Page 5 of Thorns That Bloom (Venusverse #3)

A smirk pushes against my lips—I know that scene pretty well. Some issue again. Usually, I would ignore it and let her deal with it. Let her worry about going up into Engineering and fighting with them about missing materials or wrong calculations or nonsensical instructions.

This time…something inside me tightens with urgency.

“Hey!” I blurt out as she’s passing me with a stride that clearly says she’s not letting someone hear the end of it. Raising her already arched brow, Madison pauses while I quickly struggle to put the machine in front of me on standby.

“Theo. What is it?” If I didn’t know she’s just irritated with Engineering’s mistakes, I would maybe take her annoyed tone personally. “I’m a little busy. Through no fault of mine,” she notes grumpily, shifting at her hips, and glances down at her tablet.

I make a wide step toward her with a smile.

What the hell am I doing?

“You’re going up again, right? I gotta go there to sort something anyway, so do you want me to deal with it?” I ask, raising my brows and making my most ‘happy to help’ expression.

She looks me up and down, her head quirked and her brow furrowed.

“I know the drill, Mads,” I say with a chuckle.

Glancing over, I quickly scan the screen of the tablet.

“We’ve had this problem before. I think it was just a wrong part identification number.

I know you go there all the time to shout at them, so how about I go and save everyone the blood pressure spike, huh? ”

Madison narrows her eyes behind thick glasses. I don’t think she’s more than a decade older than me, but somehow she commands a lot more respect than the other managers.

“Usually, you people stumble over each other not to have to go up there and argue with those pricks, but…whatever, I guess.” She finally relents with a sigh, lazily handing me the tablet.

“I need a smoke break, anyway. My god,” she grumbles, “the incompetence of those people is going to kill me one day.”

I feel like a giddy kid who just got the exact toy they wanted.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” I say with a wide smile.

Madison shakes her head, chuckling while her hand searches inside the pocket of her overalls for a pack. “You’re cute, aren’t ya,” she says, more to herself than to me, and turns to walk away. “Just leave the tablet on my desk later. And don’t be too soft on them. If they bitch, ask for Mitchel.”

“Yes, ma’am!” I holler back at her, saluting, but she doesn’t turn.

Looking at the tablet in my hands, I take a deep breath before waving down Ben across the manufacturing floor. He studies me from his station. Motioning at the tablet, then my station, and pointing upstairs, I let him know I’ll be right back. He gives a confused nod.

It isn’t until I am outside the room and walk down the hall to the elevators that I notice my heart drumming inside my chest. I look down, meeting eyes with my reflection on the tablet’s screen, and have to ask myself, again, what the hell I’m doing.

The moment I realized where Madison was going, all I could think about was that it meant an excuse to maybe see him again.

The man I saw in the cafeteria for a few seconds.

Whose name I don’t even know.

A man who didn’t even look back at me.

I get into the elevator and press the button. The silence and stillness make my mind even louder. I frown at my reflection. This is just weird. You…are weird. But I have no choice now but to go there. I promised I would sort this out for Madison.

Technically, I’m not stepping over any line. I’m doing nothing but my job.

Maybe this is just some strange biological thing—some wires getting crossed inside my brain.

I’ve heard of people being actually, physically allergic to someone else’s pheromones.

Sneezing, swelling, all that. This could be like that, only…

the other way around. Or maybe I’m just horny and my rut has come far too early.

In which case, I need to set my mind straight, because this isn’t right.

I sigh, shaking my head. Get it together.

When the elevator finally opens with a ding, I run my hand through my puffy hair and walk out confidently. A young woman, probably some sort of secretary, appears in front of me and pauses sharply, waiting to get in.

With a polite smile, I step aside for her while she smiles back and lowers her head. A faint scent of mandarins trails behind her as she does.

I head toward the Engineering, which should be straight ahead. As I sober up to reason a little, I realize that I’ve been here far too few times to really know who to talk about this to.

