by Aspen Grey
I looked around the living room, which had a couch that looked to be in decent shape, and a coffee table covered in newspapers. The kitchen was completely empty.
I guess pops wasn’t much of a cook.
The staircase was in good enough shape, thankfully, and I took it to the second floor. There was a small bedroom in front of me, as well as a small bathroom, and then the master bedroom at the end of the hall with its own attached bath. Thankfully, the inside was in better shape than the outside, but it would still need a lot of work. I had a bit of cash to buy materials, and could handle the repairs myself. After that, I’d get the garden started and live off the land. That was my plan.
The master bedroom had a bed—thank God—and even some sheets as well. The washing machine worked, and I threw them in. I probably wouldn’t use them, as I’d brought my sleeping bag with me, but it was good to wash them just in case.
The sun was down and I realized I hadn’t even gone into town to see where it was I was living. I was hungry too, so I headed back outside, got on the bike and headed towards Mountainside. It was only a few minutes’ drive and I felt like I was driving into a postcard town as I pulled in.
The “downtown” was a simple street lined with small, quaint shops, most of which were closed. There was a diner with its lights off, a burger place also closed—the only place that seemed to be open besides the gas station was a coffee shop called The Coffee Bean.
“Ah, well,” I grimaced as I pulled the bike into a space beside a horribly gaudy-looking Aston Martin. “Gold? Who would have such poor taste?”
I hopped off and headed inside, hoping the place served egg sandwiches or something. If it came down to it, I could fill myself with five croissants, but I was longing for some protein—any kind really…egg, ham, omega cum…
But as I pushed open the door and stepped into the dimly lit spot that looked like a place for students to hang out and finish homework, I was fisted in the face by a scent so strong and overwhelming that it could only mean one thing: I’d found my fated-mate!
Coincidentally, it smelled like a caramel mocha latte, but I could tell it wasn’t anything the shop was brewing up. It was a shifter scent—an omega scent—that danced through my nostrils like a ballet of prima ballerinas who had decided to start their own incredible troupe. I closed my eyes and inhaled, letting the beautiful scent coat my lungs, imagining it embracing my soul with strong, heavenly arms.
Fuuuuck….
I looked up, traced the scent through the air to the back corner of the shop and then I saw him.
Brown curls, brown eyes, medium height and medium built. He was wearing a pair of chinos and a striped t-shirt. My heart practically fell out of my chest as I stared at him. I felt what humans call “love at first sight,” but what we shifters call “imprinting.” It was that moment when you just know you’ve found the one for you. The scent of fated-mates never lies either.
“Fuck,” I muttered. But then I saw a problem; there was an alpha already sitting with him. He was a rich boy, dressed like a total douche who wanted to look like he was up on the latest fashion, wearing colors a guy should never wear. I instantly realized whose gaudy Aston Martin it was that was sitting out front.
What’s he doing with an alpha like that!?
I wanted to rush in and snatch him away, but at the same time I didn’t want to cause a scene. Any alpha, especially a rich, entitled douchebag like him, would put up a fuss if another alpha just came in and hit on their date, despite the fact that he looked absolutely miserable. But if this omega was truly my fated mate—and there was no doubt about that—he would certainly recognize it as well. All I had to do was get him to smell me.
I glanced around the room and saw a fan sitting in the corner of the room. It was aimed at the girl working behind the counter, but I stepped over to it and adjusted it a little so it was pointing at him. Then, I moved in front of it.
The breeze on my back swept my scent across the room and I watched with excitement as it reached him. His delicate curls rustled ever so slightly and then his nose twitched. His eyes sparked like fireworks and I kept my gaze fixed on him as he looked up and scanned the room.
When he found me and our eyes met, I felt as though I’d just opened a door that led to a new future, one I’d been picturing for some time now.
Yes, I thought. I’ve found him.
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Chapter One
Jessie
“Nancy! Back to work!” Greg croaked to my mother from the front of house.
“Five minutes, Greg!” my mom shouted back. “I’m on my break!”
Greg grumbled. “Officer Brady needs his coffee refilled!”
The truth was, despite being the owner of the diner, he was completely inept when it came to actually running it as a worker and he needed my mom to handle things. For the amount of work she did, she was completely underpaid and really should have been the one with her name on the lease.
“I really should get going, ma,” I told her. “The show’s going to start soon and Chuck will kill me if I’m late.”
“Ugh! Chuck!? Why do you care about what he says?” my mom scoffed. “In fact, why do you even work for him? He’s your ex-boyfriend. It’s not good to mix things like that.”
“It’s my job, ma,” I replied. I didn’t want to have this conversation again. It was bad enough that I had to see the guy who cheated on me and manipulated me all the time, and I didn’t need my mom reminding me that my life was going absolutely nowhere and I had no choice but to work for him.
“So find another!”
“Easier said than done,” I replied, kissing her on the cheek. “But I need to get going.”
“I just want to see you happy, my son,” she told me, pulling me in for a hug. “I want to see you away from this creep. I want you to find love!”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I pulled away. “No such thing, ma.”
