Page 176 of Knot Their Soldier: Part One
‘It’s me. I’m the problem,’I unknowingly project.
“You don’t smell fine, Halley,” Viper grunts as he sits beside me. He looks like a kicked puppy, and my rut-damned heart hurts.
‘I did this.’By indulging in their touch, like a weak idiot.
By indulging in my Omega instincts, I’d waved a red flag in front of their faces, and they’ve gone from zero to join-our-Pack in a flash.
Of course they did. Alphas can’t just fool around with an Omega, it’s not in their biology to be casual.
“It’s not you, it’s… I can’t give you what you need.”
They look crestfallen.
My words taste a lot like lies, but if I tell them why this won’t work, I’ll reveal too much. More than I should. More than I can bring myself to admit.
I can’t find the strength to speak the words, to tell them the real reason I live in the confines of The Omega Division. The true reason I didn’t get matched with an Alpha when I presented.
They’ll look at me differently. I know they will.
‘Defective.’The word swims round and round in my head.
Chapter Sixty-One
Halley
There’s a niggling compulsion at the back of my awareness that isn’t mine. It’s a deep clawing desire to provide and protect.
Shade produces a bundle of clothes for me from his pack, freshly laundered and folded crisply. It makes me feel guilty. He’s so good to me. What did I do to deserve a Beta who does my damn laundry? I get dressed quickly, eager to cover up, and he ties the laces of my boots without asking.
Blaze continuously stokes the raging campfire, and seems almost possessed in his determination to dry my wet hair with the heat of his flames.
Knox mutters something about securing the perimeter and sprints off into the forest like enemy forces are chasing him.
Viper is methodically stringing up a canvas tarp between two trees for shelter.
I feel the press of their concerned gaze, and I feel claustrophobic despite the expansive forest.
My shivering subsides and so does my arousal, although I can still feel it bubbling under the surface, waiting for the tiniest of ignition to rage into an inferno again.
“I have to pee,” I announce, standing from the blanket and striding into the forest.
I do have to pee, but I mostly have to get out of the palpable tension in the clearing. I can sense their need to fuss over me, the straining desire to ask me what’s wrong and fix it.
They can’t fix it. No one can fix what’s wrong with me, and that’s the issue.
These new powers are just another way I’m defective, and now it’s spreading to them. I feel sick to my stomach.
I pick my way down a path away from the camp, the roaring of the waterfall dulling until I can hear the light footsteps of someone following me. Even though there are no pine trees around, the scent of pine fills the air.
I sigh. “Shade, I’m not in the mood.”
He appears beside me in a flash. He has his hands shoved into his pockets as he casually strolls beside me.
“Just pretend I’m not here.”
I huff and side-eye him. “I can’t. You’re very hard to ignore.”
It makes him smile with satisfaction, and I almost snort in amusement despite my dark mood. His nose and left eye look almost completely healed and the glazed concussion look in his eyes is gone.
