Page 6 of Knot Excused
“Soon your Omega will perfume and then go into heat, and you will be able to claim her. Until then, enjoy setting up her nest. Many happy returns to Pack Skystone.”
But it doesn’t feel like happy returns.
Rook, Erain, and Teddy are still staring at me like they’ve never seen a tall Omega before.
And I’m trapped. What, am I supposed to turn tail and go back to my hometown and try to pretend like I didn’t just get scented and claimed by them?
It’s impossible. Once your Alphas have scent-matched with you, you’re legally bound to them.
We go off the stage to a thunderous round of nothing, and Rook says, “If you follow us, we can show you to your quarters.”
Wait, aren’t these guys supposed to, like, have some interest in me? Was that all just a bunch of bullshit too? What was the point of getting scent-matched?
Rook looks like he’s fucking stuffed into that suit, his hair slicked back like an Italian mobster.
Why did he even agree to take an Omega then? There are so many Alphas that it’s totally optional. If I hadn’t been scented by them or anyone, I could have gone back home. But now, I’m stuck.
I feel a hot flash of anger at them.
They obviously wanted someone else and got me.
The white-heat of my anger startles me, and I can feel warmth pulsing through my veins.
I wish omega suppressants weren’t illegal, because damn, do I not want to go into heat around them.
As we walk past all the other outsized signs of wealth and power and through the palace gates, nobody speaks.
Then Teddy asks me where I’m from.
When I name the tiny town outside the Capitol, there is more silence. I turn away resolutely. I’m not ashamed of where I come from.
The town reminds Teddy of a football game he played near there, and he begins to talk about football games he has played and what he did in them.
I have zero interest in football, but I see why he’s so popular. That wavy chestnut hair, the bright cornflower blue eyes, the dimples.
But he hasn’t asked meonething about myself.
And neither has anyone else.
It’s hot and windy today, and I try to isolate their scents but I’m not sure I can and suddenly I don’twantto. I don’t want to find their scents appealing. I want to put that off as long as I can.
We walk up to the absolutely massive palace where the most elite Alphas live. It’s blindingly white and harsh, with bright lights in the massive windows showing the long dining areas, art galleries, and cavernous ballrooms where the status-obsessed Alphas play.
I’m instantly uncomfortable, an itchy irritable feeling all over my skin. I’m used to living outside the city, in a tiny country town surrounded by forests and mountains.
But of course, I’ll have to live here now. This is where Rook, Erain, and Teddy live and work, and once you’re claimed you have to stay with your Alphas.
Striding ahead of me down long halls dense with nasty-looking Alpha ancestors and unpleasant sculptures, they show me into my quarters.
“Our rooms are at the other end of the hallway,” Rook says, though by his cold and methodical tone of voice, he doesn’t consider that a perk.
They don’t walk in with me, just stand at the doorway. I think I catch someone’s scent. Wintry. Is that Erain? He’s standing with his arms crossed. Not even looking at me, just staring out the window.
This suite of rooms is huge. Massive living and sitting rooms, a huge kitchen with a ridiculously big middle island when I don’t even like cooking. There are huge ceiling-to-floor windows that look out over the shiny steel buildings of the Capitol and then the carefully manicured and tamed grounds around the palace.
I stop at the door to my bedroom, with its huge four-poster bed and fussy little floral bedspread. There must be 27 decorative pillows on this bed. Who the fuck decorated this place?
And I certainly don’t want to imagine actually knotting them on this huge bed.
