Knot the Alphas’ Feral Omega

33. Lilah

33

Lilah

Everything inside of me was tight and tense. At my side, Killian held my hand firmly, his thumb stroking back and forth across the top of my hand.

We were standing in front of my mother’s house. We had been there for nearly ten minutes, and I still couldn’t bring myself to walk up to the front door and knock.

Rationally, I knew that it had only been a few weeks since I’d seen Mom and that very few things would have changed in that amount of time. She was still sick, of course, but what difference would a few weeks have made? She was still alive. She was still okay. Wasn’t she?

The thought made my stomach swoop, and that, more than anything, got my feet moving.

Killian, bless his sweet, unhinged heart, didn’t say anything as he followed me to the front door. Everything about this should be in my own time, according to him, and he was only there for support.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he reminded me, squeezing my hand when I looked up at him for reassurance.

I nodded and firmly told the sinister voice at the back of my mind that there was no way that my mother had died before I got here. I’d spoken to her over the phone not twenty minutes before, and she’d sounded tired, but happy at the prospect of seeing me.

Those very rational thoughts still didn’t make me feel better, and it took Killian wrapping his arms firmly around me before some of the anxiety and my blood pressure started to settle.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

I swallowed, shaking my head. The anxiety was just one of the many side effects I was going to have to deal with while I recovered from Bond Rejection Syndrome, and I was already so fucking done. “I know,” I whispered.

With that, I let out a slow breath and closed my eyes, grounding myself before I lifted one hand and knocked.

The sound echoed for a painful moment—or maybe that was just in my head—and then a few seconds later, there were footsteps on the other side of the door before it swung open to reveal a short, professional-looking beta woman in scrubs.

She eyed me up and down, just for a moment, before she nodded and a small smile spread across her face. “You must be Lilah. Katrina has talked about you a lot.”

She stepped to the side to let me in, and I offered a smile as I walked into the house, feeling Killian follow behind me.

As soon as I was in the house, though, my nostrils flared and my stomach turned. The scent of antiseptic and sickness wasn’t a new one—my mother had been sick for a long time—but now the sterile, medical smell made me want to vomit. My blood pressure spiked, my head swam, and my wolf whined inside of me, desperate to run away as quickly as I could.

Killian’s hands fell on my shoulders just as I tensed, and he leaned down to press a tender kiss to the side of my neck, whispering in my ear, “You’re not back there, baby girl. Breathe.”

How does he always know what to say?

I let out a shaky breath and nodded, forcing myself to breathe slowly, in and out, for several seconds before I felt steady enough to step away from him and offer a tight smile. The nurse watched the two of us with an arched eyebrow but thankfully didn’t say anything before nodding at me.

“She’s in her room.”

I thanked the nurse with a silent nod and then headed toward the room that had been my mother’s for as long as we had been in this house. The door to my room was shut, and for a brief moment, I was struck with a longing to go in and bury myself in the blankets, comforting smells, and surroundings.

I hadn’t nested properly here—I had never had the chance to, given that my presentation as an omega and my move into the alpha house had basically been simultaneous—but the temptation of the familiar was strong.

Killian stopped outside the bedroom door and smiled when I looked at him questioningly. “I’m not going in,” he clarified, gesturing at the mostly-closed door. “You should spend some time with your mom.”

There was a glint in his eyes that I didn’t like as he nudged me forward, and I swallowed before I turned to the door and opened it, stepping in.

“Oh, Mom...” My hand flew to my mouth, and I practically sprinted over to the side of the bed.

“Baby...” Mom’s voice was cracked, and her eyes fluttered open as she looked at me, her pale lips pulling up in a smile. She looked awful —so much worse than the last time I’d seen her. She’d lost weight, her cheeks were hollow, and her hair was noticeably thinning. Her nails were cracked and peeling, her fingers thin when she lifted her hand to reach up for mine, and I swallowed hard as I took her hand and sank into the chair strategically positioned at the side of the bed.

“Mama...” I couldn’t manage anything else. My heart was pounding, and I felt sick that I had missed so much of the past weeks—that my mother had deteriorated so quickly, and I hadn’t been around to do anything to help...or stop it.

The rational voice in the back of my head told me that my mother had fucking cancer and that there was nothing that could be done, but that didn’t stop the guilt.

“How are you doing, baby?” Mom’s fingers curled around mine, still surprisingly strong despite how frail she looked. Her expression radiated nothing but sympathy and concern, and her eyes flicked over to the door before returning to my face. “Killian...he came here and told me everything.”

Well, that answered that question. “You gave him permission to come and get me, didn’t you?” I surmised, scooting a little closer so I could rest my head on her shoulder. It was a little awkward, curling my body over the edge of the bed, but that was okay. I was with my mom, and suddenly, I needed to be as close as possible; I didn’t know how much longer the two of us would have together.

