Page 7 of Hard Knot

All except one – the fourth-year who's been leading the commentary during my performance.

"Nice try, Carrion Crow," she says, her smile sharp as broken glass. "But we all know how this ends. Some Omegas just aren't meant to be claimed."

I meet her eyes in the mirror, letting a slow smile spread across my face.

"You're right," I say, watching satisfaction bloom on her face before adding, "Some of us are meant for something better."

Grabbing my bag, I walk out, leaving them to choke on their whispers and speculation.

Let them call me whatever names make them feel better about their own desperate scramble to be claimed.

I'm Elizabeth Abercrombie – Harvard dropout, tattooed disgrace, and the only Omega in Hard Knot Academy's history to successfully merge classical ballet with hip-hop in a single performance.

I don't need a pack to prove my worth.

But as I walk through the academy's shadowed halls, I can't quite silence that small voice in the back of my mind that whispers:

Not yet, anyway.

The worst part is, I'm starting to believe it might be right.

Forever an ugly duckling.

Sweet Poison

~CARTER~

What smells so good?

The scent hits me like a shot of aged whiskey — sweet, dangerous, and entirely too tempting.

Vanilla and honey threaded through with something darker.

Blackberries maybe?

No... there's an edge to it.

Something that reminds me of the bitter chocolate my mother used to bake with, the kind that made everything else taste sweeter by comparison.

My Mama Dearest...

The memory surfaces unbidden, sharp as a blade.

Her in our sprawling kitchen, humming as she mixed batter in those massive copper bowls. The ones I'd later learn were bought with blood money, just like everything else in our lavish mansion that my friends envied.

"The way to a man's heart isn't through violence, Carter,"she'd say, though we both knew that was a lie in our world."It's through the kitchen. Through sweetness."

Then she'd laugh, sliding a tray of something decadent into the oven, filling our home with scents that almost —attempted— to mask the gunpowder and blood.

A naive little boy, thinking his mother just baked like any other mom would as the head of the home while daddy dearest worked and brought home the money.

A bunch of lies.

A fake world I wished wasn’t so poorly portrayed in shows and movies.

Maybe I would have been prepared to inherit it all with a pull of a trigger.

Yeah fucking right…

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