The frigid winds of Seoul pierced through the meager denim jacket of Han Seo-jun Seo-jun gripped the small plastic bag tighter, willing himself to listen.
Severely fatigued.
Malfunctioning nerves.
Unexplainable feelings.
Yes, that was it.
That had to be it.
It wasn’t that he had changed into some mythical creature that made woman swoon and men kneel, it was simply exhaustion.
He had not been sleeping well for the past few months, he barely ate, and he had burned out his eyes designing floor plans to pay off his loans.
It was a simple task, he reasoned.
As he entered the narrow and cold hallway of his apartment, Seo-jun popped two smooth, white pills in his mouth, swallowing them whole as he sat on the old, squeaky chair at his drafting desk.
The blue prints for a commercial building had to be in by midnight, because if they failed to meet the deadline then Seo-jun would not make his payments.
Seo-ah’s tuition was due in three days.
He picked up his mechanical pencil, forcing his hazy eyes to focus on the fine blue grids of the paperBut the medication had other ideas.It did not calm his frayed nerves like it promised.
Instead it wrenched them until they bled.
Seo-jun was suddenly overcome with an agonizing pain that started right at his sternum and writhed its way up his throat, making his breath come in ragged gasps.
The pencil snapped between his fingers, the lead screeching uselessly against the paper.
The world turned to white as Seo-jun’s vision turned to black, waves of hot, sticky sweat rolling down his back and clinging to the fabric of his shirt like cold, wet ice.
The pills had not muted his senses, they had severed themThe sound of the miniature-fridge in the kitchen growled unpleasantly in his ears, the soft drip of the kitchen sink suddenly sounded like iron chains hitting pavement.
And then the odors.
They assaulted him, thick and cloying like a heavy fog.
The rich, pungent scent of the winter-blooming camellias in his garden suddenly erupted from his very pores, rolling heavily through his small apartment and clogging his lungs and searing the back of his throat.
It was overpoweringly sweet and intoxicating, thick as syrup and heavier than the air.
“No….no…..!” Seo-jun choked violently, shoving himself off the chair and collapsing on the linoleum floor.
“No..
no..
please ..” He clawed at his neck, ripping open the top of his dress shirt as he frantically tried to find some source of clean air, but there was none to be found inside his home.
It was all scents and sounds and the angry sting of tears in his eyes, the metallic taste of blood rolling down his throat from his clenched jaw.On the street below, a black, featureless van hovered over the parking lot of the building, parked beneath a flickering street lamp.
Inside the cabin two men watched the rising red line on the monitor in front of them, their faces lit with the sickly blue of the display.
“The target’s body heat spiked three degrees in the last thirty seconds,” the driver spoke into the radio receiver clipped to his ear.
“The catalyst the doctor gave him isn’t masking his suppressed pheromones, it’s peeling back layers of old ones.” “Standby,” drawled the voice of Cha Hyun-min from the other end of the line.
“Do not enter the building until his temperature stabilizes and he loses consciousness.
A Royal Prime Omega is too unpredictable in first heat to be taken alive unless he’s subdued.” Cha’s voice was smooth and cold, like the steel switchblade in his belt.
“The untempered pheromones will be enough to unravel every Alpha for a mile around, so wait until he’s coherent and his scent is no longer airborne.” “Understood, CEO Cha.
Neural sedative is being prepped, we’ll move in four minutes.” Back inside the apartment, Seo-jun was writhing on the floor, a whimpering, broken mess.The white-hot heat from within his chest had twisted and coiled down to his belly, turning his limbs to gelatin.
Seo-jun moaned suddenly, the sound coming out like a whimper.
His body wriggled pathetically on the floor, trying to get up as the front door’s dead bolt clicked open.
Thud..!
A slow and deliberate footstep came from outside, echoing on the concrete staircase Seo-jun went still, his hand shaking as he neared the door, feeling his heart hammer against his ribs.
Through the thick, cloying scent of camellias, another, much sharper and more powerful odor breached through the doorframe.
The smell of cold rain, pine needles, ozone and dark cedar rolled through the room, soaking into the fabric of every item in the apartment.
It was such a sharp, overwhelming and utterly intoxicating scent that Seo-jun found himself going still, his body reacting before his mind could process the event.
The scent that had come from the crosswalk.The doorknob rattled and the wooden door creaked openA tall and broad shouldered man stood in the doorway, his overcoat hanging loosely from his frame, dark eyes burning with some strange emotion behind the shadow of his hood.
Kang Tae-hyuk looked down at the ashen, shaking man curled on the floor and his jaw set in a hard line.As soon as he crossed the threshold into the apartment, the two powerful, yet differing scent rolled into one.
Tae-hyuk’s own personal, freezing aura of Prime Alpha cedar crashed into Seo-jun’s hot and overpowering camellias, sending a jolt of electricity through the room.
His lips parted in a silent oath, muscles tensing as he took a slow and measured step forward.
Tae-hyuk reached back with his free hand, the motion fluid as he shut and locked the door behind him, sealing the two men in the stuffy apartment.
“Han Seo-jun,” he rumbled, his voice smooth as silk and as deadly as a coiled viper.
“What in the nine hells did you just ingest?”