Knot the Alphas’ Feral Omega

1. Lilah

1

Lilah

“Shots, shots, shots, shots...!”

I grinned at the chants of the small crowd, lifted my shot glass, and downed the entire thing in one go. The crowd cheered raucously, not knowing that it was a virgin shot.

Just because I was 21 now didn’t mean I had any interest in getting wasted.

The shot was sweet—a mixer of some kind with a dash of lemon—and I shot the bartender a wink as I set the glass down on the bar top. He offered me an indulgent grin as he turned around so the crowd wouldn’t see him filling another drink for me.

“Lilah!” Eddie’s voice reached my ears through the clamor of the crowd, the pulse of the techno music that played from wall to wall of the club. I smirked down at my friend, hopping off the bar and smoothing down the skirt of my minidress as the little crowd that had surrounded us turned away, distracted by the next most interesting thing.

“How does it feel?” Eddie shouted, pressing her lips to my ear and nudging against me. The scents of the room were heavy and swirled in my nose, making me wrinkle it a little, but Eddie’s neutral vanilla scent—the scent all betas had—still made its way to me, calming me some.

“How does what feel?” I asked, turning my head and raising my voice so she could hear me.

She rolled her eyes, slinging her arm around my shoulder and pulling me close. The sequins of her slinky top rubbed against my arm, and I settled a little closer to her as she continued, “To be the person in this room that everyone wants to be...or wants to fuck.”

I flushed a little but couldn’t stop the pleased smile that crossed my face as I looked out at the crowd. The club was one of the only shifter-exclusive clubs in the city. It was packed, the dance floor filled with a thick press of bodies—betas and alphas alike—bumping and grinding and looking for their next hookup, if only for the night.

A night to feel a little less alone.

To the casual observer, I was one of them. Just another clubgoer, out celebrating her twenty-first birthday with my best friend, my ride or die, who had insisted on the celebration.

Even my scent didn’t give me away—not from far away. But once you got close enough, you could smell it. The signature sweetness was starting to seep from my pores, and once it was full strength, the temptation would be too strong for many alphas to resist.

I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t a beta or an alpha. I was a newly designated omega wolf—the rarest of the three designations and the most sought after to boot—and I was here to fucking party .

“Come on!” I yelled, a particularly loud thump of bass nearly swallowing my voice altogether. “Let’s dance.”

Eddie followed me into the crowd, and we started dancing, bumping hips and giggling whenever someone moved on either side of us. Eddie’s brown eyes were warm and happy, and she reached up to run her hands through her blond hair as she gyrated and ground against nothing.

Her ridiculous antics made me laugh aloud as the people around us pressed closer and retreated in turn. Aggressive alpha scents and neutral beta scents melded together in my sensitive nose, so much so that I couldn’t tell who I should be wary of and who was more likely to glance at me once before moving on.

Being here tonight was stupid; I knew that much. If not outright dangerous, it was at least a situation I should be wary of. Omegas like me were so rare as to be almost mythical. I’d only met one or two over the course of my life, and they were never left alone without one of their packmates for fear that someone might snatch her away or make her a better offer.

Better finances, better emotional support, better genetics for breeding, better pack structure for her wolf—it was all a question of the highest biological bidder, and thanks to a stroke of luck in the genetic lottery, I was now one of the contenders for getting anything and everything I might ever want.

Being valued and wanted by more people than I could ever possibly satisfy meant that being out in public like this so soon after my designation had shown was risky. It would only take drawing the attention of the wrong alpha to put me in a very sticky situation that would be difficult—or maybe even impossible—to get out of.

There was security pacing the perimeter of the room, as always—aggressive alpha wolves who would just as soon tear the throat out of someone causing trouble as they would throw them out of a club—but that didn’t matter when you couldn’t pick a face out of the crowd.

Still, the danger made tonight all the more thrilling. I sank into the buzz of adrenaline and slight fear under my skin, dancing my heart out in the middle of the crowd. Sometime later, a hint of self-awareness washed through me, and I realized that Eddie had disappeared into the crowd—unintentionally, I knew. She’d probably turned her head and gotten just as lost among the crowd of people as I was, and I wasn’t going to fault her for that.

At least I had my phone tucked into a little holster on the inside of my thigh. That had seemed like a smarter choice than carrying a purse around all night, though it did make for a bit of awkward jimmying when I needed to check my phone and see if anyone had messaged me.

Before I could work myself up to leaving the crowd so I could do exactly that, a new wall of warmth pressed up behind me. The person—a man, if the hard muscles and the way his frame dwarfed mine was any indication—didn’t move away when I shifted a little, telling me that they had approached me intentionally.

A flicker of excitement—and a healthy dose of fear, too—warmed my stomach, and I continued dancing, letting all tension flow out of me. There was no way he could know what I was unless he pressed his nose right up against my neck, not in this crowd. The guy probably just thought I was hot and was shooting his shot.

And I was hot, especially in the little black dress I’d worn tonight, so I couldn’t really blame him.

I hummed softly, and though it was impossible that the guy had heard me over the pulsing club music, I felt a rumbling growl vibrate right back at me. He stepped closer, his chest brushing up against my back, and then big hands—strong, sturdy, male hands—settled on my hips and pulled me tightly against him.

