Knot Their Girl (Knotting-verse #2)

Chapter One – Raeka

There is a list of things universally accepted as truths when you’re an omega. These are things some omegas may never think about, truths society shoves down our throats so hard practically from birth, we’re constantly—and unknowingly—choking on them.

The first is that you always end up with a pack, preferably with more than one alpha at your disposal—you know, for all your needs: mental, physical, and yes, sexual.

As omegas, we’re told we’re next to helpless, so it’s always better for us to be surrounded by strong, burly men who will leap at the chance to serve us.

Our smaller-than-average statures don’t help things any.

The second on the list is that, of course, you can’t survive by yourself.

Out in the world, you’ll always be subjected to the dominance of an alpha, even if you’re bonded to a pack.

Their will, their sheer power, radiates through every pore and pushes you down, and the most you could ever hope to be is feisty and defiant.

Submissive, but feisty and defiant all the same.

The third… well, the list honestly goes on and on. It’s an omega’s duty to bear children. Hardwired into our brains to crave that feeling of being full of an alpha’s seed.

I always hated that part the most. Just because I’m an omega doesn’t automatically mean I want to pop out kid after kid. If that’s what you want, more power to you, but shouldn’t I have the choice of whether or not I want to contribute my genetics to humanity?

My name is Raeka Whittenhall. I come from one of the founding families, which is basically just a fancy way of saying we can trace our genetic line all the way back to before America was founded.

My ancestors had a hand in shaping this country, in creating the laws and at one time governing the populace, and as such we have the disgusting generational wealth to prove it.

Seriously, you’d think having a boatload of money would help me be who I want to be, but as an omega, I’m not even allowed to have my own bank account. My dad is still on my debit and credit cards. It’s frankly humiliating, and I hate it, thanks.

Being an omega of my stature should mean I’m taken care of, that I never have to lift a finger to do anything, and that would be the case, if I accepted the omegas’ lot in our current society. But I don’t, so I’m not.

And yet, what am I doing on this fine Friday night?

Going to another matching ceremony at the Omega Garden downtown.

This isn’t my first rodeo, and it probably won’t be my last. Just like the first time, I only agreed to do this again if I could present myself—for an omega, I sure could be stubborn.

My parents were all but forced to agree to let me come on my own, save for my driver who helped me bring everything inside.

The clothing rack. The makeup cases. The selection of heels. For any other omega, it’d be more than enough, but for me… well, let’s just say I don’t plan on matching with any alphas tonight.

I stare at my gray eyes in the mirror. With the harsh lighting, they look almost silvery, but sometimes they can appear a pretty light blue. I’m not yet changed or dolled up to the nines; I just sit there and stare at my reflection as I wonder why I had to be born an omega.

Even being a beta would be better than this. This is just stupid. Stupid and infantilizing.

Another thing we’re told as omega is a truth, and a hard one at that?

The fact that we have heats, and we cannot make it through a heat without the help of an alpha’s knot.

Or a few of them. We go out of our minds with need, our bodies craving that knot like there’s no tomorrow.

Because of that, most omegas are safely nestled within a pack before their twenty-first birthday.

When they have their first heat, they have their choice of knot.

But it’s just another lie. Sure, being alone while you’re horny as hell isn’t fun, but it’s doable with the right tools, in the right environment. Me? I turned twenty-one a month ago.

Yes, that means I’ve been through a heat. Yes, since I’m at the Omega Garden, that means I don’t have a pack of my own. And, yes, that means I made it through my heat without the help of an alpha or two. I bet I’m the oldest omega here tonight.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I made it through my heat without an alpha’s knot, because that would be a lie. I had a knot all right, it just wasn’t fleshy and warm, or attached to an actual alpha.

I’m talking about a vibrator, for those in the back.Mr. Knot-o-roboto.

A nice, huge vibrator in the shape of an alpha’s knot. It hit all the same places as a real knot, or so the packaging said, and though my heat still had some uncomfortable bits, I managed to make do just fine.

Funny how they don’t advertise those vibrators in commercials.

I had to join some questionable sites and ask some anonymous questions.

There I got sent a few links to a certain website that delivers in discreet packaging, so my parents wouldn’t know I was getting a massive fake schlong in the mail.

My younger sister, Nicole, got me food every time she came home from school.

Everybody else steered clear while I was in the thick of it.

And my mom? Oh, the prissy omega that was my mom couldn’t hide her disappointment in me.

She really, really wanted me to find a pack before my first heat.

I missed a magical experience, if her remarks are to be believed—but that’s the thing.

When it comes to omega life, I don’t believe a word anybody says.

It’s all sugar-coated lies, if you ask me.

After a few more minutes of staring at myself in the mirror and wishing my life was different, I heave a sigh and get up.

I move to the rack next to my station—I’m in the corner of the dressing room area, away from all of the other omegas giddy with excitement over the possibility that they’ll walk away from tonight with a match.

It means no one tries to talk to me, which is fine.

Not every ceremony can be as strange as the last, I suppose.

I remember Mercedes, the one who needed a bit of help, that first night I met her.

Funny how things had changed enough that we’re basically opposite of where we started out.

Mercedes had a pack of three adoring alphas, along with a new mission to remake Solus Academy into N.O.A.

—New Omega Academy, a place where orphaned and lost omegas could truly be safe.

I spent a lot of time there, when I wasn’t doing anything else, and that was more often than my mom would like, since I don’t have a pack of my own.

I had planned on donating a bunch of Whittenhall money to N.O.A.

, but I wanted Mercedes to help me with my problem…

I guess it wasn’t meant to be. All I need to do is take one look around and realize that.

Nobody is here for me. Sucks.

I thought, given who Mercedes ended up with, that I could pull some strings and use Alabaster Security to my advantage, but it seems the alpha they gave the job to decided to ignore it. Wonderful.

