Page 14 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

Lilah’s lips parted, and she looked up at Killian with trepidation and longing as if he’d hung the moon, and she was afraid to ask him why he’d done it forher. It was sweet. It made me want to keep her locked up in our house so that we could show her again and again exactly how much we wanted her.

She swallowed, and then she glanced over at Oliver. She seemed to know that Oliver was the final vote on anything that would happen in the pack, and I held my breath as I waited for the stare-down between Oliver and Lilah to break.

It took ten painful seconds, but then Oliver lowered his head in a nod and let out a low growl.

“If you’ll have us, Lilah,” he said.

Lilah swallowed, then looked back at Killian with a gleam of soft excitement in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “I...yes. I’d like to see where this goes.”

Killian grinned, and leaned down to press a hard kiss to her forehead. I could see the effort it took him not to sweep her up in his arms all over again, but I appreciated his restraint; last night had been a lot, and it was clear that we needed to handle this matter delicately.

“Great,” I finally said after a few seconds of meaningful silence. “I’m making breakfast. We can all eat together, and the one of us can take you home, Lilah?”

She broke Killian’s gaze and smiled at me, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

7

Oliver

The moment that Killian and Lilah packed up—with her still wearing his clothes, despite everything inside me pushing for her to walk out of our home and our lives without any evidence that she was there in the first place—I turned to Emmett and fixed him with a hard look.

The front door slamming left the silence between the two of us ringing harshly, and he met my gaze impassively, taking a sip of his leftover coffee.

“We still need to talk about this,” I insisted, my voice rough. I desperately tried to project calm, knowing my pack needed it from me right now, but it was difficult. My wolf had been screaming to shift all morning—ever since Lilah first walked into our house the night before, if I was being truly honest with myself.

I hadn’t had such difficulty containing a shift since I was young, and my alpha markers became clear. The fact that I was having such a problem now only made it even clearer in my mind that Lilah couldn’t stick around. She was dangerous.

Emmett regarded me for another moment, his hand flexing against his arm. Finally, he shook his head, his eyes flashing gold. “No.”

I reared back a little. As stoic and silent as he usually was, Emmett was far from a submissive alpha, but he had never blatantly gone against me like this.

“Emmett...” I started.

He shook his head again sharply, and when he opened his eyes again, they had returned to their normal dark brown. “No, Ollie. You don’t get to make a unilateral decision here. Killian has made his interest in this woman more than clear, and her wolf clearly feels as strongly about us as we do about her. It doesn’t make sense, but many things in life don’t.”

It was the most words I had heard Emmett speak in one go inyears, and for a moment, I was rendered speechless.

Then I pressed my lips together, widening my stance. A low, aggressive growl ripped out of me, but Emmett wasn’t intimidated. His eyes flashed gold again, matching my energy, and it took a few moments before the simmering tension calmed, and I could take in a full breath.

“We can’t,” I finally said, my voice low and full of repressed emotion. “It isn’t right.”

Emmett cocked his head to the side, his eyes back to normal again, and he finished his cup of coffee before setting the porcelain mug aside. “Jack would have wanted this for us, and you know it. It was all he wanted when he was here, and that wouldn’t change now that he isn’t.”

Emmett’s words punched a hole in my chest, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Grief overwhelmed me, just for a split second, blurring my vision and making my eyes sting with unshed tears. I dragged in a breath, the lingering scent of Lilah inflaming me even more, and I pressed my hand against my chest as I willed my heartbeat to regulate.

It took longer than I wanted—almost a full minute—but when I looked up at Emmett again, his expression had softened slightly. All of us had been affected by Jack’s passing, but it wasn’t a secret that I’d taken his loss harder than the other two.

“We have to move on,” Emmett said, short and to the agonizing point.

I swallowed and looked away from my packmate. My wolf was oddly silent, and I rubbed my hand over my chest again, heaving out a deep breath.

“The idea that she’s our scent-match is absurd,” I finally said, my voice weak. Even as I said it, though, I could feel the soft brush of her cheek against my jaw as she scent-marked me. She might have been a new omega, but there was no doubt that her instincts for serving an alpha were impeccable.

And I hated how muchIwanted to be that alpha she served—myself, Emmett, and Killian.

Emmett cocked his head to the side, his normal silent stoicism returning, and I blew out a breath, running my hand through my hair. I was sure the strands were in disarray and that I would have to do it again before I left the house, but I didn’t care.

“I don’t know if I can commit,” I finally whispered, the words heavy in the silence between myself and my packmate. He blinked at me, and I clarified, “Lilah. I don’t know if I can commit. To her, in the pack. I...” I swallowed. “It’ll just be too hard.”

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