Page 11 of The Knotty Omega

I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Really. But when I went after CJ to see if she was okay, and she disappeared inside of Grady’s office…I was curious.

It’s not like I had my ear pressed against the door or anything.

Okay,fine. As soon as I heard the muffled, “lied about being bonded,” my ear was glued to that door like tongue stuck to a lamppost in winter.

After I scrambled away when Grady barked at Laura to leave the room, I hid around the corner, and when the coast was clear, I saw the door was still open a crack. It’s like theywantedme to listen.

As soon as I heard her say she would go to the OMS, I made a break for it. I slide into my desk chair and pull out my phone to text the pack group chat.

It only takes a few minutes for the responses to come rolling in. Traditionally, only head alphas are allowed to call pack meetings, but we’re all in agreement that little tradition is bullshit.

Then separately, Mattie shoots me a message.

Sighing, I bury myself in my work until it’s finally time to go home.

***

The sun is nearly set when I pull into the driveway of the packhouse and throw my car into park, the waning light casting our spanish hacienda style home in a golden glow. I can’t get up the steps fast enough. Everyone else is parked in the driveway, so when I walk into the house, it’s to a living room full of restless alphas.

“What’s this about, Arch?” Titus says grumpily from his spot on the couch. He’s in a t-shirt and sweatpants, which tells me that he worked from home today. The mountain of a man is leaning back with his arms crossed, looking like he’s ready to take down any threat that might storm into our home.

“Is it abouther?” Ollie asks, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

Simon only looks at me expectantly from his designated armchair. The reading light is on, and there’s a closed book in his lap.

“Hold on, he just walked through the door,” Mattie comes next to me and rubs my back. “Did you have a good day,cucciolo?”

Swallowing, I nod. I appreciate he’s trying to let me get comfortable before diving into this mandatory pack meeting that I called, but all the information I learned today is burning to spill out of my throat.

So I blurt out the story. The whole thing, from start to finish. How Cady is unbonded, the experimental drug, how Reggie is not her alpha, but her pet cat, and how her spot as the Knotty Omega is in jeopardy unless she finds a pack, and she’ll be going to the OMS.

They all look at me, a little dumbstruck, when Mattie shakes his head. “Well, I can see why you didn’t want to say all that over text.”

Everyone else is silent, absorbing the bomb of information I just dropped on them.

Ollie is the first to speak. “So when are we going to the OMS?”

Simon looks at him, running a hand through his short auburn waves and pushing his glasses up his nose. “Why would we do that? We should just talk to her. There’s no guarantee we’d match if we go to the OMS.”

As much as he’ll never admit it, Cady’s scent hit Simon just as hard as the rest of us. Being a doctor, he prides himself on the control he has over his alpha. So even though it doesn’t seem like it, I know he’s struggling on the inside. He only fidgets with his glasses when he’s nervous.

“She hid her pack status for a reason,” Titus growls. “She clearly doesn’t actually want a pack, and is just trying to save her job. You guys really want to bring her here when none of it will be real?”

“I believe she’s our true scent match,” Mattie says quietly. “Not just scent sympathetic.” He had noticed his missing pocket square, and I told him what I had done. Then he jerked me off with the fabric imbued in both their scents, and it was the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.

Which is really saying something, because my alpha is Italian.

“Why do you think that?” Simon asks at the same time Olllie blurts out “I fucking knew it!”

Titus just looks pissed.

“I may have left her a little present with Mattie’s signature all over it to see her reaction,” I admit. “She…fuck. I caught her huffing up the scent like it was a line of coke or something."

“Have you ever seen someone snort a line of coke?” Simon asks skeptically, raising a brow.

“Okay, no I haven’t.” I throw up my hands. “But she was holding it to her nose like Ollie did to my jacket for two hours after the first time she ran into me! When she turned around her pupils were blown andsheperfumed.”

A pained groan sounds throughout the room, followed by a grunt courtesy of Titus.

---