Chapter 7

Not long afterward, Jiang Suiye took me to a rather obscure doctor.

He said we were going to have my health checked.

The clinic was tucked away on the second floor of an old apartment building. A faded wooden sign hung by the door:

Specialized Pheromone Clinic.

The light in the stairwell flickered. Large patches of plaster had peeled off the walls.

The doctor looked young, only a few years older than us. He wore round glasses and grinned when he saw Jiang Suiye.

“Well, well. Your little friend here is a latent Omega. Your pheromones stimulated his secondary differentiation.”

“Congratulations, Jiang Suiye. You really did find someone you can mark.”

I asked Jiang Suiye under my breath, “Is this guy any good?”

He ruffled my hair. “Probably.”

“What do you mean, probably? A little respect for the doctor, please?”

I ducked behind Jiang Suiye, who blocked the doctor’s view of me.

The doctor rolled his eyes, then took out something that looked like a thermometer and scanned the mark on the back of my neck. The screen filled with dense rows of data.

He studied it, his expression turning a little odd. He pushed up his glasses and leaned closer for another look.

“All right. He’s effectively an Omega whose pheromones have no scent. Lucky for both of you. Even though his pheromones are scentless, you’re one hundred percent compatible.”

“In other words, you’re fated mates.”

After we left the clinic, those words kept circling in my head.

Fated mates.

No wonder my heart raced whenever I saw Jiang Suiye.

He told me the truth.

It turned out he was an extremely rare Alpha. There were only a handful like him in the world.

He gave off a scent to attract the person he liked.

Only others like him, or Omegas, could smell it.

No wonder our roommates behaved as though they couldn’t smell anything on him.

And on a particular day each month, his scent became incredibly intense. That was his rut, when he couldn’t control himself.

“So that night, you…” My ears burned.

He nodded, looking embarrassed for once.

“I meant to stay away. I was afraid I’d hurt you. But you came looking for me.”

He held my hand as we walked along the street. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the plane-tree leaves and fell across his shoulders.

He stopped and turned to face me, more serious than I’d ever seen him.

“In that case…” His expression grew solemn. He held my hand and brushed his thumb gently over the back of it. “Will you let me be your one and only Alpha?”

People passed us on the street. Sunlight poured down from above, tracing him in gold.

I looked at his lips, pressed together slightly with nerves, and remembered every breakfast he’d brought me, every piece of clothing he’d washed over the past half year and more.

I remembered our high school graduation ceremony. The whole year had been crying in the auditorium. Through the crowd, I’d spotted him standing at the back, his gaze passing straight through the shifting sea of heads to rest on me.

So none of it had been a casual favor. He’d been planning this all along.

He’d been waiting for me since then.

I thought for a moment.

Why wouldn’t I want that?

If I hadn’t wanted him, I’d have landed a couple of punches on him when he kissed me that night.

After all, I hadn’t earned a black belt in taekwondo for nothing.

So I nodded.

His eyes lit up at once. He pulled me hard into his arms, and that agarwood scent surged around me. The mark on the back of my neck began to heat up again.

I buried my face in his shoulder and took a deep breath.

Still the same scent.

Still addictive.

He rested his chin on top of my head and said with a smile, “Zhou Suyan, from today on, you’re mine.”

I pinched his waist. “We haven’t settled who belongs to whom.”

He laughed even harder.

“All right, all right. I’m yours. Head to toe, inside and out. All yours.”

A woman passed us pushing a stroller. The child pointed at us and called, “Mommy, Mommy! Those big boys are hugging!”

She quickly pushed the child away, but before she left, she glanced back and gave us a kind smile.

My face turned red. I tried to push him away, but he only held me tighter.

“All right, let go. We can hug when we’re back.” I nudged his shin with my foot.

I closed my eyes and breathed in that addictive scent. Suddenly, I felt certain that this was the person I’d spend my life with.

Cologne or not, it didn’t matter anymore.

What mattered was that the scent belonged to Jiang Suiye.

And Jiang Suiye belonged to me.

The End