39Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSHnCHFsSrA
The wind wandered through the old Bennet house, moaning through the gaps in the window frames like a ghost lamenting its imprisonment. Elliot Bennet stared at his laptop screen, where a paragraph on the digital preservation of medieval manuscripts blurred before his eyes, the letters swimming. He blinked and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
His mother's agitated voice burst through the door, cutting through the silence with its piercing hope.
"He bought Netherfield! The whole estate! They say he's an alpha. And unmarried!"
Her words carried their own suffocating trail with them: cheap fruity perfume laced with notes of sour grape. Anxious. Oppressive.
Elliot reached for his mug of cold tea. His fingers slid along the edge of the table and caught on something soft, his grandmother's sweater, coarse heather-colored wool.
And the world collapsed.
Silence fell like a dense, ringing bell. Then came the smell of lavender and old wood. A vision drifted before him: a young woman, his grandmother, watching through the window as a carriage pulled up the drive. Her heart hammering in time with the hooves. *Please let it be him, please let it be him...*
Sharp, cutting hope.
"Elliot!"
The vision vanished.
James stood in the doorway, tall and slender, with soft features and neatly combed dark hair. At twenty-two he looked like he had stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine about the "right" kind of omega life: a flawless shirt, a composed smile. His scent drifted into the room with him, warm and enveloping, white acacia blossoms and warm milk, the smell of safety. But today there was a faint undercurrent of tension running through it.
"Mother is on the verge of hysteria," James said, leaning against the doorframe. "I believe she's already chosen our wedding suits."
Elliot took a sip of tea. Bitter. Cold.
"Let her choose. It has nothing to do with me."
His own scent, bitter chocolate, smoke, and old books, thickened in the corners of the room, something scorched threading through it. James noticed; his own aroma deepened, pressing closer in an attempt to soothe.
"It does, actually. She wants us all to go to the welcome party. Tomorrow."
"No." Elliot set his mug down too sharply, and tea sloshed across the table. "I have a deadline."
"Elliot, please." James sat on the edge of the bed. "One evening. For me."
From the hallway came the voices of Kit and Lloyd, arguing about editing. Their scents seeped under the door, Kit's electricity and the ozone left after a storm, Lloyd's strawberries and spray paint, like two hurricanes sharing a house.
Elliot looked at his brother. Behind James's immaculate facade he could see the same exhaustion, the same weight of expectations that pressed down on all of them. Five omega sons in a family whose fortune was melting faster than spring snow were not a blessing but a problem that needed solving, and urgently.
"All right," Elliot gave in. "One evening. But I won't be flirting."
James smiled his gentle smile, his scent softening with relief.
"Just be yourself."
If only you knew, thought Elliot, and the bitterness in his scent sharpened.
***
Netherfield Park turned out to be a strange hybrid of past and present. Behind its rough stone facade lay exposed-brick lofts, an ultra-modern kitchen, and glowing screens. The air was thick, layered with old wood, expensive coffee, money, and above everything else the dense, commanding alpha auras competing for dominance.
Elliot tensed instinctively. He moved to one side, gripping his glass of water; his scent of bitter chocolate, smoke, and old books felt like a foreign stain among the sweet, yielding fragrances of the other omegas.
His mother floated through the hall, pulling James from guest to guest, her cloying fruity aura mixing with nervous perspiration into something suffocating.
Kit and Lloyd seemed to have dissolved into the crowd, but Elliot spotted them quickly enough. Lloyd had tucked himself behind a column, his phone aimed at the guests for a candid shot. Beside him Kit, headphones on as ever, was scribbling furiously in a notebook, harvesting the sounds of the evening. Michael sat in a corner with his tablet, absorbed in a genealogy search, his scent of dry wormwood and dusty parchment almost imperceptible.
That was when he saw them. Two alphas he could not have mistaken for anyone else.
The first was fair-haired, open-faced, warm-eyed. His scent was freshly cut grass, sea breeze, and cinnamon, something sunny and immediately welcoming. He was telling some animated story to James, and his brother was smiling that genuine smile Elliot had not seen on him in some time. Their scents wove together, acacia and sea breeze, in a surprisingly natural harmony.
Charles Bingley, Elliot thought without any difficulty.
The second he sensed before he saw him.
A wave of cold moved through the hall: aged whiskey with notes of smoke and oak, damp earth after rain, dark honey. Rich, authoritative, untouchable.
Tall, a full head above Bingley. Dark hair, impeccably styled. A suit that looked as though it had been cut on Savile Row. Cold grey eyes moving across the room from a height that had nothing to do with physical stature. His gaze skimmed over Mrs. Bennet (his aura thickening for a moment with barely concealed distaste), over Kit and Lloyd. And then it stopped on Elliot.
Their eyes met, and a wave of whiskey and damp earth crashed over Elliot, pressing down, pulling at every omega instinct to yield. But instead of yielding, his own scent flared in response: bitter chocolate, smoke, and old books, sharp and wrong and defiant.
