Page 7 of Knot My Type

Then I seehim.

The Beta.

The one who used to bring me coffee before runs, and carried me through a snowdrift when I twisted my ankle on a scouting mission. His eyes don’t meet mine. They flick, fast, to the edge of the trees.

“What if they know?” he whispers. “What if they’re watching us?”

Someone quietens him, but they’re too late.

I feel the shift in the air before I see them. A rival pack. Not one we were feuding with, but they’re here now, slinking through the trees with bared teeth and fury on their breath.

My stomach lurches as I realize what has taken place. My Beta has sold us out, so I blink again, unwilling to believe what my eyes have shown me. It can't be. He's my friend; he wouldn't do it—not for anything in this world. But then I remember what Dad once told me: Everyone has a price at some point in their life. And I wonder—has this become mine?

The Alpha doesn’t get to react before it’s chaos. Growls, shrieks, the thunder of bodies colliding. I scream but no sound comes out. Itryto move, but my limbs are locked, frozen in place by instinct or fear or heat—I don’t know.

I can only watch.

The trees spin. The earth tilts. My scent blooms hot and slick in the air, and for a moment, someone turns—smellsme. This is when my world explodes. Then the clearing is chaos.

Snarls tear through the air like static. The ground trembles beneath my feet from the force of bodies colliding, claws raking, fists cracking against ribs. I can hear bone break—feelit in my own chest, like an echo of violence I can’t unsee.

And over it all:my scent.

It rises like smoke, saturating the air in a way that draws eyes—hungry eyes. Alphas on both sides with their nostrils flaring. Someone groans low in their throat, the sound tangled with need.

I want to scream. I want to claw the heat out of myself, tear my scent glands free just to stop the way theylook at me.

But I can’t.

I’m not just a body in heat—I’m a ghost stuck inside a memory.

“Get back!” someone hisses.

A hand grabs my wrist—rough, urgent, dragging me through the brush. We stumble behind a fallen log. A face blurs into view, there’s panic wide in his eyes. “You have to get out of here—your scent—it’s pulling them—”

A flash of movement.

A growl like thunder.

Then he's gone.

I’m still kneeling, whilst shaking on the ground, because I'm drenched in my own scent. The pack I trusted, loved and grew with have now been torn apart. The Beta stands at the edge of the clearing, untouched. His face is pale, his shoulders stiff—but his hands?

His hands aren't shaking.

The betrayal splits through me like a knife to the ribs, deep and ragged and unforgivable. I lurch forward, but my body won't follow through. The heat has me locked down, paralyzed in the middle of the worst moment of my life.

"You did this," I try to shout, but it comes out broken.

He turns away, which is the last straw. Then, I fall backward into myself, the heat rising like a fever flood, and just before the memory releases me, I hear my Alpha's voice one last time—raw, furious,hurt.

"Eliana—run."

I would if I could, but I'm stuck—not just in the grief of watching everyone I've ever loved be slaughtered, but in the knowledge that my Beta caused this mayhem.

If it hadn't been for him, we'd still be happy, just like we were from the start. There are so many questions running through my mind, but the one that takes precedence is: why?

Why would he do this to us?

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