Page 1 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

1

Lilah

“Shots, shots, shots, shots...!”

I grinned at the chants of the small crowd, lifted my shot glass, and downed the entire thing in one go. The crowd cheered raucously, not knowing that it was a virgin shot.

Just because I was 21 now didn’t mean I had any interest in getting wasted.

The shot was sweet—a mixer of some kind with a dash of lemon—and I shot the bartender a wink as I set the glass down on the bar top. He offered me an indulgent grin as he turned around so the crowd wouldn’t see him filling another drink for me.

“Lilah!” Eddie’s voice reached my ears through the clamor of the crowd, the pulse of the techno music that played from wall to wall of the club. I smirked down at my friend, hopping off the bar and smoothing down the skirt of my minidress as the little crowdthat had surrounded us turned away, distracted by the next most interesting thing.

“How does it feel?” Eddie shouted, pressing her lips to my ear and nudging against me. The scents of the room were heavy and swirled in my nose, making me wrinkle it a little, but Eddie’s neutral vanilla scent—the scent all betas had—still made its way to me, calming me some.

“How does what feel?” I asked, turning my head and raising my voice so she could hear me.

She rolled her eyes, slinging her arm around my shoulder and pulling me close. The sequins of her slinky top rubbed against my arm, and I settled a little closer to her as she continued, “To be the person in this room that everyone wants to be...or wants to fuck.”

I flushed a little but couldn’t stop the pleased smile that crossed my face as I looked out at the crowd. The club was one of the only shifter-exclusive clubs in the city. It was packed, the dance floor filled with a thick press of bodies—betas and alphas alike—bumping and grinding and looking for their next hookup, if only for the night.

A night to feel a little less alone.

To the casual observer, I was one of them. Just another clubgoer, out celebrating her twenty-first birthday with my best friend, my ride or die, who had insisted on the celebration.

Even my scent didn’t give me away—not from far away. But once you got close enough, you could smell it. The signature sweetness was starting to seep from my pores, and once itwas full strength, the temptation would be too strong for many alphas to resist.

I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t a beta or an alpha. I was a newly designated omega wolf—the rarest of the three designations and the most sought after to boot—and I was here to fuckingparty.

“Come on!” I yelled, a particularly loud thump of bass nearly swallowing my voice altogether. “Let’s dance.”

Eddie followed me into the crowd, and we started dancing, bumping hips and giggling whenever someone moved on either side of us. Eddie’s brown eyes were warm and happy, and she reached up to run her hands through her blond hair as she gyrated and ground against nothing.

Her ridiculous antics made me laugh aloud as the people around us pressed closer and retreated in turn. Aggressive alpha scents and neutral beta scents melded together in my sensitive nose, so much so that I couldn’t tell who I should be wary of and who was more likely to glance at me once before moving on.

Being here tonight was stupid; I knew that much. If not outright dangerous, it was at least a situation I should be wary of. Omegas like me were so rare as to be almost mythical. I’d only met one or two over the course of my life, and they were never left alone without one of their packmates for fear that someone might snatch her away or make her a better offer.

Better finances, better emotional support, better genetics for breeding, better pack structure for her wolf—it was all a question of the highest biological bidder, and thanks to a stroke of luck in the genetic lottery, I was now one of the contenders for getting anything and everything I might ever want.

Being valued and wanted by more people than I could ever possibly satisfy meant that being out in public like this so soon after my designation had shown was risky. It would only take drawing the attention of the wrong alpha to put me in a very sticky situation that would be difficult—or maybe even impossible—to get out of.

There was security pacing the perimeter of the room, as always—aggressive alpha wolves who would just as soon tear the throat out of someone causing trouble as they would throw them out of a club—but that didn’t matter when you couldn’t pick a face out of the crowd.

Still, the danger made tonight all the more thrilling. I sank into the buzz of adrenaline and slight fear under my skin, dancing my heart out in the middle of the crowd. Sometime later, a hint of self-awareness washed through me, and I realized that Eddie had disappeared into the crowd—unintentionally, I knew. She’d probably turned her head and gotten just as lost among the crowd of people as I was, and I wasn’t going to fault her for that.

At least I had my phone tucked into a little holster on the inside of my thigh. That had seemed like a smarter choice than carrying a purse around all night, though it did make for a bit of awkward jimmying when I needed to check my phone and see if anyone had messaged me.

Before I could work myself up to leaving the crowd so I could do exactly that, a new wall of warmth pressed up behind me. The person—a man, if the hard muscles and the way his frame dwarfed mine was any indication—didn’t move away when I shifted a little, telling me that they had approached me intentionally.

A flicker of excitement—and a healthy dose of fear, too—warmed my stomach, and I continued dancing, letting all tension flow out of me. There was no way he could know what I was unless he pressed his nose right up against my neck, not in this crowd. The guy probably just thought I was hot and was shooting his shot.

And Iwashot, especially in the little black dress I’d worn tonight, so I couldn’t really blame him.

I hummed softly, and though it was impossible that the guy had heard me over the pulsing club music, I felt a rumbling growl vibrate right back at me. He stepped closer, his chest brushing up against my back, and then big hands—strong, sturdy,malehands—settled on my hips and pulled me tightly against him.

“Fuck,” I whispered, a secret expletive just for me.

I’d fooled around some, of course. I’d been a teenager in high school—who of us hadn’t? But my mom’s sickness and working on the weekends to bolster my meager savings had made it so I didn’t have time for much more. A couple of stolen kisses from a beta I’d been in the chorus with during one ill-advised stint in the school musical was the extent of my experience.

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