Page 22 of Knot Mine

Hunter pauses mid-munch to tilt his head at our friend. “How did I not realize how cynical you are?”

Demolishing half of the beer in one giant gulp, Evans rubs his chest and burps loudly. “My alpha dad has had three marriages. He met my mother here at Oakley when they were students and wife number two was a graduate he met at an alumni mixer in Riverview.”

Curious, I take the beer Hunter is offering and ask, “What about the third?”

Evans shrugs as his phone lights up. “Oh, she was a stripper. But she doesn’t count, she’s a beta.”

I ignore the way Blake’s jaw tightens, getting to my feet. We live in a world where not everyone is equal, and in an institution like Oakley, it was ingrained into culture. There was no escaping it.

I know Shiloh was treated like shit by the others, but was it like that for him outside Oakley University too? Did strangers look down on him for being a beta? What did that mean for his future? Should I have a word with Sadie? Get her to back off? Or would that make everything worse?

Finishing up my beer, I crush the can and give Blake a small nod. “And after that enlightening life lesson from Evans, I’m gonna head to bed.”

Why did I care?

The beta didn’t even like me.

Chapter Nine

Shiloh

Have you ever had that moment?

The one where you think ‘I’m gonna go to hell for this’? No?

Watching Zale’s come face was my damnation. I should’ve left the kitchen the second I saw him over the top of a box of pop tarts. Cheeks flushed, the tendons in his neck bulging and flexing as his breathing staccato.

His blond hair was too perfect, too neat as if it was begging for me to run my hands through it. When his swirling blue eyes opened and clashed with mine, I should have coughed or made a noise. Goddess, I should have screamed. But I didn’t.

Why didn’t I?

It was so fucked up to watch my sister giving an alpha head in our parents’ pantry. Not that I was watching Romilly, I barely even spared her a second glance or more than a momentary thought and that is what was even more fucked up. She was my sister, my twin. Yep, heaven was no longer an option. I was definitely going to hell.

My focus had been on him like I needed him to breathe. Zale Blackwood. The alpha who seemed determined to get under my skin, who appeared everywhere I looked. First, he was in myclass, watching from the sidelines as I slogged my way through each lecture. Now in my parents’ home, and if he wasn’t in my parents’ home, he was outside the sex shop. It was like he was haunting me. Taunting me with what I cannot have. What I can’t even dare to let myself want.

No. I didn’t want him.

That wasn’t what I meant…was it?

If anyone found out I was an omega now, that would just make everything a million times worse.

I would rather be the slutty beta brother, then the omega who’s not good enough. The omega who no one even considered could be an omega. The omega who is a watered-down version of his sister.

No, I wanted to live my life on my terms, and to do that I had to face facts that there were some things that just weren’t meant for me. Even if they had eyes like pools of water tapped away in a desert oasis. Even if they had big broad shoulders and thick arms the size of my thigh. Or they smelled like a summer evening, when the bonfire crackles and the taste of s’mores lingers in your mouth as your teeth stick together. Or they made the sweetest sound when they came. Addictive. A soft groan that plays on repeat in my head, making me hard every time I think about how his eyes never left mine as I watched his undoing.

I might have wished, if only for a fraction of a moment, that it could’ve been me on my knees for him. That I could be the one working him over with my mouth and my hands. But it was an errant, fleeting thought. An error. A glitch in the matrix. It’s clearly been too long since I’ve been laid. Maybe once I was back at my apartment, I’d give that tentacle toy a try.

“What are you thinking so deeply about?” my father asks, as he hands me a photo album and picks up my empty glass of wine to refill it from the bottle resting on the coffee table. The alcoholalso isn’t helping my hazy, horny thoughts. I chuckle as I scratch at my neck, which causes his expression to crinkle into concern.

“Is everything okay?”

I freeze, my nails pressing against the faded bite mark. “Yeah, just a bug bite on my neck. That’s all.”

The mark looked a little darker this morning. I thought it might have been my eyes playing tricks or the shitty lighting in my bedroom, but as the skin prickles, I wonder if there’s something wrong with the warped bond. Great, another thing for Zion to judge me for.

“Do you want me to take a look? What if you’ve caught something?” My mother sips her own wine before narrowing her gaze at my neck. “Malaria is spread by mosquitoes.”

“I don’t have malaria.” Snorting, I lean back in the armchair, flipping through the faded book of baby photos.

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