Page 63 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

“Thank you, Omega,” I said quietly, her designation feeling heavy, formal, and oddly right in the moment. “I promise I won’t violate your trust again.”

She made a tiny, contented sound, and I stroked my hand up and down her back before I ventured one more question. “Do you think you’ll ever be ready to go back into your nest?”

She stiffened a little under my hand, and the sound that escaped her then was distressed. Her sweet scent turned bitter, and internally, I kicked myself for asking such astupidquestion.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I added hastily, trying to fix the damage I had just done. “You don’t have to. Not until you’re ready.”

She whimpered and then, so quietly that I could barely hear her, asked, “What if I’m never ready?”

I hummed, stroking my hand up and down her back to try and soothe her. “Then we’ll turn that room into something else. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a home gym.”

There was a pause, and then Lilah snorted softly. ”Yeah, okay,” she said skeptically. There was a hardness to her voice that hadn’t been there before, and I had the feeling I’d just struck a nerve.

Her body and biology would take some time to get back on board with being ours, but her mind was already there. She was strongand fierce, exactly the kind of omega that our pack needed, and I knew she was going to make sure we did the work to earn her—and her nest—back.

33

Lilah

Everything inside of me was tight and tense. At my side, Killian held my hand firmly, his thumb stroking back and forth across the top of my hand.

We were standing in front of my mother’s house. We had been there for nearly ten minutes, and I still couldn’t bring myself to walk up to the front door and knock.

Rationally, I knew that it had only been a few weeks since I’d seen Mom and that very few things would have changed in that amount of time. She was still sick, of course, but what difference would a few weeks have made? She was still alive. She was still okay. Wasn’t she?

The thought made my stomach swoop, and that, more than anything, got my feet moving.

Killian, bless his sweet, unhinged heart, didn’t say anything as he followed me to the front door. Everything about this should be in my own time, according to him, and he was only there for support.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he reminded me, squeezing my hand when I looked up at him for reassurance.

I nodded and firmly told the sinister voice at the back of my mind that there was no way that my mother had died before I got here. I’d spoken to her over the phone not twenty minutes before, and she’d sounded tired, but happy at the prospect of seeing me.

Those very rational thoughts still didn’t make me feel better, and it took Killian wrapping his arms firmly around me before some of the anxiety and my blood pressure started to settle.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

I swallowed, shaking my head. The anxiety was just one of the many side effects I was going to have to deal with while I recovered from Bond Rejection Syndrome, and I was alreadysofucking done. “I know,” I whispered.

With that, I let out a slow breath and closed my eyes, grounding myself before I lifted one hand and knocked.

The sound echoed for a painful moment—or maybe that was just in my head—and then a few seconds later, there were footsteps on the other side of the door before it swung open to reveal a short, professional-looking beta woman in scrubs.

She eyed me up and down, just for a moment, before she nodded and a small smile spread across her face. “You must be Lilah. Katrina has talked about you a lot.”

She stepped to the side to let me in, and I offered a smile as I walked into the house, feeling Killian follow behind me.

As soon as I was in the house, though, my nostrils flared and my stomach turned. The scent of antiseptic and sickness wasn’t a new one—my mother had been sick for a long time—but now the sterile, medical smell made me want to vomit. My blood pressure spiked, my head swam, and my wolf whined inside of me, desperate to run away as quickly as I could.

Killian’s hands fell on my shoulders just as I tensed, and he leaned down to press a tender kiss to the side of my neck, whispering in my ear, “You’re not back there, baby girl. Breathe.”

How does he always know what to say?

I let out a shaky breath and nodded, forcing myself to breathe slowly, in and out, for several seconds before I felt steady enough to step away from him and offer a tight smile. The nurse watched the two of us with an arched eyebrow but thankfully didn’t say anything before nodding at me.

“She’s in her room.”

I thanked the nurse with a silent nod and then headed toward the room that had been my mother’s for as long as we had been in this house. The door to my room was shut, and for a brief moment, I was struck with a longing to go in and bury myself in the blankets, comforting smells, and surroundings.

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