Page 15 of A Very Knotty Halloween
“You’re a pack,” I say, shocked to my core. “Why didn’t they say anything?” Jeez, no wonder it was like they knew who I was—they did. They did, because they knew Cas. God, I’m so stupid.
He runs his fingers along the scarf. “I told them not to. I wanted to watch, observe. You get along pretty well with them, wouldn’t you say?” There’s an added edge to his voice when he says that, and I don’t bother denying anything. If they’re really in a pack together, he had to have smelled me on Jack and Damien. “Who knew you’d be so tempting they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands… or their mouths to themselves?”
My chest suddenly feels tight. “What kind of game are you playing, Cas?” If this is some twisted game to him, to them, if I fell for a lie… I’ll feel even worse. Call me weak, call me pathetic, but I don’t know if I can take it.
He steps forward, only once, but it’s a rather large step, a calculated one to begin to try to close the distance between us. “This isn’t a game. I came here so no other alphas would get their dirty hands on you.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Since when does he care about being the chivalrous type? He hasn’t spoken to me or seen me since the wedding. “Like you care. When my dad married your mom, you pretty much told me you hated me.”
“Then, it was true. I blamed you for my parents splitting up, but… things are different now.” In the silver moonlight, I can see his jaw grinding. “Ever since that fucking wedding, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. You wanted nothing todo with me—understandable, I was an asshole to you—so I kept up with you through your friend, the one you came here with tonight. She posts everything online, you know, and she has so many followers, she doesn’t vet every single one of them.”
The more he talks, the more I realize what’s been going on. He’s not lying. All these years, he’s watched me from afar, and Sabrina must have posted something about Mr. Holiday’s Halloween Hunt. If he follows her anywhere, he knows we do everything together. It wasn’t a huge leap to assume I’d be here, too.
Still, what are the odds? Infinitesimally small.
He tugs at the scarf with both hands, then gives me a gleefully twisted smirk as he says, “Damien and Jack are hanging back until I’m done with you.” Another step toward me, and I mimic him by taking a step back, backing up to the dried cornstalk wall behind me.
Crap. I have nowhere to go.
I swallow hard before I ask, “So is this about making sure I don’t hook up with any random alphas, or is it so you and your pack can have me for the night?”
He chuckles then. “Does it matter? I told myself for a while that I’d be the protective big brother I should’ve been all these years, but I think Jack and Damien knew the truth the entire time. Now that we’re here, now that I’ve found you—there’s only one thing on my mind.” His blue eyes seem almost silver in the moonlight, glimmering with an unnatural hue, as if his excitement, his hunger, is manifesting itself. “Claiming you.”
Though every part of me sings for joy at hearing that—stupid omega instincts—I can’t fight the urge I have to run, to put more distance between us, somehow. I could never outrun him on an even race, but…
I stick my hand through the cornstalks behind me, feeling for whatever is holding them up. Something is strung aroundthem, some kind of metal fencing. Not chain-link though, and my wandering hand finds a gap behind me.
Is it wide enough that I can squeeze through? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.
“Sorry to say,” I start, pushing apart the cornstalks behind me as I glare at Cas, “but that won’t be happening.” The moment I finish speaking, I turn away from him and duck, squeezing my body through the maze’s wall and emerging onto the other side. It’s too small a gap for him; he’ll have to run around it.
He’s fast. His footsteps are loud on the other side of the wall, and I hear him say, “Like I’m going to let you go that easily.”
My feet back up as I realize the wall is shaking—because the jerk isclimbingit. He’s climbing over the cornstalk wall which is a good eight feet high, and totally cheating in the process. I mean, I guess I cheated too by slipping through it, but if anyone should be allowed to cheat, it should be me, not him.
I turn around and start to run once I realize what’s happening, but it’s too late. I’m too slow. I lingered there too long. Ten seconds later, I’m caught by two thick, strong arms—and then he brings us to the ground, to the dirt and the leaves below, pinning me there effortlessly with his body.
His nose grazes mine, his breath hot on my face. He still holds the scarf in one hand even though he pins my wrists down. As if I’d struggle. As if struggling would be worth it at this point.
Besides, some sick part of me is enjoying this. I’d be a liar if I claim that I don’t find him attractive, if I say I’m not pulled in by his scent.
Fuck. His scent alone is enough to drive me insane.
“As if you could outrun me,” he murmurs. “Looks like you’re mine now, Marnie.” And he’s right: he has the upper hand here. I’m powerless to stop him. Heck, at this point, I don’t even know if Iwantto stop him.
Maybe it’s the fiery omega in me, but I whisper, “Are you forgetting something? I can say my safe word and just like that, you’ll be out. You’ll be out and I’ll be free to hook up with any alpha I want—”
“No.” He doesn’t use his dominance, but I can hear the edge in that word. It’s firm. It oozes confidence. “You won’t say your safe word. You know how I know? Because there’s no way you smell this goddamn good to me and it’s not the same for you. Fate introduced us when we were too young, but now? Now there’s nothing to stop it. Tonight you become mine.”
Cas lowers his nose to the crook of my neck, and his lips graze over my scent gland, making me squirm. As much as I wish it wasn’t true, I arch my neck and give him a nice, proper display of submission, and he responds by inhaling my scent like he’s an addict and I’m his drug of choice.
Just like that, I know it’s over for me. Whatever resistance I had before fades in the blink of an eye. It might be wrong, but how wrong can it really be when his scent lures me in like a moth to a flame? If I smell as good to him as he does to me, it really was just a matter of time.
“You’re mine now, omega,” he purrs out the word, his chest humming with appreciation, and that combined with the way his muscled body presses down upon me, makes me clench my thighs together in one final act of desperation, to try to stop the inevitable.
But I can’t stop it. I can’t deny the way my body responds to his, and because of that, my panties dampen with slick.
It’s over. It’s so, so over.
