Page 2 of Knot Their Girl
Supposedly some alphas just can’t help it. It’s nature’s way of trying to match omegas to a pack of alphas. I, for all intents and purposes, went against nature by being an omega without a pack, especially after surviving my first heat. It’s making being out on my own, alone, more challenging than I care to admit.
I’m not someone who typically asks for help. Being a Whittenhall, I’m accustomed to doing a lot of things myself, or paying people to do those things for me. When money is involved, then it isn’t a favor. It’s simply an employer-employee exchange.
I sigh again as I rummage through the dresses I brought. Many of the omegas here only brought a single outfit, one beautiful dress. I had a lot of clothes, and so the ultimate decision on what to wear was always difficult for me.
Red. Blue. Green. I brought one of every color just in case.
Normally I’m a huge fan of pink, but only when done right. The dress I brought with that hue is more of a light bubblegum pink with a small hint of neon. A very pure, very pretty color. I pull that dress off the hanger and hold it against my body, glancing down at myself. The dress is tight around the chest and waist, and it flares out on the hips, draping elegantly to the floor.
And, of course, it was professionally hemmed to fit my height. Thanks to my omega genetics, I barely crack five feet tallon a good day, right after I wake up. Before bed, by the time gravity pulls my spine down throughout the day, I lose damn near an inch. When you’re an omega, every inch counts.
I take the dress with me, deciding on the pink one, and I zigzag through the other omegas getting ready for tonight. I earn myself a few stares; their scents are thick in the air, all sickeningly sweet, and if things were normal, I don’t doubt my scent would be just as strong to them—or stronger—but things aren’t normal, and I made sure to cover every inch of my skin in anti-scent cream before I left home.
I don’t doubt some of them heard about the Whittenhall princess who managed to go through her heat on her own. Somehow, word travels fast in the grapevine. The sponsors definitely watch me as I walk by; alphas, mostly. They all have to be bonded to other omegas to be let back here, the only way to make sure us omegas are safe.
Still, that doesn’t stop them from squinting their eyes and watching my every move.
Whatever. I don’t know them, and I don’t care to. They can take a ticket and get in line to kiss my ass.
The changing rooms, I find, are full. Full of other omegas frantically getting dressed, full of other omegas who actually give a shit about finding a match tonight.
I could stand there and wait, but I mutter, “Screw it,” under my breath and return to my station, where I toss the dress over my chair and slip out of my shoes. Tucked away as I am, there are no extra eyes on me as I start to undress in the open.
Other omegas might be modest, but me? I don’t really care. I’m really only here because of my parents. I don’t actually give a rat’s ass about finding a match tonight. That said, I can’t exactly run out of here before the night begins. Somehow, some way, if I don’t participate, my parents will find out, and I’ll have hell topay. As an omega, I’m still stuck under their rule, even though I’m twenty-one.
An omega less reliant on money could run. Mercedes told me her original plan was to get the hell out of dodge, but being a Whittenhall, I’m accustomed to a certain standard of living. I’d rather die than squat or spend a single night in a—shiver—motel.
My pants are on the floor, as is my shirt. I’m in the process of taking off my bra thanks to the built-in padding on the dress when I’m hit with a strong alpha scent. And by strong, I mean strong as shit, the strongest alpha scent I ever smelled in my life, the kind that could knock me off my feet if I wasn’t paying attention.
But I have something for that, now, something to help dull the instinctual lust for an alpha’s scent, and it’s the only reason I remain on my own two feet and don’t melt into a puddle of goo. The only reason I can think logically as I shrug off my bra and grab the dress off the chair. Thankfully, it’s a once-a-week thing, so I don’t have any fresh signs of it on my arm.Sometimes it bruises, so I have to get creative with makeup.
Standing there in nothing but my panties, I heave one leg in, then the other. I’m pulling up my dress when two people round the corner: Delilah, and the alpha whose scent currently assaults my nostrils, threatening to choke me even with my added scent-dampening.
It’s a damn good thing my dress is mostly up when they appear. They get a flash of my tits for only a second or two before they’re covered by the dress’s fabric.
“Oh, Raeka,” Delilah says, taking on a scolding tone. The older woman’s graying hair is pulled back in a tight bun, with not a single wisp out of place. She wears a hell of a lot of makeup to hide the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. A pantsuit clings to her frame; the woman has quite a few inches on me, thoughshe isn’t nearly as tall as the alpha beside her. “Why aren’t you in the changing rooms?”
I keep my gaze fixated on her and shrug. “They were full,” I say, as if that’s that. It takes everything in me to not let my gaze shift over to the tall, muscled, impressive alpha standing beside her.
Delilah runs the Omega Garden, although she’s looking for someone to take over for her, someone to train as an apprentice, now that she’s splitting her time between here and N.O.A.
And the alpha beside her? An alpha I thought I’d never see again.
Pax Alabaster.
Chapter Two – Raeka
One week ago I sat in an uncomfortable chair in an unfamiliar office. I wore a pretty white blouse with a knee-length skirt, looking very demure—also very unlike me. My blond hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense kind of low ponytail, and my nails had acrylics. I was put together, but at the same time, so not myself.
Asking for help wasn’t something I was used to, that’s why. It didn’t matter that I’d helped Mercedes before, that this was her way of returning the favor. In my mind, I was going to pay for this, in the form of donations to New Omega Academy. My parents had reluctantly agreed to cosign those checks, because my safety mattered to them.
Being an unclaimed omega after her first heat, my scent was wild, all over the place. I handled my own hormonal lusts with weekly scent-dampening injections, but those injections did nothing to stop alphas I came across from getting all growly and possessive over me even though they didn’t know who the hell I was. The cream that they sold for omegas to help hide my scent helped, but I hated the feeling of being greasy, so I only applied some of that cream over my scent glands on my neck when it was strictly necessary.
Like today, for this meeting, just as I’d done when I’d first met with Mercedes at N.O.A., when I first told her I wanted to hire Alabaster Security.
Couldn’t be too careful. I’d told Darius and the others that I wanted someone they would trust Mercedes with; I wouldn’t accept any old security employee to be my personal shadow when I needed him. I needed someone trustworthy, someone even the higher ups in the company trusted. If they’d trust Mercedes with him, then surely I could trust him to handle meand keep other alphas from sniffing around when I didn’t want them to.
I heard the door to the room open, and I turned my head to watch Mercedes slip inside. Her kinky brown hair was wild, and the moment she turned those amber eyes on me, she lit up with a smile.
