Page 1 of Knot Alone

Chapter One

Linus

I negotiate multi-million-dollar contracts for a living, but I can’t win an argument with my mother. So, I’m stuck in the Omega Center regretting my life choices.

At least they put me in the private waiting room instead of the public one. The space is the chrome and slate of office buildings everywhere, including a check-in, keycard elevators, and afternoon sunshine streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. Minus the name behind the front desk, it feels identical to my law office. But the familiarity doesn’t make me feel better.

I shouldn’t be here.

I should be on my way home to Graham, my husband, instead of waiting to get heat-matched with an Omega.

My mother and I have fought about expanding my pack since the day I brought Graham home, but the argument ramped up a few months ago. “Why don’t you just date a Beta or two, Linus?” she pled. Someone, anyone other than my fellow Alpha husband.

At 33, I’m approaching the age where an Alpha of my social standing either needs an Omega or needs a justification for why I don’t have one. So long as I have neither, the gossips make… assumptions.

I don’t give a shit what they think about me, but I hate when high-society scorn turns against Graham. I dragged him into this blue-blood world. It’s my job to protect him from it. (Graham would laugh if I ever said that to him, but he’d still kiss me for it.)

Changing the subject usually works with my mother’s demands, but that stopped being an option after one of the bitter, gossipy ladies at the country club interrupted our brunch to offer me one of her nieces. I rebuffed the witch so hard that the niece in question turned up at my office to apologize.

An apology that turned into a proposition more offensive than the aunt’s offer.

According to the old biddies, Alphas like me are supposed to have a pack: one Alpha with one Omega and however many Betas I can support. (Which, given the Lockridge family money and that I’m the only child of an only child, is a lot.) They think my pack should be an alliance with the sons and daughters of my ‘social peers.’

Love isn’t supposed to be part of the equation.

Society says I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with another Alpha. And that Alpha wasn’t supposed to be a retired soldier who enlisted because he couldn’t afford college. And I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to go against my parent’s vehement objections and marry him at the ripe old age of 21.

Despite all that, the elite considered our young love charming enough to protect my parents from the social repercussions of an impetuous bonding. Graham and I have been happily married for the last 12 years, which helped high society overcome their discomfort with my ‘non-traditional union.’

(Now they’re a little too comfortable. At last summer’s garden party, an old Alpha’s got drunk and asked me what being fucked felt like. Oh, he asked with a euphemism I didn’t understand, but Graham did. Graham verbally tap-danced around the old man, trying to make him say the word ‘fuck.’ The old man’s youngest wife had just giggled into her champagne.)

I don’t care what the gossips think about my marriage. But the niece’s terrible apology implied everyone believes I don’t have an Omega because there’s something wrong with Graham.

That I can’t stand.

I called the niece an idiot, threw her out of my office, complained to my husband, and girded my loins to make an Omega Center appointment.

At the very least, family dinners will get less awkward when I tell my parents I tried to find a second mate. At the most, everyone will find out the problem is me. These appointments are supposed to be private, but not even an establishment like the Omega Center is immune to gossip.

That solves my first problem.

The second problem is…

Graham suggested I give the Center a try to keep the peace. (I wanted to lecture the snobs again about my over-sensitive nose. I hate the scent of every person in the world but Graham. And you can’t mate when you can’t stand the smell.) But Graham convinced me to try. Just like he convinces me to forgive my parents every time they say something terrible about him.

My husband made the pro-Center argument in between long, drugging kisses over our morning coffee. “Just think: wouldn’t it be funny if you found some Omega who loves us both? Your parents would be furious.”

Graham had been joking, but my stomach still curdles at the thought.

As much as I want to quell the crude gossip, I’m really sitting in the Center for Graham.

See, before we fell in love, Graham was a playboy.

Not a cad, or unkind, but Graham paid a few bills as a professional Alpha and saw plenty of Omegas through their heats.

Graham loves me. I have no doubts about that. But I know there are times he misses having an Omega. Misses the cuddling, and the sugar-sweet scent, and the pussy.

I don’t think I can share Graham, even for the occasional heat-addled weekend at the Center. But for my husband’s unvoiced craving, I can try.

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