Page 7 of Knot Dead Yet

Something definitely was wrong. I wanted to gather her to me, hold her, make it all right. The weight of my pack’s eyes were upon me. They needed me to do something. I needed to do something. And if she was going to be stubborn about it, I was going to call her out on it. “Look, I know the cops aren’t coming. You don’t have your cell. And if you had a spare, you’d have fixed the tire already. So stop pretending and let us help you.” She turned back to face me, eyes so wide, so vulnerable. It made me even more desperate to make things right. “I know you’re scared, but we aren’t going to hurt you, Miss Birk. You have my word.”

She stared at me, studying my face, but I was sincere. Finally she lowered her head to her knees and cursed under her breath. She then turned to look at me, and while the canister was still in her hand, it was lowered. “Okay, fine. Just get me to theclosest place where I can rent a car. And call me Kienna. I hate being called Miss Birk.”

Kienna. Gorgeous name for a gorgeous Omega. I grinned and reached to be ready to open the car door for her.

She shooed me back. “Stand back and give me some room. I don’t need to be treated as if I’ll break. Kane, right?” I nodded, loving the sound of my name on her lips. “Get all your buddies back into your SUV. I want the front passenger seat and a phone.”

Smart and demanding. I didn’t know why that made me want to protect her all the more. I yelled back at the pack to get into the SUV and stepped to the rear of Kienna’s car. She swiftly gathered her purse and bag of snacks before exiting her car. The wind tossed her hair and blew her sweet scent right to me. Shit. So good. I wanted to wrap myself up in smell and wrap myself around her.

I stepped forward, needing to be closer to her. “Let me help carry—”

“No.” Kienna held up a hand. “You go back to the SUV and get in the back, shut the door, and do up your seatbelt.” She glanced back at her car again. “Fuck, this is a bad idea.”

“No!” I wasn’t going to have her change her mind. She had to come with me, with us. “You’ll be okay. The only car rental place is in Winnipeg near the airport, and it won’t be open until the morning, but we can see you safely to a hotel…”

Her face fell with every word I said and tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes. Dammit. I didn’t want to make her cry. Every instinct in me roared to destroy the world to protect her, but I didn’t know what the threat was.

“I can’t go back to Winnipeg,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

In three big steps, I was there. I wrapped my arms around her and pressed her against my chest. I couldn’t stand to see her upset.

It was like I was hit by a puck flying at a million miles an hour. I literally had to brace myself with how hard it was. My nose touched the top of her hair, soft and comforting. Kienna smelled of spring, like a hint of rain on strawberries warmed by the sun. She was new life… No, she was the need to create new life. Light, musky, and alluring. Shit, I was getting hard fast.

Her body trembled, and I barely caught a small breathy moan from her. It vibrated through my body right to my balls.

Mine.

I’d only ever met Omegas who had been claimed. Not once in my life had I ever had this reaction touching a female. There had been a few Beta girlfriends, but there had always been something missing. Now with Kienna, a woman I had just met and knew nothing about, I realized what that was.

I hugged her tighter to me.

It infuriated and terrified me to realize I was going to have to let her go. Not just because we had to get into the SUV, but because she was the new owner’s daughter. I couldn’t have her, because then I’d have no career, and without hockey, I was nothing.

CHAPTER FOUR – Kienna

I was not compatible with a hockey player. No way. My panties totally weren’t drenched with slick. Fuck! I wanted Kane to hold me again.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of the SUV, I pressed myself against the door and tried to distract myself from the fact my heat was triggered on the side of a desolate highway in the middle of nowhere. I cracked open the window slightly to let the cold air battle the magma in my veins.

I’d always said to my friends that when I found a compatible hunky Alpha, I’d throw myself at him and fuck like bunnies. We all giggled at those steamy thoughts, but now that it had happened, I wanted to run away. Sure, Kane was incredibly hot. A gorgeous edgy bad boy face, intensely sexy gray eyes, and the tightest butt in the history of the world. The way his jeans hugged that ass…

Nope, not thinking of groping him. Not going to do it.

Kane sat behind me and closed the sliding door of the vehicle. Was that him breathing heavily or me? I couldn’t tell over the pounding of my heart.

“Now we can get this party started!” Ewan hooted from the back seat. Someone shushed him, and I worried my lower lip between my teeth. There would be no partying, but what was I going to do now? I couldn’t go back with my tail between my legs, especially now that one of the players on my father’s new team had triggered my heat. Dad would flip his lid, or maybe, even worse, he would be all for it because, you know, hockey. Then I’d be stuck living in the most boring place on the planet.

Tiergan, the driver, turned to me with a smile. He was also damn handsome with messy auburn hair, brilliant greeneyes, and a mouth that was meant to do sinful things to a lover’s body. Why was I even thinking that? Oh, right, heat triggered.

“Hey, things will be okay.” Tiergan’s words were smooth and slow with a slight Canadian accent. “We can take you back to the city, but if you don’t mind, we were just on our way to my parents’ house in Saint Agathe up the road here. I need to check on their cats and take in their mail while they’re on vacation.”

“It’s fine.” I nodded, anything but going back to Winnipeg. Maybe there was a hotel in Saint Agathe, or these guys could drive me all the way to the border. It wasn’t that far, and surely there had to be a hotel in Pembina which was the first town in North Dakota. Then in the morning, I could catch an Uber to Fargo and fly to Alaska to hide out with Nicolette.

Already I thought I felt Kane’s body heat behind me and Tiergan was less than an arm’s length away. I was sandwiched between the two of them, and my thighs tightened to imagine actually being naked between them. Plus the other three guys, holy fuck. Ewan was loud and gregarious, but he had this alluring gleam in his eyes like a real life Loki. Alderic looked a lot like Ewan—maybe they were brothers—but he had a more calming aura, and would totally make a sexy elf with his high cheekbones and taut swimmer’s body. The last guy, Maddox, was the tallest and most built of all of them, and he was also the most quiet. Yet his smoldering blue eyes were intense as he stared at me.

What topped everything off was the fact that Kane, Tiergan, and Maddox were Alphas. I could feel it in my very bones. Not just because Kane triggered my heat, but their powerful presences. I wanted to melt against them and flee as I screamed at the same time.

No. Not yet. The best plan was to have them drop me off at the border. For that to happen, I had to play nice.

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