Page 12 of Knot As It Seems

If this waif of a vampire is to be believed, she’s known of our existence the entire time we were with Winslow. Winslow was what, rubbing it in her face? Giving her ourclothing so she could—oh fuck.

I run to the bathroom and throw up, because this is all too real to be fake.

I flush and rinse my mouth out, hunching over the small sink to splash my face clean. No towels, but the hem of my shirt will do just fine.

“What the fuck are those?”

I freeze with my shirt over half my face and turn to the omega in the doorway. Eyes wide, I look around trying to figure out what she’s asking about. Has she…never seen tattoos before? “My ink?”

She steps closer against all of our better judgement, and I know she’s holding her breath, but I’m fucking not.

Losing Winslow kind of sucked because it was so volatile at the end, but I’ve missed this scent. I’ve never had it so pure before and I’m ready to be a junkie for it even though minutes ago I was swearing to Moon I wanted nothing to do with it.

“No, dumbass. Are those…ab muscles?”

Somebody starts cracking up in the hallway, and I give them a death glare before focusing on Fable. Do I put the shirt back down or let her keep looking? “Yes?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

She steps closer yet and I grip the sink behind me, my muscles cording all over my torso at her proximity. One hand reaches out, not bothering to ask permission, and full-on feels up my stomach.

“Eight?Who the hell needs eight muscles here? What the hell do you evendowith all of them?”

Yep, there goes my boner. It’s kind of a miracle it took so long, actually.

Again, not asking for permission, she reaches lower and pulls my gym shorts open, and then begins to gawk at my dick. This is definitely cosmic payback for all the times I have been an asshole in my life.

“Now what the fuck isthatthing for? There’s no way in hell that’s meant to do what I think it is. That thing is as big as my forearm, and I know for a fact I can only comfortably fit two fingers inside of me. Two ofmyfingers, that is. That’s just…” She swallows and lets the waistband snap into place, and I swear to everything green on this earth I’m two seconds away from coming.

“And what are all of you laughing about, huh? Entertaining you, am I?”

Fuck. She’s actually so damn perfect for us. I hate that I acknowledge that so soon. But she is our scent match, so that checks out.

Her attention on me somehow made me forget about her condition momentarily, and she’s abruptly run out of juice. She sways, looking to me in panic as she starts falling.

But I catch her, of course I do. I’m apparently her fucking alpha.

“You’re too damn light,” I mumble under my breath.

I sit on the edge of the dated green bathtub and hold her, biting into my wrist and making sure she gets a good latch. I watch the column of her throat as she swallows me down, and my mind instantly starts going down other roads, imagining her swallowing other fluids fromme, and my dick gives another rallying cry.

She stares at me as she drinks, and she must have been as blood-starved as we thought because by the time the cut on my wrist has healed itself and she’s somewhat sated, she’s passed out again, a small drop of my blood escaping her lips.

That means I get to touch them though, right?

I wipe that drop up with my thumb and push it back into her mouth, startled when water drips on her cheek. Like a dumbass, I look to the ceiling thinking that’s what’s causing the damage, but no, it’s me. Holding her and understanding a fraction of what she’s been made to suffer, then getting to see how well she takes my blood, is making me produce actual tears. I didn’t know that was a thing I could do.

Jos squats in front of us, same state I’m in.

I look up at him wordlessly, begging for help, but he’s as clueless as I am in this situation.

Both of us look down to the woman again, Jos gently pushing her long black hair from her face. “She’s ours. We’ve somehow massively fucked up before we even got to meet her, but we’ll find a way to fix this. We have to.”

“She needs a nest,” I assert. “We’re building her the best damn nest we can. She needs to be safe, and she needs to be warm, and we need to take care of her, Jos. We need to.”

“Not you, too,” Moon whines, but he’s losing a lot of the bravado he had earlier. He’s in denial, but it’s going to be so satisfying when he cracks.

I stare him down, knowing exactly what he needs.