Knot Broken (Bound and Broken #2)

Chapter One

Violet

I found my mates a month ago. A whole, aching month.

The universe dangled a promise right in front of me—offered a glimpse of something real, something mine —then ripped it away like it was a joke I was too stupid to understand.

I had maybe an hour with them. Just long enough for my heart to clutch onto hope with trembling fingers…

before they disappeared. Gone. Vanished like smoke in a gust of wind.

And I haven’t heard a single word since.

I met my mates in the worst possible place—trapped in the stink and shadow of a grimy building, surrounded by terrified omegas barely holding on to scraps of hope.

Chaos pressed in from every angle, fear so thick it clung to your skin.

My best friend Fallon had been practically inhaling one of her mates’ faces, because her rescuers had shown up.

Of course, she got to feel safe. Chosen.

Me?

My rescuers were three devastatingly beautiful men.

Alphas. They stormed in like a vengeance I hadn’t earned—commanding, lethal, mine.

For a single, shining moment, I felt it.

That pull. That impossible spark. Like something inside me had clicked into place for the first time in my life.

Their scents wrapped around me like a promise I didn’t dare breathe too deeply.

And then... they left.

No goodbye. No explanation. Just turned around and walked away—out of the building, out of reach, and apparently, out of my life.

Now every day feels like a punishment I don’t remember earning. Every breath is a question I don’t want answered. Was it something I did? Something I said? Something I wasn’t ?

Rejection claws at me—sharp, insidious. I try to be angry, to feel anything other than this hollow ache, but it always circles back to the same quiet doubt: Was I never enough to begin with?

My phone blares loudly, dragging me out of my carefully scheduled Spiral of Despair like a cat yanked from a sunbeam.

I flail dramatically, flinging off the nearest blanket with the flair of a tortured artist mid-breakdown.

My phone is under the sixth layer of fleece, blaring like it has a death wish.

I emerge breathless and tangled from my mountain of fabric, only to see Fallon’s name glowing across the screen in a video call.

I swipe to answer, pulling my face into something that’s supposed to resemble a smile but probably looks more like a constipated emoji. “Yo, bitch,” I croak, trying to inject some of my usual sass into the words. I sound like I haven’t used my vocal cords in a week. (Because... fair.)

Fallon’s face appears, mostly in profile, as she paces like a woman possessed.

Her screen bobs with every step—blurry glimpses of what might be her bridal store but.

.. it’s off. The layout’s wrong, and the lighting is harsher.

She’s in an oversized yellow sweater and black leggings, her midnight blue hair piled in a chaotic bun that’s screaming I’ve had three coffees and a crisis.

“FUCK!” she screeches.

I shriek in surprise and drop the phone straight onto my face. It bounces off my nose, slaps my pride, and tumbles somewhere into the blankets like it, too, is trying to escape this day.

“Jesus tapdancing fuck , Fallon,” I grunt, groping around in the fleece pit. My nest is not ergonomically designed for phone trauma. “I’m dying over here!”

I finally dug out the phone and propped it up on a balled up a blanket. Cross-legged and blinking, I glare at her through the screen. She doesn’t even flinch.

“I figured out why my Boston location was majorly fucked,” she growls, voice thick with fury. And honestly? It’s impressive how scary she sounds for someone who once got stuck in a revolving door and tried to blame the door.

“Oh no. What now?” I sigh, running a hand through my tangled purple curls.

I’m already bracing for the worst. After everything that went down with Marline—the traitorous omega manager who dabbled in kidnapping —Fallon’s store barely had a pulse.

If it’s another disaster, I may need to lock her up so she doesn’t go on a murder spree.

Although her alpha Voss might go anyway.

She starts pacing again. “Turns out the manager was STEALING MONEY.”

I blink. “Define ‘stealing’ before I drive to Boston with a bat.”

“She was logging employee hours at base wage and pocketing their commissions. All of them.”

My mouth drops open, and not in a sexy way. “You mean to tell me... she gave them crap pay and kept the rest?! What the actual cinnamon-scented fuck ?”

Fallon spins, then dramatically collapses onto the storeroom floor like a Greek tragedy in Lululemon. “I called all the employees for a private meeting—without alerting Marcy the Money-Leech—and guess what? Every single one of them showed. Half of them are working two or three jobs, Vi! Three! ”

She looks up, eyes shimmering with barely contained tears. “They thought the commissions were fake. She told them they didn’t exist. And their base pay was supposed to be twenty-five an hour—not fifteen!”

