Page 51 of Knot For Keeps

“Release her,” Gage thundered. He sounded livid. I wanted to melt into the countertop. Theo was also snarling, but I couldn’t make out the words. Were I not physically unable to move I would be fleeing from the room as fast as possible.

“Do whatever you want?” Kane said, looking confused. “Does that work?” He looked completely lost. “You can move?”

That did the trick. I could feel the heavy weight on my shoulders eased. I slid off the counter, stumbling slightly as my feet hit the ground. Sheer exhaustion weighed me down. Kane was giving me a pained look, but I didn’t dare meet his eyes. I went to take a step toward the door and stumbled, my legs shaky.

Gage cupped my elbow to keep me steady while doing his best to avoid being too close into my personal space.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” he whispered gently. I only nodded in reply. I went to take another step but my jelly legs made me stumble once again. Gage swept me off my feet, holding me close to his chest as he carried me out of the kitchen. As we got to the bottom of the stairs I could make out the sounds of Kane and Theo arguing once again in the kitchen.

“I didn’t mean to make them fight,” I whispered, tears still flowing.

“Hush, none of this is your fault. It was an accident. Kane didn’t mean it.”

“I know he didn’t, but it’s still not a nice experience.”

Gage kicked the door to my room open with his foot, taking me straight over to the nest. Placing me down, he cupped my cheeks, looking me in the eyes. The concern in those eyes was too much for me and the floodgates opened.

“I’m sorry, I’m over reacting,” I mumbled between sobs.

“No. This is a totally normal reaction,” he reassured me. “An alpha’s bark can have a horrible impact on an omega, especially if it’s not one of their bonded alphas. We were always told to watch our words growing up just in case.”

“Bonded?”

“Yeah, apparently if you’re bonded, like truly bonded, the bark is nowhere near as effective.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t feel bad. If anyone should, it’s Kane. He’s been around omegas plenty. He understands,” Gage soothed, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling me in for a hug. I didn’t fight it, sinking into him and embracing his warm, whisky scent.

“Juniper?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, gently rubbing his hand up and down my back. “He’s just seen some omegas get hurt in the past, and he’s a touch overprotective. I bet he barked before thinking. He’ll be feeling horrible for this, but he was completely in the wrong.”

“I’m okay though.” I wiped my eyes. “It just freaked me out not being able to move from the counter.”

“You’ve never experienced bark compulsion?”

“Never, it was insane, I physically couldn’t move. Apparently, that was commonly used centuries ago? Fuck I feel bad for the old omegas.”

“I’m sorry it happened this way.”

“Your injuries,” I said sleepily. “You shouldn't have been carrying me.”

“Hush, I can handle it.” As he spoke, his hand brushed over my hair, lulling me into a restful sleep, the physical exhaustion finally getting to me.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

Kane

Ilooked at the CCTV for the hundredth time. Someone had been near or even on the property of the pack house, and I would not stand for it. Ever since I’d done my walk around the day before, I’d just known something wasn’t right. The air had felt wrong, but I’d continued on, doing my best to brush it off as paranoia.

This was different. One of the silent alarms had been tripped. The moment the notification had come through on my phone I’d dropped what I was doing, leaving my half-eaten sandwich in the kitchen. I rushed to my laptop hoping to catch a glimpse of the intruder.

It could be a deer.When we had first moved in the alarms had been activated several times by the wildlife in the woodland area surrounding the pack house, but Archer had made several adjustments and there had been no alarms since.

Sure enough, Detective Rouche had parked his shitty little beater of a car just on the outskirts of the property lines and appeared to be nosing around. What the fuck was he doing here? We hadn’t seen him in years. He was one of the officers who’d investigated Juniper going missing. He was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, as Theo would say, and he’d been hellbent on this idea that Gage, Archer and Theo were responsible for Juniper’s disappearance.

Lavender hadn’t been outside in several days so her scent wasn’t prevalent out there, and since Detective Rouche was a beta, his sense of smell was nowhere near as good as our alpha noses. I still didn’t trust him in the slightest.

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