“Don’t talk like that!” she called after me as I stepped out the back door. “Or you may start to actually believe it!”
I guess my mom thought I was semi-joking when I said that, but I wasn’t. True love was bologna – something invented by romance novel authors to sell books. I’d thought Chuck was the one, and then as our relationship went on, I realized that such a thing doesn’t exist.
At first, he was perfect, a rich gallery owner from Denver who’d come to Sleepy Hills on a sightseeing trip to get away from the city. He was incredibly handsome and had taken an interest in me, spoiled me, taken me out on dates, romanced me, slept with me and eventually took me back to his gorgeous apartment to live with him. And that was when the awfulness started.
First, I suspected he was cheating on me. He would stay late at the gallery for “meetings with clients,” then come home with his hair all messed up and poorly masked omega scents on his body. When I questioned him about it, he always found a way to spin it around to make me look like the bad guy
“You’re crazy, you know!” he’d yell. “How could you ever think I’d do that to you?”
He was a master manipulator. I’d always end up apologizing in the end, despite the fact that he was the one who’d done me wrong. I guess maybe I just wanted to save our relationship, as I truly believed we were meant for each other and were just going through a rough patch. But I was stupid and naive. All he did was get more brazen and eventually brought a boy home one night.
I caught him, and in retrospect, I think he wanted to be caught. He knew our relationship was over, and rather than manning up and saying that, he wanted to hurt me. I walked into our bedroom to find him taking the omega from behind, fucking him in a way he’d never fucked me before. I left him and came home to live with my mother. I didn’t answer my phone for a month. When I finally did, Chuck apologized and told me that I could still keep my old job. I had no choice but to do so. It paid better than anything in Sleepy
Hills, and without it, my mom would have to work doubles all week. So that was why I was riding in my old worn-out Camry on my way to Denver to work a contemporary art show when I’d rather be at home drowning my sorrows in Stardew Valley or Game of Thrones.
Thankfully the drive wasn’t too long. If it were, I’d only start questioning my entire existence and thinking way too many depressing things. As I pulled into the back lot of the gallery, I took a deep breath and wondered where all of this was headed.
The money was good but not enough to start putting a ton away to buy a house or something. I had no romantic prospects on the horizon, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the other nineteen-year-olds who were off to college, partying and having a good time, while I was stuck working for my ex.
Life isn’t fair, I thought as I got out of my car and headed in through the back door. I was wearing my all black “uniform,” as Chuck put it. Black chinos and a black button-up shirt with the top button done and no tie. I felt it looked a bit like we were trying to be mobsters or something, but it was Chuck’s idea so of course it was perfect.
“You’re late,” Chuck growled from his office as I stepped inside.
“No, I’m not,” I replied. It was a game he liked to play – saying something to throw me off balance and establish his dominance. But I wasn’t playing anymore.
“The refreshments table hasn’t been laid out,” he replied.
“Why can’t you do it?” I asked him. “You don’t seem to be busy.”
Chuck glared back at me from his reclined position in his office chair, both feet up on his desk with his arms crossed behind his head.
“Why do you have to be so sassy?” he asked me as he got to his feet. I knew what was coming, and tried to back out of his office, but he was too fast. He slid past me and shut the door, closing me in with him. “Am I really that bad?”
“Chuck—”
“So I made some mistakes,” he said softly as he leaned closer. “I mean – we both did, didn’t we?”
“The only mistake I made was staying with you as long as I did,” I told him. “I don’t know why I didn’t leave you earlier.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, running his hand up my leg to my crotch. “You stayed with me because you loved me. That’s why you work here too. Because you still love me.”
“I work here because I need the money, Chuck!” I snapped. “And don’t think that any of your charms are going to get me back together with you. They’re not!”
I pushed Chuck aside, tugged the door open and stepped quickly out of his office. I made my way to the back room and leaned against the wall to collect myself. He was more aggressive than usual tonight, which probably meant that whatever omega he’d convinced to spend time with him recently had grown fed up with his shit and called it off.
That’s all I was to him – a fallback. He was happy to go throw his dick around town to any omega that would take it, but when one of them rejected him, he came running back to me. He couldn’t handle being turned down or being the one getting dumped, so he had to take it out on me. Even if – and that was an impossible if – I decided to give Chuck another chance, I knew exactly how it would go; he’d treat me right for a week, fuck my brains out and then either cheat or dump me with some lame excuse about how he wasn’t sure we were actually right for each other. Thankfully, I had absolutely no desire to give him another chance.
In fact, I wasn’t ready to give any alpha another chance. Sure, I got horny sometimes – who doesn’t – but I wasn’t one to sleep around. I wasn’t about to put my heart out there again and get it broken.
I spent the next fifteen minutes getting the refreshments table organized with Fiji waters, tiny little crackers and expensive meats and cheeses, and a fruit platter that had been organized so it looked like a flower. Chuck was completely non-artistic, ironic for a gallery owner, and doing little things like that was how he pretended to be part of the community.
The exhibition started at 7:30, and it was only 7:15, so I took a few minutes to walk around the gallery and check out the show. To be honest, a lot of what Chuck brought in was garbage. Modern art – a bunch of garbage that looked like something a child did in class then brought home to show their proud mother, but to my delight, tonight’s show was different.
