Page 68 of Knot All That Glitters: Part 2

She huffs and holds the cell out to me again. “Unlock this so I can give you my phone number. I can’t talk now, but I think you and I should have a conversation about your parents.”

My first instinct is to deny her, but I want to know more about my mother, the woman who supposedly left me fifteen years ago and died ten years ago. So I take my phone with numb fingers and unlock it with my thumbprint.

She rattles off the number to me so quickly I miss it. When I ask her to repeat it she huffs again, apparently at the end of her patience—if she had any to begin with—she thrusts my coat at me and snags my phone, typing away at it as I gratefully yank on the heavy wool. It’s not enough to get my temperature up, it’s not even enough to keep me from getting colder, seeing as my bare legs are exposed to the elements. But it’s better than nothing.

She hands the device back to me and looks at me again. This time, her face goes a little softer. She shakes her head. “You look so much like your mother.”

I open my mouth again to ask how she knew her, but I’m cut off by the thundering of booted feet and by a very pissed off alpha shouting my name.

Chapter 21

Not Today

We’re speeding. Driving far too fast on streets crowded with holiday shoppers, even with the late hour. The roads are slick with ice and the sky above is threatening more snow, but we don’t give a fuck.

We have to get to Haven.

Have to get her out of the vipers den she walked into.

Goddamn it, I should have known she was up to something when she oh so innocently asked if she could go to Ren’s, when she said she wanted to spend some quality time with the people she thinks of as family.

I should have said no, straight off the bat. But Jude was right when he’d said we’re trying to prove to her she’s not a prisoner and her happiness is the most important thing in the world to us, so I’d foolishly agreed with the rest of my pack.

And this is what I get for it. This all-consuming panic that we will not get there in time, that some asshole is going to see our omega and think he has the right to touch her, grab her, fuck her.

Shock and Awe isn’t the type of place where omegas have a lot of say in what they do or who they do it with.

We never would have joined, if not for Frederick Bell. That’s not to say we wouldn’t have joined a different sex club, but it certainly wouldn’t have beenthisone. Bell seems to like it though because the omegas on staff are all but forbidden from saying no.

It bothered me before, but now, with Haven in those walls, surrounded by those people?

Oh fuck, it has my alpha raging.

The car slides on the icy roads, and Jude curses as he rights the vehicle, knuckles going white. She shouldn’t be within a hundred feet of that place, and yet right now she’s fuckinginsideof that den of inequity.

“Slow down,” Creed grumps. “We’re no good to her if we die.”

Jude’s jaw ticks, but he slows the car to a safer speed, even though I can tell it kills him.

“We’re almost there, anyway,” Tic adds, calmly. I would think this doesn’t bother him at all, but his eyes are scanning the roads for Florence’s shitty little car. She could have parked anywhere within the next few blocks, just depending on how busy it is.

“There.” Jude makes the one word drip with violence. I’m not worried he’s going to hurt Florence or anything, but damn, it sends a shiver down my spine.

Our car pulls to a stop next to the wide-eyed omega. Her hands are on the steering wheel like she’s ready to take off, eventhough her car isn’t on. I roll down my window and Florence does the same.

“She hasn’t come out,” she blurts before I can say anything. “It's been a while. Thirty minutes or so and she… God, I never should have brought her here.”

“No, you fucking shouldn’t have,” I growl at her and she flinches at the tone.

Behind me, Tic rolls his window down with a sigh. “We’ll get her out safely, Ren. Why don’t you head home?”

He poses it as a question, but I know it’s an order. One it seems the omega is more than happy to obey.

She nods quickly. “Yeah, I can’t do that.” But then she pauses and gives us all a sharp look. Apparently, her momentary fear has faded in the wake of her need to protect her friend. “Go easy on her, yeah? She’s… You’ve done enough bullshit to her. Haven’s just trying to get to where her life is… not what it has been for the last fifteen years, okay? She needs stability, and she needs peace, and she’s trying to get it.”

I grit my teeth around the need to argue that this here, what Haven did today, is not what is going to bring her peace, not by a long fucking shot. The most she’ll get from visiting Shock and Awe is held down and fucked by some asshole alpha who’ll think dub/con is her kink or some shit.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Tic says diplomatically. But I know it won’t stop him from spanking Haven’s ass for taking this unnecessary risk.

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