Page 94 of Knot Unwanted: Part One

“You’re not thinking clearly?—”

“Fuckyou!” I try to dodge around him, but he moves faster than I expect, wrapping his arms around me from behind. The contact is electric, sending sparks of unwanted arousal through my already sensitized body. My cock—still half-hard from Hailey—twitches like a fucking traitor.

“Let me go!” I thrash against him, but he only holds me tighter, pressing me back against his chest. His scent—cedar and lightning and alpha—wraps around me, familiar as breathing and foreign as a stranger’s touch. It used to calm me, this scent. Used to make me feel safe and cherished and wanted. When did that change? When did his touch start feeling like a reminder of everything I was losing?

“Not until you calm down.”

“Calm down?” I laugh again, and it sounds hysterical even to my own ears. “You want me to calm down when she’s out there alone? When she’s scared and confused and—” My voice cracks. “And I did that to her. I kissed her and I scared her and?—”

“And what about us?” Ren’s voice cuts through my spiral.

He stands in the doorway now, smoke and sandalwood rolling off him in waves that make my knees weak. His shoulders fill the frame, blocking any hope of escape, and there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before—something wild and desperate and afraid.

“Did you think about us at all while you had your tongue down her throat?”

The words hit like a slap. Shame and defiance war in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “Like you care,” I spit, tasting salt—tears or sweat, I’m not sure anymore. “Like any of you have cared what I do for months.”

“That’s bullshit, Finn, and you know it.” Ren takes a step forward, his eyes flashing cold in a way that makes the omega in me want to bare my throat. But I’m done submitting. Done pretending. Done watching everything I love slip through my fingers. He moves closer, each step deliberate. “We’ve been trying?—”

“Trying what?” The words rip out of me. “To push me away? To make me feel like I don’t belong? Well congratu-fucking-lations, you’ve succeeded!” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate how broken I sound. Hate how the tears are starting to blur my vision.

Something in Jax’s grip changes, becomes desperate rather than restraining. His fingers dig into my hips, pressing me against him. “Finn, stop. Please.”

That ‘please’ undoes me. Jax doesn’t beg. Doesn’t plead. He’s our rock, our steady ground, our voice of reason. But he sounds wrecked now, like he’s the one coming apart.

“Why?” I demand, but it comes out more like a sob. “So we can go back to pretending everything’s fine? So you can all keep your secrets while I watch everything fall apart? While I lie awake at night trying to figure out what I did wrong? What changed? Why you all suddenly decided I wasn’t enough?—”

“They think she’s our mate!” Ren roars.

The words hit me like a punch in the gut. I go still in Jax’s arms, certain I’ve misheard. The room seems to tilt on its axis, and suddenly there’s not enough air. “What?”

“Sheisour mate,” Jax says quietly against my neck, and each word falls like a hammer blow. “Our scent match. All of us.”

The world stops.

Just…stops.

My body goes numb, starting from where Jax’s words hit my skin and spreading outward like frost. The room seems to shrink and expand at the same time, the familiar walls of our TV room becoming strange and threatening. Photos on the walls blur into meaningless shapes, memories I can’t quite grasp anymore.

“That’s not…that’s not possible.” The words come out thin, reedy, like they’re traveling a great distance to reach my lips.

But even as I say it, pieces start clicking into place with the terrible precision of a lock being picked. The way her scent called to me—sweet and dark and perfect. The instant connection that felt like recognizing something I’d been searching for my whole life. The desperate need to protect her that went beyond basic instinct. The way my body responded to her presence like I was dying and she was the cure.

But…wait. Omegas don’t scent match to other omegas. What I’m thinking about isn’t possible. And then, like a knife sliding between my ribs, another realization hits.

Ifshe’stheir true mate—their scent match—then what am I?

The question opens up a void inside me; a big dark hole in the center of my chest. Two fucking years of memories cascade through my mind, each one taking on a new, horrifying context. All those late nights at the office. All those moments when I caught them looking at each other with something like guilt in their eyes.

My mind spins, trying to make sense of it all.

The tears increase without warning. My chest heaves with sobs I can’t contain anymore. All these years of drift, of feeling like something was missing…it wasn’t just in my head. It was real. It was this.

I’m not their scent match. I’m just…what? A placeholder? A mistake? Someone they settled for before they found their real mate?

Every touch, every kiss, every ‘I love you’—were they real? Orwere we all just going through the motions, trying to force something that was never meant to be?

“Finn?” Jax’s voice sounds different now, thick with something I can’t bear to interpret. He tries to turn me to face him, but I resist, planting my feet. I can’t look at him. Can’t bear to see the truth in his eyes—the realization that must be hitting him just as hard as it’s hitting me.

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