Page 3 of Knot Quite Ready

I drain my cup with a sigh, a little more energy bursting through my veins. I move back around the counter to help, needing them gone. I catch the faintest whiff of candy around the men and wrinkle my nose. One of these men has diabetes, I thought to myself. Our noses were sensitive to human diseases, and since humans were always sick and dying, it made working with and around them all the more difficult.

One of the delivery guy moves around Jasper and hauls a box over towards me, the apple of his cheeks pinkening as I smell a rush of lust coming from him. He pauses briefly, looking me over as the other team members call out box numbers from behind him. With a quick shake of his head and a slight glaze over his eyes, he drops the box where he stands and goes back to the truck. I frown. While I don’t mind the looks of appreciation, I do mind that he couldn’t at least multitask. Mental porn and literary porn. Simple.

I take a deep breath and try to avoid snapping, then heave the box off the floor myself because physical activity is better than pre-mediated murder. For a very brief second, I almost forget to pretend to struggle with the weight of the box, and start to huff as I move the box against the wall, so it’s out of the way.

I straighten up and wipe my palms over my pants as I hear a delicate cough. I turn as another guy comes in with his own box.

I smile, “Sorry, I was just adjusting it to be out of the way,” I say tiredly to him, and I pause to look up at him, eyes roaming over his large arms and tattoos.Very nice.Human, though. Lame.

He smiles tightly as he places the box he has down against the wall turning back to glare at the fuckup, “So sorry about that, he’s new. Won’t happen again.” He nods before he heads back to do his job.

My wolf stirs faintly within me, stirred by the sight of his retreating form.Human,she growls in mild annoyance before reclining lazily. I can't help but sigh. True, he's human, but in this small town, my options are limited. It wasn’t as if I had a buffet…Well, technically… never mind.

Don't get me wrong, when I'm not in heat, some humans can scratch the itch, and then some. But after a brief tryst, they always want more—like my phone number, for example. I don't do that. Besides, Omega females can’t mate with human males, anyway, for many reasons. Firstly, we're not genetically compatible to produce offspring. Even if we were, human relationships typically lead to marriage and children, and I can't commit to any of that. I wouldn’t. Secondly, my wolf and I would be forced to live a life of perpetual hiding, unable to change when needed and constantly making excuses to disappear when my heat inevitably strikes. During heat, wolves are simultaneously feral and desperate for contact.

Can you picture it? Honey, come fuck me, and when he does, I take a bite out of his throat before his reflexes can catch up. Yeah, No. More laundry. Heat sex can be dangerous to anyone thatwasn’ta wolf. I would eat a human alive. Figuratively speaking. Well, maybe. Thirdly and most importantly? My wolf, as restless as she is, will never settle for anyone that is not her mate. I don’t blame her. A true mate was a blessing. But in the case of that particular blessing, call me an atheist.

Sure, I can have a nice romp with other shifters, but there was something about fucking a bunny shifter that turned me all the way off. I mean, silly rabbit,youare for dinner…and lunch. Okay, maybe breakfast, too, depending on my mood.

Still, I think to myself, it would be nice to have some pussy pounding consistency…and Storm off my back about a real booty call instead of quick hookups.

I snap out of my thoughts as the last box is brought in, and the tattooed man comes and passes me the clipboard, “just sign here, and we will be on our way,” his gruff voice and demeanor perking me up more than I care to admit. I quickly sign the forms, and he takes back the clipboard and hands me a piece of paper with a number on it.

I look at it, and the confusion must be evident on my face because he chuckles. “That’s my number. Call me,” he winks at me and turns to walk out the door.

“Wait,” I call, and glances back at me, “what’s your name?”

He looks me up and down and licks his lips, “Call me, and you’ll find out when you’re screaming my name.” He walks out, closing the door behind me, and I’m left standing there, staring at the door holding the paper lamely in my hand. My wolf practically preens at the appreciation, and I admit he played his card well.

I nod appreciatively at his confidence and tuck the paper into my pocket. If he were a wolf, the sheer possibilities would be endless, but he wasn’t, and I had to consider that he would be someone who I could potentially run into again while he was delivering my smutty books to the shop.

I move to take another sip of my coffee, but the cup is empty.Fuck, I scowl and move to the door, locking it before walking back to pour myself more. But I opt to drink from the coffee pot instead. Convenience. I expressly ignore the vast pile of boxes that are going to take me hours to unpack while I sip, okay chug, my coffee.

