REED
The hallway smelled like blood waiting to happen.
Dominant pheromones everywhere, thick and aggressive and layered on top of each other the way they got when a group of Alphas found a common target and stopped thinking individually. I'd grown up around that smell. I knew exactly what it meant and exactly where it led if nothing interrupted it and underneath it, almost buried, almost drowned out completely—
Asher.
Sweet, soft and completely unguarded in a way I had never once smelled from him in all the months I'd known he was hiding something. No suppressants. No walls. Just Asher, raw and exposed and surrounded, his scent pouring through the hallway like an open wound.
