Page 90 of Knot Baked Out For This
No. No no no. He can't be here. This is MY town. My safe space. My?—
Our eyes meet across the market, and time does that thing where it slows down and speeds up simultaneously. His expression shifts from shock to something worse—that smug, possessive smile that used to make me feel owned.
He starts walking toward my booth.
Run. You should run.
But my feet are frozen, rooted to the spot by three years of conditioning that saysdon't make a scene, don't embarrass the Alpha, don't be difficult.
"Well, well, well."
His voice is exactly how I remember—smooth surface over sharp edges, honey over broken glass. He stops at my booth, whistling low and mocking.
"So the rumors are true. My defect came all the way to this forsaken town of wasted hopes and dreams to be an ugly baker selling crap for chump change."
Defect. He always called me that when I disappointed him. His little defect.
The woman beside him laughs, high and tinkling like breaking champagne flutes. She's everything I'm not—tall, blonde, wearing clothes that cost more than my monthly rent. Her nails are perfect. Her hair is perfect. Her sneer is definitely perfect.
"This is Alexis," Korrin says, like he's presenting a prize. "Our pack's new omega."
Our pack. The pack I was never really part of. The pack that watched him hurt me and called it love.
"How... nice," I manage, hands trembling as I pretend to organize cookies that don't need organizing.
"Nice?" Alexis laughs again. "That's what you call this... situation? Nice?" She gestures at my booth, my clothes, me in general, like I'm a particularly unfortunate museum exhibit. "I'd call it tragic, but that implies there was height to fall from."
The rest of Korrin's pack materializes like they've been summoned from the seventh circle of Alpha hell. Malcom, his brother, still built like a brick shithouse with a personality to match. Their cousins, Tyler and Wade, who used to think it was hilarious when Korrin would lock me in rooms "for my own good."
They array themselves around my booth like they're claiming territory, and my scent spikes without permission—burnt sugar and anxiety, shame creeping in like fog.
"Your little hobby is... cute," Korrin says, picking up one of my imperfect cookies with two fingers like it might be contaminated. "Doing well for someone who couldn't handle a real pack."
Couldn't handle. Like I was the problem. Like wanting to be treated as human was too much to ask.
"She always was too fragile," Malcom adds, that cruel smile I remember too well playing at his lips. "Remember how she'd cry over the smallest corrections?"
"The smallest corrections like being locked in a closet for burning dinner?" I want to scream. But my voice is gone, stolen by memories of making myself smaller, quieter, less.
"And now look," Alexis preens, pressing against Korrin's side. "She's selling cookies at a farmer's market. How the mighty have... well, you were never mighty, were you?"
They laugh, all of them, the sound washing over me like acid rain.
I used to imagine this moment. Meeting him again. Being strong, confident,andshowing him I survived. But I never imagined it here, in my safe space, surrounded by people who've only known me as Hazel-the-baker, not Hazel-the-failure.
"Nothing to say?" Korrin leans closer, and his scent—pine and pepper, but wrong now, tainted—makes me want to vomit. "You always did go quiet when you were overwhelmed. Like a little mouse."
I want to speak. Want to tell him to fuck off, that I'm better without him, that I've found Alphas who actually care. But my throat is closed, my voice trapped behind years of trained silence.
"Cat got your tongue? Or should I say, Alphas got your?—"
"Sorry I took so long, sunshine."
The voice cuts through my panic like a knife through butter. Then arms wrap around me from behind—warm, solid, safe—and the scent of molasses, gingerbread, and dark coffee floods my senses like a benediction.
Luca.
He's hugging me, actually hugging me in public, his chest solid against my back, his presence changing the very air around us.
