Page 12 of Knotty New Year

I softened my tone. “I checked the weather reports. We’re stuck here for at least two days, maybe through Christmas, or longer if the temperatures stay low and the trucks can’t get to us.” Though I would buy a fleet of snowplows if I had to, to escape this intoxicating woman before I did something more shameful, and more permanent, than barking at her. “You’ll need more clothing. And I want you to know…” I cleared my throat. “I am deeply sorry for barking earlier. That’s not who I am. My mother would have been ashamed. I am ashamed. Even if you won’t be staying for all the days you agreed to, I will pay you the contracted amount and provide the bonus as well. Only, you must accept my apology.”

“You can’t buy an apology,” she said softly. My heart dropped, but she finished, “They’re free if you ask sincerely. I forgive you, Mr. Paxson.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, and backed out of the room. It was the hardest thing I had done in years, and it was only stepping away. But removing myself from her presence was the only way to keep myself from losing control of my inner nature completely.

From answering the drumbeat insistence that thrummed in my mind:Mate. Claim. Mine.

* * *

I managed it for a day. I carried food into my office, placed rolled-up bath towels along the bottom of the closed doors to keep her scent from drifting in, and only came out to piss or grab more food. Once, I heard her humming in the kitchen, and I crept back into my office like I was the one who didn’t belong here. I needed the distraction of work, but all the offices were closed in this part of the country, and everyone else was off on fucking vacations. So instead, I cyber-stalked the precocious omega upstairs.

She really had been an exemplary student in high school and college. That she had gotten kicked out made me angry enough to send a letter to the Vice-Provost of Finance, an old friend of my father’s, with her case as the reason I would be withdrawing all my pledged donations for the next ten years and calling into question the university’s ethics as well.

That made me feel slightly less feral.

Even better was when I called the older brother of the founder of Knotmate.com. He and I had gone sailing around the Maldives one summer, and for the price of my boat—the one he’d lusted after almost embarrassingly—he agreed to find a way to disable any requests for Candace’s “knot mates.”

Fucking ridiculous.Knotting an omega didn’t mean you were a mate. A mate bond like the one my parents had shared was sacred, and special, and…

I pressed my face into the sofa cushion and screamed as loud as I could. Then I jerked off into another dish towel—the seventh time that day—and threw it into my office trash can.

Next, I looked into the paper-thin online presence of the Blue Skies “agency” where Theodore had apparently found Candace. I left the website alone—it was highly unlikely anyone else would hire them, since it was obvious they were three or four girls in a metaphorical trench coat, pretending to be a business—but I called Theodore and fired him, mere days before Christmas.

That was shitty timing, even for me. I immediately called him back and apologized, giving him a raise. He mumbled a snarky, “God bless us every one,” Scrooge reference before hanging up. I made a note in my calendar to fire him the day after Christmas instead.

After twenty-eight hours of no sleep—because I knew fucking better than to walk that close to her door, as Lin would never forgive me for the acts I was fantasizing about committing on top of her hideously ugly homemade quilt—I broke.I called the only person who I thought might give me good advice.

“Storm here,” he answered on the first ring. “What the fuck do you want, Pax?”

“I want you to drive out in this storm, bring whatever weapon you can lay hands on, and put me down like a rabid skunk.”

He paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. “If driving out in this shit wasn’t certain to kill me first, I’d help. I’ve wanted to get you back ever since the Everson buyout.” I laughed along with him. “All I have is a shovel anyway. And paintball guns. What’s up, Pax?”

I outlined the situation for him, and he cursed soundly when I was done, then went quiet. Besides my parents, Lin, and Victor, Storm was the only person I knew who had a true mate. He’d met her five years before, when he was twenty-nine. He was younger than me, but that didn’t matter between friends like us, who had so much in common.

But some age gaps were insurmountable. He’d scented her first, then seen her, at a park on vacation, buying ice cream cones from a vendor, and accompanied by a large family. He hadn’t approached her, but he’d asked the vendor her age. She’d looked to be younger than eighteen, though most omegas didn’t perfume until then. The vendor had told Storm they’d been celebrating her fourteenth birthday. He’d asked around, and learned it was true. She was the oldest daughter of a large, happy family, according to their hotel concierge.

Storm had walked away right then, moved to the East Coast, and never seen her since. He was honorable, but the fight not to go to her had almost broken that honor.

He’d turned to a lot of methods to tame his inner, raging alpha nature. To stop himself from turning into some sort of crazed pedophile. Meditation and yoga, booze, extreme sports, and finally, medication. And not just any medication: he was one of a very few who knew Paxson Pharma had started human trials for a new hormone suppressant for alphas.

“How are the drugs working?” I asked. I should know; Storm had become one of my best friends after he’d moved a few miles down the street. “Think they’d slip me into the study?” I laughed, but he didn’t join me.

“They’re not good,” he said quietly. “I’m going to have to try something else. The doctors think it’s causing heart damage.”

“Fuck.” My own heart panged. “How old would your mate be now? Nineteen, right?” Still not old enough; I knew that.

“I can’t talk about it.” His voice was choked, and he stopped to clear his throat before continuing. “But listen… if she had been twenty-four when I met her? I wouldn’t have walked away. Maybe you should try. Ask her. Isn’t she going nuts, pursuing you? Mature omegas, man. They’re a force of nature.” We both sighed; we’d been chased by enough of them to know.

“She was a late bloomer,” I told him. “I don’t think she feels it like I do.”

“Well then, the answer to what you should do seems pretty clear.” The line buzzed, and he sighed again before adding, “Find out.”

Chapter6

Candy

In the Omega League trainings, they’d tried to tell us omegas were natural-born mothers. Even though I’d always wanted kids eventually, I’d thought that theory was a sack of shit—just more of the stuff they were trying to sell us to make it seem like we weren’t being forced away from real lives and jobs. That mothering was what we were best suited for, though we weren’t supposed to be drawn to other women’s children.

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