Page 32 of Knot As It Seems

“We bond at your pace, Fable,” Calloway tells her while combing through her hair gently. “If you’re truly ready for that step and trust us enough to take you there, then the only question we have is who do you want to bite you first and where do you want your marks?”

“I know it’s kind of crazy to want them already—”

“No, stop that,” Edric commands. His voice is low and gruff, but soft for her at the same time. “No one knows your instincts better than you do. We’re your scent matches. There’s no one on earth that can take better care of you than we can, and if your omega is saying she needs something we’re free to give, then it’s yours.” He pauses a minute before continuing. “If you think about it, you’ve been familiar with our scents for years now, so the fact that you’re demanding bonds now is actually long overdue.”

Fable worries at her lips for a moment, processing. “One more question. I might regret asking, but I have to know. You guys and my sister…you never…shenever wanted…a bite?”

They don’t react harshly to the mention of Winslow, they likely knew this was coming. They stay rooted, and it’s actually teaching me a lot about how alphas need to stay steady when their omegas need reassurance, and I hate that Calloway’s method is working.

“Our relationship with Winslow was…complicated,” Calloway finally explains. “Obviously, with her stealing your scent, we all got a little crazy when it was strongest on her, and at the beginning, we were definitely tripping over ourselves to try and bond her because we know how incredibly rare omegas are. The fact that she was a natural omega wasn’t super important to us, it was more the fact that we recognized the berry and wisteria scent as being ours that set all of our alpha instincts into overdrive.

“But things were never easy with her, because she wasn’t who she said she was. Intimacy was difficult because it was clearly painful for her to do what omegas should easily be able to do, and when we would refuse to knot her, she’d get violent.”

Edric takes over, never once breaking touch contact with Fable. He’s nuzzling her head, what I think is called scent marking, keeping her fully tucked into his body. “We’d never been with an omega before, and we just wanted to make her happy. Even when she’d disappear for days on end, refuse to let us see her home…when things were blaringly not right, we persisted, because it honestly never even occurred to us that she was lying about her designation. She had an excuse for everything, and we were naïve enough to accept those excuses.

“The pack was split almost fifty/fifty on whether or not bonding her would help the situation, because at times we all felt as if we were constantly on the brink of losing her, and that’s not something that an alpha handles well when we were doing everything we thought we should be doing. We tried courting her properly, buying her nice nesting materials, taking her on elaborate dates and doting on her, giving her every little damn thing she asked for, but she just kept telling us she wasn’t ready for a bond.

“Of course, now we know that she was probably scared of us trying to bond her because it wouldn’t work on a beta,and the second we tried, her whole cover would be blown. She never even let us feed off of her, which, whatever, but for the same reason. She would have tasted wrong with the blood infusions, and we would have insisted on doctors’ visits to make sure she was okay, because that’s what alphas do. We were stuck in limbo. Couldn’t let go, couldn’t move forward.”

Fable’s shaking now, tears running down her face. “I’m sure she had plans to make all of those things an option, she just wanted it on her terms. Towards the end, I tried begging her to stop going down the path she was on. She ruined my life and tried to take all of this from me, but she was still the only person in the world that ever loved me at one point of her life. I feel like a monster for being relieved she ultimately wasn’t successful, but then I remember that her success probably would have meant my death, and no one would have ever known I once existed.”

They hold her, letting all of that sink in.

“Thought you were going to continue to hate us for being the cause of so much pain for you,” Edric admits. “When I held you in that bathroom, at that house, it was like all my priorities changed. You’re the most precious thing I’ve ever been allowed to touch, and I still feel like I have imposter’s syndrome, because surely someone as good as you deserves something better than the likes of me and my pack.”

Fable flips around so her back is to Calloway, her front to Edric. “I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to take what I want. I’ve been deprived of so much for so long; at first, I was determined to hate you guys on principle alone. Why on earth would I even entertain the idea of getting emotionally or physically close to the pack mysister took for her own? That didn’t know they were fucking the wrong one? That didn’t understand their real omega was locked up in a fucking closet, alone, surviving on stale hits of your scent?”

Her voice rises with each new word she adds to the tirade, getting herself worked up more and more. “It would be perfectly within my rights to contact The Omega Center and gain protection through them and find a pack that had none of the history you guys did, that could never hurt me the way you already have without even knowing. So, if anyone’s the imposter here, it’s me.

“What kind of omega settles for a pack that’s so easily deceived? What happens when another woman comes up and thinks they can take you? What lies will she have to tell to get you to fall into her bed and offer up your entire bank accounts?”

“Is that what you want? Our money?” Calloway asks carefully. “Because we’ll hand it over without blinking.”

“No!” Fable screams. “Money doesn’t mean shit to me! Anyone can earn money and give it away. That’s easy. No effort.”

“Then what is it you want?” Calloway asks, bravely reaching out a thumb to wipe yet more tears from her delicate face.

“I want someone to give a shit about me. I want a pack that prioritizes me and works together to make a good pack life. I want a home that’s everything mine never was; warm and soft and full of things there just to make somebody smile. I want your absolute devotion, and I want to be the only one that ever gets to touch any of you again. I want your marks on my neck because once I havethose, nobody can take them away.”

She collapses into Edric’s chest, spent. He shifts closer, brushing her long hair off of her shoulder and offering a soothing touch. I can’t trace their hands under the blankets, but it looks like his are somewhere near Fable’s hips.

I think Calloway’s just kissing her neck, but when Fable screams out and arches her neck, her whole body going taut, I know he’s bitten her, putting a claim on the side of her creamy throat.

My own fangs ache in response, my gums throbbing with the need to taste her. My cock swells, pushing against my jeans, and now I’m learning exactly what Calloway meant when he said he didn’t want me able to touch myself in any way. I’m made to sit here and watch as my fucking omega gets branded by another alpha and then watch as he pulls the blankets away to expose her legs. He makes quick work of stripping her down, darting back to her neck every few seconds to tend to his mark, then strips himself down before lifting a leg and pulling it taut over his hip, opening her up to my view in a crude way, so I’m made to watch him stuff her full.

He whispers something to Edric, who then barks out a laugh and looks straight at me, not breaking eye contact when he starts mapping out Fable’s perfect little palmful breasts with rosy, pink tips, pulling at the nipple and licking at them while gently squeezing, making my alpha wild.

I’m supposed to be the one in there, wrecking her like that. It’smyhands that are supposed to be feeling that skin and giving her goosebumps,mytongue tasting her perfect mouth and snagging on her dainty little fangs.

My knot bumping into her tight little hole as she begs for more, and my body wringing out all the pleasure from her.

Did I really tell her she was supposed to be quiet and sweet? Because the omega I’m watching right now, completely uninhibited, is perfection personified.

I heave in a breath, holding it as long as I can before sucking in a new one, because my system is in complete overdrive. Sensations I’ve never before felt are raging through my body, flooding my system with conflicting information.

I can’t smell her the way I need to right now, can’t taste her the way I’m desperate for, can’t touch her the way my body will die without, and yet, turning her away not so long ago was something that felt far too easy.

It’s the greatest torture I’ve ever known, having to watch the way Fable looks with a giant alpha knot wedged inside her body, the way her face is perfectly blissful while her scrap of a body makes the alpha inside of her, who’s got to be close to twice her size, give everything he has to satisfy her.