Veiled Scent

Chapter 1: The Void

The screech of the ancient alarm clock was a physical assault, dragging Lyra from a shallow, unrestful sleep. For a fraction of a second, cocooned in the worn linen of her cheap sheets, she was just a woman waking to another grey Crescent City morning. Then memory, sharp and unwelcome as a shard of glass, pierced the brief illusion. She was Lyra Chen, fugitive. Omega. A ghost in her own life.

A groan escaped her lips, swallowed by the threadbare blanket she pulled tighter around her shoulders. The pre-dawn chill of the small apartment seeped into her bones, a familiar ache that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the chemical warfare she waged daily against her own biology. Seven years. Seven years of this self-imposed winter, freezing out the core of her being.

The digital display on the clock glowed 4:30 AM. Too early for any sane beta, but sanity was a luxury Lyra couldn’t afford. Her beta facade was a meticulous construct, and its most crucial component, the foul concoction that choked her omega scent and silenced her inconvenient cycle, required time and privacy to prepare and ingest.

Swinging her legs over the side of the narrow bed, her feet met the cold, splintered wood of the floor. Each movement was stiff, her joints protesting with small, sharp complaints. The suppressants, she knew. They leached vitality, not just scent. She ignored it, as she ignored the persistent dull throb in her lower back, the occasional flutter in her chest. Symptoms were data points, warnings to be noted and then ruthlessly filed away. Panic was a vulnerability.

The tiny bathroom was an exercise in cramped efficiency. A cracked sink, a stained toilet, a shower stall where the water pressure was a temperamental gamble. Lyra avoided her reflection in the clouded mirror, not yet ready to face the visible evidence of her erosion. First, the ritual.

Her “lab” was a corner of the equally tiny kitchen, a space demarcated by a stained cutting board and an array of carefully hoarded, mismatched glassware. Beakers scrubbed clean until they gleamed under the single flickering overhead bulb, a chipped mortar and pestle, a small, precise scale she’d “liberated” from a closing university lab years ago. It was a pathetic parody of the gleaming laboratories she’d once dreamed of working in, back when her future had seemed a bright, academic path rather than a desperate scramble for survival.

From a locked metal box – the only truly secure item in her sparsely furnished apartment – she withdrew her raw materials. Dried herbs, some recognizable from her work at the apothecary – valerian root, burdock, a particularly acrid species of mugwort – others far more obscure, sourced through hushed transactions in shadowed alleyways or foraged from remote patches of urban wilderness. Alongside them were small, unlabeled vials of viscous liquids and crystalline powders, the true workhorses of her formula, chemicals that would strip paint as easily as they stripped an omega’s nature. Their acquisition was a constant, dangerous dance of misdirection and petty theft.

About the Book

VEILED SCENT In a world where an omega’s scent can be both salvation and death sentence, Lyra Chen has mastered the art of disappearing. For seven years, she’s lived as a beta, using dangerous black-market suppressants to hide her true nature. Her carefully constructed facade has kept her alive-until now.

When her suppressants catastrophically fail, Lyra’s omega scent erupts with devastating force, drawing the attention of the city’s most elite alpha pack: The Sentinels.

Led by the formidable Ajax Blackwood, these powerful alphas-Dominic the healer, Kai the strategist, and Vex the tracker-have been hunting an anomaly in their territory. Not a scent, but the absence of one. A void where something should be.

Now, as Lyra’s heat rages out of control, the Sentinels face an impossible situation. The omega they’ve been tracking isn’t just any omega-she’s their True Mate, a woman whose raw, untamed power could either complete their pack or destroy it. But Lyra’s terror of alphas runs bone-deep, rooted in a traumatic past that still haunts her.

As Lyra’s catastrophic heat threatens her life, the Sentinels must protect her not only from herself but from the mysterious threat that drove her into hiding. Each alpha forms a unique bond with her-Dominic’s gentle healing, Kai’s intellectual connection, Vex’s primal understanding, and Ajax’s profound leadership-creating a pack bond more powerful than any of them imagined possible.

But when Lyra’s past catches up with her in the form of Silas Blackthorn, a cruel alpha obsessed with claiming her as his own, the newly formed pack must fight not just for their mate, but for the future of shifter society itself.

VEILED SCENT is a scorching hot reverse harem paranormal romance featuring:

✓ A fierce omega hiding her true nature ✓ Four alphas determined to protect what’s theirs ✓ Explicit heat scenes that will fog your e-reader ✓ Enemies-to-lovers slow burn ✓ Forced proximity that ignites primal instincts ✓ A “touch her and die” protective pack ✓ Healing through unconditional acceptance ✓ Happily ever after guaranteed

Perfect for fans of Ruby Dixon, Lillian Sable, and L.V. Lane, this first installment in the Essence & Instinct series delivers an unforgettable tale of trauma, healing, and the transformative power of finding those who see you-truly see you-and choose you anyway.

One omega. Four alphas. A bond that transcends instinct.

Dive into the intoxicating world of VEILED SCENT today.

Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content, including knotting and claiming bites, references to past trauma, and violence. Recommended for readers 18+.

Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Reverse Harem

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