Page 15 of Break Me Knot

The back alleys reek of garbage and despair, but I stick to them anyway, knowing the main streets are too dangerous. Every shadow could hide an alpha, every passing car could carry the ones from Pinnacle. Their scents still cling to my memory, leather and pine, dark amber and citrus, smoked cedar and spiced vanilla. My body responds to even the memory, sending another flood of slick down my thighs. I don’t understand why I react to them. Whythemin particular, when every other alpha I cross knots my stomach with dread?

“Stop it,” I hiss at myself, pressing against a cold brick wall. A fire rages deep within me, turning my blood tostreams of lava.

I clench my eyes shut but three sets of eyes that landed on me after I woke in their pristine offices are burned behind my eyelids. They looked at me as if I'm precious, as if I matter. Like Ibelong. The tallest one, the prime alpha, took a step forward with his hand outstretched, and something in me wanted to reach back. Wanted to let him catch me, to surrender to the protection they promised.

The allure of alphas at their best.

Haven taught me a lot. Including that every alpha offers a lie. A price I’m not willing to pay. Not even for alphas whose scents speak to parts of me I never knew existed…and why is that?

I nearly didn’t make it out.

My apartment building looms ahead, and I pause in the shadows, scanning for danger. I can’t stay here long. My scent will attract every dirtbag alpha around and I know when I’m deep in my heat I’ll scream for them all. Their own willing little slut they’ll take advantage of in my most vulnerable time.

I can’t stay in my apartment. I have three locks on my door, but they won’t be strong enough for an alpha in rut. I need to find somewhere safe to ride out this heat.

I must get my mother’s locket first. It's the only thing left of her, the only thing I was able to take with me when I ran from Haven. If Chuck, the sleazy beta building manager, realizes my apartment is empty, he'll ransack through my things and find it. He's done it before to other tenants.

The thought is enough to keep putting foot after foot. Keep my mind on what I have to do. Get in, get the locket, get out. Find somewhere to ride out this disaster of a heat. Then disappear. Start over somewhere new, somewhere these alphas can't find me.

Find another scumbag to extort me for the pills I need to exist.

New jobs I can work for cash that pay next to nothing for the pleasure of turning up every day.

Every step is agony as I stagger through back alleys. The sun has tracked across the sky, marking hours I've spent wandering, too afraid to take direct routes. Myuniform is soaked with sweat despite the freezing temperature, and slick has dried on my thighs.

I haven't eaten in... I can't remember. Yesterday? The day before? The hunger pains have faded beneath the burning frenzy of my heat, but the weakness remains. My vision keeps blurring, the world tilting sideways when I move too quickly.

A burst of alpha pheromones hits me, and I barely make it behind a dumpster before a group of them passes the alley entrance. Their scents are all wrong. Harsh, aggressive, nothing like the perfect harmony of the three from Pinnacle.

I press between the grimy wall and a dumpster, trying to make myself smaller and not breathe.Please don't smell me, please don't smell me, please...

Their voices carry on the wind, crude jokes and lazy laughter. One of them stops, and I hear him dragging air into his nose no doubt scenting the air, and I bite my lip until I taste blood to keep from whimpering. After what seems like hours, they move on, their footsteps fading into the general noise of the city.

I slide down the wall, my legs unable to hold me up any longer. The metal of the dumpster is ice-cold against my fevered skin. More people walk past the alley entrance. I have to stay here. Keep hidden and it’s so nice to rest after running through the city. To drift…

My eyes snap open as my body tilts. I catch myself before I collapse on the frozen ground. Darkness fills the alley now and, high above, stars twinkle in an onyx sky.

Hell, I must have fallen asleep. I try to move but my muscles are cramped and useless. I check my phone for the time but the battery is dead. At least there are no sounds or signs of people around. I can reach my apartment and get the hell away without being discovered. I force myself to move. My joints crack like brittle twigs as I straighten, using the dumpster for support. I have to wait for my vision to settle before I check the alley. I’m weaker than I want to be.

Past the alley and in the street beyond, streetlamps cast sickly yellow pools of light on dirty snow, but there's no movement in their glow. I stagger toward my building, every step an exercise in staying upright. The heat burns through me inwaves, making it hard to think or to focus on anything except the pulsating ache clawing at my insides. Slick trickles down my thighs, but I'm too dehydrated for it to be the same flood as earlier.

The stairs are a mountain I have to climb. Three flights seem like thirty, each step sending sparks of pain through my overtaxed muscles. By the time I reach my floor, I'm trembling so badly I can barely grip my keys.

They clatter to the floor once, twice, three times, before I manage to get the key into the lock. The sound seems deafening in the quiet hallway, and I freeze at each noise, waiting for someone to investigate. But no doors open, no voices call out.

When the lock finally turns, relief hits me so hard I almost collapse. I stumble inside, the familiar musty smell of my apartment never more welcome.

My nest calls to me. Pathetic as it is, it's still mine. My instincts scream to burrow into it, to let the heat take me somewhere safe and warm. But I can't. Won't. My trembling hands stuff clothing into my worn satchel instead, movements clumsy with exhaustion.

My scent billows around me. Potent and ripe.

The locked box under the sink might as well be at the bottom of the ocean for how impossible it is to reach. I collapse to my knees, the metal handle of the cabinet cool against my burning forehead as I try to steady myself. Just this one thing. Get the locket, then get the fuck out of here. A whimper tears up my throat and I clutch my stomach as another cramp corkscrews through me. My core clenches around nothing, lusting for a knot stat. My scent spikes, tainted with my distress, and pounding ratchets inside my skull.

The box scrapes against the pipes as I drag it out, my fingers fumbling with the combination lock. The numbers swim before my eyes, and I have to try several times before I get it right. The lid creaks open, revealing the broken, delicate gold chain nestled in the bottom of the box. If the chain wasn’t broken, I’d be wearing it and not have come back here, but finding the money to fix the chain is out of my reach.

I can’t help but give in to the urge to open the little golden heart and see the photo of the three of us taken on my sixteenth birthday. The two halves fall apart,the pin in the hinge also having long gone, and I cup the pieces in my palm to look at the photo nestled inside. My vision blurs when I see Mom and Dad’s smiling faces. Both have their arms around me as I stand between them, and I look so damned naive I can’t believe that person was once me.

The image is faded, having survived the river and being stored in damp cupboards over the years. Spots of mold dot the tiny image. Soon I won’t be able to see them except in my memories. It’s all I have left.

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