My dad's voice rings in my ears: You never think before you act, Theo. I’ve always protested against his slander, knowing how stuck in my head I can get. I guess that today, he’s right.

The atmosphere is markedly different compared to downstairs. The carpets are perfectly clean, the walls don’t have scuffs or grazes on them, and instead of metal and dust, the air smells of some basic, inoffensive scent like ‘office bliss’ or ‘fresh clouds’ or something like that.

I wander for a while, following the sound of clicking keyboards and the low hum of talking. My legs freeze, and my heart gallops when I catch that scent again. Blackcurrant and sage. Weak and gentle, but undeniable.

Like some bloodhound, I shoot my head to the side, sniffing the air. Looking around, I spot a smaller room away from the main office area, with its door propped wide open.

Hesitantly, I follow the scent that makes me feel all mushy and absent-minded until my boots reach the door frame. I finally pause, clutching the tablet in my hand. The quiet clicking of the keyboard coming from inside ceases almost immediately.

By the time I notice the man sitting behind a monitor in the dim light, his eyes have already found me.

My heart hiccups. With a surge of nervousness rushing through my body, I shoot my hand up with a wave and smile.

“Hey, I… I’m from the manufacturing floor.

Theo. I’ve got some errors that I need to discuss with someone from Engineering so that we can continue with our work,” I say, maybe a little too quickly and excitedly.

Even when I step into the room, his dark eyes are too far away to see properly what color they are, no matter the way they widen. He glances down and then up at me again before breaking our gaze.

He starts to speak, but his words get caught in his throat at first, I think. “I don’t deal with that stuff,” he finally says, sinking behind the monitor instantly.

It’s a bit of a blow to my little dreamy reality, but I keep my smile.

I shift on my feet and swallow hard. What am I even doing here? Trying to find out his name? Trying to get closer? Why? For what nonsensical reason?

He’s probably taken. I mean, he’s pregnant, for god’s sake. And I’m here making a fool of myself.

“Oh,” I say, realizing I haven’t responded in a timely manner.

He keeps clicking on his computer, face hidden by the monitor, but the movements are slower now.

“That’s alright. My…my bad. I also— By the way, I wanted to apologize.

I bumped into you in the cafeteria earlier, didn’t I?

” Stupidly, I keep going, like I don’t already sound like a mumbling weirdo.

The chair creaks as he moves to glance at me again. His gaze is intense, even all this way, but fleeting.

“It’s fine.”

And just like that, he’s out of my sight, concealed once more.

I feel the electric excitement that shoots through my fingertips moments before it fades.

His pheromones fill the room, but something about the scent has changed.

It still smells like sage and blackcurrant, but there's a note of bitterness that's growing stronger and more overwhelming by the second. Even the air is heavier, somehow.

Am I making him uncomfortable?

Just as I consider apologizing, I hear steps behind me. I turn sharply to a familiar face that I can’t quite put a name to, poking into the doorway with a curious expression.

“Everything alright here?” the man asks. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the senior engineers.

The mysterious omega doesn’t respond. Letting out a quiet sigh, I finally take the hint and step out of the office, facing him. “Hey. Sorry, I was… Madison needs you to have a look at this and amend—”

Before I can even unlock the tablet to show him, he rolls his eyes and sighs.

“What is it now? Come, follow me,” he grumbles, nearly pulling it out of my hand. I glance into the small office one more time, the apology still on my tongue, but I swallow it and leave with the man instead.

Why do I feel so disappointed?

I rub the back of my neck, looking over his shoulder as we pass through the hall toward the office department. “You’re, errr…Theo, right?” he mutters as we go.

“Yeah.”

“Madison’s sending the pretty young boys up here now, thinking that might smooth things up, huh? She knows I’m married,” he says with a bitter chuckle. I hang my head and catch up so that I walk next to him instead of behind.

“I offered. She seemed to have a lot on her plate.”

