Page 22 of Want It All

I hated the words, even as I said them. I hated that I was here, in Byron’s room – trying to make sense of what had happened – behind my alpha’s back.

Dance with Rose , Tristan had murmured into my ear, pushing me gently towards the dance floor. It’s okay with me if you want to kiss her .

We’d never really discussed the boundaries of our relationship before Banksia – we’d never needed to – and I’d resisted, frowning back at him. I know you’d like to , he’d said, smiling at me indulgently, relaxed.

And I did want to. Had wanted to for days, weeks , even.

Tristan knew how much she’d been occupying my thoughts.

And while I’d wanted to talk about expectations and limits first, Rose had also been right there , and I’d been immediately caught up in how she felt beneath my hands and how sweet her tongue was when it flicked inside my mouth.

The moment I’d caught a hint of scent in the air – a sweetness I knew, somewhere deep inside, could only be hers – Tristan had dragged me from the First Year Library, all the way to our room, and pulled me into bed before my brain could clear enough to wonder about it.

Why had he said that, and without warning? Not just why – but why now ?

My alpha didn’t do anything by chance. The only impulsiveness he ever showed was with spur-of-the-moment present buying; everything else he did was meticulously planned, calculated, careful.

So why had he encouraged me to kiss Rose?

‘You think Tristan wanted Rose to slick?’ Byron repeated carefully. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because he told me to dance with her, and said it was okay if I kissed her. Because he knows I can’t keep my fucking hands off her.’ I looked up, meeting his gaze. ‘And because he knows what omegas are like.’

Byron had clearly been doing something before I’d pounded on his door.

His cheeks were flushed, his grey eyes heavy, and he’d sprayed so much canceller that my nose twitched.

He looked delicious, so eminently fuckable, and his apartment smelled so devourable that it almost distracted me from my confusion and hurt.

He looked back at me evenly. ‘I know you’re not a beta, Seb.’

‘Then you know how bad this is,’ I said. ‘You know that Tristan wasn’t just risking Rose’s safety.’

He’d risked mine, too.

Byron frowned. ‘He got there at the same time I did. I noticed him pulling you away.’

I worried at my bottom lip. That was true; Tristan’s eyes had been on Rose and me the whole time we’d danced, and he’d dragged me from the library just as Byron had carried Rose away.

I could put his quick reflexes down to instinct – or consider the possibility that he’d known what would happen and had planned for it.

I clicked my tongue. I’d trusted Tristan implicitly for six years. He had never done a single thing that had made me question his motives, or his dedication to me. I knew that he loved me. I knew that he’d kill for me, die for me.

It was possible he’d never risked my safety at all.

But I also knew that he could be single-minded. And I knew he’d do anything to keep me safe – including hurt other people.

I sank down on Byron’s couch without invitation. His room was nice, though different to ours. Tristan’s living spaces always looked as if he’d taken part of his family’s manor house with him, no matter where he was. My idea of decor was books, plants, and more books, and together, it worked.

Byron’s space was less cluttered, though his bookshelves were still stuffed to overflowing.

The walls were hung with framed prints, mostly black and white line drawings.

One of the bedroom doors was shut; through the other, I could see a green coverlet spread across a low bed, and a huge Aubrey Beardsley print – a scene from Le Morte d’Arthur – hanging above it.

I wasn’t going to get a closer look, obviously. But I wanted to. Byron’s scent made me want to know everything , to gather and hoard all the pieces of him that he hid, to examine them all with care, noting every smooth stretch, every rough edge.

I pushed the thought away before it could veer into dangerous territory.

Tristan’s permission didn’t extend to Byron.

Rose was different; she wasn’t a threat to Tristan’s dominance, not like Byron could be.

That shit didn’t matter to me – alphas could be fucking fools sometimes – but it would matter to Tristan.

He needed to be at the top of the food chain, always, and I suspected that Byron’s calm facade hid strength for days.

‘How can I help?’ he said gently.

I shivered. He was good, this alpha; too good, almost. He knew the right way to speak to an omega, careful to always phrase his words in a way that acknowledged we had different needs to the other designations without making us feel weak for it.

I should have been worried to know that he’d realised my greatest secret. Instead, it was a relief . I didn’t have to pretend with him any longer. I’d still need to be careful, but now I had a second person I could be myself with.

