Page 53 of Knot Happening

"Felix," she says finally, "I think you might be the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to me."

"Dangerous how?"

"Because you make me want things I never let myself want. Because you make me feel like the version of myself I always wished I could be."

"What version is that?"

"Someone who's worth this." She gestures between us.

"Belle, you are worth this, and everything."

I can see the exact moment when her last wall crumbles. Her scent shifts again, becomes open and vulnerable and completely trusting, and I know that whatever happens next is going to change both of our lives forever.

"I want to know you," she whispers. "Really know you. Not just the professional architect, but the man who's standing here telling me I'm worth everything."

"Then stay with me tonight. Let me show you who I am when I'm not hiding behind work and responsibility. Let me show you what it looks like when someone puts you first."

"What does that look like?"

"It looks like spending the rest of this ball learning everything that makes you happy and then making sure it happens. It looks like dancing until dawn and eating every dessert on that table and talking about books and dreams and everything else you've never had someone to share with."

Her answer is to rise up on her toes and press her lips to mine, and the kiss tastes like chocolate and possibility and coming home to a place I never knew I was looking for.

When we break apart, both breathing hard, I rest my forehead against hers and marvel at how perfectly she fits against me.

"Belle," I murmur against her lips, "you bring out the child in me. The one I never knew existed. The one who wants to play and laugh and discover magic in ordinary moments."

"I want to meet that person," she whispers back.

"Then let's go find some magic."

And as I take her hand and lead her back toward the ballroom, toward the dessert table and the dancing and whatever other adventures the night might hold, I know that I've found my missing piece.

The part of me that Belle was always meant to wake up.

21

THEO

The east wing of Thornfield Palace at midnight is a network of shadows and whispered secrets. I should know. I've been walking these corridors for the better part of two hours, my black dress shoes silent against the ancient Persian runners that line the marble floors. The formal jacket of my tuxedo feels like a straightjacket after spending so many years in tactical gear, but Marcus insisted we dress the part tonight. "We're hosts," he'd said. "We need to look the part. Better than we’ve ever done before!”

Right now, I'd trade this entire monkey suit for my old combat fatigues and boots.

The bow tie is the worst part. I've loosened it twice already, letting it hang undone around my neck like a silk noose. My dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the edge of a scar that disappears beneath the crisp white cotton, a souvenir from my last tour that serves as a constant reminder of why I left the military behind.

I'm alone because I needed air. A place to breathe that didn't smell like expensive perfume and political ambition. The main ballroom had become suffocating with all those masked faces, all those forced smiles, all those people trying to figure outwho was important enough to impress. Marcus thrives in that environment, and Felix can disappear into conversations about art and architecture, but me? I'm better suited to perimeter security than small talk.

So I'd excused myself, claiming I needed to check on the palace's security systems. It wasn't entirely a lie, because old habits die hard, and I'd spent the first hour of the evening doing exactly that, walking the less-traveled corridors and making sure all the exit routes were clear. But mostly, I needed to escape the suffocating weight of expectation that comes with hosting these events.

Three years we've been organizing this ball, and hoping that maybe this time, we'll find her. Our omega. The missing piece that would complete our pack and fill the aching void that's been eating at us since we first bonded as alphas.

But every year, it's the same story. We meet beautiful women, intelligent women, accomplished women, but none of them are ours. None of them smell right, feel right, fit into the spaces we've carved out in our hearts and our home and our lives.

Yet Belle is the one. That night after she went into heat, I realized more than anything that she's the omega we've been searching for. We've been holding these events to find the one who was right here in town all along. The irony of it all.

The east wing is particularly quiet tonight, because most guests stick to the central areas where the action is. The walls are thick stone, built to withstand sieges, and the windows are narrow slits that once served as archer positions. It's a warrior's architecture, practical and defensive, and it speaks to something deep in my military-trained soul.

The rapid staccato of heels against marble, accompanied by what sounds suspiciously like muttered cursing. Someone'smoving fast through the corridors, and from the sound of it, they're not entirely in control of their direction.

---