Page 132 of Knot Here for You

Across the dark room, I see Vee shift. She’s wedged between Ford and Jackson, one of her legs thrown over Ford’s hip, Jackson’s nose buried at the nape of her neck, nudging his mating bite. Topher is down the bed, with his head using Vee’s hip as a pillow. Asher is next to Ford, his arm wrapped around both of them.

Love and warmth swell inside me. My pack. Fuck. I honestly never thought I’d see it. Not after we lost Vee all those years ago.

She shifts again, and blinks open her eyes. A little wrinkle forming between her brows as she takes stock of the cuddle puddle around her. “Davis?” She whispers, voice hoarse from all the screaming she’s done over the last few days.

I shift closer, leaning over Jackson to brush my fingers over her blissfully cool forehead. No more fever, no more heat. “I’m here.”

She twists her head to look up at me. “Aren’t you exhausted?”

I shake my head, grinning down at her. “Nah. I feel fucking great. Wanted to stay until you woke up, though.”

Her eyes flutter closed. “Not sure I’m ready to be awake.”

The tips of my fingers stroke over her face as I nod. “That’s fine, beautiful. You keep resting. I’ll go see about making us some food. Okay?”

She hums and nuzzles her cheek into my palm, turning to kiss it before she settles back down, eyes already closed. I wait until her breathing evens out and I know she’s asleep again before crawling to the edge of the nest and standing.

I didn’t want to leave before she woke up, didn’t want her to open her eyes and think I left her, but now she knows I didn’t, and I can get to the business of caring for my omega in the wake of her heat.

I slip out into the hall, carefully shutting the door behind me and then make my way to my room, where I shower, but maybe not as thoroughly as I should. I don’t want to wash Vee’s scent off my skin, not entirely.

I enjoy smelling like her, the same way I enjoy knowing she smells like me. Like all of us.

As I dry off, I stand in front of the mirror, lifting my hand to see the bite mark on my wrist, smaller than the one on my chest, but no less beautiful. It’s unnecessary for omegas to bite for a bond to form. It strengthens it, sure, but we would have bonded if she hadn’t bitten us. I love that Vee felt the urge to, that she wanted to mark all of us as hers while we marked her.

I brush a finger over the bite and a delicious rush of pleasure rushes to my cock, making me groan. If Vee feels even a portion of that every time any of us touch her claiming marks… I can see why Yasmin’s alphas have covered her in bites.

The pleasure fades and my half hard dick deflates, thank god. I’m not actually sure if I have any cum left in my balls. I’m a little concerned I might have pussy burn on my member. The skin feels a little…chafed.

With that in mind, I forgo underwear and tug on a pair of gray sweats before heading downstairs, mentally making a list of all the things we’ll need to do. Thankfully, we prepped some easy food options before the start of the heat. Though the idea of preheating an oven and baking a lasagna for an hour seems like it’ll take too long.

Of course, I suppose it depends on what time it is. I might want to do something like eggs and bacon for my girl… A bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Yeah. Just like when we were teenagers.

Granted, she’s not hung over, but it’s pretty damn close. She’ll be wrecked for a few days, at least, while she recovers.

There’s light coming in from the windows, so it must be sometime during the day. Maybe early morning if the faded tone of the sun is anything to go by, or twilight. One or the other. Checking the time on the clock doesn’t really help because it just tells me it is seven. I really need to get a phone charged so I have some idea of what day and time it actually is, but that is a future Davis problem.

For now, my focus is on taking care of my omega.

I hum quietly to myself as I go to the fridge, and start pulling out the stuff to make the breakfast sandwiches, including the biscuits from scratch. I also grab a variety of fruits and yogurt. That way she can have something sweet and healthy if the greasy bacon and melty cheese doesn’t do the trick.

I start with the biscuit, my back to the rest of the house as I work the dough, but not too much. These biscuits need to be the fluffiest, most tender, flaky biscuits ever… Only the best for my girl.

I’ve just placed them in the oven when a noise draws my attention. The creak of a floorboard, the scuff of a shoe on the hardwood. I frown, because I can’t think of one reason any of us would need to wear shoes, but maybe Vee put on a pair of those slippers with the hard soles.

I turn with a smile on my face that promptly falls, because it isn’t my omega approaching me. It isn’t any member of my pack. Not my new one, at least.

“Hello, son,” Maxim Werth says, face hard.

“Dad,” I say, going still. I’m not sure what he’s doing here or how he got in, but it can’t possibly be good. Not after what he did to Vee. What he did to us. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been calling. You didn’t respond.” His gaze flicks to the fresh bite on my wrist, up to the healed one on my chest and then to my eyes, his expression one of acute disappointment. “I see I’m too late.”

“Too late for what?” I ask, even though I already know what he’s going to say.

His jaw hardens, and he meets my gaze. “She’s not who you think she is.”

I am so fucking sick of this bullshit. “No,” I say as calmly as I can. “She’s not who you think she is. We’ve known her for twelve fucking years, dad. Twelve years. We met before she was a fully formed person, before I was. She doesn’t have some kind of dastardly plan to take over our family fortune or to break our fucking hearts. I have no idea what your problem is with her, but you need to get over it.”

---