Page 38 of Knot Excused
Apparently he thought he really ate with that. Her lips twisted contemptuously.
“It hurts, does it? Good. I hope it hurts you like a bitch when I tell you I’m going to do everything I can to break this mate bond.”
She kicked out, sideways, landing a sharp blow on his shins, then she went inside her apartment and slammed the door on us.
“Fucking moron,” I hissed at him, gripping the back of his ruined tux. “Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?”
“She can’t break the mate bond,” Rook said, although I didn’t know if he was trying to convince us or himself.
“What would happen if she did?” I asked.
“A lifetime of pain,” Rook said bleakly. “Alphas are miserable without their fated mates. An Alpha Pack without their scented Omega is doomed to life alone, in a perpetual mindless rut or just fucking feral.”
I stare at the slammed door, even now my nostrils dilating to try to grasp her scent.
Even letting Piper go into her own quarters is painful, because there’s a door between us, and I can feel her anger all along my skin like a physical pain.
The broken mate bond aches against my body, throbs like a wound.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” Erain asked.
And if I wasn’t in so much pain, hell, it would be highly amusing to see the finicky and arrogant Erain covered in mud and filth, with his clothes practically hanging off his body in shreds.
“There’s one damn option,” I said. “We have to fight like hell for her.”
“How?” Erain groaned, tearing at his long hair. “She hates us.”
“She doesn’t believe us,” Rook said bleakly. “And I don’t blame her. At this point why wouldn’t she believe we’re just thinking with our knots?”
And I can’t believe I have been assuming they were the brains of this operation.
“We have to start at the beginning,” I said. “What we should have done a long time ago.”
They stared at me.
“We have to try to curb our urge to rut and act normal instead. We have to get to know her,” I said impatiently. “She’s our mate. We need to find out what she likes and doesn’t like, and what kind of mates she was hoping for. Because I’m going to do my fucking best to make sure I’m the kind of Alpha she wants.”
CHAPTER20
Rook
Hunger wakes me up early and I know it’s for Piper.
Panic fills me not to be next to her.
Is she OK?
Is she safe?
My Alpha wolf doesn’t like being apart from her, and I look down at my arm to see the dark black of my shifter pelt flash down my biceps.
Shifting isn’t really necessary in the modern day, where our disagreements are settled by money or politics, and we mostly only shift on holidays or ceremonial occasions when there’s competitions.
So for me to be almost involuntarily shifting is concerning.
But not as concerning as Piper not forgiving us.
I grab a pair of sweatpants and stumble down the hallway to her room.