He gives me an incredulous side-eye. “Mhm…” The more I look at him, the more familiar he seems. The balding head, sharp jawline, and strangely vivid tie.

I think I’ve seen him back on the floor a few times, bickering with Madison, and in some of those boring HR meetings. He notices my stare and smirks. “Kyle.”

“Right!” I blurt out with a grin. “Right. Sorry.”

“Anyway, I guess this one was our fault,” he notes in a low tone as he scrolls down the report on the tablet. We’re already turning to his cubicle, where he throws himself into his leather office chair and rests back. “Give me a minute to fix this.”

Nodding, I awkwardly lean against the wall and rest my hands together.

“Yeah, take your time.” I glance around, seeing pinned photos of him and a man who looks a little too much like his sibling, but who I assume is his husband, as well as two cats.

It takes only a few moments of stillness until I can’t help myself and open my mouth again.

“I wasn’t sure who to go to, so I just wandered into that office.

I think I’ve upset, umm…?” Trailing off in a questioning tone, I hope Kyle catches on.

“Sam, you mean? Oh, no. It’s-it’s fine, I think,” he says with a glance toward me before looking to the computer screen again.

Sam. Part of me purrs with joy over the knowledge of his name. Another, the rational one, shakes its head in disapproval.

“He’s quite reserved, he is. Doesn’t leave that room much unless someone drags him out for lunch,” Kyle keeps talking, almost absent-mindedly, while editing terrifyingly complex-looking files and adding long notes under a few sections at a maddening speed.

His fingers glide across the keyboard as if it’s made of butter.

“Good worker, though. From what I can tell, anyway. Has only been here for like two…three weeks?”

“Aha.”

“Maybe it’s some medical thing? Some weird side effects of an omega pregnancy and all that?

Don’t really know much about all that, if you get me.

” After a pause, Kyle turns to me with a raised brow, like he only just realized or remembered I’m an alpha.

He makes an awkward smirk and clicks a few more things quickly before returning the tablet to me.

“Who knows? Just heard they made a point to act with care around him, and it wasn’t us betas who got that special talk,” he says, shrugging.

I accept the tablet, nodding with a thankful smile.

I don’t know much about omega pregnancy, either. Never thought about it.

“Give Madison my deepest, sincerest apologies for the mistake,” he adds with a heavy dose of sarcasm, making me snort.

“I sure will.”

Kyle leans back in his chair, resting his hands over his stomach, and I walk back the way we came.

Once again, I feel like I’m in some sort of haze as I pass through the hall, replaying the few blurry images of Sam carved into my mind from before—his cautious gaze peering from behind the monitor like a rabbit frozen among the strands of tall grass.

I return downstairs and return the tablet to Madison, hardly even keeping the focus to joke and converse with her about Kyle and his slight dig.

I excuse myself, testing the limits of my time away from work as I slip into one of the less-used toilets, where I hum an unsteady melody of a may-be-song into my phone.

Resting the back of my head against the tiled wall, I stare at the ceiling with the spiderweb in the corner of it.

When we started dating, Emily told me, with this infatuation in her wide, bright eyes, how beautiful she found it that I had made a song about her.

She said it was the most romantic thing in the world that her presence made art blossom inside of me.

But that hasn’t happened in a while. There hasn’t been much magic happening inside of me, much inspiration blossoming in this way in my life recently. Looking at her hasn’t made me feel anything in months. The songs I play when I perform have been stale at best. And I miss making new music.

I let out a controlled exhale, realizing how stupid this entire situation is.

All I know is his name. All I’ve got is his scent. Comforting and alluring in a strangely, deeply intimate way, but that isn’t enough. That isn’t logical. I’m being completely unreasonable.

Still, it brings one thing into focus.

What I’m feeling, no matter how illogical, finally gives me the courage to act. Opening the message window I’ve been dreading since earlier, I take a deep breath.

Can’t keep going like this, Ems

We need to talk