Page 57 of Knot What She Seems
“You need to get better at lying,” the other omega observes.
“Really?” I quirk a brow.
“Yes. Your tone was so off.”
“For which part?” I ask as we reach a table laden with a chocolate fountain and platters of dipping fruit. Just beside it is a bar, where we request red wine from the bartenders.
“Thethank you for this.” Harper does a terrible imitation of me before she takes her wine glass. With a flirty wink at the bartender, she turns around to face the room and the dancers floating gently across the floor.
I shrug. “I’ll work on it.”
“I would have thought royals would be better at lying. Aren’t you trained from birth on that?”
I fail to smother a smile because if she only knew the amount of lying I was doing daily. But I keep up the joke. “Only for important lies.”
“The feelings of the headmistress don’t qualify?” she teases.
“Feelings never qualify,” I retort without thinking. But after I say the words and they linger in the air, spinning like dust motes through light, the truth of them hits hard. Feelings don’t qualify. Not even mine.
Because I can’t stay morose without causing a ton of public speculation, I take a sip of my wine. The smooth vintage warms my mouth as I scan the room, looking for someone to latch onto so that poor Harper isn’t my sole victim tonight.
But I realize what a loner I am when I can only match a few names to faces…even for the guys who’ve come over from Eros. It makes me cringe a little to realize that, but I’m also uncertain how I’m going to change it. With my constant Superman routine, changing in a bathroom stall and sometimes even the forest between the schools, I don’t have much energy left.
“I don’t know any names,” I admit.
Harper leans in and immediately starts rattling off names and gesturing around the room in a way that’s silky smooth and doesn’t make it obvious we’re gossiping. She’s very good at this, because she seems to know nearly everyone, along with some key details about them to make them memorable.
“That was impressive,” I tell her, raising my glass in a silent toast before taking a drink.
She shrugs. “I people.”
“You certainly peopled me.”
“Yeah, I did.” I don’t even begrudge her the smug look she gives me; I just roll my eyes.
The music breaks, and chatter picks up. An ominous gust of wind sweeps into the room from the hall, making several of the Darling professors shiver.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I’m surprised that the candles don’t sputter out.
That everyone in the room doesn’t stop moving.
That a hole doesn’t open up in the ground to swallow me.
Brock, Nic, and Jamie stride in. Necks swivel, and I watch other omegas eye them with keen interest—but my limbs have locked up. My wine glass sags and tips as my brain starts blaring a repetitive alarm.
No. No. No. No.
Nice as they might be, handsome as they are, the idea of becoming theirs feels like a weighted chain cinching around my neck.
“Bry. Bry!” Harper notices my dismay and ends up flicking my elbow to get my attention.
When I turn to her, I expect my face is dazed with panic.
“Do you want to start Operation Sourdough?”
“What?” My eyebrows rise.
