Page 37 of Knotty New Year

I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and I’d mumbled my way through an emergency board meeting that was supposed to be about our response to the crisis at Paxson Pharma, but had ended up being a referendum on my love life.

For once, it wasn’t just my workaholic tendencies keeping me tied to my desk. Hundreds of the shots that suppressed omega fertility cycles for one month had been mislabeled as one-yeardoses, and sent out to doctors’ offices. The doses in question had been sent to New York and New Jersey, but it was possible they’d gone to other states as well. We still didn’t know if it was an honest mistake, or corporate sabotage. Plenty of old-school alphas didn’t believe omegas should have control over their reproductive lives, even though my company had made regulating fertility possible.

Which meant that now, there could be unsuspecting omegas out there in danger of becoming pregnant. Omegas like my mom, who had died because her body couldn’t handle the stress of bearing her tenth child, and omega biology was stronger than any birth control drugs available back then.

I rubbed at my arm again, musing at how little was truly known about omegas and their biology. Since Christmas evening, in between panicked meetings, I’d done an hour or two of research on true mate connections, to see if there was any information about irritated mating marks.

There wasn’t much information about true mate bites available anywhere, not even in the secure files in my company’s research arm. Probably because there were so few mated pairs, couples who were perfect scent matches.

I don’t want to be your true mate, Nicholas Paxson!

My heart constricted. The mere thought that my perfect, young mate regretted having tied herself to me, might not want to be with me ever again, had my inner alpha roaring to go to her side and make certain she knew whose she was. To stake my claim all over again, all over her delectable body.

My phone rang, and I took the call, recognizing the ring tone. “Luke, how are things going at the lodge?”I knew Candy wouldn’t get there for another few hours; my PA had let me know the instant she’d gotten in the car to the airstrip, and had made sure she had fresh flowers on board the plane with a note from me.

“Get your ass out here, Nicky, or you won’t have nine siblings, because I’ll bury at least three of them in a snowbank.”

“The triplets giving you trouble?” Vanessa, Tori, and Valentine were twenty years old, and if I didn’t know they had round-the-clock bodyguards assigned to them, I would be worried. But ever since an ex-nanny had tried to abduct them for ransom when they were ten, I’d paid the exorbitant fees to Storm Securities for their very best men to keep them safe.

“I found two ski instructors hiding in their bedroom closet.”

“They got into our lodge? How?” With all that security…

Luke snorted. “Two of the triplets snuck them in while the third hit the guards with her—what do they call it? Oh, yeah. ‘Omega phasers, set to stun.’ Nicky, I need you.”

“You need me to hide the bodies, or pay off the hitmen?” I sighed as Luke bitched about the other girls being bad influences on Penny. “Don’t they have enough to do to stay out of trouble? Isn’t Kati assigning jobs to all of you?” Our oldest sister was the most organized sibling of us all, and was terrifyingly competent.

“Kati is a tyrant, and she’s been going without sleep to get everything ready to welcome your mystery omega, but even Captain Kati’s no match for the triplets and Penny. Not now that Penny’s decided since she’s almost seventeen, she’s old enough to—and I quote—‘step into adulthood with a heart full of courage and a fist full of condoms.’”

“Condoms?” I felt a headache begin to pound at my temples. “What thehell, Luke? What’s going on out there?”

His laugh was higher-pitched than usual. Hysterical, almost. “The snowpack is incredible. Every resort is sold out, and every fraternity in America, plus most of the world’s nouveau riche Eurotrash Casanovas, have descended on Telluride.”

“Fuck.”

The line went silent. “Hey, I hate to bring it up, but the girls saw some trash tabloid stuff online. Is everything okay with your omega? Are you okay?”

“You heard what she said, right? Let’s just hope my family can convince her to stay with me.”

“Why the hell aren’t you on that plane with her, Nicky?” When I explained what was going on at the company, he whistled low. “I get it, bro. I’ll tell the girls we need to impress the heck out of her, talk up your positives. Pretty sure she’s already seen your caveman side. We’ll keep her safe for you until….?”

“I’ll be there tomorrow. Candy’s plane is landing in two hours. Nobody runs her off, got it?”

Luke laughed, but the sound was hollow. “I’ll try. Don’t wait too long unless you’re giving her one last chance to back out.”

I growled into the phone, “I already claimed her, asshole. There’s no backing out now.”

“Good. Man, true mate, huh? You deserve the fairy tale. Tell her what’s going on at work; she’ll understand.”

His words stopped me. Would Candy even want to know all the details about the crisis at work? I’d thought it would be boring. But maybe it would help if she knew how serious it was. “Yeah, I just need to get some time with her, get to know her. Let her get to know me. I can’t… I can’t lose her, Luke.”

We both went quiet, and I knew he was thinking of the same person I was. The one Paxson sibling who wouldn’t be there. The brother who’d fled to South America months ago, trying to heal from the horror of watching his true mate marry another alpha.

“Any word from Victor?” Luke asked.

“Not yet,” I replied, my heart heavy. “But I’m not giving up.” I wouldn’t give up on him.

I hung up the phone and closed my eyes, allowing myself the luxury of thinking of my new, gorgeous mate. I already knew my family would love Candy. She was smart, funny, open, and kind… and so sexy it made my balls ache to think of having to wait even one more night to feel her wet heat around me, to hear her soft cries as I lavished her body with bliss.

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