Page 103 of Knot So Lucky

No matter if it costs me everything I thought I wanted.

Because Aurora Lane deserves to be happy more than I deserve to keep her to myself.

And if that means I have to learn to share with a pack of Alphas who can give her things I can't?

Well.

I guess I better start figuring out how to play nice with others.

CHAPTER 18

Collision Course

~AURORA~

The press conference is a cacophony of noise that's rapidly approaching unbearable.

Questions fly from every direction—overlapping, contradicting, building on each other in ways that create a wall of sound my exhausted brain can't parse into individual meanings. The bright lights positioned for optimal camera angles burn against my retinas. The crowd of reporters pressed against the barricades creates a wall of competing scents—artificial perfumes and nervous sweat and that particular chemical smell of dry cleaning and desperation.

My suppressants are failing.

I can feel it in the way my Omega instincts are suddenly hyperaware of every Alpha in the room, cataloging threats and potential pack members with alarming specificity. In the way sounds seem too loud, lights too bright, everything overwhelming in ways that suggest the chemical dampening is no longer adequate to handle the stress I'm under.

Someone asks about my racing credentials. Another demands to know how long I've been "deceiving" the team. A third wants details about my relationship with Cale that are invasive enough to make my skin crawl.

I'm zoning out.

Not intentionally. Not as a choice. My brain is simply... disconnecting. Going into some kind of protective shutdown mode where I'm physically present but mentally floating somewhere above the chaos, observing without processing.

My eyes drift across the room, seeking something to anchor on that isn't another aggressive reporter or flashing camera.

They land on Elias.

He's standing on the sidelines, just outside the main press area, wearing what I'm learning is his standard uniform of slightly rumpled business casual. Black slacks, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, those round spectacles that make him look like a graduate student who wandered into a racing facility by accident.

But it's not his appearance that catches my attention.

It's his scent.

Even from across the room, even through the chemical barrier of my failing suppressants and the competing odors of a hundred other people, I can smell him. Sandalwood and steel, gasoline and vanilla, that perfect combination that makes my Omega instincts purr with recognition and longing.

Standing next to him is the man who was chasing after Luca earlier—the one trying to prevent a public relations disaster before it could fully materialize. He's shorter than Elias, lean and compact with features that suggest Asian heritage. His black hair is styled with deliberate casualness, and he's gesticulating as he speaks to Elias with the kind of animated frustration that suggests he's venting about Luca's behavior.

His scent reaches me a moment later—rosemary and mint with undertones of honey and old books. That intellectual edge I noticed before, now more pronounced without the adrenaline and race-day chaos interfering.

Both scents wrap around me like a security blanket, cutting through the overstimulation with familiar comfort.

Pack scent.

Potential pack mates.

Biology calling to biology in ways my suppressants are powerless to prevent.

I wonder if he's part of the racing team or more of a manager. Wonder what his role is in Elias's life, in the pack structure I'm apparently being drawn into whether I'm ready for it or not.

The questions continue hammering at me, but they're just noise now. White noise static that I can't parse into meaning because my brain has decided that focusing on my potential pack mates is more important than answering invasive questions about my gender and designation.

Something touches my arm.