Page 19 of Knot Our Mistake
We are and you will, he growled, his tone one he'd never used with me before.
Didn't he understand? We can't keep her. We couldn't break the rule of owning an omega. The most important rule of all, being financially stable enough to own her. We weren't poor, but the truth was, we are part of an unstable industry. One plague could wipe out a whole crop or herd, and then what? How would we financially protect her and our family? Not to mention omegas deserved it all, and I wished I could give her it. But here, on a dusty farm... she'd never be happy.
She'd never be able to stay.
CHAPTER
TEN
LEO
It was a crime to tamper with suppressants. I knew it, and yet even having that knowledge, it didn't stop me a week later from starting the journey to get what I wanted, and what I wanted was to keep the omega.
It was an innocent act at first; I tossed out a single pill, flushing it away from her supply. But once I started, it was like a disease consuming my mind. I couldn't stop. Each day that passed, she'd take a pill and I'd toss a pill, and two weeks after that, her supply had diminished to nearly nothing. Though I wasn't going to point that out to her. She'd realize it soon enough.
Unfortunately, I hadn't realized how soon that would be.
"Your eggs, my princess," Bran announced two weeks later, as he served the omega.
"Thank you, kind sir," she mirrored his drama, and the fool ate it up. I couldn't blame him. I would have too.
"Why am I not getting served eggs like I'm a princess?" James grumbled, a rare joke from him had the room growing silent and turning toward him. "What? I like eggs."
"I can call you princess," I said lowly, and James's eyes burned as he stared me down.
The omega cleared her throat as she swallowed. "These are good, Bran."
"Only the best for our omega."
"She's not ours," James sighed.
I didn't get it. Why the fuck couldn't she be? She was here. She liked us. We liked her. I was tired of skirting around flirting and trying not to touch her when she had curves that begged to have my hands and lips on them. When my mouth yearned to taste hers. When she was made for us in every damn way possible. Why was the alpha so fucking blind to this? I loved him. I loved Bran too. But damn it, our love could include one more, and why the hell shouldn't it? We're good people, excluding the felony of my tampering with suppressants. We deserve happiness.
With each time he said those words, I swear her confidence fell more and more. I wanted to shout that she could be ours, but instead I kept that thought inside. "She's been here almost a month now."
A long, tortuous month where I was in a constant state of arousal that Bran and James never seemed to sate in the darkness of night.
James glared. "What's your point, delta?"
"My point is, she could stay. She fits in well. She helps out tremendously. And I know how much you love that sweet little kitten."
"I hate that kitten." He somehow failed to deny everything else. I could point out that he did in fact adore that cat and I've personally seen him seek it out to pet it, and caught it sleeping in his lap more than once, but it was no use angering the alpha this early in the morning.
"I think," the omega swallowed hard as she pushed her plate away, "that I should be going soon."
All our heads whipped toward her, echoing each other, "What?"
"I-" She shifted in her seat. "I think I should be going soon. I-" An exhale of breath as she gathered herself. "It seems the pharmacy had made an error with my supply of suppressants. I should have had another month's worth, but this morning, I seem to have less than a week. I – I don't know how I missed it."
Guilt flooded me. I hadn't meant to drive her away, only bring our alpha to his senses and drive him to let us keep her.
"We will get more," James offered before anyone else could speak.
"It's...complicated."
"Uncomplicate it for us," Bran leaned over the table, ready to hang on to every word our omega spoke.
“I'm allergic to the common suppressant used. The compound I use needs to be specially made. It can take two weeks to get it."
