Page 78 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

I appreciated him wanting to give me an out, but enough was enough. I wasn’t going to get through my trauma if I just waited for it to happen on its own. I had to be proactive.

I swallowed hard, then nodded as I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’m sure. Just...don’t leave?”

I hated the flicker of vulnerability in my voice as I spoke, hated how it gave him the power to hurt me if he so chose.

His arms tightened around me. “I won’t leave. I’ll never leave.”

The conviction in his voice made my stomach flip, and then the two of us stood up. Oliver took my hand in his, and after a moment of staring at the open doorway, I let out a shaky breath and stepped inside.

The second I was fully in the room, though, I collapsed again.

My knees gave out from underneath me, and Oliver went down with me, wrapping his arms tightly around me and holding me firmly against him as we kneeled on the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut, one of my hands flying up to my throat as my breathing grew shallow and fast, and my head swam with images of Oliver’s face as he rejected me, the way that I had attacked him when I had first showed up, the way that I was so desperately trying to keep it together...

“Breathe, princess. In and out, there you go. Come on, Lilah, you can do this. You’re so much better andstrongerthan this...you can move past what I did to you...” Oliver’s voice grew chokedeven as he held me and murmured words of encouragement, and the tiny, vindictive voice in the back of my head whispered that if I had to suffer, at leasthewas suffering too.

I smothered that voice immediately, even as I forced myself to breathe slowly in and out, deep breaths that didn’t make my head spin. He was trying. I was trying. Being glad that he was suffering just as much as I was...that wasn’t who I was. I didn’t want to see him suffer any more than I wanted tobethe one suffering.

But none of those good intentions, his or mine, changed the fact that Iwassuffering, and it was directly because of his actions.

Oliver’s arms tightened around my middle, and he kept murmuring quietly in my ear, building me up as my heart rate slowed and my head stopped spinning, untilfinally, I was calm, and I could look up and around my nest without panicking or trying to squirm away.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, and Oliver’s arms finally relaxed from around me. “Okay?” he whispered.

I turned around to face him, meeting his gaze—uncharacteristically uncertain, considering his alpha status—and scooted a little closer. “Y-yeah. I think so.” I pressed my lips together, then offered him a small smile. “Thank you. For being here.”

His eyes flickered with a million emotions—self-recrimination, soft affection, guilt, desire— and he nodded, leaning forward so our foreheads were resting together. “Of course. I told you I wouldn’t leave, and I meant it.”

I swallowed and nodded again, and then I pressed closer, tucking my head against his neck and folding myself into his arms.

His entire body stiffened, just for a moment, and then his arms came around me again, tightening firmly as I pressed my face into his pulse point, breathing in his scent where it was the strongest. It made my head spin in a good way this time, and unwittingly, I felt my body warming, arousal flooding my limbs and making me twitchy and soft and pliant at the same time.

A sharp inhale told me that Oliver smelled it, too, and his voice was tense when he breathed, “Lilah...”

I whimpered, my wolf squirming inside of me, desperate to come out and play with our alpha. Now that he had talked me through yet another panic attack, now that he had stood behind me when I had staked my claim in front of another woman, now that we were in mynestand I wasn’t freaking out about it for the first time in weeks...

I couldn’t deny anymore that I wanted him, that my body was straining towards him, begging for him to touch me...in the way that his fellow alphas had already claimed me.

“Oliver.” I barely recognized my voice when I lifted my head to look him in the eye. It was raspy and sultry, filled with desire and longing, and my hands slid up his chest, wrapping around the back of his neck and playing with his soft strands of blond hair where they curled gently.

His eyes darkened as I touched him, and his scent spiked with arousal. A low growl rumbled through him, and his arms tightened around my waist.

“Pick a safe word,” he said, his eyes flashing. “Something you can say that will stop me, no matter what it is that we’re doing.”

Excitement twisted inside of me at his words. “Octopus,” I immediately said, the word flying out of my mouth before I thought twice about it.

His eyes gleamed, and his lips tugged up in a dangerous smirk. “Good girl.”

Then he yanked me forward until I was in his lap, and he crushed his lips against mine in a bruising kiss.

41

Lilah

I whimpered and melted in Oliver’s arms as he attacked the kiss with a low growl. His lips were warm and soft but aggressive against mine, and the sheerpowerhe radiated as he hauled me a little bit further onto his lap made it too easy to spread my legs so that I was straddling his thighs.

His teeth sank into my lower lip, and my fingers wound through his shirt as I kissed him back just as hard, giving everything I had. Arousal burned through me, sudden and intense, and the low groan Oliver let out told me that he smelled it just as intensely as I felt it.

“Are you sure, princess?” He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, his blue gaze hooded and steamy as his tongue flicked out to drag along his lower lip. “I understand...I mean. Iwouldunderstand...”

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