Page 54 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

“We need to talk about it, Lilah,” he said softly—gently, despite the grimace that told me he didn’t want to have this conversation much more than I did.

I flinched a little before I looked up and met his gaze. My body rioted as I looked him in the eye, but I forced down all the shakiness and dizziness, breathing in his scent and desperatelywilling my body to calm the fuck down. There was no way this would work if I kept wanting to faint every time I accidentally caught a whiff of his scent.

Killian and Emmett seemed to sense the more than obvious tension, and they each set down their silverware, looking at me and Oliver in turn. I didn’t look away from Oliver, instead lowering my chin in a nod and taking a deep breath.

“Yes, we do,” I said softly.

He nodded and then cocked his head to the side. A new hardness entered his eyes, and he pressed his lips together for a moment. “Please explain to me your side of the story regarding Hunter Randall,” he said softly. “And then I’ll tell you ours.”

It wasn’t the direction I had expected this conversation to go, and for a moment, I reeled back, shock slapping me in the face. Then, understanding dawned. Of course he wanted to talk about this—it was the impetus behind him rejecting me. Everything started with Hunter Randall.

I nodded, looking down at my hands clasped in my lap. Killian’s hand snuck over and linked our fingers together, and I squeezed his hand back, grateful for the support.

“I wasn’t lying to you that day,” I started. “I’d heard of Hunter Randall, of course. He’s been one of the most notorious serial killers in our area for the last twenty years. I would have been stupid, blind, and deaf if I hadn’t heard of him. I couldn’t tell you the names of any of his victims or anything like that, though. I know lots of people are into true crime, but I’ve never been one of them.”

“Noted,” Oliver said softly.

I nodded again. “I didn’t know that he was the one who hurt...” I looked at Killian, and he grimaced.

“Jack,” he supplied.

I winced a little. I knew that. “Right. Jack. I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know that he was a member of your pack, and I didn’t know he was a victim of Randall.” I paused and continued, “And I didn’t know that Randall is allegedly my father. I told you I didn’t know who my father was, and I was telling the truth. I’ve never needed a father. Me and my mother got along just fine without a father figure in my life, so when that letter came to the house...”

“I’m sure you were just as shocked as we were,” Emmett said softly.

His hand reached out and landed on top of my thigh, squeezing comfortingly, and I squeezed Killian’s hand as I lay my other on top of Emmett’s. The feeling of having both of them on either side of me was steady and comforting, enough to bolster me and give me the strength to nod.

“I was,” I said, my voice a little raspy. I looked up at Oliver, and the guilt flickering in his eyes made my nausea spike. I shoved it down and continued, not looking away from him, “And then when you didn’t believe me...”

I trailed off, allowing the silence to fill my words. What I didn’t say out loud was that I had a strong suspicion that the fact that he didn’ttrustme—not necessarily the fact that he had rejectedme—was the true reason my body was reacting so strongly to the rejection.

Oliver blew out a breath and nodded. His eyes flicked over to Killian, then Emmett, and I saw the mild resignation on his face as he took the three of us in together.

If there had been any hope of Killian—and maybe even Emmett, though he and I still hadn’t talked about how he felt—letting me go after this, I could see Oliver realizing that hope was dashed. There was no way that Killian would allow me to go anywhere until I was healed, and probably not even then.

Especially with my mom as sick as she was...

The thought of my mother immediately sobered me, even more than the conversation we were having. I opened my mouth, ready to tell Oliver that it was fine if we shelved the conversation for now because I needed to go and see my mom, but then Oliver started talking before I could say anything.

“Jack...Jack was the most hopeful of all of us.” Oliver’s voice was soft and hesitant, and he stared down at the table, twisting his fingers together as he spoke. “He and I knew each other the longest. We met Killian and Emmett when we were all in high school, and the four of us became fast friends. He and I...we’d known each other since we were five. He was the brother I never had. He was so happy and joyful. He was convinced we would make thebestpack someday. The moment we both presented as alphas was one of the happiest times of his life, in his words, and it was hard not to get swept up in his enthusiasm when he would get going.”

Killian chuckled softly, clearly remembering something. Oliver’s gaze cut towards him for a moment, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips before he returned his attention to me, his face immediately sobering again. “After we formalized our pack, Jack wanted to go out and start looking for an omega immediately. He wanted to register our availability to court with the state, and he only laid off the issue when I told him we would be a better prospect for our omega if we all had our degrees and were situated in our career fields.”

I swallowed. “That makes sense,” I whispered.

Oliver lifted one shoulder in a shrug, looking down at his lap again. “Yes, well. We went through the first few years of college, and every summer, we discussed registering to find an omega. Jack couldn’t get it out of his head. It was...it was the only thing that he wanted. He wanted us to be a pack—a big happy family.”

My stomach dropped out from underneath me. Other than the inevitable, gruesome conclusion, I might not know where this story was going, but there was something foreboding in the air. “Okay...?”

Oliver nodded, still not looking up at me. His voice was a little hoarse when he continued. “He went behind our backs. Before our senior year, he made an appointment to go to the office to get the registration paperwork started. He was so damn excited that morning, but I’d been too busy getting ready for work to ask him what he was so happy about before he left.” He paused. “Randall followed him after he left the office, and that’s when he attacked.”

My hand flew to my mouth, stifling the shocked squeak that wanted to escape me. I knew that that was the end of the story, of course, but the circumstances leading up to it...

If I’d thought I felt sick before, it was nothing compared to what I felt now.

“What...what did Randall do to him?” I finally whispered once I got my shaking voice under control.

Killian snorted at my side. “You don’t want to know that, baby girl,” he said bitterly. I knew his derision wasn’t directed towards me but rather at the unfairness of the entire situation. “Please. Trust me when I tell you that it’s nothing that anybody should have to see or know.”

---