Page 78 of Knot Gonna Lie
“This is your love language.” The revelation tasted like honey on my tongue. “Written in algorithms that ensure plenty, in preparations that guard against our clan’s future. To make sure we don’t go without…”
His breath fractured. Fingers trembled over a manifest suddenly more poetry than data written in light. “No one has ever—” He swallowed. “They see the anxious beta who panics over numbers, not... this.”
“I see the guardian who stands watch over our tomorrows.” I touched one projection, watching ripples spread like disturbed water. “This isn’t anxiety. This is love, written in mathematics.”
He turned fully toward me, expression breaking open—hope, hunger, recognition. The look of someone being truly seen, perhaps for the first time since he learned to hide behind numbers and necessity.
“Nova understood.” Her name fell between us heavy as a dying star. “My sister. Before the station claimed her.”
Grief moved through his voice like frost on glass.
“Tell me about her. Paint her for me.”
“She was—is—brilliant enough to make AIs weep with envy.” The correction came quick, desperate, as if the wrong tense might make her loss crystallize into unchangeable truth. “Could calculate trajectory corrections while humming songs from Old Earth, turning mathematics into melody. When her scent bloomed omega-sweet, they came with contracts that looked like promises. And I—” His voice shattered like winter ice. “I stood there. Silent. Watched our parents sign her away like she was cargo to be transferred between ports.”
“You were young, caught in systems bigger than any one person could fight.”
“I was a coward dressed in youth’s convenient excuse. I should’ve fought.” Bitterness corroded his words. “When Luca offered me escape disguised as opportunity, I took it. Fled to thestars while she remained caged in station walls, waiting for an alpha who might never emerge from the void to claim her.”
“But we will help her… I promise.” I frowned. “But don’t you ever wonder, why you never hear of omegas owning businesses?”
His silence was answer enough. We both knew the lies—omegas were meant to be pampered, sheltered. Ash on my tongue.
Omegas were meant to keep alphas in check… only those wealthy enough to pay the tithe and follow the laws were allowed a chance to enter The Den.
We were pampered, brought up uneducated, to be used as pawns… and then treated as property. Finding Luca was a blessing from the stars itself, and led me to this amazing clan… to this amazing man.
“The scanners stealing children the second they bloomed. The education built to create decoration, not determination. The Matron calling it protection while she counted credits.” My hands shook.
He caught them, steadying. His scent—cedar driftwood rolling upon the waves on a beach—grounded me.
“We know that the ratio’s off,” I whispered. “Every year fewer omegas, more desperate alphas. Supply and demand. Biology turned into market scarcity.”
The unspoken word hung heavy. War.
It was only time before a powerful alpha challenge everything—and for others to join the rebellion.
“I refuse to let my role decide my future.” The vow erupted, fierce. “Why shouldn’t I start my own business?”
His eyes softened. “Luca would fund whatever you wanted. He’d back you.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest—real, not the artificial sweetness the station trained us to perform.
“I could help with inventory,” Jaxom added carefully. “With logistics. If you want.”
“I would love that.”
“Before they took her, Nova had an idea,” he said. “A system that could help betas and omegas find alphas who actually fit them—scent matches, compatibility beyond contracts. She wanted to stop betas from being left unclaimed, unmated. The Lost Ones the government pretends not to see.”
His hands moved through the projections as if shaping the memory into light. “Betas desperate for a clan. Omegas trapped in stations. Alphas searching for more than just status. She believed data could bridge the gaps—show us where we belonged before desperation or the matrons’ contracts swallowed us whole.”
His throat worked, grief pressing through. “It was her way of fighting back. A way to keep people from being forgotten…. But then she was forced to become a part of the corrupted system.”
His sister’s dream lit the air between us—software to match tablets with alphas, systems designed to help betas expand their clans. Innovation born before she was forced into captivity.
“She’d be welcome here,” I said, touching his hip in promise. Reality bit back—an unclaimed omega would fracture our fragile peace. Instinct always won. The system made sure of it. “But she would need to be claimed by an alpha first.” I leaned closer. “But her idea… I love to collaborate with her.”
His shock pleased me. Too many expected omegas to dream small. But captivity bred elaborate escapes. Nova understood. So did I.
