Page 3 of Knot All that Glitters: Part 1

I breathe a little easier when I reach the edge of the crowd. A few of the spectators eye me. There’s a reporter who looks like she might want to approach, but I avoid eye contact and hurry away, heading toward the buildings that flank the empty lot. I’ll duck out of sight and take a few deep breaths, maybe call Florence, though she’s probably in rehearsal at the moment. I can still text to check in with her.

My shoulders slump as I round the corner, free of the eyes of the crowd. With a weary sigh, I lean against the brick of the building and dip my chin to my chest, taking deep, even breaths. I need moments like this in my life, moments where I don’t have eyes on me, where I can’t feel the weight of my father’s disappointed stare, the heaviness that started the moment I perfumed as an omega. Not that it was all sunshine and rosesbefore I presented. No, my father has always been a difficult man to live with. Overbearing and controlling, but it wasn’t like this.

He’d allowed me some freedom. I went to school and had friends, dated a boy or two. I was a normal teenager until I turned sixteen. And then it was like a switch flipped in his head.

The thing that drives him now is making sure I don’t act like an animal, on base instinct.

“There you are, little mouse.”

I look up sharply, already hating that anyone would call me that. I may be quiet, but that doesn’t mean I’m a timid little beast that scurries away when it’s startled. If I was, I would have gone into hiding a long time ago.

The glare fades from my eyes when I see who it is that found me, though. Handsome. Really handsome. Dark brown hair burnished with auburn. Icy blue eyes. Pale skin that rivals my own. Thick black lashes. High cheekbones. Full mouth. Tall. Broad shouldered. Tapered waist. Thighs as thick as my waist. Unmistakably an alpha.

Unmistakably an alpha that my omega wants to climb like a tree to get at the patch of skin under his ear where his scent is strongest, right where the black ink that looks like a tentacle curls. Surprising, since I haven’t really felt my omega in two years.

A low pleased purr sounds from him, not a full alpha purr, but one that tells me he likes my attention on him. My eyes fly to meet his, realizing I’d been focused on his neck, staring at it like I want to bite him, mark him. Crap. Does this qualify as embarrassing my father? Drooling over an alpha I haven’t been properly introduced to?

There’s a twinge of panic, the slightest squeeze. But then I rationalize with the part of myself under my father’s command that he’s not here to witness it. So unless this man strides back tothe rally and loudly proclaims I was a needy little omega in front of him, I should be fine.

I haven’t violated any of the demands he made of me.

“What are you doing over here, omega? It isn’t safe,” the alpha says, shifting just slightly closer. I move back, keeping what my father has deemed the appropriate amount of space between our bodies. Anything less and I’d be in danger of defying him.

“I needed some air,” I say in response, my voice slightly husky from disuse.Goodbye four days, twelve hours and eleven minutes of silence.

His brows arch in surprise, like he hadn’t expected my voice. Most people don’t. It’s low and raspy for an omega.Smoky, one alpha told me, and then he sneered that it matched my smoked chili and pineapple scent. Most people don’t expect that spicy bite in an omega scent. Most don’t want it.

No omegas are all dessert scented—fudge and pie and cake—or florals. I’ve never come across another omega with such a sharp bite in their scent as I have. Which is why I don’t mind so much that my father has commanded me to use scent blockers.

No one likes my spicy, acidic scent anyway.

Except for maybe Florence. But she’s the other half of my soul, so that’s to be expected.

The alpha glances around, pointing out wordlessly that the entire rally is very much outside.

“Metaphorically,” I add, before he can make a comment about it.

He hums and holds out his hand. “Hale Calloway.”

My fingers tingle with the urge to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin against mine, but that urge is more than just the normal polite greeting… It feels dangerously like anomegaresponse to an alpha, and so I ignore his hand and tip my head. “Haven Bell.”

He grins all teeth. It feels like a threat and, at the same time,not. “Oh, I know. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while, but you always scurry off to hide at these events.”

“Hence the ‘little mouse’ comment.” I clasp my hands together in front of me to avoid fidgeting. My father hates fidgeting.

“Well, that and you’re quiet as a mouse most of the time. It’s a shame, because a voice like yours is what filthy dreams are made of.” Another flash of those dangerous teeth. “What I wouldn’t give to have that husky voice whisper dirty things in my ear.”

My fingers squeeze tighter together while an internal battle rages. This is definitely not appropriate behavior, not on his part at least. I haven’t done anything wrong, haven’t said anything out of turn, and yet, it feels like this is stepping over every boundary my father has ever put in place for me.

“You’ve been watching me?”

His grin turns wolfish. “Pretty girl like you? Hell yeah, I watch you. We all do.”

We all do.I think he means it as a compliment. Most people probably like to be looked at, admired by the opposite sex (or the same sex), but my brain does some mental gymnastics to make it seem like I’m drawing attention to myself, making a spectacle. Which is decidedly against the commands my father has laid out for me.

I feel my face go pale and there’s no hiding the tremble of my fingers as I try to figure out a way to undo this, to take back whatever I’ve done to go against my commands. Only there is nothing. I’ve done exactly as my father told me to do. Smiled demurely, only spoke when spoken to, maintain a beta like existence. Nothing omega about me.

I didn’t even shake his hand, for goodness’ sake.

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