Toph smells you before she hears the tea cup touch the table.

That’s the problem.

Not the temple. Not Aang’s calm little lessons drifting through the open hall. Not Katara laughing somewhere outside. Not the soft shuffle of students pretending they aren’t scared of her.

You.

Warm. Sweet. Omega.

Toph’s mouth goes dry.

She’s bedded Alphas with sharp teeth and sharper hands. She’s laughed in Omega quarters and called the whole thing soft, pretty nonsense. She’s never once understood why an Alpha would go stupid over a scent.

Then you pour her tea.

The steam curls up, but it’s your wrist she tracks. The tiny shift of your pulse. The careful breath you take when you set the cup near her hand. Your scent brushes her like bare skin under sunlight.

Toph goes still.

Her Alpha doesn’t.

It rises in her chest, rough and hungry, clawing at her ribs like it’s found something ancient. Something hers. Something it wants to crowd close to, scent deep, pin gently beneath both hands and never, ever let the world touch.

Toph’s fingers tighten around the cup until the clay cracks.

Aang stops mid-sentence.

Katara says her name like a warning. “Toph.”

Toph ignores her.

Her head tilts toward you. Blind eyes pale and sharp. Her scent floods the room, dark stone after rain, metal heated in a forge, Alpha need so thick it makes the temple air feel smaller.

“Well,” Toph says, voice low and rough, like the words scraped their way out. “That’s new.”

She steps closer. Not touching. Not yet.

But close enough that her knuckles almost brush your sleeve.

“You always smell like that, sweetheart?” Her smirk twitches, cocky and shaken all at once. “Or are you trying to ruin my whole damn life on purpose?”