Familiar Resistance: A Familiar Gravity Spin Off

I had one rule around Leo Santiago.

Never let him smell me.

Not because I was ashamed of being omega. I wasn't. I had simply spent my entire life being told what my scent meant before anyone bothered asking who I was.

Soft.
Sweet.
Mateable.
Future wife material.

So I became Dr. Raina Holloway instead.

Emergency department pharmacist at County General. The woman trauma residents feared almost as much as Damon Norak. The person who could calculate a critical dose under pressure, catch a fatal interaction before it reached a vein, and make an overconfident intern regret ignoring renal function.

I was controlled.
Untouchable.
Fine.

Then my dog nearly died.

Murray Pumpernickel, my 72 pound doodle & most expensive emotional attachment, crashed at three in the morning. Pale gums. Weak pulse. Lateral on my bedroom floor.

By the time I reached PetER, I was one breath away from shattering.

Leo met me at the doors.

Curly hair. Warm brown eyes. Navy scrubs. Ridiculous socks. The kind of alpha who made chaos look charming and competence look accidental.

Then he saw Murray.

And everything funny about him disappeared. He took my dog from my arms like he knew exactly how much of me he was holding and said, "We've got him."

Murray survived.
& so did my feelings.
Because Leo Santiago was my mate.
And he had made one thing painfully clear.
He didn't want one.

No mate. No bond. No omega looking at him like he was destiny with a pulse. In his words, biology filing paperwork did not count as romance.
So I kept my blockers on.
I let him think I was just Murray's owner. Just the sharp pharmacist from across the street. Just another familiar face in PetER's midnight chaos.

It worked.
Until Murray crashed again.
Until my control slipped.
Until Leo finally caught the scent I had spent years burying.

Now the one alpha who never wanted a mate knows he has one.
And I'm not sure which is worse
being rejected or being chosen because his body told him to.

Contains spoilers