You know that? That’s fine. It’s totally fine. That particular alpha seemed like a big fat jerk, anyway. Who needs that kind of presence in their life? Certainly not little old me. I’m Raeka freaking Whittenhall, and I don’t need no damn alpha.

It really is okay. I brought some things that should help, things I also ordered from that same website.

You see, an unclaimed, unbonded omega is like catnip to alphas.

When that omega has already gone through a heat and remains unclaimed and unbonded, then that catnip is even stronger.

My scent is worse, and by worse I mean more overpowering and alluring.

I nearly got jumped by some random bouncer alpha at the nightclub I like to frequent.

Seriously, the dude could barely hold himself back, and that was only after he put his hands on me.

Yeah, like, thick sausage fingers on my arms. Gross. Don’t think I’ll be going back to that club anytime soon.

Supposedly some alphas just can’t help it.

It’s nature’s way of trying to match omegas to a pack of alphas.

I, for all intents and purposes, went against nature by being an omega without a pack, especially after surviving my first heat.

It’s making being out on my own, alone, more challenging than I care to admit.

I’m not someone who typically asks for help. Being a Whittenhall, I’m accustomed to doing a lot of things myself, or paying people to do those things for me. When money is involved, then it isn’t a favor. It’s simply an employer-employee exchange.

I sigh again as I rummage through the dresses I brought. Many of the omegas here only brought a single outfit, one beautiful dress. I had a lot of clothes, and so the ultimate decision on what to wear was always difficult for me.

Red. Blue. Green. I brought one of every color just in case.

Normally I’m a huge fan of pink, but only when done right.

The dress I brought with that hue is more of a light bubblegum pink with a small hint of neon.

A very pure, very pretty color. I pull that dress off the hanger and hold it against my body, glancing down at myself.

The dress is tight around the chest and waist, and it flares out on the hips, draping elegantly to the floor.

And, of course, it was professionally hemmed to fit my height. Thanks to my omega genetics, I barely crack five feet tall on a good day, right after I wake up. Before bed, by the time gravity pulls my spine down throughout the day, I lose damn near an inch. When you’re an omega, every inch counts.

I take the dress with me, deciding on the pink one, and I zigzag through the other omegas getting ready for tonight.

I earn myself a few stares; their scents are thick in the air, all sickeningly sweet, and if things were normal, I don’t doubt my scent would be just as strong to them—or stronger—but things aren’t normal, and I made sure to cover every inch of my skin in anti-scent cream before I left home.

I don’t doubt some of them heard about the Whittenhall princess who managed to go through her heat on her own.

Somehow, word travels fast in the grapevine.

The sponsors definitely watch me as I walk by; alphas, mostly.

They all have to be bonded to other omegas to be let back here, the only way to make sure us omegas are safe.

Still, that doesn’t stop them from squinting their eyes and watching my every move.

Whatever. I don’t know them, and I don’t care to. They can take a ticket and get in line to kiss my ass.

The changing rooms, I find, are full. Full of other omegas frantically getting dressed, full of other omegas who actually give a shit about finding a match tonight.

I could stand there and wait, but I mutter, “Screw it,” under my breath and return to my station, where I toss the dress over my chair and slip out of my shoes. Tucked away as I am, there are no extra eyes on me as I start to undress in the open.

Other omegas might be modest, but me? I don’t really care.

I’m really only here because of my parents.

I don’t actually give a rat’s ass about finding a match tonight.

That said, I can’t exactly run out of here before the night begins.

Somehow, some way, if I don’t participate, my parents will find out, and I’ll have hell to pay.

As an omega, I’m still stuck under their rule, even though I’m twenty-one.

An omega less reliant on money could run. Mercedes told me her original plan was to get the hell out of dodge, but being a Whittenhall, I’m accustomed to a certain standard of living. I’d rather die than squat or spend a single night in a— shiver —motel.

My pants are on the floor, as is my shirt.

I’m in the process of taking off my bra thanks to the built-in padding on the dress when I’m hit with a strong alpha scent.

And by strong, I mean strong as shit, the strongest alpha scent I ever smelled in my life, the kind that could knock me off my feet if I wasn’t paying attention.

But I have something for that, now, something to help dull the instinctual lust for an alpha’s scent, and it’s the only reason I remain on my own two feet and don’t melt into a puddle of goo.

The only reason I can think logically as I shrug off my bra and grab the dress off the chair.

Thankfully, it’s a once-a-week thing, so I don’t have any fresh signs of it on my arm.

Sometimes it bruises, so I have to get creative with makeup.

Standing there in nothing but my panties, I heave one leg in, then the other. I’m pulling up my dress when two people round the corner: Delilah, and the alpha whose scent currently assaults my nostrils, threatening to choke me even with my added scent-dampening.

It’s a damn good thing my dress is mostly up when they appear. They get a flash of my tits for only a second or two before they’re covered by the dress’s fabric.

“Oh, Raeka,” Delilah says, taking on a scolding tone.

The older woman’s graying hair is pulled back in a tight bun, with not a single wisp out of place.

She wears a hell of a lot of makeup to hide the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

A pantsuit clings to her frame; the woman has quite a few inches on me, though she isn’t nearly as tall as the alpha beside her. “Why aren’t you in the changing rooms?”

I keep my gaze fixated on her and shrug. “They were full,” I say, as if that’s that. It takes everything in me to not let my gaze shift over to the tall, muscled, impressive alpha standing beside her.

Delilah runs the Omega Garden, although she’s looking for someone to take over for her, someone to train as an apprentice, now that she’s splitting her time between here and N.O.A.

And the alpha beside her? An alpha I thought I’d never see again.

Pax Alabaster.