Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Knox
“That’s it?” Shade blurts. “That’s all you want from us? Training?”
All three of us Alphas growl.
Is she denying that she wants us as her mates?
She blinks rapidly.
A blush starts low on her chest, blooming upward, and I can see it cresting beneath the edge of the bite collar she’s still wearing.
The one I gave her.
She’s had months. Months to take it off. To forget us. To forget me.
But she didn’t.
The belt of leather is still right there, pressed against her delicate throat, covering her mating gland. There might not be teeth marks decorating her neck, but with the little nametag dangling at her throat, it screams to anyone who looks that she’s claimed.
My inner Alpha prowls with smug possessiveness. Mine. My Omega.
She stammers through an answer, her voice soft and uncertain. “I… well… with the way that I left things, I don’t want to presume…”
She’s nervous. She should be. But not for the reasons she thinks.
I raise my nose, deliberately scenting the air. The sweet aroma of her pooling arousal is blooming through the small room rapidly.
I arch a knowing brow.
She might not have the words, but her body’s speaking to me loud and clear.
She watches with wide eyes, and the flush deepens, spreading over her cheeks and up into her hairline.
She smells like needy Omega. Like a sweet little thing that’s been missing her Pack desperately and wants them back.
It takes everything in me not to show my satisfaction. Instead, I take a bite of my roast dinner, chewing the meat slowly, not looking away for a second.
My pride needs her to say it. To ask for more. To tell us what she needs.
To beg for it.
Viper ruined that part of my strategy with his eagerness. Jumped the line and let his instincts outrun his patience.
She gave herself to him quickly, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. Sex between an Alpha and Omega is instinct. What we need from her is a choice. A deliberate, undeniable decision.
Halley and Viper have always had a cosmic connection. I get it. They met in a life or death situation. It felt inevitable that they'd come together. But he should’ve shown more restraint. Held the line.
Previously, I would have punished Viper for blatant insubordination. I wouldn’t have understood why he broke rank.
Now I see what it really is.
Love.
He loves her. Plain and painful.
My lieutenant is in love with our Omega, and I'd be a monster to stand in the way of that.
I’m not that kind of Alpha anymore. At least, not to her.
I’ll always be a soldier. A killer. That part of me was built too young and buried too deep to scrape away. It’s in my bones.
Shade and Viper are watching me. Waiting to see where I’m going with this. They know me. I never go into an interrogation or negotiation without a strategic plan.
Phase one: admission of feelings.
‘She needs to say it,’ I tell them, and I’m met with subtle nods of agreement.
She can’t just hint at it. If she wants us to be more than her instructors, she has to name it. She needs to say explicitly that she wants to be part of our Pack.
Blaze makes a low sound beside me, something feral and impatient. I know that tone. He’s about to say something that’ll throw gasoline on the fire.
So I stomp the heel of my boot into his foot.
He snarls, shoots me a murderous look, then pushes away from the table and stalks to the darkest corner of the room. He disappears into the shadows where the firelight doesn’t reach, and that’s probably for the best.
Halley’s purple eyes are wide and round. She's biting her lower lip nervously, and she's fidgeting with the cutlery. She’s stalling. Overthinking. Probably imagining all the ways this could go wrong.
She’s afraid we’ll reject her. That she burned the bridge, salted the earth, and left nothing behind but ashes.
And maybe she did.
This is new territory for all of us. I’ve never given second chances to a single person who've hurt me or my squad. They never live long enough to earn forgiveness.
But this isn’t just anyone.
This is our Omega.
If there’s even a sliver of a future here and she wants more than just tactical cooperation and cold professionalism, then she’s going to have to earn it. Every inch of trust and ounce of grace.
And it starts with honesty.
I finish the last bite on my plate and lean back slowly, letting the silence hold.
She’s still hesitating. Still straddling the line between fear and surrender.
“Say it, Omega.”
The room tightens. The bond between me and my brothers is stretched taut, each of us pulling in our own direction but holding to the same hope. It’s braided into something fragile and combustible.
We need this. We need her to stop running, to own what she broke, and ask to mend it.
She starts to speak. “Knox, I…”
Her chair scrapes softly against the floor as she shifts back, eyes darting like a cornered creature. She’s about to run again. I can see it in every tense line of her body.
