Page 43 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

He had to be around. He wouldn’t have just brought Killian and Lilah home and then just abandoned the two of them...

Even as I thought that I let out a little snort and shook my head. Who was I kidding? Of course he would have—that was peak Oliver. There was no way he wouldn’t have snuck away to try and escape his guilt once Lilah was back safe, especially when faced with the physical embodiment of that guilt in the form of our omega.

With that thought in mind, I didn’t bother searching the rest of the house for Oliver. Instead, I walked to the backyard, and with a quick peek around to make sure that there was nobody around who could see, I shifted. My clothes fell away from my body as I did so, and I stepped out of the pile of fabric before I trotted away, hearing the soft, steady sounds of two different people breathing on the second story of the house as I did so.

Killian and Lila would be just fine together while I went out and found Oliver. I knew that I could trust my packmate to keep her safe, emotionally and physically.

Hell, it was more than I could say for myself and Oliver—and that was why I needed to find him. He and I needed to have a conversation if we were going to move forward from the situation with as little emotional scarring as possible.

I moved stealthily and quietly, making sure to avoid the main roads as I made my way to the edges of the city. There were a few copses of trees that Oliver liked to retreat to whenever things got to be too much, and I had a feeling I was going to find himin one of those. I called them his little bolt holes. He hated how I called him out for needing time away from everything, but he was only human—at least partly. He might like to put up the facade of being impenetrable, but at the end of the day, he was just a person, a shifter with big feelings, the same as the rest of us.

Granted, those big feelings had created a pretty big fucking mess in our lives, but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

I hoped.

Oliver wasn’t in the first place I checked, or the second place. It took nearly an hour of wandering before I finally stumbled on him, tucked underneath the abandoned porch of a shed on someone’s private property. I only managed to track him down by finally giving in to my animal instincts and letting my nose lead the way; this wasn’t one of his usual hiding places, and as I slid into the tiny space beside him, he let out a small huff of breath.

I didn’t pressure him to shift back so that we could talk right away. Instead, I snuggled next to him, laying my head on his paws and letting his breath ruffle over my fur as we enjoyed each other’s company. Things were simpler when we were wolves—he and I both knew that, and maybe I needed this moment with my packmate, silent and pensive.

It was almost fifteen minutes later when Oliver finally lifted his head from his paws and crawled out of the little hole, walking away. I rose to my feet and followed him, and we slowly made our way back to the house, neither of us doing anything other than prodding each other through our pack bonds to make sure we knew that the other was still there.

When we got back to the packhouse, though, we both shifted. I got dressed in the clothes I’d left on the porch before sitting on one of the steps, watching as Oliver shifted and dressed in a similar pile of clothing I hadn’t noticed as I left.

Oliver sank onto the step next to me and sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. The blond strands stuck up as he did so, and he let out a low, long growl as he looked at me over his shoulder, regret heavy into his blue eyes. “I fucked up.”

I pressed my lips together. It wasn’t the first admission of guilt I had ever heard Oliver say, but it was the most concise. I could see how twisted up he was over this entire situation with Lilah, and I chose to be the bigger person and not say I told you so.

“Yeah, I know,” I finally said.

Oliver stayed silent for almost five minutes after that, and I let him have his moment. I knew there was something that he wanted to say—I could see it in the set of his shoulders—but Oliver wasn’t the kind of person who you forced a conversation with. If he wasn’t good and ready to talk about something, nothing on this planet would force him to.

Finally, though, he spoke again. “I think Jack would be disappointed in me,” he said quietly.

My stomach sank. This had turned a different direction than I’d thought it would, but I recognized that this was truly the crux of the issue. “I don’t think that’s true,” I said gently. I reached out and gently rubbed my hand on Oliver’s back, nudging at him through our pack bond, trying to comfort him. “I think he would recognize that you’ve made mistakes and that you fucked up pretty badly when it came to Lilah. He always wanted a scent-match, the same as Killian, and the fact that you pushed her away...”

“I just lost my mind,” Oliver said quietly. “I couldn’t look at her and not see Jack. The way that we saw him...the last time.”

I grimaced. Seeing Jack in the morgue when we went to identify his body was one of the worst experiences of my life, and it was something that I would prefer not to repeat, ever, if possible.

I could understand why Oliver would have such a visceral reaction if the letter from Hunter Randall had made him think of that, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with the outcome.

“Did you apologize to her yet?” I asked gently.

Oliver sank his teeth into his lower lip, worrying the flesh for a moment before he slowly shook his head. “I don’t think she wants to talk to me yet,” he said quietly. “She might not ever want to talk to me again, after the way I treated her.”

There was a sadness in his voice that I wasn’t going to point out, but I could feel his longing in the bond. No matter how far away he’d pushed her, Oliver felt bad for how he’d treated her and wanted her back. He was the one getting in his own way, though.

“Jack wouldn’t want this life for you,” I said after a moment of consideration. I kept my voice gentle as I continued, “He wouldn’t want to know that the only thing you ever had in life was your job. He would want you to give everything a try. You know that as well as I do.”

Oliver was silent for a moment, and then he slowly shook his head, speaking even quieter than before. “I think you’re right, but I don’t know how to anymore.”

Oliver’s confession broke my heart, and I threw my arm over his shoulder to pull him close. I nudged his head until it rested on my shoulder, and I offered him comfort as he let out a shaky sigh. I knew this was a pretty strict reversal of the rules that we usually followed in the pack, but I could feel that my Prime Alpha needed comfort from me right now. He needed to know that, despite the amount of fuck ups that he had engaged in over the past week, I wasn’t upset with him and that I was still going to work with him to try and make things better.

Of course I was, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have to do the work, just like me. I had been there when he rejected Lila, too, and I knew that I would have to put in a lot of effort before she accepted my apology.

After a few moments, I nudged Oliver back up and turned to face him fully as I spoke. “I’m going to help Killian with Lilah,” I said gently. “I’m going to help her reintegrate into the pack, and she’s moving in here, effective immediately.”

Oliver’s eyes widened slightly at my statement, but I didn’t let him back away. I pressed forward instead, reaching out and planting my hand over his chest, where we could both feel our pack bond vibrating. “It would help if you were there too. If you helped to assimilate her. You’re Prime for a reason. It would be meaningful, not just as her alpha, but as the man who hurt her. You owe her an apology and so much more than that. Please don’t let your pride get in the way of what’s best for the pack.”

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