‘I just needed a sounding board, I think,’ I answered. Byron didn’t need to know that, if anything, this visit had confused things further: he didn’t need to know that salted fucking caramel would be haunting my dreams.

Growing up with a super-dominant alpha mother, I was used to alphas calling the shots, and their omega following behind. I’d been fantasising about a pack for years , always assuming that, if it ever happened, it would be Tristan who found the other members.

Musing about my parents’ pack, I wondered if they had it wrong. Maybe it shouldn’t have been my alpha mother calling the shots. Maybe my omega mum should have been the one making decisions about the members of her pack.

‘Seb,’ Byron started, pulling me out of that train of thought. ‘Rose.’

I glanced up at him. ‘Will you tell her that I’m not a beta?’

‘No,’ he said, flushing slightly; I assumed it was with remembered shame. ‘Not if you don’t want me to. I just … I don’t want either of you to get hurt.’

I studied him. There was genuine concern in his expression, and sadness in his eyes.

I loved my omega mum. I loved joking with her and listening to her talk about her latest inventions. She was the most permissive of all my parents, and the one who had never made me feel less about my choices.

But I couldn’t be in the same room as her.

Literally. Our relationship was largely conducted over video calls and messages, and when I was at home, I couldn’t step foot in her room, because omegas never had complementary scents.

To others, my mother smelled like just-baked cake – delicious, comforting, and warm.

But to me, she smelled so sweet it made me want to gag, with an edge of too-burned sugar.

Scents weren’t real. Byron didn’t really smell like salted caramel, in the same way Tristan didn’t really smell like vanilla, and I didn’t really smell like cherry.

Other people’s pheromone receptors just interpreted us to smell that way.

If two people were compatible, then they smelled like something the other couldn’t live without.

But if they weren’t a good match, they each smelled less pleasant to the other.

It was the basis of how packs were formed, or not.

The warring scents of omegas ensured that we were evenly distributed across packs, and meant alphas couldn’t collect us like living dolls.

I shouldn’t have even liked Rose. She should have made my hackles rise.

I wanted to rub my cheek all over her instead. I wanted to lick her skin until she was writhing.

I couldn’t explain my need to touch her, to bury my face in her neck.

I couldn’t explain the pull in my chest when I saw her.

But I knew that I was living on borrowed time.

I knew that it couldn’t go further, because our scents wouldn’t be complementary.

When I dreamed of a pack, it hurt more than it should have to know that Rose could never be part of it.

But she didn’t know that, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, because I needed to be close to her. It was selfish and cowardly and I hated myself for it, but I was going to draw it out as long as I could, and stay close to her for as long as possible before it all fell apart.

And what about Byron then?

His loyalty would be to Rose. He liked me, and I suspected he would probably bend me over a table if given half a chance, but he was obsessed with Rose. He already had an omega, and I already had an alpha. He couldn’t be pack any more than Rose could.

‘I know,’ I said at last, my stomach twisting. ‘I just can’t … I just can’t leave her alone. I know she’ll hate me for it in the end, but it’s worth it. Any time with her is worth it.’

Byron didn’t answer, but his brows drew together.

‘It’s late.’ I stood and made for the door. ‘Thanks, Byron.’

‘Seb –’

‘I’ll use scent canceller once I’m outside, don’t worry.’ I forced a smile. ‘No one else will scent you.’

His frown deepened. He opened his mouth as if to respond, but I closed the door.

I took a deep breath in the corridor, the sweetness of his scent coating my tongue.

Now that I was outside, I could properly catalogue its effect on me: the warmth spreading through my body, the goosebumps on my skin, the pleasant ache of arousal building deep inside.

I didn’t want to get rid of his scent; I wanted it to cling to me for days, wanted to drink it, wanted to fucking roll in it.

But I couldn’t do any of that, so I pulled my spray from my pocket with a sigh, taking one last mouthful of Byron Griffiths before coating myself in cancellers. When all I could scent was their metallic aftertaste, I walked back to our apartment.

Tristan was waiting for me. He wasn’t pretending to read, or scroll his phone, or watch TV; he just sat on our couch, his back painfully straight, an expression on his face I’d never seen before.

Guilt.

‘You did it on purpose, then,’ I said dully.