Page 103 of Knot a Thief

Shaking her head, she continues, “I’m an omega. I can’t hide from it any longer, and I’m afraid you'll realize I’m not worth it anymore.”

I fall to my knees in front of her, cupping her face with my hands. “Oh, Ava. I’ve always known you’re an omega, and I’ll do anything to help you through that. I was prepared to share you with alphas, Ava. What does that tell you? It tells you I’m all in with you. I accept I’ve fallen in love with an omega and heartache will follow if I don’t accept your biology.”

“I love you,” she whispers and swallows. “But I wanted them, Seb. And even when they weren’t so kind to me, I had to fight my instincts every single day. Do you want that?”

I could kill them for not being nice to her, but I could also laugh. There’s a very good chance that Ava infuriated them with her ways.

I’m glad.

I smile as I stroke her cheek. “As long as you want me.” I take her in my arms.

“I always want you. That never stopped.”

My heart thrums knowing that.

I press a long kiss on her lips. “I want to die in your arms when I’m an old man. But that doesn’t mean I hate that you’re not happy and carefree, like you used to be. There’s something else, though, isn’t there?” I lean back on my heels and stare at her. She sighs. “Help me understand. Please.”

Ava shakes her head, a sad smile on her face. “I don’t know if I can.”

Frustration bubbles up inside me. “How can I understand if you won’t talk to me? We used to share everything.”

“That was before,” Ava says softly. “Everything’s different now.”

“How?”

She picks up her glass of water and takes a sip, holding the glass against her mouth before she says, “Because I’m pregnant.”

I lurch back, gripping the edge of the table for support. “Pregnant?” I choke out. “He did it. The bastard.”

“You knew?” she whimpers, eyes accusing. “Did you know?” Ava’s teeth dig into her lip as she tries to hold back her emotions.

I nod. “It was mentioned. I don’t know when or where.”

She sighs. “It’s Max’s baby. He wants it. Everything he did was to get me pregnant.”

My mind reels, remembering her heat, while trying to process this information. “What do you want to do?” I ask. Not telling her I remember him mentioning he wanted the baby and I had to be the one who handed the baby to him.

“I want to keep the baby,” she says firmly. “I refuse to hand it over to Max.”

Confusion washes over me. “But ... but you never wanted babies before. What changed?”

Ava’s expression hardens. “I’ve changed, Seb. Is that so hard to believe?”

“It’s Max’s baby,” I argue, my voice rising. “How can you want to keep it after everything he’s done?”

“Because it’s my baby too,” she snaps back. Adding insult to injury, she adds, “Silas has a three-year-old daughter named Lily. My heart aches with how much I miss her.” And I feel like she's plunged a knife into my heart and slowly turned it.

I stare at her, more confused than ever. The woman in front of me is a stranger. She never wanted children, and now she’s pregnant and missing another man’s child?

“You’ve changed,” I say, my voice scratchy as hell on my throat. "The old Ava—"

Her eyes flash with anger as she interrupts me. “And you’ve turned from sweet to being as bad as Max and Silas. You don’t get to judge me, Seb. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

We stand there, the tension between us visible in our glares at each other. But I don’t recognize the woman in front of me anymore, and I’m not sure she recognizes me either.

Our relationship, once strong and sturdy, now resembles crumbling ruins, barely holding on.

Silence stretches between us, the air full with unspoken words and growing tension.

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