Page 21 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

I glanced his way, and he was staring meaningfully at Oliver, his eyebrows practically disappearing into his hairline as he did. I couldn’t stop myself from giggling a little, which seemed to break the lingering tension.

“Tell us about yourself, Lilah,” Oliver said after another moment, his voice measured. The nervous, wary energy he’d been carrying when he had led me into the dining room was gone, and he looked at me with a curious expression.

I swallowed and set my fork down. This was good—I didn’t like talking about myself, but it wasn’t fair to expect them to bring me into the pack if I was a virtual stranger, scent-match or not. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell us about your family,” Killian said innocently. I glanced his way, and there was a glint in his green eyes that was almost obscured by a glare on his glasses, but I still saw it.

I narrowed my eyes. He had a motive that I didn’t know, but he was looking at me so earnestly that I could tell he was genuine in his question.

It was only fair that I answered, even if it was one of the last things I wanted to discuss.

I clasped my hands in my lap before lifting my chin to look from Killian to Emmett and then settling on Oliver. “I’m an only child.No siblings to speak of, but I’ve been friends with my friend Eddie for as long as I can remember. Our moms used to work together, so we’ve been in each other’s lives literally since the day that we were born.” My fingers tightened against each other in an effort to stop them from trembling. “I don’t know who my father is. My mom never told me, and I’ve never cared enough to look for him. I don’t know if he knows I exist, but the fact that he never made an effort to find out about me speaks volumes, and I don’t need someone like that in my life.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Oliver said softly, his gaze never leaving my face. He reached out and gently touched my knee under the table, and Killian squeezed my other knee with his hand, lending me support.

I smiled a little. “Old news. But...” My voice wobbled a little, then broke as I let out a shaky breath. “My mom and I are really close. Her name is Katrina, and she’s my best friend.” I bit my lower lip, ignoring the familiar tears that burned at the corners of my eyes at the mention of my mother. “She has liver cancer. It’s...it’s getting worse.”

My announcement was met with a heavy silence, far heavier than it had been when we had just been settling down to eat. All three men looked at me with shocked expressions, and Killian looked pained as he squeezed my leg tightly.

“I amsosorry, baby girl,” he said, his voice tight.

I swallowed, willing back the tears that were still pricking at the corners of my eyes. Talking about my mom was difficult, which is why I generally avoided it. Besides Eddie, I didn’t have friends close enough to know about her struggles, and it wasn’t a casual dinner conversation.

But if I wanted to be a part of their pack...

“She was happy when I told her that I was designated as an omega,” I said, my voice wobbling. I offered a small smile to Oliver, who was still looking at me so intensely. “She worries that I’m going to end up alone.”

“That will never happen,” Killian suddenly said fiercely, his hand darting off my knee and catching my hand. He reached out with his other hand to turn my face towards him, and his eyes blazed gold as he looked me over. “You hear me? You arenevergoing to be alone again, Lilah. I swear it.”

The conviction in his voice was so intense that tears prickled at the corners of my eyes again, but this time, I had nothing to say. I nodded, then carefully extracted my hand and face from his grip before patting my mouth with a napkin and standing.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said, my voice shaking a little. “If you’ll excuse me.”

I managed to keep it together until I left the dining room, and then tears started to slip down my cheeks as I made a beeline for the bathroom and locked myself in.

***

Oliver

Killian turned to face me the moment Lilah left the room, his expression intense as he declared, “We have to take her in, Ollie. She’s pack. You can’t tell me that you don’t feel it.”

There was such conviction in his face that it almost pained me to turn him down, but I pressed my lips together and folded my arms over my chest anyway. “You said that she wanted to take it slow, Kill. What do you want me to do? Offer to let her move in right now? She’s clearly helping to care for her sick mother while she’s in her last days. Taking her away at this point would be cruel.”

It was a weak argument, especially when I could feel my eyes itching to shift, my wolf pacing inside me and practically howling to leap out of my chair and follow Lilah out of the room. Her eyes had been so sad as she described her home life, how alone she clearly was, and all I’d wanted to do was comfort her.

She must have been so fucking lonely.

Killian cocked his head to the side, his manic expression cooling a little, turning thoughtful. “True. We could help her. One of us could always be there with her mom, or we could have her quit her job to finish taking care of Katrina before she gets too sick. It isn’t like Lilah would need to work once she’s pack, anyway.”

Emmett grimaced, and he didn’t need to speak for me to understand exactly what he was thinking.

“Somehow, I can’t imagine that Lilah is the kind of person who would take kindly to her autonomy being undermined like that,” I pointed out dryly.

Killian furrowed his brow for a moment, and frustration made his scent bitter. “We can’t just leave her, Ollie,” he finally said, his voice firm. “Going slow, all that...that’s fine. But she’s it for our pack. I know it, and you would know it, too, if you followedyour wolf instead of being fucking stubborn. She belongs here, with us.”

He folded his arms over his chest and glared at me, and for a moment, I was stunned. Killian was the most volatile of our little trio, and I had never seen him stick to something with this much intensity for so long. His attention was usually easy to get and easy to lose.

The fact that Lilah had been his sole focus for so long was telling. And the fact that my wolf was begging for me to agree with him, to bite Lilah into the pack so that we could be family and she couldn’t leave...that was even more telling.

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