Page 89 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

I continued looking around, seeing faces that looked vaguely familiar. I spoke in quiet murmurs as I asked Killian questions about who was who.

For the most part, Killian indulged me with the kind of casual warmth I had come to associate with him, and on my other side, Emmett reached out and laid his hand on my knee, sparking arousal that I didn’t think he was aware I was feeling.

After I’d started to feel a little more comfortable with the crowd, Oliver took me around to meet some of his coworkers. Though I barely remembered the faces of the men and women he introduced me to, I still felt the warmth of pride from being on Oliver’s arm and hearing him declare me ashis omegawhenever he was asked who I was.

But as the course of the night went on, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling more unsettled. Goosebumps rose and settled on my skin in turn, and I could feel sweat dripping down the back of my neck every now and then before I wiped it off. The roomwas warm, though I attributed that to having so many bodies crammed into such a small space.

Finally, Oliver brought me back to the table and deposited me between Killian and Emmett again before he went off and returned with drinks for all of us.

I accepted the drink gratefully, sipping the chilled champagne and still sweating. I was feeling uncomfortably warm.

Nearly an hour passed before anything noteworthy happened, though I had resigned myself to a relatively dull evening at this event. I was with my alphas, and that was really all that mattered.

But when Killian stiffened at my side, and I saw his eyes narrow at someone who had just walked in, I knew something was about to happen.

“What is it?” My head swiveled to the side, and I turned to look in the same direction as Killian was, hunting for the thing that had made my alpha so unsettled.

At first, I didn’t notice what it was. All I saw was a new, steady stream of people filtering in through the front: several people in suits who looked like bodyguards and a couple of well-dressed individuals near the center of the crowd.

Emmett scoffed under his breath and muttered, “Of course.”

“What?” I asked, my heart leaping into my throat. Oliver was off again, talking to his boss, though I could see him clearly when I looked for him. He had made a point of never being outof my sight throughout the evening, which was very obviously intentional and made my stomach flutter with butterflies.

I could see him holding a glass of whiskey and speaking to two older gentlemen wearing suits which probably cost the same as a small country’s GDP. He glanced my way as I was looking at him, giving me a small wink before returning to his conversation. The gesture settled something inside of me, and I turned back to the newcomers, trying to figure out exactly where I knew them from.

“Who are they?” I finally asked, giving up after about thirty seconds of fruitlessly searching my mental stores and coming up blank.

“That is the envoy of shifter royalty, Lilah,” Emmett said quietly. He reached for my hand again, linking our fingers together and squeezing, and I suppressed the shiver of arousal that went through me at the small gesture.

In the back of my mind, the voice of reason screamed, wondering what exactly was wrong with me that was causing me to be so sensitive to every single touch, but I shoved that voice to the side as I focused on the truly chilling implication of Emmett’s words.

“What are they doing here?” I said quietly.

Shifter royalty—the monarchy that had once ruled over every individual with the power to change form—was something of a legend in the modern day. Shifters were subject to the state and federal governments of the countries they resided in, just like everybody else, and the need for an overarching monarchy that controlled everyone’s power and looked into everyone’s business was a thing of the past.

Still, that didn’t stop the monarchy from existing. From what I understood, we had a king who was single, aside from his squadron of guards and his childhood best friend, who was both his head of security and his right-hand man, if I was to understand everything correctly.

Looking at the crowd that had walked in, it didn’t take a genius to see that the King wasn’t there. I was certain there would be far more of an upheaval in the shifter world if he had walked into this function in the middle of our city. That didn’t mean the people there weren’t important—I just didn’t know who they were.

“He’s not here, right? King...Mal...Mal...something...” I looked at Killian helplessly, and after a moment of letting me struggle, he chuckled.

“King Malcolm Tranent,” he informed me. “And no, it doesn’t look like he’s here.” His expression twisted a little bit. “But that doesn’t mean that his ghouls aren’t.”

I glanced at the newcomers again. “What do you mean?”

“It means that the people the King chooses to surround himself with are morally reprehensible, at best,” Emmett supplied, his expression grim when I glanced over at him. His hand flexed on top of my knee, his thumb stroking back and forth on the inside, and I couldn’t stop myself from shivering at the gesture.

“You’re right.” Oliver’s voice was sudden and strong, and he walked up, handing me another glass of champagne, taking my empty glass away from me, and setting it on the table. His expression was neutral, though I could see a glint of unease in his blue eyes as he glanced over his shoulder toward the envoy.“The King isn’t here, but Jackson and Deverick are both present, and rumor is they’re looking for someone.”

I furrowed my brow and looked up at Oliver. “That...doesn’t make any sense. Here?”

“Who are they looking for?” Killian asked.

Oliver shook his head, and, almost as if we were one body, we all looked towards the center of the room again.

For a moment, all we could see were the guards surrounding the people in the center of the group. They all looked very official, with headpieces and black suits that looked like they probably cost the monarchy a pretty penny. But then, as we watched, they parted, and we were able to see the two men standing in the middle, their heads bent together as they whispered.

One of them was tall, his hair dark, long, and shaggy, though it was styled back neatly, tucked behind his ears. His eyes glowed alpha gold, even from across the room, and I wondered what was causing him to be so worked up that he was so close to a shift in the middle of a crowd.

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