Page 65 of The Twelve Knots of Christmas
I looked down at my cell. There were still tons of messages and calls from the pack, but I forced myself to ignore them. Every time I thought about what happened, everything inside of me hurt. With every breath, I missed them, but I had no choice other than to be strong.
Nothing from my family, but I never expected to hear from them again. There was also nothing from Lyla or Emberlee. It would help ease my pain a little if I had someone to talk to about everything. Both were excellent listeners and hopeless romantics. I was the realist. I had stopped believing in love and happy endings once Jack had screwed me over.
So why was I so upset over losing the pack now? I had set down the rules. Yet spending more and more time with the Alphas, I found myself secretly nurturing happy ending scenarios. Not real ones, but romantic nonsense nonetheless.
My eyes began to burn with threatening tears. Nope. This wasn’t what I needed right now. I had to put the pack out of my mind. I had a mystery about an uncalled ride to solve.
I tapped my screen, closing everything and leaving it on mute, as I pushed open the door with my hip. Slipping my phone into my coat pocket, I raised my head as I walked outside and gasped loudly at what I saw. My hands flew up to cover my gaping mouth.
Parked by the sidewalk was a bright red sleigh trimmed with tinsel. The inside was lined with thick fur as white as thetwo horses hitched to it. One whinnied as the door swished shut behind me and pawed at the ground as if to say ‘where the hell have you been?’
A driver in a Santa hat sat perched on a cushioned seat with reins in hand and smiled my way. The same sort of smile the nurse and the rest of the staff had as I walked down the hall.
Standing beside the sleigh were three men. My Alphas.
No! Not mine.Not. Mine.
Balthazar wore a red coat which hugged his broad shoulders and muscled arms, reminding me of his sexy Santa Claus outfit. He was the reason women fantasized about kissing Santa under the mistletoe. He held a beautiful bouquet of red and white roses, and stared at me as if he might devour me.
In a sleek and luscious long black leather coat, Jasper stood with his sultry blue gaze burning into me. He had a woolly white blanket draped over one arm and a slow smile curled his lips.
Lucian’s pale gray coat matched his eyes, but they blazed as our gazes met. The world seemed to slow down as he walked toward me. While my emotional pain had been holding back any heat pangs overnight, a sudden surge had me swallowing a whimper.
I’d thought that the worst of my heat was over, maybe even completely over without stimulation from the pack, but I had barely caught a whiff of their combined tantalizing scents, and I was aching to be knotted.
“Mariska.” Lucian smiled and everything in me went to mush. The urge to throw myself at him seared inside my veins. I wanted his sweetness and for him to roughly rut me like an animal. “Will you do us the honor of joining us on a sleigh ride around the park?”
My legs wouldn’t move when I ordered them to turn around and march back into the hospital. It was safer that way. Iwould forever be emotionally scarred from their lies, from being seen as merely a breeder, but something in me whispered that there was so much more to these men. I needed to give them a chance to show me they saw me as more than simply an Omega.
But why?I internally screamed at myself. I was going to California. They weren’t. We’d never see each other again.
The whisper seemed to embrace me. For closure, for some peace of mind. Something I would never get from my family. A faint light of hope in me suggested more, but I smothered it and held up my chin.
“Okay.” The word trembled, but I got it out.
Lucian offered his hand, but I didn’t take it. I followed him to the sleigh and gave Balthazar a warning look as he moved to greet me. They were all guilty with what happened involving my family, but he was the one who looked at me and could only see the mother of his babies.
Jasper jumped up into the sleigh, and I let him help me up the two big steps. Being short sucked sometimes, and with the growing ache between my legs, I wasn’t completely steady. I settled into the corner of the seat facing forward, and I was surprised to find it warm.
“Heated seats.” Jasper grinned at my expression. He started to put the blanket on me, but I took it from him to do it myself. He took the seat across from me and didn’t push it. “Sleighs have come a long way since I was a kid. There’s even a music system in this thing, but it’s currently turned off.”
I huddled under the thick blanket and had it wrapped up to my neck. Not just to keep warm, but to keep my perfume from letting them know how much I wanted them. This would have been very cozy if it wasn’t for the fact that I was surrounded by the three Alphas I swore never to have anything to do with again.
Lucian took the seat beside me and Balthazar, after laying the roses at my feet as if I were some sort of goddess, sat nextto Jasper. He motioned to the driver who clicked his tongue and jiggled the reins. The sleigh jerked as the horses trotted around the hospital parking lot. I glanced back the way I’d come to see a crowd of nurses watching us through the door and Miss Eloise sitting in her wheelchair in the front. She had the happiest expression on her face, and for that, I was glad I’d agreed to this, even if we worked nothing out.
None of us spoke until the sleigh was away from the hospital. The streets were plowed, but a layer of snow still painted them white. Drifts as high as six to eight feet lined the edges. Even with people unable to dig their cars free and get out for last minute shopping, there was still a festive air in town. Lights shone from almost every house, and I could see many people’s trees through their front windows. Kids had built snowmen and decorated them for Christmas. Some had even gone bigger and built snow reindeer, and one house had a snowfort with a sign declaring it the North Pole on its lawn.
“We’re sorry.” Balthazar was the first to speak. His voice was gruff and mist puffed from his mouth with his hot breath. “None of us wanted that to happen.”
I raised my brows at him. That was an understatement. “What did you think would happen? That I’d be so happy to see them and forget years of neglect? No.” I answered myself, almost hissing out the word. “I was reminded why I only spend one afternoon every year with them.”
Balthazar at least had the decency to look properly repentant about it. “I thought maybe you were exaggerating because of past slights.”
“Do I seem to you like someone who exaggerates?” I caught my voice as it began to rise. It would do no good just to get angry and start yelling. I needed closure, not another fight. I squirmed under the blanket, horny and angry. “Nothing they didto me was a slight. It was a downright slap in the face. At least it gave me the opportunity to cut my ties to them for good.”
“Family is important.” Balthazar was digging in his heels. I wasn’t doing this again with him. Fuck that.
But Jasper spoke before I could carry my frustration further. “We want to be your family. We want you to be part of our pack.”