She’s not getting away. Not this time. I won’t let her walk out again, not when she’s finally within reach.
With a sharp shake of my head, I point my knife at her.
“If you want more than help training your Omega Command, then ask for it. Say it like you mean it.”
She stills. Her eyes flick between us, one by one, and then settle back on me.
“I do,” she says. The words are small but real. “I want more…”
I tilt my head slightly, eyebrow raised.
“More of what?”
She breaks so beautifully. Once more, her words spill from her like a fountain. I make a mental note to add resistance to interrogation to her training list.
“Everything,” she breathes. “I want everything. I want you. Each of you. Frack, I know it’s greedy, but I don’t care.
I need all of you and I want to be your Omega.
I want to be loved and cherished. To be fucked hard, often, and split on knot after knot.
I want to be your family and I want you to be mine. ”
Her voice shakes, hands tremble, but her eyes are clear.
“I want us to be a Pack.”
And there it is. The moment we’ve been waiting for. Raw and real and far braver than she knows.
Shade’s eyes are hooded and his jaw clenched. He’s analyzing everything, running the variables. I can almost hear the parade of thoughts whirring in his brain. He’s skeptical, trying to discern the risk to reward ratio of believing Halley.
“There she is. Saying what she really wants.” I push back my chair, letting it drag noisily across the stone floor. “It’s a good starting point.”
I take my time crossing the room, each step measured as I circle behind her. She tenses, shoulders curling inward, like she’s bracing for impact.
Such a silly little thing. I couldn't hurt a rut-damn curl on her pretty head. How does she still not know that after I threw myself into a hail of bullets to protect her?
I reach her chair, grip the back, and pull it gently but firmly to angle her toward me. Then I crouch in front of her, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin.
Phase one of my plan is complete.
Phase two begins: the reckoning.
She says she wants us. But wanting and earning are not the same. If she wants to rebuild this Pack, then she needs to see the ruins she left behind and the consequences of her betrayal so she’ll never do it again.
“I’m glad you want us that way. We want you in our Pack too. But if I let you back into our lives without making you understand what you broke, then I’d be failing all of us. You’re going to have to prove to us that you’re fully committed.”
I reach out, my fingers slipping into her hair. It’s soft and warm, like everything I’ve been missing. I let my palm slide down until it rests at the back of her neck, holding her steady, anchoring her to the moment.
She’s trembling.
Fuck, is it wrong that I love that she reacts this way? That despite everything, her body is still so responsive to me.
“Look at me, princess.” I tug gently on her hair, guiding her gaze up to mine. “You think you can do that?”
Her breath catches as she whispers, “Yes.”
“Good. Now tell me, do you know what happens to an Alpha when he loses his Omega?”
She shakes her head.
“We didn’t either, not really. But now we intimately know how fucking painful it is.
It’s grief and sadness, and it’s also wild and aimless rage.
It’s a desperation to find relief to the primal instincts screaming inside.
You left more than a hole in this Pack. You shattered it.
You say you want back in, but things aren’t how you left them.
You have to understand that we’ve all got jagged edges and you might get cut.
Are you still sure you want to be part of this Pack? ”
Her eyes flicker with guilt, but she nods emphatically.
“I need words, Omega.”
She shivers when my mouth forms the O of her designation, her eyes tracing the shape of my lips.
“Yes.”
“Okay then. Let’s figure out what you can do to earn back a place in our Pack, starting with our Beta.”
I guide her gently, but firmly, to face Shade.
"It was Shade who kept us together… alive. He didn’t crumble once. He stepped up and it was our Beta who, day after day, pulled us out of our fucked up broken instincts.”
Her guilt grows until it’s written across every inch of her face, and she screws her eyes shut. But guilt’s not what I want. I have no use for it. It won’t progress my plan.
I tighten my grip on her hair until she opens her eyes. I want her to really look at our Beta. To see the deep lines of weary exhaustion etched into his face. She needs to see the burden she placed on him.
“You want his trust? Then match his consistency. Show up and be the support this Pack needs. Take the weight off his shoulders, and let the poor man rest. It’s time someone took care of our hard working Beta. Can you think of a way to help our Beta relax?”
I grin wickedly as she shudders and licks her lips.
Oh yes. She’s thinking of ways.