Page 103 of Knotting the Cowboys

This is a whole new me. A blossoming Omega. Someone who takes what she wants and lets herself be wanted in return.

Twenty-three hours left.

After what just happened, after the promise in River's eyes and the taste of freedom on his tongue, those hours feel like a lifetime. But they also feel like preparation.

Time to ready myself for what's coming, for the claiming and bonding and belonging that waits on the other side.

I start changing back into the new white romper outfit and new boots, ready for the ride ahead, my movements slow and careful on unsteady legs.

Outside, I can hear River talking to the sales attendant, his voice calm and pleasant like he didn't just take me apart with his mouth in a public dressing room.

Every color, he'd said.

The white for their claiming night.

My pussy clenches at the thought, already eager despite the satisfaction still humming through my veins.

Twenty-three hours, and then I'll find out exactly what it means to belong to the pack at Cactus Rose Ranch.

I can hardly wait.

Live. Laugh. Ride

~WILLA~

The October air hits different out here, away from the boutique's perfumed confines and the town's polite scrutiny.

My body still hums with aftershocks from River's mouth, muscles loose and languid as we guide the horses through the ranch gates toward open country. Every shift in the truck seat on the way here had been a reminder—the tender ache between my thighs, the phantom pressure of his fingers, the way my new romper brushed against oversensitive skin.

But now, standing at the edge of this vast expanse of pastures and valleys, something else takes hold.

The field spreads before us like a promise written in wildflowers. They shouldn't be blooming—October in Montana usually means frost-kissed mornings and trees surrendering their leaves. Instead, purple asters and late-blooming yarrow dot the hillsides in defiant splashes of color.

The sun hangs high and proud, but the breeze carries winter's whisper, creating that perfect balance between warmth and chill that makes you feel every inch of your skin.

I inhale deeply, and the world floods in. Sage and sweet grass, the earthy musk of horses, pine resin from the distant treeline. No exhaust fumes. No concrete dust. No artificial everything pressing in from all sides. My lungs, damaged as they are, seem to expand fuller here, like they remember how to work properly when the air is clean.

"God," I breathe, not quite meaning to speak aloud. "I'd forgotten."

"Forgotten what?" River's voice comes from behind me, gentle curiosity threading through the words.

"This." I gesture vaguely at everything—the endless sky, the rolling landscape, the profound quiet that isn't silent at all but filled with wind song and distant bird calls. "The way nature doesn't ask anything of you except to exist in it."

I sense him moving closer, bringing the horses, but he doesn't touch. We're both hyperaware of boundaries now, of the careful distance that needs maintaining for another twenty-two hours. Still, his presence warms my back like sunlight.

"Cities convince you that their noise is necessary," I continue, surprising myself with the confession. "That the buzz and hum and constant motion is life itself. But it's not. It's just... loudness. Drowning out the important things."

"Like what?" He's beside me now, holding both sets of reins, and when I glance over, his green eyes hold that same patient interest that undid me in the changing room.

"Like breathing. Like thinking your own thoughts instead of whatever advertising or anxiety is being pumped at you." I shake my head, embarrassed by my rambling. "Sorry. I'm being weird."

"You're being honest." He extends Willow's reins toward me. "Ready to remember something else you might have forgotten?"

I stare at the leather straps, my stomach doing a slow flip. "River, I haven't been on a horse since I was maybe ten. I'm going to be terrible."

"Define terrible." There's amusement in his voice now, that gentle teasing I'm learning is his way of easing tension.

"Like... falling off immediately. Or going the wrong direction. Or accidentally signaling the horse to gallop when I meant to stop." I'm only half-joking. My hands shake slightly as I take the reins.

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