Knot the Alphas’ Feral Omega

12. Lilah

12

Lilah

I held up the pillow, looking around the room and furrowing my brow as I tried to decide where it needed to go. It was the last decoration I hadn’t placed, and I could feel the excitement and comfort of my completed nest filling me with an ecstatic buzz.

The month since I’d first met the pack had passed more quickly than I would have imagined possible. Mom had been so thrilled when I finally got the guts to tell her about the pack that she had practically packed my bags herself, which was impressive given that she barely had the energy to sit up in bed and sip at her bone broth most days.

I’d felt guilty as shit leaving her behind, but I also knew I couldn’t hold on to her forever. She didn’t want me to hang around constantly while she finished wasting away—her words, not mine. She wanted me to get to know the pack.

And god, they were...perfect. Oliver was still a little standoffish, but I’d immediately fallen into a routine with the other two. Killian was still the most intense and the sweetest of the three, but I’d learned that that was his personality rather than a reaction to me specifically.

He was also a little crazy, but it was a part of his charm.

Emmett was stoic, steady, and calm, and the best listener if I felt uncertain about anything. He never said much in response to my freakouts, but that was okay. Most men could take a lesson from Emmett; listening was, most of the time, all a woman really wanted.

If I’d been given the opportunity to get to know Oliver at the same level I’d gotten to know the other two, I would say that the past month had been almost blissfully perfect. And even without that final piece of my trio of alphas falling perfectly into place, I could still say that things were better than I’d ever dreamed they could be, even before I’d presented as an omega.

I hummed softly to myself as I decided on the spot for the pillow, placing it carefully and then stepping back to look at the bed critically.

Killian had offered me the room for my nest almost two weeks after I had moved into the mansion—which was the opposite of taking things slowly, but none of them would hear it when I pointed that out—and even though the speed we were moving was a little terrifying and exhilarating, I had started decorating the nest right away. Killian and Emmett took me shopping for the furniture and decorations for the room, and I’d taken my time setting everything up, making sure none of the alphas stepped foot in the space before it was ready.

It had to be perfect before I let them in—my omega instincts insisted on that. The idea of any of them seeing my nest when it was less than perfect, less than exceptional ...

It made me want to shift into my wolf and hide under the bed, never to be seen again.

I allowed myself a tiny smile at my own dramatics and then turned in a circle, looking at the room. I’d done it in soft blues and warm woods, everything smooth and curved. The idea of any sharp corners in my nest had made me itch when we were at the store, and Killian had helped me pick out the softest sheets and blankets that were now neatly piled on the bed, waiting for me to lay on them.

It was finally perfect, and the ceremony to bite me into the pack was less than an hour away.

Nerves jittered up and down my spine, and I gave in to the urge to twirl around a little. The safety and comfort of my nest soothed something primal inside me that I had never indulged in before. I’d been reading everything there was to read about being an omega—the number of omega lifestyle blogs on the Internet was truly staggering—but it seemed there were some things that simply couldn’t be explained by words on a phone screen.

I couldn’t wait to experience all of them for myself.

I turned to the closet, my mind already whirring with ideas of what I would wear for the ceremony, when a sharp crash outside the nest door startled me.

A few seconds later, the door slammed open, making me jump nearly a foot in the air, and I couldn’t stop myself from stepping back as Oliver marched into the room, his energy angry and chaotic. Emmett followed closely behind him, and the wariness in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen before.

“Hey,” I stuttered, my stomach flipping. “What are you guys...?”

Oliver thrust out his fist, where a crumpled piece of paper was crunched between his knuckles, startling me into silence. “What the fuck is this, Lilah?” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes blazing. His voice shook with repressed rage and something that sounded dangerously close to fear, and my eyes widened as I stared at him.

There was something different about him, about the set of his shoulders as he stared me down, something that had never been there before.

“I...don’t know,” I managed, my voice small. My wolf whined inside of me, quivering under the aggressive, almost hateful gaze of our Prime Alpha, and I wanted to bare my neck for him. His eyes were flashing gold and then back to blue so quickly that I could barely keep track, and that, more than anything, signaled exactly how much trouble I was in.

Oliver never lost control. I might not have gotten to know him as well as the other two in the weeks that I had been living with them, but that was something I knew for a fact. Oliver was the perfect Prime Alpha—always calm, always measured, and always making the right decision for the pack.

But right now, that perfect Prime Alpha was nowhere to be found. Oliver’s energy was chaotic and volatile, and my inner omega desperately wanted to help, to fix the situation so our alpha would be happy with us again.

I just didn’t know what I had done .

I focused on the piece of paper crumpled in Oliver’s hand. I reached out for it, determined to read it and get on the same page as Oliver and Emmett, but an aggressive snarl stopped my fingers in their tracks.

“I just...” My voice was small and timid, and Oliver’s brow furrowed as he stalked closer to me, his glare intensifying.

“Who is your father, Lilah?” he asked, his jaw clenched.