The alpha's appraisal was quick and cool and utterly indifferent. As though he had weighed and dismissed. A note of cold contempt moved through his aroma, the earth turning frozen, the whiskey burning with bitterness.
Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Elliot felt an irrational sting of something wounded. He hated being examined like a specimen. Determined to look elsewhere, he drifted toward the wall outlets, where an expensive tablet in a leather case sat on a side table.
At that moment Darcy, finishing a quiet exchange nearby, stepped back and reached for the same tablet.
Their hands collided.
The impact hit.
This time not silence but a rush of voices, the screech of tires, the smell of rain and different perfume. A woman's. Expensive. White rose and champagne with bitter almond. An office. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Rain against the glass. Darcy sitting at a desk, staring at his phone screen. On the screen a female omega. Pale hair. Enormous eyes. A smile that never reached them.
Darcy's fingers tightening around the phone, knuckles going white. His mouth opening as though he means to speak, then closing. In the air a devastating wave of guilt, of duty, of old and calcified pain.
I have to, the thought moved through Elliot, foreign and insistent. Not I want to. I have to.
Obligation. Commitment. A cage built of nobility.
Elliot choked. His fingers convulsed around his glass, his own knuckles whitening. He stumbled back, pressing his palm to his chest where his heart was beating so violently it seemed about to break through his ribs. His scent erupted with panic: the bitter chocolate turned to something scorched, the smoke turned acrid, the old books went stale and airless.
Darcy snatched his hand back as though burned. The icy mask cracked, replaced for an instant by surprise, then disgust. His alpha aura contracted into something sharp and repelling. The whiskey became searing, the earth cold as a grave, the honey gone entirely. He took the tablet and held it like a shield.
"You should be more careful." His voice was low and even, without a single note of warmth. "Omegas with unstable temperaments ought to avoid stressful situations. Social gatherings included."
He turned and walked away. A trail of iced whiskey and contempt hung in his wake.
Elliot stood with his fists clenched in his pockets, nails pressing into his palms. Rage, bitter and scalding, flooded through him. His scent turned almost aggressive, woodfire burning something poisonous, bitter chocolate blackening to scorched cocoa, the old books smelling of mold.
Unstable temperament.
If only the alpha knew.
James materialized beside him, his acacia cutting through the stifling atmosphere. There was worry on his face.
"Are you all right? You look pale. Did he... did Mr. Darcy say something?"
"Nothing worth repeating," Elliot said through his teeth, his gaze fixed on Darcy's retreating back. "Just another self-satisfied alpha."
But inside everything was screaming. Darcy had looked at him and seen weakness, a flaw. He could not have imagined that this so-called instability was a power capable of turning his perfectly ordered world upside down.
***
Sunlight filled the Bennet sitting room, catching the dust motes in its glow. Mrs. Bennet's mood was every bit as bright. Waves of triumph radiated from her, her syrupy perfume blending with the sweet scent of victory.
"Can you imagine! A personal invitation!" She swept through the room brandishing her smartphone like a banner. "Charles Bingley has invited our James for a weekend at his estate in the Cotswolds! With him and his sister! Just the two of them!"
James sat on the sofa making every effort to appear calm, but the faint colour in his cheeks and the warm new note threading through his usually composed scent gave him away. Elliot, watching from his armchair with a mug of coffee, felt a strange pull in his chest, something that was equal parts joy for his brother and quiet, gnawing anxiety. His bitter chocolate tangled with smoke, the old books taking on the smell of troubled dust.
"That's wonderful, Jamie," he said, and meant it.
"Yes, but..." James looked down at his hands. "He didn't only invite me as a guest. He found out about my workshops."
A silence settled over the room. Even his mother's fruity aura seemed to hold its breath.
"What workshops?" Mrs. Bennet asked, suddenly wary.
"Bingley wants to create a support programme for young omegas who want to start businesses. He offered me the position of coordinator. To develop the curriculum and run a pilot seminar for his guests over the weekend."
Mrs. Bennet gasped, pressing both hands to her chest. Her scent swung between pride and dismay.
"Business? An omega? James, darling, that's not quite... But if it brings you closer to Mr. Bingley!"
In his brother's eyes Elliot could see a genuine, living flame, the look of someone who had been seen not as "an omega from the Bennet family" but as a professional. James's scent bloomed in response: the acacia brighter, the warm milk richer, and a new note emerging within it, something like the smell of fresh bread just pulled from the oven. The scent of purpose.
"Jamie, this is your chance," Elliot said quietly.
"I know." James smiled with a resolve Elliot rarely saw in him. "I said yes."
***
The following day Elliot traveled to London. The trip was necessary. The visions had been growing so vivid lately that they were interfering with his work, and he was hoping a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Higgins, the head of the archive, might produce some solution or at the very least a brief leave of absence.
