Page 25 of Knot the Alphas' Feral Omega

It had to be perfect before I let them in—my omega instinctsinsistedon that. The idea of any of them seeing my nest when it was less than perfect, less thanexceptional...

It made me want to shift into my wolf and hide under the bed, never to be seen again.

I allowed myself a tiny smile at my own dramatics and then turned in a circle, looking at the room. I’d done it in soft blues and warm woods, everything smooth and curved. The idea of any sharp corners in my nest had made me itch when we were at the store, and Killian had helped me pick out the softest sheets and blankets that were now neatly piled on the bed, waiting for me to lay on them.

It was finally perfect, and the ceremony to bite me into the pack was less than an hour away.

Nerves jittered up and down my spine, and I gave in to the urge to twirl around a little. The safety and comfort of my nest soothed something primal inside me that I had never indulged in before. I’d been reading everything there was to read about being an omega—the number of omega lifestyle blogs on the Internet was truly staggering—but it seemed there were some things that simply couldn’t be explained by words on a phone screen.

I couldn’t wait to experience all of them for myself.

I turned to the closet, my mind already whirring with ideas of what I would wear for the ceremony, when a sharp crash outside the nest door startled me.

A few seconds later, the door slammed open, making me jump nearly a foot in the air, and I couldn’t stop myself from stepping back as Oliver marched into the room, his energy angry and chaotic. Emmett followed closely behind him, and the wariness in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen before.

“Hey,” I stuttered, my stomach flipping. “What are you guys...?”

Oliver thrust out his fist, where a crumpled piece of paper was crunched between his knuckles, startling me into silence. “What thefuckis this, Lilah?” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes blazing. His voice shook with repressed rage and something that sounded dangerously close to fear, and my eyes widened as I stared at him.

There was something different about him, about the set of his shoulders as he stared me down, something that had never been there before.

“I...don’t know,” I managed, my voice small. My wolf whined inside of me, quivering under the aggressive, almost hateful gaze of our Prime Alpha, and I wanted to bare my neck for him. His eyes were flashing gold and then back to blue so quickly that I could barely keep track, and that, more than anything, signaled exactly how much trouble I was in.

Oliver never lost control. I might not have gotten to know him as well as the other two in the weeks that I had been living with them, but that was something I knew for a fact. Oliver was the perfect Prime Alpha—always calm, always measured, and always making the right decision for the pack.

But right now, that perfect Prime Alpha was nowhere to be found. Oliver’s energy was chaotic and volatile, and my inneromega desperately wanted to help, to fix the situation so our alpha would be happy with us again.

I just didn’t know what I haddone.

I focused on the piece of paper crumpled in Oliver’s hand. I reached out for it, determined to read it and get on the same page as Oliver and Emmett, but an aggressive snarl stopped my fingers in their tracks.

“I just...” My voice was small and timid, and Oliver’s brow furrowed as he stalked closer to me, his glare intensifying.

“Who is your father, Lilah?” he asked, his jaw clenched.

The question startled me. It was completely unexpected. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I told you that. My mom—”

“Stop lying!” Oliver roared. His voice was so loud that I stumbled back a step, and when I looked to Emmett for help, his expression was stony and unforgiving.

“I’m not lying!” I exclaimed, managing to inject some strength into my voice, but it still trembled as Oliver glared down at me. The tentative peace we had been enjoying in the house was shattered, and now I could feel the tension that had been lingering underneath every interaction that Oliver and I’d had for weeks.

Oliver scoffed and then thrust the letter at me. He didn’t release it from his fist, so I only caught a glimpse of some jagged handwriting.

“How long have you been working with him?” Oliver asked, sneering at me. Anger andhurtsparked in his eyes as he asked, and I swallowed, my heart squeezing. My wolf whined, low in my chest, but I ignored the biological response as I struggled to focus on what Oliver was saying to me.

“I...I don’t...?”

“The Slicer!” Oliver spat, his voice trembling for the first time during this entire interaction.

The name sent an ice-cold trickle of realization through me, and I swallowed hard, my heart pounding. “The...the serial killer?”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed, and I could see the deep well of pain in the blue depths even as he snarled hatefully, “Don’t play innocent, Lilah. This letter? He claims that he’s yourfather. And you told us that you never knew who your father was. So which of you is lying, hmm?”

He crumpled the paper a little more in his hand, and my head spun with the bombshell that he’d just dropped on me.

“Myfather?” I whispered. My voice cracked, and I shook my head, desperately trying to wrap my mind around the past five minutes. Everything I’d known about my life was falling apart, and Oliver’s rage was bitter in the air as I struggled to make sense of my present and future. His scent was still as alluring as ever, but now it was tainted with his rage, making my wolf want to hide under the bed so we didn’t incur more of our alpha’s wrath.

Finally, though, after a few seconds, I felt composed enough to speak and try to salvage the situation. “Oliver...I...I don’t knowwhat’s going on. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know t-the Slicer, and I certainly don’t know who my father is. I think we should just wait until Killian gets home so that we can all discuss this calmly, and then once we get it all sorted out, we can move forward with the bonding ceremony...”

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