Page 12 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

I swallowed hard as I worked to whip up an egg bake with plenty of veggies and meat. The familiar motions of whisking eggs and cutting vegetables helped to soothe some of the nervous energy buzzing underneath my skin—not all of it, though. Not when I could stillsmellLilah in every molecule of air I breathed or vividly remember the sight of her spread out on top of our dining table like a buffet for the taking...

She had passed out after Oliver had made her come on his tongue, and if I had to guess, she was even more inexperiencedthan we had thought. Killian had said that she was a virgin—and that certainly felt like it was true, based on the tight clutch of her pussy around my finger when I was touching her—but had she ever evenkisseda man before us? Had she ever fooled around with one? Had anyone other than herself ever made her come?

If the answer to those questions was no, as I suspected, last night would have been more than intense. Her fainting had worried me deeply, and we’d all agreed that she would spend the night in one of the guest rooms so we could all make sure she was okay and wasn’t going to leave and pass out again somewhere in the street.

The thought made my stomach twist unpleasantly again, and I bit back the alpha growl that wanted to escape me as I shoved the baking pan into the oven. I double-checked to make sure I had set the temperature correctly, then turned away, running a hand through my hair and grimacing when my fingers caught on the knots.

Killian was convinced that this omega was ours, that she was our scent-match, despite the unlikelihood of that being true. I couldn’t deny that a tiny part of me screamed for her, as well—that desperately wanted her to be ours, our biological match in a world where the chances of us being chosen byanyomega had been almost devastatingly low in the first place.

The way that she smelled...it could be true. Couldn’t it?

A soft sound dragged my thoughts out of the increasingly desperate and dark place they were wandering, and I looked up to see Oliver walk into the kitchen, already dressed and ready for his day despite the early hour.

“Good morning,” he said distractedly.

“Morning,” I grunted.

He immediately went to the coffee pot and went through the motions of loading the machine, clearly just as lost in his thoughts as I was.

And I knew exactly where his thoughts were—the guest room, where a sweet, dark-haired omega was sleeping, entirely oblivious to the turmoil she had accidentally created in our lives.

“We need to talk about Lilah,” Oliver said, his voice crisp as he turned around, a steaming cup of coffee clutched between his hands.

My stomach swooped; I knew that expression. That was the expression that Oliver wore when he had made a decision for us as a group, and it didn’t matter what my and Killian’s opinions were on the issue—he wouldn’t be budged.

I had the feeling that I knew the decision he’d arrived at, and for the first time, the urge to push back against my Prime Alpha was strong.

“Okay,” I said carefully. I glanced at the clock and listened to the rest of the house—still quiet. Killian and Lilah were both still asleep and probably would be for a while.

“We can’t move forward with this, Em.” Oliver’s expression softened, and he stepped forward, reaching out to put his hand on my shoulder. “It wouldn’t be right.”

I reared back, my stomach twisting immediately in protest. “Says who? You?”

Oliver arched an eyebrow at my admittedly uncharacteristic protest, and he cocked his head to the side. “And the law? We don’t even know if she’s eligible to be courted yet. Just because you and Killian think—”

“Oh, don’t do that,” I interrupted, rolling my eyes.

Oliver gritted his teeth, and irritation flashed across his face before he composed himself again. “Don’t do what?”

“That.” I jabbed my finger at him, waving it around before I folded my arms over my chest, the words spilling out more than they had in years. “That bullshit martyr bit. You’re just talking out of your ass because you don’t have all the information.” I leaned a little closer. “You feel it, too. I know you do. You’re not as clever or good at hiding it as you think. Your wolf wants her.Youwant her.”

Oliver pressed his lips together and lifted his cup to take a sip of coffee. To an outside observer, he would appear mildly irritated but entirely calm about the conversation he and I were having.

I knew him better than that, though, and I saw how his eyes flickered towards the doorway to the dining room. The way his nostrils flared, the way that he was—oh so subtly—scenting the air, tasting the last vestiges of Lilah’s scent left there from the night before.

“Don’t lie to me,” I insisted. I hugged my arms tighter over my chest and then said, a little more softly, “I’m not wrong, am I?”

Oliver’s jaw flexed, and after a moment, he sighed. “No, you’re not,” he admitted through gritted teeth.

Vulnerability crossed his face for a moment, and I could see the longing there. Oliver wanted an omega for our pack just as badly as Killian and I did, but, being the almost painfully pragmatic alpha he was, he had convinced himself that it would never happen. And if it was never going to happen, then what was the point in wanting it in the first place?

I disagreed with his approach to the issue, but that didn’t mean I didn’t understand where he was coming from. After everything we had gone through as a pack, the way we’d had to grieve the loss of one of our own...the idea of claiming an omega was painful. I understood.

He was wrong on this one, though. I’d heard him claim Lilah the night before, the same as Killian had. It was unclear whether Lilah had heard his growled “Mine” before she passed out, but if she had, there was no way Oliver would get out of this without an explanation at the bare minimum.

“But that doesn’t mean...” he started.

A whisper of sound caught my ears, and Oliver’s words faded as he perked up, too. We both looked towards the door to the kitchen and a few moments later, Killian sauntered in, still wearing the soft pair of pajama pants and T-shirt he had clearly worn to bed.

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