Page 6 of Knot As It Seems

He leans forward to inhale the stolen lock, his brow wrinkling in confusion as he looks toward the staircase his mate is down. “That’s not right. Whose scent is this?”

“I’m guessing maybe that woman downstairs was Winslow’s sister? I don’t really know, I’d have to talk to the broken one. She tell you her name?”

“Fable. Though I don’t think you really deserve that information.”

“Fuck off. What’s your name?”

He sighs, zipping the bag back and tossing it onto the table. He props his hands on the backs of his hips, refusing to sit and get comfortable in case the girl snaps her fingers and needs him again. Been there, done that.

“Anderson.”

“Anderson. Okay, Winslow turned you, yeah?”

He nods, jaw clenched.

“And you thought it was a good idea to fuck with an omega vampire as a human?”

“Not actually human, not fully anyway. But yeah, it was dumb.”

“What does that mean, not fully human?” This guy just got slightly more interesting.

“I was an Unfinished. Not that you even know what that is, but I had a few cool tricks. To answer your question, I think you can understand the appeal of Winslow, and how hard she was to resist when she wanted something. She caught my eye, and then I caught hers, and she decided whatever the fuck you and her other men were doing for her wasn’t enough, so we started a thing. It was…fuck, I don’t have words. She was crazy.”

I don’t hide the smile on my face, because that’s exactly what she was. “She was. Kind of the best, but also the worst.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” he hedges, “how did she die? I know I wasn’t a part of her real life, that she was just playing a game spending time with me, but it’s been eating at me that I don’t know.”

I finally drop my feet, leaning my elbows on the table so I can bury my face in my hands. “Autopsy said she was poisoned, but they’re still trying to figure out by what, exactly. Everything they’ve tested her for has come back negative. It…wasn’t pretty. We came home, found her collapsed in our entryway. Blue like she ran out of oxygen and suffocated.”

He sucks in a breath, clutching at his chest. “She wasn’t mine, and I’m sure you want to kick my ass for touching her, but it hit me pretty hard when I heard. Even though I knew we didn’t have a future together, there was a piece of her that was mine for a brief moment in time.”

Enough of the sappy shit. We need to get back to what’s actually important here. “Me and the guys will have to take a vote to see if everyone wants you in our pack, and if you’re approved, there’ll be a trial period. Most importantthing to know is that you are not in charge. Not of this house, and not even of that ‘omega’. Winslow wasouromega, and she left us everything in her will, so technically you’re trespassing right now. I could throw you out, but I’ll make a deal with you. Help us figure out why that fake omega smells like our late omega and we’ll let you visit her during approved hours.”

“Fuck you,” a quiet voice spits from everywhere and nowhere. “I don’t need any alphas dictating my life. I don’t need anyone dictating my life. If you really believe Winslow was an omega, you’re stupider than you look, which is saying something, because you look pretty fucking stupid. Now kindly get out of my house.”

Ooh, a doll with bite. “Nice try, sleeping beauty. I don’t know which vent you’re hiding in, but you’re not scaring me off. In fact, the rest of your guardians will likely be here soon, so you might as well come out now. Most of them are not nearly as patient as I am.”

Six

No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. I don’t mind the nice one, but the asshole and his friends cannot be here in my space again. If I hide though, I’ll make him look like a jackass for calling everyone over for nothing. That would be fun because they won’t be able to find me, and better for me because then I won’t have to interact with them.

With that in mind, I leave the alphas alone to talk about their feelings while I go to my room. I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off earlier, and I’m still moving much slower than normal and having to stop to catch my breath more often, but that blood the new alpha gave me, the nice one, and the actual food I got to eat was enough fuel to get me through at least the night.

Just in case it’s not, I have the bag with the other protein bars and the extra water bottle that asshole alpha brought with him, and they won’t be able to take it away from me.

It’s hard not to overthink things when it’s quiet. When my sister remodeled the house, she got pretty creative so she could hide me. It simply wouldn’t do for anyone tocome over and discover she wasn’t what she was claiming to be, so she found a way to hide me indefinitely.

What I call my hallways are actually just the backsides of walls, double sets of studs just far enough apart that I can squeeze through sideways. I’m pretty sure Winslow blew through all of our inheritance to have them installed in practically every room, but she needed access to me regardless of her location in case she needed a scent boost.

Now, as I make it to my pallet bed made of old blankets and the one used-to-be-soft pillow I’ve been allowed, I curl up under them and rest. That little outburst cost me too much energy.

When our parents passed, I was still young enough to trust my sister implicitly. She was the only adult in my life at the time, and my parents never paid me too much attention, so losing them wasn’t some great tragedy. I was confused when they stopped coming home, but when Winslow told me she’d be taking care of me because they got in an accident, I didn’t have too many big feelings. I was maybe nine, I’m not too sure. Even before that I was kept home a lot. I think my parents always suspected I’d be an omega and didn’t want the outside world to have access to me.

Natural vampires are much rarer than the turned ones, and some will say that makes us better, but I don’t see why that matters. My family had it in their minds we were important though, and omegas are pretty rare, too. Our world is set up for packs, because vampire births are tricky to accomplish when alphas are involved. With multiple alphas around though, an omega is stronger and more likely to have a successful pregnancy. It still takes a big toll on the mother’s body though, and that’s if she caneven get pregnant in the first place.

It makes it easier when you’ve got money to access fertility treatments and good medicine.

I’m sure my parents thought I’d be their ticket to the world they were always just on the cusp on, because a natural omega vampire female is the only type of vampire without any fertility or birthing complications that can reproduce with alphas, so we fetch a pretty high price for packs. It’s archaic that dowries are still a thing in our culture, but there’s not much to be done about it when it serves the pitfalls of society so well.