Page 93 of Knot Forgotten

“Erin, wait–” My mom’s voice stops me, and I half turn toward her, my hand landing on the doorframe. “I only want you safe.”

I smile softly. “I’ll be safe with them.” And I know it all the way down to my soul that they will always come for me.

She returns my smile—it is sad—but she nods. “I’m glad you found happiness.”

Four sets of eyes land on me as soon as I pull open the door and step out on the porch. “What are you doing here?” I ask, signing at the same time.

“You left without telling any of us,” Blake replies. There is a light in his eyes that promises me he will tie me to his side if it will keep me with them. “Last time you did that, you were in danger.”

I cross my arms and lean against the porch post. “How did you know where I was?”

Matt and Riley both glance at Blake while Cam steps forward and says, “This asshole put a tracker on your phone.”

Surprise filters through me, and I raise my eyebrows. I don’t pull out my phone, which is the first thing I really want to do. How did I miss that? “A tracker?”

Blake doesn’t look apologetic. He pins me with an intense stare. “If I didn’t have an omega that insists on disappearing all the time, then maybe I wouldn’t need to use drastic measures.”

“I told Riley I was fine.”

“In the most generic way possible,” Riley replies. He holds up his phone with our short message on the screen. “We need another code word.”

A slow smile spreads across my face, pulling at my cheeks. “So were you planning on caveman-style dragging me back to campus?”

Cam shrugs. “If that is what it took.”

It is the most he’s talked to me since my heat, and it is quite surprising. In fact, him coming along at all after avoiding me feels surprising. Have I also been avoiding him? Yes. One-hundred percent.

I know before I open my mouth that I’m going to say something that might piss him off. “Now you care?” I want to poke his beast, test it, see what is beneath the indifference he’s been wearing like a shield.

He takes the steps two at a time, invading my space before he boxes me against the railing. “Erin, I’ve always cared. Too much. Why do you think I stay away? Or lock the link between us down? Because I’m defective. I can’t be the alpha you deserve and need.”

Inhaling deeply, I hold my breath as his words hit me. He thinks he is protecting me. Releasing the air locked in my lungs, I lean into him. “Cam, in case you didn’t notice, I have three other alphas. And you aren’t broken. You just like to be edged. There is nothing wrong with that, even if that is all you can give me. I’ll take it because I want you for you. I don’t want you to be something you aren’t or change for me. I love you.”

His eyes drop shut at my words, hiding the emotion that is shining in their blue depths. He takes a slow breath, pulling my perfume into his body. I know he can smell the truth to my words because even the idea of edging him turns me on. Even standing outside my aunt's house and having an emotional conversation.

“What if you wake up one day and it isn’t enough?” he whispers, his eyes cracking open to watch my reaction.

I laugh and cup his cheeks. The fact he thinks I could wake up and not want any of them is crazy. “You four have been my everything since I was six. And I’m pretty sure just because you have sexual preferences now doesn’t change the fact that you are and always will be everything I will ever need. The four of you, together. That is the whole package. We make a complete pack with all our broken pieces.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead and pulls me against him. “I love you, Erin, and it feels like I always have.”

Straightening, I step away from the now-made pull-out couch. My aunt insisted that they stay the night before taking me back to school. My mom insisted they sleep in the living room. Two air mattresses take up the rest of the floor, and I move around them.

“Cozy,” Matt says, sitting on the edge of the pull-out. “Blake and Cam should get the floor.”

Blake eyes the air mattress and then turns his attention to me. “Who says I’ll be sleeping in here?”

My stomach dips in response to his possessive look. Just his dark attention sets my blood on fire and slick gathering between my thighs. But I say, “Not in my aunt's house.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere, I’m okay with taking you under the stars.”

Cam snorts as he drops down to one of the air beds. “It is freezing outside.”

Blake wiggles his eyebrows. “I’ll keep her warm.”

Riley’s arm goes around me, and he pulls me into his side, tucking my head into his chest. He signs something without saying it out loud, and I miss it. Matt chuckles, and Cam rolls his eyes to the ceiling and flops back to his pillow.

Blake straightens, his eyes on Riley. “I bet I could get her to say that I am.”

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