There were abstract landscapes on enormous canvases. The first one was a river of color beneath a sky of grays and pinks, layers upon layers of paint that locked my eyes on the piece. There was something about it that just held me there. It was taller than I was and I just wanted to stare at it forever. This wasn’t just good compared to the junk Chuck had shown before, it was good in general. In fact, it was great.
I stood there for so long that when I heard Chuck come out of his office, I realized it was time to open the gallery.
“Quit gawking!” he shouted and snapped his fingers and pointed to the door. “Open ‘er up!”
I managed to tear my eyes away from the beautiful painting and made my way to the door. There was already a decent, high society-looking crowd milling around outside, as well as a handful of obvious art students doing their best to look good and fit in. I let them in and quickly made myself scarce, letting Chuck do all the intros and schmoozing that he was good at.
I wonder who the artist is, I thought as I found a corner to hide in while I looked at the rest of the paintings. Whoever it was clearly had an incredible vision of the world – a much more optimistic vision than mine. There was life and hope in the work, and I felt inspired simply by looking at it.
I waited patiently while the show began, hoping to catch a glimpse of the artist, but an hour later they were nowhere to be seen.
“Can you find somewhere else to stand?” Chuck asked as he came over to me. “You look like a statue over here and you’re weirding people out. Go in the back or something. And don’t say a word to the artist when he arrives either!”
“Gee, thanks, Chuck,” I grumbled. But I turned and made my way into the back room and plunked down on the couch. The show would certainly go on until midnight or later, as long as there were patrons, and if Chuck didn’t want me out front, it was going to be a long night.
I played Ruzzle on my phone for a bit, got up and rearranged the water bottles sitting on the floor, browsed Instagram and then felt my eyelids starting to get heavy. Seeing as how there was no need for me out front, I put my feet up on the couch and dozed off.
My nap dreams were always the most vibrant, and I found myself dreaming of magical landscapes and beautiful rivers and lakes filled with color. I don’t know exactly how long I was sleeping, but I woke with a start as Chuck slapped his palm on the doorframe.
“Hey!” he snapped. “Sleeping Beauty? More waters out front. Chop, chop!”
Sighing, I wiped sleep from my eyes and got up from the couch. I grabbed a stack of waters and made my way out to the front of house, but stopped dead in my tracks when a scent slid into my nostrils with such power that I couldn’t believe it.
It was like a fresh chocolate layer cake right out of the oven, and my knees went weak as I stared out at the crowded gallery, my eyes tracing the invisible smell to its owner – the artist at the center of a large crowd heaping praises upon him.
He was well-dressed, with long shaggy brown hair you might expect of an artist, but was built like a bodybuilder or a fighter. I could see his muscles beneath his loose-fitting white t-shirt. He wore a pair of thin black pants that showed off a beautifully sculpted butt.
Despite everything I thought about love and alphas, I couldn’t help but accept the fact that the glorious scent I’d just inhaled was the scent of my fated-mate.
Chapter Two
Fletcher
Time to shine, I thought as I wheeled my Jeep into the gallery parking lot. It was a miracle I’d gotten a showing so quickly after moving to Colorado from Queens. Mom dying was the last straw. New York no longer had anything to offer me, so I packed my shit and headed out for the frontier, found myself a fixe
r-upper in a tiny town called Sleepy Hills and decided to live off the land. I’d put a few feelers out to some galleries in Denver to do a show for my work, not expecting to hear back, but a guy named Chuck Nolte responded almost immediately and said he’d love to host me. So I shipped him eight of my paintings.
“And here we go,” I said as I hopped out and headed for the front door. I wasn’t sure if I should go in the back and meet up with Chuck first or not, but I wasn’t one for introductions and pomp, so I just headed inside.
It was a strange profession for an ex-Marine – painting. But after two deployments to Iraq, I lost my taste for violence and realized that my life was lacking in meaning. I picked it up, after attempting guitar and not loving it, and found myself lost in it. There was just so much freedom and so much room for expression.
Working with big canvases inspired me and I figured I’d take the plunge and show my work. People loved it and I realized that painting was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It had started as just a hobby, but tonight I was going to be the main event and I would have been lying if I didn’t have a huge smile plastered across my face as I stepped into Chuck Nolte’s gallery in downtown Denver.
“There’s the man!” Chuck announced, his arms out for a big hug. I kept smiling and hugged him back as the people around me cheered quietly and clapped. “Ladies and gentlemen, this here is the man of the house, Fletcher Strong!”
“Thanks for coming, everyone,” I grinned. “I hope you enjoy the work. As you know, they’re for sale, so if you feel like buying one…or two or three…don’t stop yourself! Chuck here could use the commission. I hear he needs a new bathroom in his house.”
Chuck roared with laughter and clapped me on the back. He was one of those guys who came off as a really great guy, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he was actually a bit of a dick. After being in the Marines and meeting all kinds of people across the world, it usually turned out that the people who seemed the nicest were always secretly the biggest pricks.