Page 31 of Knot in Their Wildest Dreams: Part 1

I turned away and crossed my arms. I hated to admit that I was anxious. He didn’t say anything more about Liam and Dante and whether they were safe, but he also didn’t seem worried about it. I saw him breathing through his mouth as he stared down at me. His pupils were still huge, and I knew his mind must be spinning with the realization that I’d hidden what we were for nearly a month of living with them.

Every second dragged. I could feel him fighting the bond just as hard as I was, standing there, muscles taut, hands flexing at his sides like he was resisting the urge to reach for me.

The silence snapped when the sound of tires crunching over gravel echoed outside. A car door slammed, then another. Moments later, Liam and Dante burst through the door, both looking roughed up but alive - blood staining Dante’s knuckles, a split along Liam’s brow.

They looked kind of hot like this.My omega mind wanted to start imagining how strong they were to fight their way out of the party full of alphas, all to protect me, but I had to pull my thoughts back to the seriousness of the situation.

Liam’s eyes burned with a mix of longing and frustration, while Dante barely glanced at me before storming off, his footsteps pounding down the hallway as he retreated to his room. The door slammed shut, and the sound echoed through the house like a warning.

Liam didn’t waste a second. He stalked toward me, positioning himself in front of me, with Vigo standing close behind - both of them blocking my escape, like two hulking sentinels. The silence between us stretched out, thick and tense.

Liam leaned in, his voice low and rough with emotion.

“When the hell were you planning on telling us, Celeste?”

Chapter 22

Liam

I stood there, looking down at Celeste’s defiant face as she glared at me. “Never.” she replied, and the tone in her words meant that she was serious. She was never going to tell us that we were scent matches.

“So you knew, and agreed to come over here, go through a fake courtship, and live in our house. And you planned to just leave after and never let us know that we’remates?” The last word tore out of me like a roar, and I caught the smallest, involuntary flinch from her.

Mates.

The very idea of it made something deep inside me ache. I should have been furious. Iwasfurious. But buried underneath the fury was something worse - despair. It made my throat feel tight and my chest hurt, despite my mind knowing that she could never be right for us.

Her reaction told me everything: she hated the idea as much as I hated that it mattered to me.

Why was I hurt that she rejected the idea, even when I knew she was horrible?

We were scent matched. I realized it with a slow dread back at the party once I smelled that indescribable scent coming from her, now laced with her real pheromones. It was incredible. My body just knew that this scent, this omega, was perfect. It felt like everything I ever longed for was suddenly here, in my reach. Except when I turned to find the source of the scent and saw Celeste, in the middle of a room full of alphas, I realized our worst enemy was supposed to be our life match.

“First of all, I didn’t agree to come here and do all this. You blackmailed me into it.” She said with a snarl, pointing her finger at me. “And when would you have preferred to know? The moment I found out in the North Wing after we signed that damn contract?” Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. She’d known since that first meeting. She knew this whole time. I didn’t know too many packs with a scent match out here in our province. But from what I understood, omegas were supposed to be in absolute elation once they found a pack, and even more so if it was a rare and treasured scent match. The moment it occurred, a scent matched pack and their omega would be inseparable, their bond almost a physical magnet. Instead, she’d been here, despising us and ignoring the biological draw toward us, planning to abandon us once all of this was over. It hurt so much more than I ever expected.

“Fuck!” Vigo shouted, turning and facing away from us as he grasped his hair. “This is going to ruin everything!” He growled as he looked around the room, as if the solution was somewhere out in the universe.

I looked back at Celeste. This should be just as devastating for her as it was for us. A scent match was so much more powerful than even a bite. With a bite, if a pack needed to dissolve for some reason, a year or two apart would usually break the bond. Another mate could be found in those rare instances. But with a scent match, neither a pack nor an omega would ever find anyone else sufficient. From the moment I smelled her, all ideas about a different omega were now sour and repulsive to me. For better or worse, no matter what I thought of her, my body would only acceptherfrom here on out.

“Are you so cold that this doesn’t bother you? You can never find another pack besides us!” I said to her in what was supposed to be an accusatory tone, but came out in an almost pleading way. She glared at me, her eyes only holding resentment, and none of the unbearable desire and longing that I was now feeling due to the chemical response of finding my scent match for the first time.

“I can find another pack besides you!” She said back with anger. Vigo whipped his head around to look at her.

“You’ll neverwantanother pack like how you want us!” He spit out at her, his eyes flashing with anger and jealousy tearing through our bond at the thought. Celeste took a deep breath through her mouth, and I realized I was doing the same. We were all trying our hardest to ignore the truth of our scents which were now permeating the room.

“I may not want another pack with the intensity that I feel when I smell you. But I will not let an unwanted scent match to a pack who is trying to ruin me, dictate my life!” She practically yelled at us. “I will leave here, and I will be happy, and I will thrive!” Her words hurt in a way I never thought I’d feel. She’d clearly been considering this for a long time. For weeks, she’d been feeling exactly what we were feeling right now and endured our behavior while trying to act normal. Sympathy hit my chest, but I washed it away with the knowledge that she was still Celeste - a sociopathic, spoiled, careless person whose decisions had hurt countless lives.

I took a moment to think. We had to get through this intact, all of us. “All right.” I conceded, trying not to notice how amazing the room smelled. “We’re going to finish out the contract. We can behave civilly toward each other, pretend this didn’t happen, and go our separate ways when it's over.” I said, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose in an effort to concentrate. My instincts were still going haywire, demanding that I get closer to Celeste and pull her to me, despite who I knew her to be.

“Perfect. That’s exactly what I was doing. Glad you are all on board.” She replied through gritted teeth. She turned to go, and I didn’t stop her. When she was out of the room and headed toward her wing, I leaned over and let out a breath, the last of my resolve leaving me.

“Damn it all to hell.” I muttered as Vigo looked at me, his eyes still wild. We had barely kept our wits about us at the event once she perfumed in front of everyone. Many of our guests there were able to control themselves, but her real scent had made some of the unbonded alphas go wild. We’d been lucky that we knew our car was out back, and that Vigo had enough sense and speed to get her out of there. Dante and I had tackled a few of the alphas who tried to follow them, allowing him a head start before we found an exit and a ride back home.

“How are we going to do this?” Vigo asked, his eyes full of vulnerability for the first time now that she was gone. I knew what he meant. It was going to be absolute torture to live with Celeste, now knowing that she was our scent match, and not acting on it. Everything in me was screaming to be close to her, know her better, smell her, lick her, and take her. Even my teeth ached to bite her and assure myself that she would stay with us forever.

“We take it day by day. And by remembering that no matter what, she isn’t our match in any way other than physically. We can do this.” I said, and Vigo looked at me with despair.

“Should we tell Elijah?” He asked, and I thought about it.

---