Rage bubbles in my chest, my hand clenching around the edge of my comforter. “Fifteen an hour? In Boston? For bridal work? I could scream.”

“I did scream,” Fallon mutters. “Just ask my pack.” Her voice breaks on a weird hiccup laugh, eyes flicking briefly behind her. I glance at the screen just in time to catch a glimpse of Voss—quiet, watchful, and clearly hovering like the fiercely loyal shadow he is.

Fallon continues, voice hoarse. “I made one of the omegas, Anna, the new manager. She’s sharp, organized, already fixing things—and three of the girls cried , Violet. Cried. Because I gave them back what they should’ve always had. I made my employees cry!”

She buries her face in her hands with a groan. “I’ve become that boss. The one who accidentally emotionally devastates people with fairness.”

My heart squeezes for her—equal parts frustration and pride. “Fallon,” I say gently, “you rescued them. Again. You do realize that, right?”

She peeks through her fingers, mascara slightly smudged, but her expression is one of quiet heartbreak and righteous fury.

“I’m going to find Marcy,” she says flatly. “And I’m going to throw her into a vat of tulle and set it on fire.”

I raise a solemn hand. “Let me pick the playlist.” Movement catches my attention again.

I bite my lip to keep from smiling, watching the hulking alpha pace like a caged beast until Kingston finally gives him a look that says fine, but don’t make it a scene.

Voss doesn’t wait. The moment he’s released, he practically launches himself across the storeroom like a tactical missile in black cargo pants.

Fallon lets out a startled squeak as he swoops her right off the ground and settles into a sitting position with her cradled in his lap like she weighs nothing. Her arms flail for half a second, wide-eyed and affronted.

I burst into laughter, nearly knocking over my phone. “Oh look,” I tease, voice syrup-sweet and laced with mischief, “your guard dog finally broke containment. It was only a matter of time.”

Fallon glares at me, red-cheeked and mortified, though she makes no move to escape Voss’s hold. His massive arms are wrapped around her like steel bars, and his expression is carved from stone—but his thumb is brushing slow circles into her hip, and the way she relaxes into him gives her away.

“Honestly,” I continue, grinning into the phone, “between your psycho managers and your alphaholic pack, your life is basically a Netflix drama. Someone cue the intense string music and a slow-motion hair flip.”

She flips me off with the kind of lazy middle finger that only a well-loved, emotionally exhausted omega can deliver. “I hate you,” she grumbles, though her voice is soft and warm.

“You love me,” I correct with zero shame, tilting my head like the smug menace I am. “And if you say otherwise, I’ll make you cry again—but not in a good, employee-uplifted way. Like, full-blown, mascara-running, ugly cry. You know I’ll do it.”

Fallon snorts, but then her expression shifts—eyes narrowing, lips curling into a sly, fox-like smile.

Oh. No.

I know that look.

It’s the look she gets right before she says something designed to derail my emotional stability.

That’s the same look she wore right before she told Kingston about my very unfortunate crush on a tattooed barista who turned out to be a very happily mated alpha.

(I will never step foot in that café again. Ever.)

“Fallon,” I warn, narrowing my eyes right back. “Don’t you dare.”

She leans slightly into Voss’s chest, grinning like a cat with its paw on the canary’s neck. “So... I’ve given you plenty of time.”

“Time for what?” I ask warily, already regretting everything.

She bats her lashes. “To spill about your mates , obviously.”

And there it is. The question I was hoping to avoid.

I glance away, suddenly very interested in a loose thread on my blanket. It’s frayed and pitiful—kind of like my heart, honestly. My chest tightens painfully, and I blink hard against the sting threatening to spill over. Not again. I’ve cried enough over them. Over this.

“I don’t have any mates, Fallon.” The words scrape out like sandpaper, dry and broken.

“Wait—Voss was wrong?” Her voice drops instantly, soft with confusion, the sharp edge fading into concern. It’s almost cautious, like she already knows what I’m going to say and is bracing for it.

I force myself to look back at the screen.

I can’t hide the moisture pooling in my eyes—not from her.

Fallon’s entire expression shifts the moment she sees me.

That soft worry vanishes beneath her omega growl, low and rising like a warning rumble of thunder.

It’s terrifying when she gets like this.

Terrifying, and comforting in that you are so loved, I will burn the world down for you kind of way.

“What the fuck happened?” she demands.