconds later she comes out the front entrance, head ducked against the wind, and climbs into a Lexus near the dumpsters.
I turn and walk back to the room. Aiden is standing in the doorway, pizza slice in hand.
“What the hell was that?”
“That woman.” My voice sounds strange. “The one who brought the pizza.”
“Huh?”
“She is my fated mate.”
Aiden stares at me. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. Then he grins. He sets down the pizza and grabs his phone. “I’m calling Kade.”
“I have to get her.”
I am already moving. Past Aiden, through the door, into the hallway. Behind me I hear him cursing, fumbling with his phone, yelling for me to wait. I do not wait. I hit the stairwell door and take the stairs.
Yes. YES. Go. Find her. Do not let her disappear.
I burst through the front entrance into the storm. The cold slams into me, snow driving into my face, wind cutting through my thin shirt. My Ridge stands fully extended. My furnace kicks higher, steam rising from my skin as the flakes melt on contact. The blizzard is a blessing and a curse. My heat signature will be harder to track in this weather, but so will she.
Her car is already pulling out of the parking lot. The taillights glow red through the white curtain, turn onto the street, and disappear into the storm.
But her scent does not disappear. It lingers in the air. Faint, fading, but there. My Bouda locks onto it.
Hunt,my Bouda says.Hunt her.
I break into a run.
The snow swallows my footprints almost as fast as I make them. My bare feet burn against the frozen pavement, then go numb, then burn again as my furnace compensates. I do not care. I do not feel it. All I feel is the scent pulling me forward, leading me through the storm, guiding me toward the woman who smells like home.
Behind me, somewhere in the motel, Aiden is yelling my name. Wondering what the hell just happened to his friend. He will understand later. Right now, there is only the hunt.
My fated mate is out there in the blizzard, and I am going to find her.