Page 71 of Knot All That Glitters: Part 2

“Business,” I answer. “Mostly how we could best support him in his plans. Tic went over his newest ‘discoveries,’” I use air quotes here, “with the drug your father thinks he was developing. It was all a way to get him to trust us, mouse. To find a way to ruin him.”

“You had to do that there? You couldn’t have discussed it at his office or behind a closed door at one of his many events? It had to be there.”

“He liked for it to be there,” Jude says, softly, carefully navigating the icy streets now that we have such precious cargo. “I think he viewed it as some kind of test to see if we were as fucked up as him. You know? To see if he could trust us.”

“And you put on a good enough show that he did trust you, didn’t he?” she asks bitterly, pulling away from Creed. But she can’t. He’s zipped her into his coat and she’s trapped against his chest.

An adorable growl falls from her lips when she realizes that fact, a scowl on her pretty face.

“Little mouse, look at me.” It takes a bit, but she finally glances at me over her shoulder. “You know we aren’t good men. “

“Obviously,” she bites out.

“You know we’ve done some fucked up shit and you know the reason.”

“Janie.” This is said with a hint of hurt and longing.

“But I can promise you, Haven, once we started courting you, we didn’t touch them.”

“Did you let them touch you?”

Not one of us can deny that and we don’t want to lie to her. So we all keep our mouth shut. She lets out another of those bitter laughs, shaking her head. “Let me go, Creed.”

“Never, baby girl,” is his response, but he reaches up to find the zipper under her hair and carefully drags it down. Once she has enough space, Haven scrambles off of his lap and into the middle seat, hunching in on herself, making herself small so she doesn’t touch Creed or Tic as the car navigates the slick city streets.

It fucking kills me seeing her like that, chin tipped to her chest, shoulders curled in. It reminds me too much of how she was with her father.

“Haven, angel-” Tic starts, but she cuts him off with another quick shake of her head.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She might not want to, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to. Still, I can give her this time. We can give her this time. But once we have her safely in our house, once we know she’s warm and not at risk of losing any of her toes to frostbite, we’re going to talk about how fucking dangerous what she just did was.

And how it’s unacceptable for her to take risks like that.

Chapter 22

No Toes Lost

I shouldn’t let it bother me. I know that.

But the idea of the Calloway pack conducting business with my father while enslaved omegas rubbed all over them really fucking does. I try telling myself I don’t care what they do and who they do it with. Not after what they’ve done to me, but it’s a lie.

I’m self-aware enough to recognize that.

When we get back to the pack house, Jude pulls into the garage and we all stumble out of the car. I pause midway into the house to take off the stupid heels cutting off circulation to my toes, letting out a relieved breath when my toes curl into floor. So much better. But I’m still cold as fuck. Why does this keep happening to me?

“Sauna?” Tic asks.

I don’t know if it’s directed at me or everyone else, but I shake my head in answer. “I’m going to take a bath.”

I don’t say that I feel gross after stepping into that place, after realizing just how bad some omegas have it. Sure, my father kept me under lock and key and alpha bark, but at least he never sold me to a sex club to be used by countless alphas and betas. Hell, he didn’t even let Brian get too handsy with me.

All of my sexual experiences have been ones I chose, even if I didn’t have all the information about the people I was fucking at the time. I stillchoseto be with them. The omegas at Shock and Awe don’t have a choice. They have to fuck the clients or be stuck there forever.

It’s really messed up. And even more fucked that the pack I considered as my forever pack, didn’t realize that might be the case. Have they been so focused on revenge, on their own pain, that they haven’t realized other people are hurting too?

I don’t mind that they’ve had sex with other betas or omegas. Obviously, they deserve to have the release sex brings, but I would have preferred it if they’d gone to a bar like a normal human, rather than where they went.

---