Page 37 of Knotting the Cowboys

My face burns, but I force myself to meet his eyes.

"I don't have Heats."

The silence that follows is deafening.

Even Luna stops babbling, as if sensing the sudden tension.

"You..." Austin starts, then stops. "What do you mean, you don't have them?"

"I haven't had a proper Heat in—" I try to remember. "Two years? Maybe more? Blake insisted on blockers. Said it was too disruptive to pack life."

Something dangerous flashes across all four faces.

Mavi's hands clench into fists.

River goes very still.

Austin pulls Luna closer like he's protecting her from the words.

And Cole—Cole looks ready to hunt Blake down and teach him exactly what disruption means.

"Blockers for two years?" Austin's medical training kicks in, overriding his anger. "Willa, that's—did you have proper monitoring? Blood work? Hormone panels?"

I shrug, uncomfortable with their focused attention.

"The pack doctor said it was fine. Lots of Omegas use long-term suppression."

Okay, maybe it wasn’t “fine” but that’s what everyone says because the side effects aren’t important when it doesn’t effect the Alphas.

If the Omega suffers, they deem it a “sacrifice for the love of your pack”.

One of the plentiful joys of submission.

"Lots of Omegas get serious complications from it too," he says quietly. "Bone density issues, hormonal imbalances, increased cancer risk?—"

Oh…

Now maybe I didn’t think about ALL of that.

"Austin," River warns, but the damage is done.

My hands shake as I wrap them around my cold mug.

"I didn't have a choice," I whisper. "Blake said—the pack needed—" I can't finish.

It would be easier, maybe, to blame the chemicals—hormones, the Blockers he fed me like vitamins, his careful rationing of affection that left me as starved as a dog chained in a snowstorm. But when I claw at my own memories, I see it all too clearly: a slow stripping away of will by subtle rewording of my boundaries. Each concession a little more permanent, until "what I want" became so irrelevant I forgot it was even a question. I wrapped myself in his pack’s expectations like a lead blanket, convinced that was the price of belonging. If I seemed placid, it was only because he made me forget the alternative.

Now, in the harsh fluorescent morning and surrounded by four men who see right through the act, the shame of it burns through my marrow.

I don't look up. My hands hide under the lip of the table, nail beds already angry pink, as I pick at old scars and new ones. Ican't tell if Austin's concern is worse than Mavi's silent disgust, or if River's steady gaze makes it better or worse.

It isn't just the blockers that made my skin a stranger to itself.

I let myself become an object, and now I can't even say whose hands I want to claim me next.

Cole's phone rings, sharp in the heavy silence. He glances at it, frowns, and for once doesn't silence it immediately.

"They need us in town," Mavi says, reading the screen from his angle. "Structure fire at Rosie's Diner."

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