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Yet. I like the way the word offers more time.

Theo’s thumb moves once over her knee.

Pepper looks from him to me. “My house is across town. I could call my friends Honey or Scarlet to help me get home.” She draws in a careful breath. “But I don’t want to leave.”

The truth of her admission makes my heart ache with want.

Theo’s purr deepens.

Pepper’s fingers tighten around the water bottle. “I’d like to stay here until I understand what my body is doing. And what the stone is doing. And why Ezra can hold things normally again.”

She glances at me. “Only if both of you want me here.”

Theo answers first. “Yes.”

My voice comes second, rougher than I intend. “Stay as long as you like.”

Pepper smiles.

The hope I’ve been trying not to feel floods me anyway.

Chapter 5

Pepper Vines

“Stay as long as you like,” Ezra says.

The words slip into the studio like sunlight through water.

For a moment, no one moves. Theo’s hand is still resting over the blanket near my knee, warm and careful, while Ezra stands beside the worktable with color in his face and hope he is trying very hard not to show. The stone waits on the blanket by my hip, gray and innocent-looking for an artifact that has already rearranged my afternoon, my pulse, and possibly my life plan.

My omega, who apparently enjoys drama now, purrs inside me. Not out loud. At least, I don’t think it’s out loud.

Theo’s eyes lift. Oh no.

“Did I make a sound?” I ask.

Ezra’s smile appears slowly. “A very small one.”

I press both hands over my face. “I’ve been perfuming for half a day and I’m already making uncontrollable acoustics.”

Theo’s purr deepens, low and coaxing. “You’re safe.”

“I believe you, which is also a weird twist of hormones.”

His brows draw together.

I lower my hands. “It’s a good problem. A very handsome, delicious-smelling problem.” My stomach growls. “Is someone cooking? I can smell lemon from somewhere, unless I’m hallucinating seasonings.”

Theo rises. “Chicken soup. Let me get you some.”

I stare after him as he heads for the door. The man is huge, tattooed, and known around town as the grumpy cemetery caretaker who prefers graves to people. He also has soup ready for an awakening omega who fell asleep in his studio.

My heart turns over so sweetly I almost forget my body is trying to become a weather event. Almost. Heat rolls low through my belly, slick and warm. I shift beneath the blanket, and denim rubs where my thighs are already sensitive.

My brain, helpful little menace that it is, offers three paths at once.

Data point: first heat symptoms intensifying after scent bloom and contact with bonded alpha and fading beta.