The meeting in a tiny office buried in papers somewhere behind Bloomsbury was brief. Mr. Higgins, a spare beta of around sixty with an almost imperceptible scent of faded ink and beeswax, proved surprisingly understanding.
"Overwork, young man," he said, shaking his head. "You need rest. Your work is a form of immersion in the past, but you mustn't let the past devour your present. Take a week."
He turned away to rummage through a stack of papers, and Elliot, left alone by the window, glanced down at the street without thinking. The cafe across the road. And at a table by the floor-to-ceiling window...
His heart skipped a beat.
Darcy.
He was not alone. Sitting across from him was the same female omega from the vision. Pale-haired, slender, strikingly beautiful. She was speaking animatedly, smiling. Darcy was watching her with a soft, almost tender indulgence, an expression Elliot could not have pictured on that stone face. He said something in reply; the girl laughed and rested her hand on his wrist.
Even through the glass Elliot caught the shift in Darcy's scent. The whiskey softening, the earth warming, that note of dark honey returning, a hidden tenderness.
Something sharp and poisonous drove itself between his ribs. His own scent twisted into a tight, painful knot: the bitter chocolate turning into something scalding, the smoke going acrid as melting plastic, the old books smelling of forgotten dust and solitude.
This alpha had dismissed him as unstable. Yet here in London he was someone else entirely. Warm. Attentive. That girl was presumably his betrothed. And all that arrogant coldness in Meryton had been either a mask or, worse, genuine contempt for anyone he considered beneath him.
"Here are your documents, Mr. Bennet."
Elliot startled and stepped back from the window.
"Thank you." His voice came out rough.
He nearly ran from the office, unable to bear the sight any longer. He walked the streets without direction, trying to clear that image from his mind, until he stumbled across an unremarkable restaurant. He simply needed to sit somewhere and collect himself.
He ordered coffee and stared at the table, his scent still wound tight, bitterness and smoke and the dust of old books knotting together into something suffocating. He was so entirely turned inward that he did not notice the door open.
And then a wave of whiskey, damp earth, and dark honey broke over him.
Elliot went still.
When he raised his head, his gaze collided with the gaze of the man who had just walked in.
Fitzwilliam Darcy.
They were separated by no more than a few feet. Darcy was not alone. With him was the same omega. Up close she looked even younger and more fragile, her scent, white rose, aged champagne, and bitter almond, very refined, though beneath the sweetness lay an unmistakable edge of bitterness.
The surprise in Darcy's grey eyes gave way to immediate wariness. His aura surged with a protective charge: the whiskey sharpening, the earth cooling, the honey vanishing completely, as though an invisible wall had risen between them. He stepped forward instinctively, positioning himself slightly in front of his companion, and in that gesture was something absolute and proprietary. But in his gaze, for the space of a single second, something else flickered. Confusion? As though something had caught him off guard.
Then cold irritation.
Elliot stood. His cup clattered and overturned, dark liquid spreading across the tablecloth. His scent erupted into the space, chocolate bitter enough to turn the stomach, acrid smoke, and old-book dust thickening into a suffocating haze. The smell of anger and pain. He did not even glance at the spill.
"Mr. Darcy." His voice trembled with the effort of control. "It appears I've turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time again. I'll be out of your way immediately. I wouldn't want to disturb your... stability."
He dropped several notes on the table without looking at them and walked toward the exit, feeling the burning weight of shame and fury rising in his throat. Behind him a heavy silence settled, saturated with three competing scents: his own bitterness, Darcy's iced whiskey and earth, and the unsettled roses of the omega beside him.
He caught the girl asking quietly, "Fitz, who was that?"
He did not hear the answer. He was already on the street, and the cool London air seared his lungs, breaking apart that suffocating tangle of scents. Only one thought drummed through his head: he had been right. Darcy was a self-satisfied, arrogant hypocrite who was perfectly capable of tenderness, but only toward those he deemed worthy of it.
And the most unbearable part was that witnessing that tenderness had caused Elliot far more pain than all the insults combined.
***
Fitzwilliam Darcy stared at the door that had just closed.
The strange pressure in his chest made no sense.
"Fitz?" Annabelle touched his arm, her white roses trembling with unease. "Who was that?"
"No one," he said.
But the scent of that omega still hung in the air, persistent and out of place. Bitter chocolate, smoke, and old books, all wrong, all grating. Somehow impossible to clear away.
Darcy could not explain why that brief collision at Netherfield had left this strange vibration beneath his skin, like the quiet discharge of electricity. Illogical. Inappropriate.
And why, in the presence of that omega, had his earth suddenly felt... thirsty? As though after a long drought it had sensed rain nearby.
He pushed the thought aside.
"Come," he said to Annabelle. "It's too crowded in here."
They left. But the ghost of bitter chocolate followed him for the rest of the day.
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.