Page 33 of Knot a Tie
“Just saying…you want him here so bad, use her to get to him.”
Three astounded gazes cut to the preppy puppy. “You what?” I blurt out.
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, that came out worse than how it sounded in my head. I meant, use her presence here to draw him into the fold.”
James and I exchange a glance. “Maybe,” he mutters. “Isn’t it just more deception? We are supposed to be caring for her, not the exact opposite of that.”
“We are and we will,but…there are two birds here and we have one stone. Why not knock them both down at the same time?”
“He has a point,” I venture, firmly on the side of not deceiving her any more than we have to. I like her. A lot. She has fire and is gorgeous and sweet and obviously loyal to a fault. By all accounts, Richard was in the car when she was grabbed, but he redeemed himself by trying to save her at the eleventh hour. It could be that she has a slight case of Stockholm’s or whatever, but I think it’s more than that. She connected with Richard in the way that she is supposed to connect with us. We know she is our mate. At least, James and I do. Her scent has been driving us nuts for the last three months. The rut that didn’t happen a few weeks ago was proof that something wasn’t right. Two of us went into the rut and two of us didn’t. Namely James and me. We were attached to our future mate, and nothing was getting in the way of that. It made for a hellish few days. It was like all the pent-up frustration that you can usually fuck away with a hot omega bouncing away on your slicked-up dick was still there and getting increasingly worse as the days went on. Neither of us were bending though, and tempting fate. Neither of us took an omega to bed to try to force the rut.
Fuck.
We are whipped by a short, curvy omega with bouncy, light brown hair, eyes the colour of a rainstorm, tits big enough that you can drive your cock in between the pushed-up mounds, and a fortitude that would put many alphas to shame.
In a word, she is everything.
To tell her all of this, would definitely ruin the small amount of trust she has in us, but not telling her is wrong.
I fix James with a defiant stare. “We need to tell her that you and I spotted her outside the doctor’s office three months ago and were trying to find her. Christ knows, maybe she’ll be flattered.”
William snorts with what comes across as angry mirth, if there was ever such a thing. “I think you are living in a fantasyland there, Spence. But we have lost sight of the bigger picture here. We need to ask Jones if he found her stuff on the pavement. If not, we need to try to accommodate her somehow. She has her reasons for wanting to suppress her heat and that’s none of our business until she tells us.Ifshe tells us. Secondly, we need to get rid of those dicks out front. You two have to keep your noses clean. You’ve already risked too much by getting involved in that shitshow before. Cam and I, however, are not in Parliament. Leave it to us. And thirdly, if you are sure you want to bring Richard into the pack, then we have what he wants.” He stands up after that shockingly long speech. I don’t think I’ve even heard that many words from him the entire time I’ve known him.
Six years.
Six years of grunts and one to two word sentences.
He’s quite articulate and reasonable. Who knew?
“Agreed,” I murmur, staring at the giant man with a new level of respect. “James?”
He is staring off into the distance. I know exactly what he’s thinking. I’ve known all along how hard this would be for him, since we first decided to find Richard and bring him home. But there is no going back now. We know where he is and as much as we can tell ourselves it’s gross to use Rayne to bring him to us, it will work. And on the flip side… bringing Richard here will keep Rayne with us as well. There is no downside to this, except the deception. It will have to be something that we come clean about soon or it will eat my insides away until there is nothing left but a ball of anxiety and tension.
“Jay?” I prompt him when he doesn’t answer.
“Agreed,” he says eventually. “We will tell her after Richard is here. Let’s try and secure that before we go about ruining the best thing that has happened to us.”
“You feel that strongly about her?” Cam asks warily.
“Don’t you?” I ask, not giving James a chance to answer.
“I feel…something. Her scent, it’s alluring. Pretty and sweet. She is gorgeous and I can see her strength. I’m not quite where you are, but I guess you’ve had longer to work on that.” His slightly confused look concerns me.
“Will?”
If he is in the same confused boat as Cameron, then we have a small problem. The pack cannot be divided in choosing a mate. Granted, she has to agree to be with us, but the four of us, five if you count Richard, need to be on the same page first.
He grunts at me.
Great. Now he decides to go backwards.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I’m getting agitated, but I’mstillnot looking to smash any faces in. Weird. Fucking weirdy-weird.
He shrugs. “Give me a day or so to figure it out. Maybe speak to her on my own a bit like you have.”
I nod slowly. “Fine. You can show her where the landline is and tell her she can ring her parents and cousin. I assume her phone was taken from her by the loose pack or she’d have contacted them already and we’d be on our way to the job centre or worse.”
James snickers, despite knowing I’m right. If Chief Justice Halstead in any way finds out we were anywhere near his daughter and her abductors, we will be tarred with the same brush and sent down without a trial. He isn’t called Hard-arse Halstead for nothing.
