Page 32 of Knot Giving Up 2

“There’s a pharmacy around the corner.”

I follow a few steps behind him. We don’t talk about what happened. We don’t talk at all. But my fingers press my lips as if trying to seal his kiss there. And I know, when we finally give in to each other, it’s going to be life-altering.

17

Meggie

I’m still half asleep when I hear banging on our apartment door. I’ve always been a lighter sleeper than the guys, so I rush out of the nest to get it before whoever it is wakes up the entire floor. Harrison is already there, pulling open the door, to a flustered and breathless Emily.

“You’ve gotta…clean room…They’re…” She bends over with her hands on her knees. “They’re doing room sweeps.”

Harrison curses, and we fly into action. I run towards the bathroom with Emily hot on my heels. “How do you know?”

I can hear Harrison yelling at the guys to get up. His fist pounding on the walls as he goes.

“They came to our room already. I snuck out to warn you, but it won’t be long before they get here.” She’s still panting from running from her room two levels up to ours, and I can’t even begin to express my gratitude to her in this panicked moment. She’s my hero.

“Why are they checking rooms?” I shove the ziplock of pills, both my blockers and suppressants, into two more ziplocks and then into my shampoo bottle. Shit, I really hope it doesn’t leak. “Have they ever done this before?”

“Not often.” Emily says, looking over her shoulder as Dante passes, carrying an armful of blankets. “I heard them say someone tipped them off.”

“About an omega?!”

“I think it was about steroids. But if they’re searching, they’ll take anything that’s contraband. The room next to us snuck in bottles of champagne and got charged $3,000.”

With the pills taken care of, we dart into the makeshift nest. The guys are scrambling to throw the mattresses back up on the beds, tossing pillows and blankets in a more even spread. Nils throws a duffel bag at us and we shove some of the blankets and pillows in there just as there’s another knock on the door.

“Fuck! It smells like sex in here.” Harrison hits the wall with the palm of his hand. “I’ll stall them. Spray the place down!”

He goes for the door, while I go for the bottle of scent-neutralizer we bought last night. It’s cheaper than the stuff I usually use, and it’s got a gross chemical smell that makes us all sneeze as I douse the room and each of us in it.

I can hear Harrison talking to whatever security team or committee representative got put in charge of checking rooms. There’s the bark of a dog that comes along with the noise of voices.

“A dog?!” I hiss in Emily’s direction.

“They didn’t have one when they checked our room. Someone must have joined them.”

The guys dive for beds, no one caring which one.

“Emily hide!” I say, knowing they’ll be suspicious if they see her here after they already checked her room. But there’s nowhere to hide. The rooms don’t have closets or even much in the way of furniture and they’re about to search them, anyway.

“Most of my pack’s in here,” Harrison says just outside the door. It swings open, and he breaks into a fit of coughs from the smell.

The man with him scrunches his nose. “Why does it smell like someone took a bath in scent-neutralizers in here?”

“Sensitive.” Harrison taps the side of his nose. “Don’t like the scents of all of my pack mates.”

The guy seems to buy it. He steps all the way into the room as Oz puts on a good show of just having woken up and Ellis puts on a horrible one. I sit down on Ellis’s lap to distract from his poor acting.

“What’s this all about?” Nils asks, cool as ever.

“Just a routine room check,” another man says from the doorway. He’s holding the dog leash, and I recognize him as the older alpha we saw when we came through security that first day. He’s not in military uniform today, but he’s no less imposing. The dog is still in its military vest—do dogs wear bullet-proof vests or is it just to note them as working dogs like service animals? It’s embroidered with Gunner and I wonder if that’s the dog’s name.

The first man, a beta, starts digging through our things as the alpha lets the dog wander. We awkwardly sit there saying nothing until the dog stops right in front of me and starts sniffing my leg.

“Who’s a good boy?” Oz squats down next to us and ruffles his hand along the dog’s head. We’re all holding our breaths, hoping it’s enough to distract the German Shepherd.

“Refrain from touching the dog.” The stone-faced alpha gives the leash a slight tug to gain the dog’s attention. His nostrils flare. Shit, has he scented me? No, he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Em with an intensity that’s kind of unnerving.

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