Chapter 67

“Yeah. You’re pretty,” Dante reaffirmed with a grin. “I usually only ever give that compliment to women, but you’re a special exception.”

Although Rhys had been subjected to people calling him pretty countless times throughout his life, he blushed furiously as if hearing the word for the very first time. It made him feel unbelievably, intoxicatingly good. After all, it meant Dante viewed him favorably.

Back then, a naive Rhys believed every single word that spilled from Dante’s lips was deeply sincere. He had no way of knowing that Dante was simply a man who was endlessly, universally indulgent toward anyone even remotely attractive—especially women.

He had been an absolute idiot.

“Then… if you ever come back to New York… please contact me,” Rhys rushed out, desperate to anchor the connection. “I want to properly repay you.”

“Haha, really? All right,” Dante chuckled. “You said you live in New York, right? Manhattan? Somehow, you look like a guy who belongs in Manhattan.”

“Yes, that’s right!” Rhys confirmed eagerly, his confidence surging. “What about you, Dante?”

As they spoke, Rhys called him by his name for the very first time. The simple act filled him with such an intense burst of joy that he smiled shyly, repeating the name like a mantra inside his mind. Dante. Dante. How wonderful it sounded. What did his friends call him for short? Theo? Tay? The name was distinctly Italian, but Rhys knew absolutely nothing about that heritage. He silently resolved to buy a textbook and study Italian the second he got home. It had been a very long time since he had felt the motivation to do anything at all.

“I’m from Brooklyn,” Dante replied easily. “My parents are Italian immigrants, so that’s why my name is a bit unusual….”

Dante didn’t show even a flicker of annoyance at their trivial, boring small talk. But just then, his colleagues, who had been lingering nearby, brushed past him, tapping his shoulder with a firm nudge that signaled it was time to move out.

Already?

Startled, Rhys checked his watch, shocked to find that twenty full minutes had already evaporated. The logical side of his brain argued that this was more than enough time, considering he had only come to say thank you. But the emotional side felt a sharp, physical pang of grief at how brief it was.

They had only just reunited, and now they had to part? He wanted to talk a little longer. Just five more minutes. No, even one more minute would do.

But Rhys’s desperate internal pleas didn’t reach the man. Dante nodded to his crew, then picked up his forgotten coffee cup from the flowerbed. Panic rising in his throat, Rhys clutched the blue handkerchief tightly and parted his lips to speak, but Dante beat him to the farewell.

“Well, I should get going,” Dante said. “Iris, stay healthy. And thank you for coming all the way down here just to say hello.”

He was really leaving. Just like that. Rhys lowered his chin, his entire expression crumbling into absolute misery. Dante, who had been on the verge of turning away with professional indifference, caught the change. He let out a soft, questioning sound, his eyes scanning Rhys’s face.

“Why do you look like that, Iris?”

Rhys wanted to talk to Dante so desperately he felt he might actually lose his mind, and Dante’s complete lack of lingering attachment felt profoundly cruel. Rhys pressed his lips together into a hard, tight line; he knew with absolute certainty that if he opened his mouth right now, he would burst into tears.

Dante stepped closer, bridging the gap between them. His voice softened with genuine concern. “Are you still deeply bothered by what happened out in the sea?”

If he was planning to just walk away without even suggesting they meet again, why did he have to ask a question with such devastating kindness? When the rims of Rhys’s eyes flushed a telltale red, Dante’s hazel eyes widened in sudden alarm.

“Oh. Wait a second,” Dante murmured.

Setting his coffee back down on the flowerbed, Dante reached out and firmly gripped Rhys’s shoulders. Rhys looked back mournfully, locking eyes with the hazel gaze fixed intently on him.

“Iris, you’re an amazing person,” Dante said earnestly. “I think a man who is willing to sacrifice himself for the people he loves is truly impressive. Not just anyone can go that far for his cousins.”

The more Dante spoke, the less Rhys wanted to let him go. But he had absolutely no legitimate excuse to hold him there. As Rhys parted his lips in sheer frustration, Dante offered a small, comforting smile.

“Don’t cry, okay? Use the handkerchief I gave you to wipe your tears.”

“… Yes,” Rhys whispered, completely powerless against the command.

The moment Dante told him to do it, Rhys obeyed blindly. Watching the boy obediently lift the soft blue cotton to dab at his eyes, Dante let out a warm, affectionate grin.

“You keep that.”

The suffocating grief that had been driving Rhys mad eased slightly at those three words. His eyes snapped open in disbelief.