I close my eyes for a brief moment in appreciation of the drug that was bean cuisine and drum my fingers on the counter before I take a second to admire the beautiful woodwork under my fingers. This counter was one of my favorite things in the shop, the books non-withstanding. Pure oak and carved directly from the source, not built with small pieces and hundreds of bolts and screws in instructions that not even a fucking vampire could understand with their vast years of bloodsucking shit…and not sparkling. Anyways, it was the one piece in the shop that made me feel at home and centered.

My shop, “Flip My Pages,” is a gem, and everything I could have dreamed of, decorated semi-lavishly with plush reading chairs and couches and gorgeous dark wood desks with matching chairs that are placed along a wall of glass that provide a perfect view to the edge of the forest that lines the back of my shop. It is situated perfectly in the town Main Street, and despite the town being nestled within the semi-mountainous area near the Lake District of Cumbria, you would never guess it by the look of the main street.

The town itself, considering I am the only wolf here, is perfect for my need for anonymity, and it provides a place for my wolf to breathe. When I went to view the property, I did so without expectations. But when I discovered that the shop had direct access to the forest and lakes from the back, I jumped at the opportunity to buy it from the retiring owners and started renovating the shop from the ground up. I mean, paired with the above apartment as well as access to the surrounding national park, it was a no-brainer for me. Even more so because although other shifters may be able to settle in a national park comfortably, hence the Cabria Fall Shifter Community, wolf packs wouldn’t be able to for fear of discovery. Everyone jumped at the sight of gigantic wolves, not so much for foxes, lynxes, and the various other shifters that made their home here. And after the other shifter packs made themselves known to me and I explained why I was here, they left me to my own devices, so no one would guess to look for me in Cabria. It is a pretty tight-knit community, and I love it.

I lift my coffee pot for another sip, only to find it drained. "Ugh," I groan, dragging out the sound while I plop the empty pot into the tiny sink behind me. I stretch my arms up high, trying to work out the knots in my back, cursing Storm for her sleep while I turn to face the piles of literacy porn. I grumble drowsily, “Welp, time to get to fucking work.”

Chapter3

Aneira

“What in the actual fuck is howl-ing on here?” Storm’s voice startles me, and I have to peel an open book off my face as I blink up at her with one eye.

“Did you fall asleep while sorting the books out?” She giggle snorts, “damn, I left my phone upstairs or I would have taken a picture of you in your little wolf nest.”

Bitch.I wipe the sleep from my eyes, uncurl myself and look around in a daze—the hell. I wasn’t sure exactly when I did this, but I am surrounded by stacks of books of various sizes and colors, arranged in a haphazard yet still orderly fashion, a mix of my preferred fiction, non-fiction, classics, and modern works. Then, I look down and realize that I’m not only in just my bra and panties but I am lying on various plush cushions and blankets.Jesus, Agatha. Go big or go home, huh?

I clear my throat, “firstly, this isn’t a nest. This is a highly organized structure that I’m making so that I can accurately arrange my books.” I fastidiously ignore her knowing smirk at the fact that I somehow built a mini nest that was my ideal haven; warm, secure, perfect for curling up in, and filled with my go-to happy books…a book haven of sorts.

I resist a groan. “Errm, uh, secondly, I arrange better while napping, without clothes on. Thirdly, if you dare take a picture, I will shave your eyebrows while you sleep. Think carefully.” She continues to laugh as she walks around my nest and I stand up and attempt to stretch out the kink in my back from sleeping in a bunch of blankets instead of my nice warm bed.

I look back at the nest and breathe out in resignation, if I was indeed building a nest without being consciously aware—and clearly I was unless there was a bookstore poltergeist I wasn’t aware of—my heat is close as fuck. At least Agatha had enough sense to lay out blankets because, I mean, can you imagine the paper cuts in questionable places if she hadn’t? I shuddered.

Omegas make nests for a few reasons, and the nests arealwaysa reflection of that particular Omega’s personality and interests, as that is what will give us the maximum comfort and distractions as needed. Because while Wolves, in general, are social creatures needing a sense of community and belonging, Omega’s are different than our male counterparts. For one, we are typically, more sensitive to our surroundings and more empathetic to others. So pretty much, we build nests to retreat when we are overstimulated and for our heat. Sex and safety…best of all worlds.

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