Page 19 of Knot Just A Fan

CHAPTER 8

Grayson

Briella is special to me.

I delete this and try again.

Briella matters to me, and seeing her faint nearly broke me.

Nope, not that either.

Briella is my scent-match.

No. Anything but that. Because that reduces an Omega—a woman—to an aroma that gets my dick hard. Simple as that. I detest that language, that way of thinking. It’s so old-fashioned, so derogatory, so small-minded. As a society we should have moved far from it.

But like so many things with the differences between genders and status and roles, it boils down to what the selfish determine, and how loud they yell about it. In the pub, on the internet, in the clubs, whispered even in the highest of high-society gatherings. Wealth doesn’t matter. The richest, the poorest, and everyone in-between can still be guilty of treating people like nothing more than a designation.

But people are so much more. So layered, so multifocal, so nuanced.

Briella is so much more.

How do I encapsulate that in a text to a woman I barely know—about a woman I also barely know, but want to, so fucking badly?

I crank the heat in my Volvo and turn the radio down. I should be inside the venue, schmoozing, downing the free Champagne, doing a meet and greet. But I’d promised none of that to the organizers. Tonight’s a holiday, this was my night as well as everyone else’s, a casual start to a crucial tour. And this matters more than any of that.

I parked well away from the others, on a side street within view of the venue, but this is what I always do. Keeps me humble. Keeps me away from stray fans waiting at entrances.

Cami, I know you’ll do the best job of anyone of looking after Briella. But if you need anything, please contact me. That’s all I can say right now, other than she matters to me. More than she knows. More than anyone knows.

Hmm. A bit enigmatic. But maybe enough for Cami to read between the lines and understand what I’m really saying is,She’s my Omega. She’s Arcadia Echo’s Omega. And I need the time to untangle shit-strings with my pack before I breathe a word of this.

I send it.

Not for the first time, I think back to that night at their flat. Playing board games, listening to nineties pop that I felt safe to admit I loved with two women who seemed to enjoy my presence, my humor, my strangled attempts to feel normal and not a performer, not a musician, not a teacher, not a mentor, not an Alpha. Just a person. Someone who needs to be himself with people who want nothing more.

With Briella.

No. You can’t have her. Now or ever. It doesn’t matter that she smells like that one night, the sea pounding the sand and spraying into the air. It doesn’t matter that something in her eyes spoke to something in my heart.

It doesn’t matter how she might smell to Enzo and Ronan if they gave her half a chance and dropped their rut suppressants.

You swore yourself to Willow. Who are you if you can’t keep a promise?

Your dad. That’s who.

My windows are fogging slightly, which helps hide me but also looks a bit sus. I heave a tired sigh, realize we have two days off and for a moment entertain the idea of just lying in bed with a stack of books, a glass of whiskey or three, and my headphones.

I’m shaken from this reverie by my phone jumping in my hands. Cami’s replied.

She will kill me if she ever finds out I told you this, but she wanted to talk to you tonight. About … stuff she’s been feeling. She can’t, now. We have to get home. She’s okay. But we need to leave.

You need to know something about her. She has thought about you a long, long time. So I mean it—if you hurt her, I will rearrange your fucking limbs.

I swallow and read this two more times. My throat feels like a clam snapping shut, and my gut churns. Cami would make a good Alpha. She’s got the protectiveness down.

But mine’s growing by the second. The urge to race back in there and wrap Briella in my arms is powerful, but now is not the time.

I type out a quick reply, don’t reread it, and send it, before starting the car and driving home.

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