Dante gave a light, easy shrug. “You said we’d meet up in New York. When we see each other there, you can give it back to me then. Until that day, Iris, you keep it for me. All right?”

The smooth, coaxing way Dante handled him—as if he were a fragile, much younger child—felt inherently unfair, and yet Rhys secretly loved it. He gathered every ounce of his remaining courage, opening his mouth to finally ask for Dante’s phone number, but Dante didn’t afford him the window. After reaching up to pat Rhys’s hair a single time, the man turned on his heel and walked away without a shred of hesitation.

That was the end of it.

He simply left. After forcing Rhys to carry a turbulent weight of emotions he had never experienced before in his entire life, Dante Bellini just vanished.

Rhys stood frozen, staring endlessly at Dante’s broad, dependable back as he caught up to the colleagues waiting for him at the edge of the lot. The exact millisecond Dante disappeared from view, Zev and Björn approached. They had clearly been spectating the entire exchange from a distance, because Zev immediately opened with a stark, heavy question.

“Rhys,” Zev asked, his voice low, “did you put your pheromones on that man?”

Rhys blinked, entirely thrown off. “… What are you talking about? I did?”

Zev stared back at him, his expression deeply troubled. After exchanging a tense, knowing glance with Björn, he stepped closer to explain the gravity of what it meant to coat a normal person in pheromones.

“You can’t just do something like that carelessly, Rhys,” Zev lectured gently. “Unless you’ve mutually agreed to it or you’re actively dating, it’s considered incredibly rude. Think of it as leaving a permanent mark on someone without their permission—claiming to everyone else that they belong to you.”

“Thankfully,” Björn chimed in, crossing his arms, “those rescue workers all seem to be Betas. None of them noticed a thing. But Rhys, you seriously have to be careful if you run into Omegas.”

It wasn’t as though Rhys didn’t know the societal rules. But until his cousins explicitly pointed it out, he had been completely, blissfully unaware that he was leaking his own pheromones onto Dante. Controlling his scent was a foundational instinct he had mastered since early childhood, which made the realization that he had failed to restrain such a basic, primitive action an absolute shock.

With a heavy, complicated heart, Rhys turned his head to look back toward the flowerbed, where Dante’s forgotten coffee cup still sat in the sun. His gaze lingered for a long, agonizing time on the plastic rim of the cup—the exact spot where Dante had put his mouth.

It wasn’t long after that day that Rhys finally understood the terrifying truth of why he had done such a thing.

***

There are three distinct symptoms that manifest in imprinted Alphas and Omegas.

▶ First. Medication does not work when a cycle arrives. Desire and heat caused by rut or heat cannot be resolved by anyone except the imprinted partner, and resistance occurs if one has relations with another person.

▶ Second. The subject no longer feels attraction toward other Alphas or Omegas. An imprinted Alpha feels sexual desire only for the Omega they have sworn to take responsibility for. An Omega who has accepted an imprint experiences the same phenomenon.

▶ Third. When the imprinted partner does not accept them, they experience a strong backlash. The most common symptoms are headache, nausea, and fever. If such a relationship continues long-term, one must keep in mind the possibility of psychopathological problems caused by repeated rejection.

The actions an Alpha or Omega perceives as rejection are as follows: absence of emotional exchange through pheromones, verbal rejection from the partner, behavior that appears to show attraction toward someone other than oneself, and other conflicts that may occur in human relationships.

The most important factor is exchange through pheromones. The Omega accepts the Alpha’s pheromones to communicate their feelings, and the Alpha coats the Omega with their own pheromones to protect the Omega and allow them to feel secure.

Couples who repeatedly experience the phenomenon described in the third item are advised to break the imprint. To do so, a physical separation of at least one year is required, after which continuous exposure to the pheromones of other Omegas or Alphas will allow the subject to forget the partner. During the separation period, severe side effects may occur depending on the length of time the imprint was maintained. Therefore, forming or breaking an imprint must be carried out only after careful consideration. A marital bond is generally the most stable relationship structure.

If the relationship is maintained despite problems corresponding to the third item, the Alpha or Omega being rejected may attempt to physically and psychologically restrain the partner in order to compensate for the deficient emotions.

• Warning: An imprint with a Beta will inevitably cause symptoms corresponding to the third item. Because Betas are a trait type without pheromone organs, the act of accepting an Alpha’s or Omega’s pheromones is itself impossible. This is one of the primary behaviors recognized as instinctive rejection by the Alpha or Omega who formed the imprint.

***