Page 15 of Knot Here for You

“We’ll always take care of you, baby girl,” Jackson murmurs from behind me, with his arm wrapped around my waist, his mouth against my hair. I feel so secure in his arms. It’s always been like that with them.

When I’m with them, I’m safe.

Asher presses his forehead to my temple. “This ring is a promise of forever, angel. So think real hard if you want to be stuck with us for that long.”

I snort a laugh and Davis chuckles on my other side. “Though we should warn you, if you don’t accept it, you’ll probably still be stuck with us.”

I don’t even have to think about it, though. They should know how I feel. My tongue darts out to wet my lips before I answer. “I want it. I want you. All of you.” I find Topher standing slightly away from all of us and hold a hand out to him. He’s as much a part of this promise as the rest of us. Maybe more because he’s the first one I met, my first friend here in Granton.

His hand slides into mine, warm and rough, and I tug him into the circle. His brown eyes are so soft. “I want forever with you,” I whisper.

I jolt out of the dream, tears on my cheeks, throat tight, heart aching for something that can never be. The dreams where we’re happy are worse than the ones about the announcement, about them breaking my heart. With those I still wake up crying, but it’s always a reminder of what they did, the pain they caused, and it helps me stop wanting them, at least for a little while.

But these dreams, the ones where it feels like they wanted me, like they truly loved me. They hurt even more.

I was young and naïve, believing them when they promised me the world. If only I’d realized I didn’t need the world, I just needed them. A pack. No, not a pack. Their pack.

I flop over onto my back and wipe the moisture from my cheeks before staring up at the dark ceiling.

Looking back, through the filter of age, experience and heartache, I can see that they never really loved me. We were all too young to actually be in love. I mean, who meets their fated mates at twelve? It’s just not heard of.

Only… I did. I know it in my soul that they are mine—were mine—but they didn’t feel the same. I don’t blame them so much for not really loving me. They thought they did. I thought they did. But it was obviously not the case if they could so easily set me aside to follow their families’ plans for them.

Whatever they felt was infatuation and hormones. Nothing more than that.

I just wish I hadn’t fallen for it so completely.

Especially when the fallout is what my life is now.

It’s not so bad, Vee, I silently tell myself, even as a few stray tears push out from my eyes and drip down my temples. I have an adoptive family that loves me, that took me in without question when I needed help. They treat me with all the care and affection of a little sister. I have two best friends that I would do anything for. A job that pays the bills and a creative outlet.

Sure, I have to suffer through heats three times a year, with no one to ease the pain. But I’d rather do that than be with a pack that doesn’t love me. Not to mention I can’t physically be with anyone else. And the suppressants mitigate a lot of the pain and makes them shorter too.

I push that thought away and reach for my phone. Clicking on the screen to check the time.

4:30.

Fuck.

I know I won’t be able to go back to sleep. I usually can’t after I’ve dreamed about them, whether the good or bad times. My brain refuses to be quiet, dragging up memories I would much rather forget.

Sighing, I push myself up until I’m leaning against my headboard. I click on the browser app on my phone and hoover my finger over the search bar. This is a familiar moment. I always do this after I dream about them. Less frequently now than I had at the beginning.

I want to search for them. To see what they’ve been up to. It might be nice to have some clue, so when I go back to the city where they broke my heart, I’ll know where to avoid. Though my grandmother’s house is in the same neighborhood as theirs.

Or at least it was back when Jackson and Davis still lived with their parents. Their giant mansion backed up to a green belt filled with trees. My grandmother’s house was on the other side, closer to the city center. We wore a path between the two, winding through the trees, with one fork that led to our little cabin, our oasis.

My heart clenches. That path is probably overgrown now. I can’t imagine a reason they would walk it these days. Unless it’s bringing Yasmin to laugh at the dilapidated house I grew up in. I can see her doing that, but not them. They never cared that I was poor.

Though, I also hadn’t seen them rejecting me so publicly, so what the hell do I know?

While I’ve been lost in my thoughts, my fingers have had a mind of their own, typing out Jackson Werth and then hitting the search button. My heart lurches and I panic, jabbing my finger against the ‘x’ icon to close the window before it can populate.

Tossing my cell away from me, I blow out a breath, and tip my head to rest on the headboard, waiting for my heart to stop pounding.

You’d think over the years, I would have looked them up, found out what they were up to, but I’ve resisted. Seven years of not knowing a thing about them. The last thing I want to do is find a wedding or birth announcement tied to their pack.

Gladys Benson hadn’t been right about a lot in her life, but she was right about this.

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