Page 126 of Believe it or Knot

“I can smell her, but I can’t see her,” Gage mutters, scanning the dark area. I’m right here with him. Lavender floats on the breeze, still tinged with all those negative emotions. I never want her to feel that way ever again.

I’ll make it my life’s mission to make sure her scent is only tinged with joy, contentment, love, lust, pleasure. All those good feelings.

The longer we stand there, the antsy we get. Liam whimpers.

“Sorrel!” Gray tips his head back and roars. “Where are you, sweet thing?”

There’s an answering sniffle that has all of us whipping our heads toward it. “Gray?” a soft voice croaks.

“Sorrel!” Liam gasps, running toward a tree. No running toward the dark shape at the base of the tree. The rest of us follow, falling to our knees half a second after Liam does. He’s already got her in his arms though, bundled onto his lap, her face pressed against his neck, one of his hands buried in her hair.

Sorrel curls her fingers in his shirt, holding on, fingers trembling. “You weren’t there,” she chokes out. “You weren’t there, and I was alone and I-”

I can’t keep from touching her, my hand sliding onto her hip, feeling the heat from her body, the life in her limbs. She’s here with us. Alive and seemingly uninjured. Gage’s fingers grip her shoulder and Gray palms the top of her head. “We’re here,” Liam whispers, lips against her forehead. “We’re here. All of us.” And then he purrs. Right there in the dark of the park, my omega purrs for my beta to soothe her.

Typically purring doesn’t have the same effect on betas as it has on alphas or omegas, but I watch as Sorrel’s body relaxes in increments, body growing lax and her scent turning less bitter, softer like it should always be. She inhales deeply and lets out a shuddering breath.

“Can I-” Gage cuts off, his voice hoarse before he clears his throat and tries again. “Can I hold you for a bit, biscuit? I… my alpha needs to-”

Liam growls at him, his lip pulling back in a snarl as he tightens his grip on our beta and while it’s an adorable sound—all omega—it’s enough to make my alpha prickle with the need to destroy whatever has upset him.

Sorrel sniffles and lifts her head for the first time since we found her, looking at the four of us with red-rimmed eyes. Her lower lip trembles as she meets each of our gazes, before she stiffens it, and pulls away from Liam entirely. He grips her tighter for a moment, but when she continues to pull against his hold, he lets her go.

Sorrel doesn’t go to Gage, though. Instead, she crawls on her hands and knees until she’s clear of the four of us and pushes to her feet. We scramble to ours right after, needing to be close to her, to keep her within touching distance.

She holds up one trembling hand and gives a fake as shit smile that shakes just as much. “You didn’t need to come,” she whispers, so fucking softly I almost miss it. “I know you don’t… I know I’m the villain of your story. And I… I’m fine, so you can go.”

“Bullshit,” Gage growls bluntly. “You were never the villain. You could never be, Sor. Ever.”

Her aqua eyes move from Gage to Gray and then back again. “You have to say that because you love me.”

Gage inches closer to her, one hand stretched toward her. “I do love you. So goddamn much, biscuit. I’m sorry if I made you feel otherwise. Come here.” Sorrel hesitates. “Please, Sor. I need to hold you.”

Another of those choked sounds comes out of her, and then she’s moving toward him, her face pressing between his pecs as his arms close around her. The scent of wood smoke and vanilla whiskey gets stronger in the air, and she shudders. “I’m still mad at you,” she murmurs into his chest. “So mad.”

Gage kisses the top of her head, lips lingering there as he closes his eyes. “I know, baby. I deserve it. I was an ass.”

“Unmitigated ass,” she grumbles.

A soft chuckle falls from his lips as his cheek presses into her hair, rocking her gently. “That too.”

Next to me Gray clears his throat, breaking the sweet moment. “Sorrel,” he starts, but trails off like he doesn’t know how to continue. How to apologize for something that’s damn near unforgivable.

We will, but now is not the time to rehash our fuck up. Not when our girl has been through the fucking ringer, kidnapped and drugged and nearly blown up. She’s got scrapes on her I need to see to, even if a professional already did.

My alpha is snapping at me to check every inch of her body to know that she’s okay. There are any number of injuries she could have that we can’t see. I mean, she was in an explosion for chrissakes.

“Conejita,” I start, and I don’t trail off. “Can we check you for injuries? We-I just need to see.”

She snuggles closer to Gage and shakes her head. “A paramedic already looked me over. I’m fine.”

Gage pulls back and looks down at her. “Let us look, okay? And then we’ll get you out of here.”

Her shoulders drop at the promise and she gives a small nod of consent. My breath blows out of me. Thank god for Gage and his ability to reason with her, the trust she still has for him. I honestly think I was about a minute away from using an alpha bark on her to get her to listen.

Which would have gone over real well, I’m sure.

Liam tugs his cell phone out of his pocket and Gray does the same using the flashlight feature to illuminate our girl. The too bright light makes her flinch and turns her skin a ghostly pale color. Or maybe that’s because of the trauma she’s endured.

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