Page 46 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

But I was going to do what I had to do to ensure my pack stayed together.

24

Emmett

I sat against the wall, watching Killian lay on the ground, his eyes tracking Lilah as she walked around his room.

It had been three days since Lilah had come home to us, since her trauma response had reverted her to wolf form and sent her into a tailspin of ferality and intense, fear-driven aggression. No matter how much he tried, Killian hadn’t been able to coax her back to human form, and I was starting to lose hope.

I’d taken some time off from work, which was easy enough, considering this was the first time I’d taken time off since I started working for my company. Not that it would have mattered, even if they hadn’t wanted to give me the time; I would have just stopped showing up, employment be damned. I could always find another job.

We couldn’t find another omega—Killian and I completely agreed on that, despite my reservations and fears that we wouldn’t be good enough to help her in the way she needed.

I took a deep breath, breathing in the warmth of Lilah’s combined sweet scent and animal nature. It stirred something inside of me, and I let out a low huff of air before looking up at Killian again.

“Kill. I’m not sure...” I swallowed when he looked my way, my hands curling into fists on top of my knees. “I’m not sure if this is working,” I finished after a few seconds.

Killian shook his head and looked back at Lilah without responding to me. He had long since stopped responding to my “negative” attitude about Lilah.

I was just trying to be realistic, and as much as I ached for Lilah to be okay, my initial thoughts when she first came home seemed true. We weren’t equipped to deal with her when she was like this.

But we couldn’t let her leave, either. Killian certainly wouldn’t, and I was nearly certain that Oliver would lose his shit if she was gone again—despite his role in making sure that she was gone in the first place. As for me...

Fuck. I didn’t want to think what I would do if she was gone.

Lilah looked my way as she paced around in another little circle, a flicker of awareness in her animal eyes before they flattened again. Despite my negative attitude, there were signs that Lilah was starting to return to herself alittle—there were tiny hints ofthe person she was behind her eyes when we said something or when she looked at one of us.

Then she bared her teeth and let a snarl rip through the air, and a string of drool dripped from her parted lips before landing on one of her feet, and she resumed her pacing around as frustration and mild despair flooded me.

This was useless. This wasinfuriating. This was...

“Lilah.”

She stopped pacing at Killian’s soft word and swung her head over to look at him with a low growl. The sound didn’t stop vibrating towards him as he approached and cautiously reached out with one hand to lay it on top of her head.

She jerked, but Killian didn’t let her pull away. I watched with mild bemusement as he leaned close to her, his eyes intense on her animal face behind his glasses. He frowned a little, then carefully stroked her ears, making them flick with irritation just for a second before she seemed to relax slightly.

“There you go,” he encouraged softly. A small smile touched his lips, and I eyed the small scar on the back of his hand where Lilah’s bite mark had already healed. Shifter perks.

I just knew she would feel horrible about hurting him as soon as she came back to herself—but she had to come back to herself first.

Lilah snapped her teeth softly at him as he leaned even closer, but there was little aggression behind the gesture this time, unlike all the others. Killian leaned a little closer, his eyessearching her face. Whatever he saw there must have made him happy because he scooted closer until her front paws touched his knees, and he could gently cup her snout with his hand.

“Come on, baby girl,” he murmured, his eyes not leaving her face even for a second. “You can do this. I know you can. You need to come back to us so we can take care of you. So we can fix this.”

A moment passed, and nothing happened. I couldn’t help the frustrated whine that escaped me —a foreign sound, so much more like an omega than an alpha, which surprised me—and Killian’s eyes flicked over my way before he returned his attention to Lilah. She wasn’t growling anymore, just looking at him with a gentle cock to her head, and her tail swished back and forth a little as they stared at each other.

It wasn’t quite a tail wag, but it was calmer than we’d seen her in days.

A low growl rumbled through Killian, though it wasn’t as aggressive as Lilah’s growls had been for days. She growled right back—still aggressive and angry, sweet omega—but Killian closed his eyes and breathed, exuding calm far better than I’d ever seen him do.

”It’s okay. You’re safe. Come back to me. Just breathe and think how good it’ll feel to walk on two legs again. Breathe. Shift for me.”

Killian continued to murmur soft, soothing words to her and barely flinched when he stroked his hand under her snout, and her head darted out to clamp around his wrist again. He didn’t say or do anything about the attack; he just waited patiently, and after a moment, she released him again. This time, though,I didn’t see any new marks on his wrist beyond a slight indent from her teeth; she hadn’t broken the skin.

A surge of hope filled me, and I kneeled up, crawling across the room until I was close behind Lilah—within touching distance for the first time since she came home. Killian’s eyes flicked over to me, a hint of approval in them before they returned to Lilah’s face, and he clicked his tongue softly, drawing her attention again.

“Emmett is here, too, baby. Come on, you can do this for us. Just breathe.” He stroked his hand over the top of her head, and after a moment, I reached for her as well. Her fur was soft under my fingertips, and her eyes darted over to me as I stroked her back, holding mild suspicion before a flicker of recognition.

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