Page 39 of Ruthless Knot

Because that's what this scent feels like. Not just sweet, but sharp underneath. Not just soft, but with an edge that promises violence if you push too hard.

Cotton candy with a razor blade hidden inside.

My nostrils flare, drawing in more of it. Cataloguing. Analyzing. Trying to understand why this particular combination of notes is making my hands shake slightly and my pulse race in a way that has nothing to do with fear.

No scent has ever been sweet enough to distract me.

Not in twenty-four years of survival.

Not through all the performance troupes and underground circuits and blood-soaked deals that brought me here.

But this one...

This one makes me pause.

Makes me second-guess my path.

Makes mewantin a way I've trained myself never to want.

I frown, standing frozen at the bottom of the steps like an idiot. The morning light is growing stronger, burning off the grey pre-dawn haze, and I know I should move. Should complete my task—sending the letter I've been carrying for days—and return to the pack before anyone notices my absence.

But my feet won't cooperate.

The scent is too compelling.

Toofamiliar, somehow, in a way I can't quite place.

It shouldn't be here.

That's the logical part of my brain trying to reassert control. Ruthless Academy has rules—twisted, sadistic rules that make this place the nightmare it is—and one of those rules involves the hours between nightfall and seven AM.

Open season.

Anyone can attack and kill you on sight during those hours. No consequences. No questions. Just violence and survival and the understanding that if you're stupid enough to be outside your designated safe zone, you deserve whatever happens.

It's barely past six.

What Omega would be foolish enough to wander around during open season?

Have the audacity to leave a scent trail this potent for anyone to follow?

Either she's suicidal?—

Or she's a threat of her own...

Interesting, I think, and the word tastes like anticipation on my tongue.

I take one more breath—one more hit of cotton candy sweetness—before forcing myself to move. Up the steps. Towardthe door. Away from the distraction that's already burrowed under my skin.

I doubt anyone has the balls to try me in close combat—that's one of Ruthless's other rules, the ban on long-distance weapons—but I'd almost welcome the attempt. Anything to burn off this unexpected energy, this restlessness that the scent has awakened.

I'd put them in cuffs before they knew what happened.

Restrain them with the same skills that kept me alive in the performance troupe, when escape was both my job and my salvation.

Better than what Blaze would do, anyway. He'd whip the shit out of anyone who tried and call it entertaining. Set them on fire with that manic grin of his and claim it was self-defense.

The thought almost makes me smile.