Page 43 of Knot As It Seems

My lips twitch, but it’s definitely not a smile. “Whatever. As I was saying, I’ve been in touch with some…old friends. But they’re not actuallymyold friends, they’reyourold friends.”

“Don’t know why you bribed someone to pretend like they know me, but I’m not dumb. You know I don’t know anybody aside from your pack. Unless you trapped some of the mice that lived in the walls back at my old place. If so, I hope you get rabies.”

Ignoring her idiotic ill wishes, I forge ahead. “Which iswhat I thought, too, until Clement’s fashion show the other week. Those alphas you literally ran into, that wasn’t a coincidence, was it? You knew they’d be there. That was the only way to see them. I watched the security footage because I got my ass chewed out for that happening. Good thing, too, because otherwise, I wouldn’t have known where to dig.”

She finally stops, alarm taking over her features. I tell my alpha to chill out though, because her well-being is none of our concern right now. We don’t protect liars.

“The alphas that tried toassaultme?Thosealphas? The ones I kneed in the balls when they started touching me? The ones that smelled like rotting oil and ashtrays? Moon. I know you’re a dumbass, but really? This is what you think I’ve been up to? Mooning after useless alphas, pun intended, when I have a whole pack of scent-matched, capable ones at my disposal? Were you dropped a lot on your head as a child? Or maybe as an adult?”

I feel my aggression rising, which is perfect because we’re almost there. Time for the coup de grace.

I pull out the paperwork and hand it to her, snagging her sticky treat and tossing it in the closest trash bin before she can stop me. After dousing my hands in sanitizer I always keep on me, I look up to figure out why she hasn’t cussed me out for throwing away her sugar.

An unnatural silence surrounds us, a bubble, and those instincts are hard to ignore.

It’s unsettling enough that I have to ask her, “What?”

Mouth open in horror, she flips through the pages and lets out a scream before throwing them on the ground and stomping on them. “This?This? You think…oh myfuckinggods. Give me your damn phone before we’re both fucking kidnapped.”

“No. Explain. What the hell is going on? I read those papers, same as you. It has your signature on it. It’s a mating contract, Fable. Made way before we ever ‘rescued’ you.

“The whole thing was staged. You were sitting in that rotting house, waiting for us to show up so you could clean us out and bring all our assets to your chosen pack. Sorry to interrupt your plans, but you won’t get a fucking dime out of my pack from this moment on.”

Eyes darting around, she takes off, sprinting the way we came; towards people and shops.

“Where the hell are you going? You can’t fucking outrun your mistakes, Fable! I’m sorry if you grew to actually like my pack, but they’re never going to— hey! Get off of her!”

A huge alpha jumps from behind nowhere and grabs Fable, tackling her to the ground. He punches her in the face as she struggles against him, then grabs her hands, trying to get her to submit. I’m confused because this is not at all what we all agreed on when I contacted Pack Asher.

“What the fuck? You don’t go around hitting women, asshole.” I go for a kick to the guy’s ribs, but he grabs my foot and yanks my ass to the ground. It does give Fable time to run, but her shirt is torn now, and she’s kicked off one of her shoes in her attempt to get away.

Fuck.

In the span of a heartbeat, I go from needing to get rid of the problematic omega that’s clearly been lying to myentire pack and taking advantage of their niceness, to I’m a piece of shit that just gravely misread a situation and tried to turn over someone that…might actually be innocent?

I’m going to lose my fucking pack.

“We had a deal, man. Why the hell are you punching my pack member?”

I sneer at the new alpha that’s just emerged, the one I must have spoken to on the phone. The one thatmy omegahad an interaction with at Clement’s event. The one I thought Fable had secretly been making plans with. I didn’t even plan on punching the guy that grabbed Fable, it seems my body reacted without permission from the rest of me. I drop his collar so he’s back on the ground, leaving him moaning in misery at his messed-up face, courtesy of my fist.

Then I look back to the guy trying to confront me. He looked charming on the security recordings from the event, all polished and put together, classically handsome. Now though? His eyes are too cold to be trusted and he’s standing too aloof, too withdrawn. Even I can tell that there’s something off about him in person. He reeks of wrong decisions, and not in a sexy way.

I straighten my shoulders and face him head on. “We had a deal when I thought that the paperwork you sent me was genuine. You never bothered telling me that my omega’s signature on all those pages were forged. She doesn’t know you guys at all, does she? This whole thing, this agreement to ruin my pack for the hell of it, was just an added fuck you from Winslow when she realized she was about to kick the bucket, isn’t it? This is just one moreepic fuckup of a situation that she crafted, hoping to hurt Fable one last time on the off chance she found her way to us.” I start spinning out, all the math mathing. Fuck.Shit.“It’s all true, isn’t it? Winslow really fucked her up. Sorry, not sorry. You’re not getting your hands on her. She’s fucking mine.”

My bad for thinking I could have a reasonable conversation with a crazed alpha. He takes another step forward, and this close it’s easy to see that he’s not quite all there, some sort of substance wending its way through his system, overriding what might be more normal behavior for him. He’s pissed, and I know this is going to hurt. If I keep him here long enough though, maybe that will give Fable the time she needs to get somewhere safe.

Fuck. She’s in an unknown city, alone. No phone, no money, no way of getting ahold of any of us. And I can’t even get my pack involved in the situation yet because I have an asshole in front of me to deal with.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. Winslow fed us the ripe omega’s scent for a long time. That bitch is fucking ours, so fuck your supposed claim. I’ll cut those bite marks off her skin if I have to. Besides, I’ve got the paperwork to prove she’s mated to us. You have paperwork? Yeah, didn’t think so.

“Bet you assholes took her in, wanting to be noble and go at her pace, and didn’t even bother with the legal side of forming a pack. Ours though? Going to look pretty good to the law. You might know it’s fake, but nobody else will. From the looks of it, I’ve got a legally binding contract. You can kick rocks, and then I’m going to hunt down my little omega and fuck you right out of her. Maybe I’ll record it for you and send it over as a thank you for getting us in touch with her.”

I don’t even see the fist coming. Probably because it was from a third alpha that crept up behind me, with fucking steel plated bones or something, because I go out like a fucking light, only to wake up hours later, confused and with a raging headache that apparently means I have a concussion.

The EMTs don’t care about my protests about my omega, they think I’m delirious. Some bystanders were kind enough to call emergency services, but after a quick assessment they’re not taking anything I’m saying as truth. I would have refused treatment, but Monet shows up just in time to make sure I get on that ambulance for a full evaluation at the hospital. The devastation on his face about lack of our omega’s whereabouts is enough to convince me not to argue with him.

I fucking lost her.