“Fuck,” I whispered, a secret expletive just for me.

I’d fooled around some, of course. I’d been a teenager in high school—who of us hadn’t? But my mom’s sickness and working on the weekends to bolster my meager savings had made it so I didn’t have time for much more. A couple of stolen kisses from a beta I’d been in the chorus with during one ill-advised stint in the school musical was the extent of my experience.

And now I’d presented as an omega...and sex came with the territory of my designation. There was no such thing as a celibate omega—not when her heat hit.

I bit my lip, my pussy clenching under my thong as I ground back against the guy, safe in my confidence that he couldn’t smell me. Would it be the worst thing in the world to get some more experience before packs courted me? I had one month to register myself with the state shifter database now that I’d presented, and from there, I could be petitioned by any pack with the legal standing to claim an omega. Not every pack met the requirements, but there were enough that I would be far from short on choice.

I was almost positive that I didn’t want my very first time to be with a pack I had only just met, and that was petitioning to claim me like I was the biggest prize at the county fair.

The man’s hands flexed on my hips, pulling me out of my musings, and I whimpered a little at the restrained power and strength I could feel. One of my hands rose, reaching back and gently gripping one of his shoulders, and the firmness of his muscle under my hand was enough to make me whine softly—too softly for him to hear.

He could tell that he was affecting me, though. The music had changed while I was lost in my head, and the new song that was playing was deeper, darker, and more sensual.

It was music that you would fuck to if you were so inclined, and I felt the energy of it buzzing under my skin, pulling at my wolf as I swayed against my new dance partner.

I wanted to shift. I wanted to run. I wanted to play .

We moved together smoothly, my hips working against his in a grind that, as the minutes passed, made me more and more aware of the increasingly hard length that was rubbing up against my lower back. My hand slid upwards, from his shoulder to the back of his neck, and the feeling of soft curls under my fingers as I wrapped my hand there made me bite my lip.

His head dipped, and then his lips pressed against my ear.

“Why is a pretty little thing like you all alone tonight, baby girl?”

His voice was deep, a little growly, and sensual, the warmth of his breath over my ear making me shiver. His hands flexed on my hips again, and all thoughts of what might happen if he moved his head just a little lower, if he pressed his nose up against my neck and got a taste of the sweetness of my scent that was growing by the hour, flew out the window.

I whimpered a little, then turned. His hands loosened so that I could face him, and when I looked up at him from underneath my eyelashes, my breath caught.

He was almost painfully handsome, the alpha—because it was clear that was what he was. The breadth of his shoulders and the cut of his muscles all contributed to the buzz of power I’d only been able to vaguely sense when I had been facing away from him. Now that I was looking at him properly my entire being strained with longing to get closer to him—to feel the whole length of his body pressed against mine, all that power reined in for me, for him to give me anything and everything that I asked for while I stretched my neck out in submission...

His dark and curly hair hung down over his forehead. He wore a pair of square glasses—very Clark Kent, I thought hazily—and his eyes flashed bright green in the strobe lights that occasionally lit the floor. He looked down at me with a small smirk playing on his full lips, a dimple popping to life on one cheek, making me want to stand up on my tiptoes and brush my lips against the divot.

The pulse of longing I felt for the man was overwhelming, and for a moment, I almost pulled away. Fear trickled through me, and I knew I was in far more danger in this man’s arms than I had been from the random shifters in the crowd who might end up being a threat to me while I was out with Eddie.

Still, I didn’t pull away. No, instead, I leaned in closer. I stood up on my tiptoes, drawn to the alpha with his arms around me for some inexplicable reason. The crowd around the two of us melted away, and I couldn’t look away from his hooded eyes, which looked at me intensely as I leaned closer, closer, closer .

His eyes darted across my face, his lips parting, and for a moment, I thought of diving in and pressing our mouths together. I hadn’t thought I was that bold, that I was the type to take what I wanted and ask for forgiveness later, but apparently, when given the proper incentive, that was exactly the kind of wolf—the kind of omega —that I was.

But I didn’t do that. Instead, I leaned close, brushed my lips along his jawline, and buried my nose in his neck to get a clean, untainted breath of his scent. I don’t know why that was my first impulse, but I needed to know.

His scent made me crumple in his arms, my knees immediately giving out, and if it weren’t for his arms around me, I would have collapsed to the floor right then and there.

Pine. Cinnamon. A hint of petrichor.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The power of my possessiveness was enough to make me stumble back and away from the man—if only I could get my feet underneath me. If only I could find the strength to pull away instead of curling my fingers in the alpha’s shirt and pulling him closer, refusing to pull my face away from his neck.

A soft vibration rumbled through his chest, and he followed my lead. He buried his nose in my neck, pressing it firmly against the spot where my pulse thrummed like a hummingbird, and I felt the exact moment my scent hit him. His entire body stiffened, and his arms around my waist tightened until I was crushed against him. His fingers flexed against my hips where he held me, and he slowly, slowly pulled away, looking me in the eye.

His pupils were blown, the color flashing alpha gold. He was flushed, his lips were parted, and the hunger in his eyes should have terrified me—it should not have thrilled me and made my pussy clench like a greedy little slut.

“Omega,” he mouthed.

I swallowed. The hunger in his eyes burned brighter, and I nodded slowly.