Page 23 of Knot Mine

“I’m just saying…” My poor father looks panic stricken for a moment, before the corner of my mother’s mouth lifts into a wide grin.

“You’re going to give dad a heart attack.” I carefully kick off my sneakers, letting them fall onto the carpet as I hunker down in my space.

Moments later, Zale and my sister enter, saying a hasty goodbye before they both leave the room again. My parents and I share a look, but nothing is said as we wait for Rom to return.

It had almost been oddly comical, since he couldn’t look at me, despite staring at me all night and being so eager for my attention. Clearly the guilt and the sanity had returned to him at some point between his orgasm and the living room. Good.

Our moment of madness is something that needs to be squashed down. Folded and packed away until it takes up barely any space in the attic of my mind, tucked away in the corner along with the dust bunnies and small animal bones. It was a supercharged moment I will stumble across years from now,where I’ll recall how young and foolish I was to want something that wasn’t mine.

I barely notice my sister returning. She slips her red heels off before sitting down on the carpet with a smaller smile than she had earlier.

“So, you and Zale seem pretty solid,” my mother encourages as she strokes my sister’s hair.

Since we were already in the sitting room with all the family albums and a new bottle of wine, we’d clearly silently decided to carry on even after Zale’s early exit. After all, it had been a while since my parents had been back in town and we’d all been together like this.

My mother and father sit on one sofa, their legs touching, while they look over at us with indulgent smiles. Millie sprawls out onto the floor with two albums spread out before her as my mother places a glass of wine by her other side.

Growing up my parents tried to give us a homebase but they were property tycoons, both coming from families who bought properties and land across the globe. And while they had people working for them in every location, my parents believed that an excellent boss knew the value of their portfolio, and so growing up had involved a lot of travelling up until our teenage years.

When it became time to start focusing on exams, that’s when my parents decided that we would spend more time here in Oakley. It was a strategic decision, putting us near the university and into the feeder schools. Now that we were both enrolled and off living our own lives, there wasn’t much reason for them to stay. And so, much like my younger years, they carried on with their property hopping but they always returned here because that’s where we were.

Rom looks up at me, and for a moment, there’s something flickering in the shadows of her eyes. I blink and it’s gone.

Her perfect pink lips twist into a huge smile. “I think he’s going to mark me soon. Claim me as his.”

Her gushing makes my gut clench, and that’s when the guilt twists up inside me.

“That’s exciting.” My father says, but his words are quiet and cautious.

My sister is as stubborn as I am, just in a different way. If you tell Millie no, she’s the type of person who will do it out of spite. My parents know this all too well. They recognize that if they try to tell her she’s too young or to consider options other than Zale Blackwood, the heir to Blackwood Tech, it will only make her marry him quicker.

She gently touches a photo of us. It’s from when we were around four or five and helping our grandmother in her garden. We’re sitting on a concrete step, Rom in a bucket hat and her pants, while I’m wearing shorts and a pair of shades– you know the ones, with a thick funky colored plastic frame and some sort of plastic animal glued to the sides.

“We've been talking a lot more recently about what our futures might look like.” The smile she gives out parents makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It’s a lie, and I can’t work out why.

“And are you sure that he’s talking about your futures together?” I ask, tilting my head at her as she avoids my stare. I know I’m being petty and spiteful, but the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

This is Romilly Vos we were talking about. Of course he wants a future with her. She’s everything an alpha could want. Educated. Beautiful. Popular. Wealthy. The perfect omega.

“Shiloh!” my mother chides, as my father seems unsurprised by my tone. He tops up both of our glasses again.

“It’s okay, mom,” Rom laughs. “I know you all think that I’m too young. Too rash. That I shouldn’t be settling down yet. But he’s the best.”

The best.The best what?

He certainly wasn’t the best boyfriend.

“Is he?” My father muses as he settles back down on the sofa. The album he’s been flicking through is from our teenage years, when Millie blossomed into the omega she is now and I faded. Becoming a washed-out version of…her. I hated those years.

“He’s rich, from a good family, polite, strong and handsome. He’s a prime example of an alpha.” I scoff while my parents exchange another look but that doesn’t deter my twin. She’s extolling his virtues like he’s about to become our patron saint or something. “His family has his whole future mapped out. He’s going to be someone someday. And that makes him one of the most sought-after alphas at Oakley. I’d be stupid not to want to be the one on his arm.”

Someone someday. I swallow back a growl, unsure when the noise even crept up my throat. Someone someday? That guilt tendril in my gut shrinks a little.

“But do you love him?” Bless my father for asking the question we’re all thinking while Romilly pictures her magazine worthy wedding and the glossy spread in the social pages. I’m not sure she even realized all the things she listed about him were superficial. There was nothing in her drivel about how he made her feel or how she actually felt about him.

Taking another sip of my wine, I chastise myself. Of course she only thought about the surface level things. Rom was a product of a toxic society that uses secondary genders as a way to govern behaviors. The world can be cruel. Her worth as an omega is determined by the alpha who Claims her. They place special importance on the alpha, and this reverence on omegas that acts as a chain, weighing them down and binding people likeRom to their reproductive functions. People like me. Marriage becomes a transaction. A strategic move for wealth, power and influence. My parents loved one another, which was rare. I understood that. Shouldn’t Rom want more than to just choose her partner because he checks the most boxes on the alpha list?

Didn’t she want love? Wasn’t she holding out for a Fated Mate? Omegas might make tactical alliances, but they still secretly wished for that bond. The undeniable bond that defied the universe to bring souls together. Or maybe Zale was her Fated Mate and during his next rut they would come back bonded? It was none of my business, I remind myself, even if I can’t get the memory of him coming out of my brain.

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