Mom nodded, huffing out a faint little laugh. “He was a wreck when he came here, baby. Pissed at the other alphas. You have a good one there, I think.”

It was the same thing she had said to me when I had first come to tell her that the pack was interested in me, and just like they had back then, her words made warmth curl in my stomach. I allowed myself a small, secret smile and nodded, pressing my cheek to her arm. “I think so too. He’s working really hard to help me get better.”

I proceeded to tell her about the Bond Rejection Syndrome and the aggressive symptoms I was dealing with, including the way I couldn’t go back into the nest I’d created but which wasn’t really mine . My voice wobbled as I told her about the conversation I’d had with the pack about Jack, though I skimmed over most of the details about the actual crime.

They weren’t my details to share.

By the time I finished catching her up on everything that had happened to me over the past weeks, silence fell between us. It wasn’t a heavy silence but meaningful and weighted with comfort and sympathy. Mom clutched at my hand, her thumb gently stroking over the back of it, and I swallowed against a sudden spring of tears in my eyes.

“What are the doctors saying?” It was the question I didn’t want to ask but the one I needed to ask the most.

Mom scoffed. “I swear to God, they think I’m about to drop dead right here and now,” she grumbled. Then she sobered a little, sighing. “Things aren’t good, baby. The cancer...it’s spreading more aggressively than the treatment is working.”

A tiny, wounded sound escaped me, and Mom nodded. “I know, baby. I know. This...this isn’t how I thought I’d be leaving you.” She pulled away just enough to look me in the eye. “But that’s how things go sometimes, isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “It’s not fair,” I whispered. I’d felt that sense of injustice ever since we’d learned of my mother’s diagnosis, and I felt it even more strongly now.

“I know it isn’t.” Mom lifted our hands—slowly, with a hand that trembled slightly, betraying the effort that the simple gesture took—and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “But you have your pack now, don’t you? They’ll help you through...all of this.”

She gestured vaguely around in the air with her free hand, and my stomach twisted a little. I rested my head against her shoulder again and whispered, “It’s not that simple, Mom. After everything they did...”

“I know,” Mom said again, her voice thready and tired now. “I know that it’s a complicated situation. But men are stupid, and you’ll need to keep them in line so they know they can’t boss you around.”

I snorted a little at her words, nodding. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Silently, I allowed a few tears to slip from my eyes as I lay there with my mom, listening to her shallow, slightly ragged breathing. A part of me was desperate to go out and talk to my mother’s nurse, to find out exactly what was wrong with my mother so I could work on finding a real solution that wouldn’t result in this ...but a bigger part of me, the one that recognized the inevitability of the situation, knew that all that would do was make me sad.

So, instead, I silently vowed to be here more. The way that Mom had deteriorated in just the past few weeks...

I sighed and reached up to swipe my palm across my wet cheeks. There was nothing I could do about my mother’s illness. That was an unfortunate reality. But while she was still here...

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me about Hunter Randall?” I refused to call the man my dad . He had never been around—and from what I understood, for good fucking reason—but that didn’t mean I didn’t need to know about him.

Mom didn’t stiffen, deflect, or do anything that would have made me think that she was uncomfortable. She just sighed, turning her head to face me.

“I was so terrified he would find out about you.” Her voice was soft and strained, and I could see the effort that she was making to stay awake and tell me this. “You were so tiny and perfect. You were mine, and it was my job to keep you safe. For the first few months after I left, I was sure he would find me and discover my deception. To this day, I’m still not sure why or how he didn’t find me.”

Her expression twisted a little, and she sounded so, so tired when she continued. “The crimes continued, and I knew each one was Hunter’s. He wasn’t stopping, and since he didn’t seem to be looking for me...I didn’t see the point in drawing your attention to him or his actions. You were so sweet and innocent, and I just wanted you to have the childhood you deserved.”

A part of me wanted to be upset with her that she’d kept such a vital part of my childhood from me, but a bigger part of me was grateful—grateful she’d gone out of her way to keep me safe when I had a monster for a father. I was grateful that she always, always tried to do what was best for me, even when it wasn’t the popular choice.

She was the kind of mother I strived to be if I ever had kids.

“Mom, how am I supposed to trust Oliver again?” The words were quiet, and I almost didn’t expect her to answer. Her breathing was heavy and even, and I thought she may have been asleep.

But then her shoulders shook a little as she chuckled, and she leaned over to kiss the top of my head. “He’s a man, just like any other, no matter how alpha he is. Make him crawl, and only give him your forgiveness when he earns it.”