Page 10 of Knot Their Girl
I watch him go, feeling some kind of way. Whoever he is, there’s something about him. Something I can’t quite describe.
Whatever. I really do need to pee.
Going to the bathroom in a formal gown like this requires some patience and a whole lot of swearing under your breath—it also involves holding up the dress so it doesn’t get on the floor or in the toilet. It turns into some gargantuan, herculean task, and I hate to say it, but it’s barely doable.
Obviously, whoever makes the dresses like this must think all women don’t ever go to the bathroom. We’re too feminine to have to pee or anything like that.
But in the end, I manage to do it, and I step out of the stall, fully refreshed, and once my dress is fixed, I wash my hands. Soon enough I’m stepping out into the hall to find that, yes, the strange alpha did indeed play guard for me.
He stands just off to the side of the door, and when I emerge, he gives me a gentle smile, yet another thing that doesn’t seem to come easily to most alphas. They’re hard in all respects. This one is the polar opposite of Pax, whereas your typical alpha probably falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
“I trust you’re better now?” he asks quietly.
“I am, thank you. It’s funny. I didn’t really have to go when I left the ballroom—I just needed to stretch my legs. When I saw how busy the restroom was, that’s when it really hit.”
“That’s how things always seem to go.” His dark blue gaze shifts to the diamond-studded pin in my hair, the one with the omega symbol. “That’s… quite the dazzler, there.” Based on his tone, I don’t think he actually likes it, and that makes two of us.
“Gaudy, isn’t it? My parents got it for me when I was ten—ten, three whole years before I presented as an omega. It’s like they wanted me to be…” I glance down at myself, at my pink dress. “…this.”
“Being,” he pauses, mimicking me by gesturing toward me, “this can’t be all bad.”
“No,” I admitted. “Not all the time, just most of the time. This—” I pause again, pointing to the sparkle in my hair and the rest of my dolled-up figure. “—is what the world wants all omegas to be, but sometimes—most of the time, all we want to do is exist. Be ourselves. Be who we want to be.”
I meet his eyes when I say that, and I force out a soft chuckle. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get deep on you. I’m Raeka Whittenhall, by the way.”
“Whittenhall,” he echoes, recognition dawning on his face. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have introduced myself to this particular alpha. “Yes, I know of your family.” As most people in the city do, but I keep that comment to myself as he goes on, “I’m Gideon… just Gideon.”
“Well, just Gideon, it was nice to meet you.” I can’t help but be a little miffed that he didn’t tell me his last name. Whoever he was, he wanted to hide it. Whatever. Fine. “I should get back to the ballroom before my bodyguard goes crazy.”
“Bodyguard?”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “Let’s just say I’ll consider this night a win if I leave without getting any offers.”
His eyebrows lift. “Without?”
“Yep. You heard me right. I might be what some of those packs want… but I’m not what they need, and they sure as fuck aren’t what I need or want.” I realize then I swore, and I quickly say, “Sorry.” A second apology. Something must be in the air here.
“Don’t apologize. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it you want, then? What do you need, Raeka Whittenhall?”
For some reason, I’m not expecting those questions, so it takes a moment for them to register in my head. “All I want, all I need… is to be me. To make my own choices. That’s it. Being tied down to the stereotypical pack life isn’t for me—but I try telling anyone that and they think I’m insane.”
“You’re not.” Those two words, simple as they are, hit me hard. This alpha, this stranger, gives me something no one in my life ever has: validation. “Well, for what it’s worth, I hope someday you find whatever it is you want.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then, at the risk of being here even longer and spending the rest of the night with this alpha, I turn to leave. I walk with a quick pace, mostly because if I let myself slow down, I might just turn back to the alpha who smells of cinnamon.
Whoever he is, I hope he finds what he wants tonight, too. He seemed nice, and that’s not something that can be said about many alphas. So many times alphas are plain dicks, especially when you’re vulnerable.
But that one… that one is cut from a different cloth, and as I walk away from him something tugs at my heart.
Chapter Six – Raeka
Pax isn’t thrilled when I return to the table. He grinds his teeth and bares them at me, and a deep, primal part of me wonders what it’d feel like to have him sink those long canines into my neck, right where my scent gland is, and bind us together forever.
Damn it. The way my thoughts are going, you’d think I’m close to having another heat.
“Why did you take so long?” he mutters under his breath.
“Do you really want to know what a girl gets up to in the bathroom?” I wiggle my eyebrows at him, and he scoffs. “Seriously, though, I peed. In the men’s restroom, but I still peed—”