The question startled me. It was completely unexpected. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I told you that. My mom—”

“Stop lying!” Oliver roared. His voice was so loud that I stumbled back a step, and when I looked to Emmett for help, his expression was stony and unforgiving.

“I’m not lying!” I exclaimed, managing to inject some strength into my voice, but it still trembled as Oliver glared down at me. The tentative peace we had been enjoying in the house was shattered, and now I could feel the tension that had been lingering underneath every interaction that Oliver and I’d had for weeks.

Oliver scoffed and then thrust the letter at me. He didn’t release it from his fist, so I only caught a glimpse of some jagged handwriting.

“How long have you been working with him?” Oliver asked, sneering at me. Anger and hurt sparked in his eyes as he asked, and I swallowed, my heart squeezing. My wolf whined, low in my chest, but I ignored the biological response as I struggled to focus on what Oliver was saying to me.

“I...I don’t...?”

“The Slicer!” Oliver spat, his voice trembling for the first time during this entire interaction.

The name sent an ice-cold trickle of realization through me, and I swallowed hard, my heart pounding. “The...the serial killer?”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed, and I could see the deep well of pain in the blue depths even as he snarled hatefully, “Don’t play innocent, Lilah. This letter? He claims that he’s your father . And you told us that you never knew who your father was. So which of you is lying, hmm?”

He crumpled the paper a little more in his hand, and my head spun with the bombshell that he’d just dropped on me.

“My father ?” I whispered. My voice cracked, and I shook my head, desperately trying to wrap my mind around the past five minutes. Everything I’d known about my life was falling apart, and Oliver’s rage was bitter in the air as I struggled to make sense of my present and future. His scent was still as alluring as ever, but now it was tainted with his rage, making my wolf want to hide under the bed so we didn’t incur more of our alpha’s wrath.

Finally, though, after a few seconds, I felt composed enough to speak and try to salvage the situation. “Oliver...I...I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know t-the Slicer, and I certainly don’t know who my father is. I think we should just wait until Killian gets home so that we can all discuss this calmly, and then once we get it all sorted out, we can move forward with the bonding ceremony...”

Oliver scoffed, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were so cold that my breath stuttered in my chest. “You think that’s still happening?”

Immediately, I was freezing—so fucking cold that I could barely breathe—and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emmett look at Oliver, a hint of uncertainty on his face for the first time. I stepped back again and glanced around at the nest I had put so much effort into over the past few weeks.

Effort that seemed like it was about to be thrown out the window.

“Why...why wouldn’t it?” I tried, whispering. My inner wolf was already howling, seeing where this was going.

Oliver sneered, approaching me and staring down with such anger and hatred in his eyes that it was difficult for me to see him as the same man that I’d gotten to know—or tried to. “The Slicer killed our fourth packmate. Jack was his name, since I’m sure that neither you nor your father care about him enough to remember it. And if you think I’m biting you into the pack after knowing that —”

“But I didn’t—”

Oliver spoke over me, overpowering my terrified words, and his next words shattered my heart. “But if you need me to be official about it, I will.” Oliver glared, reaching out to grab my hand and squeezing it. “Lilah Jackson, I formally reject you from my pack. You are not our omega, and you are not welcome in our house.” He squeezed again, his grip cruel and punishing now. His eyes gleamed gold at me, and he bared his teeth before he snapped, “Now get the fuck out.”

“Oliver...” Emmett’s voice was low and rough and heavy with emotion, and I was frozen. I couldn’t move, staring up at Oliver as the future I’d been dreaming about since I met them was lit on fire.

It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like a lifetime.

“I...”

Anything that I might have thought to say, any words I would have come up with to defend myself, faded away as Oliver shook his head, disgust on his handsome face, and growled, “Start throwing all of...this away, Emmett.” He gestured towards my nest with his free hand, refusing to look at any of it as he ground my splintered heart to dust under his shoe. “I’ll escort Lilah out of the house.”

He turned and dragged me out of my nest without further ado, leaving Emmett behind. I barely got one more glimpse of Emmett’s dark eyes, looking at me with hurt welling in them, before Oliver dragged me around the corner and hauled me down the stairs.

I wanted to speak. I wanted to try and defend myself from the baseless accusations that Oliver was throwing my way. They weren’t true, and rationally, he had to know that.

But I couldn’t make my numb lips move. I couldn’t speak. My wolf was frozen, pain lingering along the edges of my consciousness as I breathed in Oliver’s sweet, alpha scent, my mind swirling with confusion at the way my entire body ached for him...and the way that he had just devastated everything that I was.

“Oliver...” I managed, my voice tiny and desperate.

Oliver ignored me, dragging me to the front door and keeping a firm grip on my wrist as he unlocked the deadbolt. He didn’t say anything else, just looked down at me with disgust, and then he opened the door and shoved me through.

I collapsed into a pile of sad, pathetic wolf on the porch, and before I could stand up to try and plead with Oliver or defend my case or something ...he shut the door on me.

And I shattered .