Page 52 of Knot Gonna Lie
Her hands were everywhere—tracing my shoulders, mapping my ribs, burning paths across skin that had never felt so alive. Each touch was a brand, marking me as surely as any claiming bite.
One that I would gladly take from her.
I was drowning in her, losing myself in the taste of lavender and vanilla, in the soft sounds she made when I traced the curve of her spine.
This desperate need—
“Nova wants to speak with you now so we can disembark.”
Xavier’s voice cut through our intimate bubble like a plasma blade through silk. We sprang apart, both breathing hard, skin flushed with sudden desire and embarrassment.
“I—we—” Elara stammered, hand flying to her swollen lips as she hastily climbed off my lap.
“She’s getting impatient,” Xavier continued, though his knowing smirk suggested he’d noticed exactly what he’d interrupted. “And Luca wants us space-bound within the hour.”
I cleared my throat, reaching for my discarded shirt. “Of course. Duty calls.”
But as Elara moved toward the door, she paused, looking back with an expression that held promises and unfinished business.
“This isn’t finished,” she said quietly, for my ears alone.
“No,” I agreed, voice rough with want. “It’s not, but your claim on my heart still remains.”
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the taste of her on my lips and the absolute certainty that everything between us had just changed irrevocably.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUCA
Tension coiled in the mess hall, thick enough to choke on. Jaxom squared off against his sister across the metal table, every line of his body taut.
Fourteen years of silence sat heavy between them. Nova held herself rigidly, matching Jaxom’s pride with her own. Her gamma, Alleria, stood just close enough to play it off as professional, but I saw the signs—too still, too aware. They weren’t just bonded by duty. They were close. Closer than protocol allowed.
“Why did you stay away?” Jaxom’s voice cracked on the question. “All these years, I’ve been coming to the station. I’ve looked for you in every crowd, every corridor. Why didn’t you—”
“We’re not supposed to.” Nova’s fingers twisted in her lap, betraying the distress her carefully composed facade tried to hide. “Omegas are instructed on arrival—no contact with our past lives. Not family, not friends. Not until we’re claimed and our alpha permits it.”
“Reminders were forbidden,” Alleria said quietly, her hand tightening around Nova’s side in a gentle squeeze. “They always told us it made things easier—for omegas to forget their old lives. To accept the new ones. To depend on their assigned gammas instead.”
The words hit me like ice water, revelation pooling cold in my stomach. Elara had been isolated not just physically but emotionally, cut off from every tie that might have anchored her to who she’d been before.
The cruelty of it made my alpha instincts snarl, bristling beneath civilized skin.
“That’s barbaric,” Xavier muttered from his position by the door, and I silently agreed.
“That’s control,” Nova corrected, her voice flat, bitterness cutting through every word. “They tell us it’s for our protection. That maintaining past connections will distract us from finding suitable alphas. That we need to become new people, untethered from who we were before our scents turned sweet.”
My attention caught on the subtle interplay between Nova and Alleria—the way they breathed in synchronization, how their bodies angled toward each other like flowers, seeking the same sun. Where Elara and Quinn had maintained professional distance despite their obvious affection, these two…
Their scents weren’t just mingled from proximity. They were interwoven, saturated with each other in ways that spoke of shared heat cycles, intimate moments, the kind of bonding that should have been impossible between omega and gamma.
Forbidden. Completely forbidden by station law.
“You’ve been together.” The words slipped out before I could stop them—undeniable, solid. Not just a statement.A fact.
Alleria stiffened, hand dropping to the weapon at her hip with enforcer instinct. But Nova simply lifted her chin,defiance blazing in eyes that matched her brother’s for sheer stubbornness.
“Yes,” she said simply, daring me to disapprove. “Five years now. Through four heats, hidden from the Matron’s sight.”
