Page 63 of Knot That Delicate

“Carter Reid,” I said. “I’m meant to be meeting Ernie Connor?”

The guard looked all of us over, nodding after a moment. “Come with me. You are to wait in the lobby, and a guard will be with you while you tour the apartment,” he said, pushing through the double doors.

My pack mates and I exchanged questioning glances before scampering after him. We were going to be guarded while we viewed the property? Why on earth would they be doing that? Still, we followed him.

Waiting for us in the lobby was a tall beta with dark hair, wearing an immaculate suit, who greeted us with a smile. He smelled like paper. It was a nice neutral scent, and I immediately liked him.

“Hi, you must be Carter. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand and then doing the same with Dylan’s and Asher’s. “I’m going to be showing you Apartment 36C today. How are you guys doing?”

“I’m doing well,” I replied, glancing around. “Looking forward to seeing the place. Could you tell us a bit more about it?”

The lobby was furnished with several elegant tables and chairs, and I realised with a start that the air was full of a sweet smell—omegas. There were omegas wandering around the building, without a care in the world. As I went to open my mouth, a small blonde omega came down the stairs and headed towards the front desk, warmly greeting one of the doormen who was standing in reception, asking about a parcel. He disappeared around the back and brought out the parcel and handed it to her; she simply smiled at him before scampering off.

When I turned to look at the building director questioningly, he gave me a smile. “This is why we guard so heavily. The omegas of the packs here tend to roam freely, and packs want to know we vet everyone heavily and, therefore, everyone is safe.”

“And you’ve never had any incidents?” Dylan asked pointedly.

Ernie shook his head. “We haven’t. Anyone who wants to live here goes through a rigorous checking process. Just by booking an apartment tour, we've already done a basic background check on you. You’re Dylan, aren’t you?” he asked Dylan. “Since you work in security, I'd actually like to pick your brain about some things. Well, my head of security would love to pick your brains,” he added. “But we thought it was worth bringing you here to have a look around. I see you’re not currently courting an omega. We have a relationship with the nearby Havens and they let us know that you weren’t in their systems. You are aware that this building is mainly for packs with omegas, correct? They wouldn’t appreciate a random all-male pack just moving in.”

I nodded. I was taking the lead of the conversation, as I was technically the head of our pack. “Oh, I completely understand that. We’re looking at starting the courting process soon because we really do want to settle down with our omega. But I don’t want to start the process without having somewhere safe and secure for her to live. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our jobs, we have to stay in the heart of the city, and we can’t live in the countryside. If we did live farther out, our omega wouldn’t be able to see us as much because we would have to come into the city to work, and that’s just unfair and cruel.”

It was complete bullshit coming out of my mouth, because I didn’t want to explain everything that had happened with Juniper, and I was under the vain hope that, one day, in six months’ time, Juniper would come back to us. It was probably afantasy, a daydream, and we were all deluding ourselves, but we had to move forward.

Ernie nodded thoughtfully. “Ah yes, that makes sense. The Haven won’t even consider you unless you have proper accommodations. But just to let you know, even if you buy an apartment in this building, there’s a lot of paperwork. That means, if you don’t start the courting process or register with a Haven within three years, you’ll be kicked out of the building entirely. I mean, we’ll buy the apartment back, but you will not be able to live here.”

Dylan raised an eyebrow. “A forced eviction clause. That’s good, I like that—that way, no alphas who come here just to hang out with omegas could get away with it.”

“Exactly,” Ernie said, nodding. “We’ve carefully thought through the details of this building. Some packs need to live in the city, and some packs want to live in the city, and they need options for doing so. Also, we find a lot of the omegas prefer the community aspect here. It’s less isolating. I mean, sure, omegas enjoy being with their pack, but there’s something about being able to spend time with other omegas, especially when they have lived in Havens before.”

Asher nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking about that. Surely, after being around omegas all day, every day, they would struggle with being on their own with just a bunch of alphas.”

Ernie nodded again. “It’s hard on them. My pack already has an omega, and when she joined our pack about three years ago, she had a hard time. Don’t get me wrong—we were having a great time. We all love each other very much, and we have an amazing family, but she missed that connection with other omegas. So, we wanted to look at doing something that allowed omegas to interact. We actually based the building on some of the Haven structure.”

“This is incredible. They just seem so comfortable here,” Asher said, watching a brunette omega walk across the lobby and hug who I assumed was her alpha.

Ernie smiled. “Yup, this is how we wanted to do it. Since you have told us you are planning to start the courting process, we can show you the apartment upstairs. Follow me,” he said, gesturing towards the elevator, where we all piled in. We ascended several floors before he pulled out a key from his pocket. Exiting the elevator, we went down the hallway, and he stopped at a large impressive oak door. “This is the apartment you guys were interested in,” Ernie said as he unlocked it.

The next thirty minutes were spent touring the space and being talked through the apartment itself. But we were sold pretty much the moment we stepped foot inside. It was large, it was airy, it smelled amazing, just fresh and clean. There was so much sunlight, thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows that bathed every room in light. It didn’t feel ultra modern. In fact, it had a cozy, warm feeling to it, while also being open. There was even a nesting room specifically for that purpose, with a sunken nest inside it.

All of the bedrooms were significantly larger than normal, the size big enough to have specialist beds put in for an entire pack. Of course, there were a few regular-sized bedrooms which appeared to be for guests if they stayed over or if one of the pack mates needed to sleep a bit differently. However, most packs liked to be together.

“You guys have seriously thought of everything,” I said, genuinely impressed as we wandered through the rooms.

Ernie beamed. “I take great pride in this place. My pack mate Luther is actually an architect and interior designer. He worked on a lot of these apartments. The sunken nest was his idea, but if your omega wants something different, it’s very easy to change into a raised nest.”

“And security is twenty-four-seven?” Asher asked.

Ernie nodded. “It is, and we do have a few extra guards. Don’t get me wrong—the omegas tend to stick with their packs, but we do have a massive nesting supply store three doors down from us. It’s like a two-minute walk, and sometimes the omegas do like to nip over there. So, if their alphas are busy, we have one of our guards accompany the omegas. All of our guards are triple security checked, and quite a few of our guards are actually retired keepers.”

I looked between my pack mates. “This place is perfect. Do we even need to see anything else?” They both shook their heads.

“You are not going to hear any complaints from me—this place is perfect,” Asher said, and Dylan agreed.

“Great,” I said to Alex. “Let’s get started on that paperwork. I think we need to buy an apartment.”

Ernie nodded. “Let’s go downstairs into the office and start the process. It is a lengthy application process, I’ll warn you now, and it’s not exactly cheap, but I think you can tell just by looking at this place, it’s worth it.”

“It definitely is,” I said with a smile. “Let’s do this.”

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