Page 181 of Knot So Social

I couldn’t bear if anything happened to her.

As she settles, the bitterness in her scent fades, calmed by her alphas’ presence in the bond. I pull her close again, my arms feeling too empty without her. Her body warmth spreads to me and her heart thumps heavily where our chests press together. My own heartbeat skitters from the rush we’ve experienced today. But now I have the chance to finally make her mine.

“All my love,” I whisper, hooking under her knee and lifting. “I would like to add my bite here, to the one left by the sky, if that is okay?”

Willow barks out a broken laugh. “All right, Alessandro.” Her voice cracks. “Since you find it so beautiful.”

“Sì. Beautiful and precious.” I set my teeth on her thigh, just above her knee where the red swirls end.

She grips my head, gasping as I sink my bite deep into her body. The connection rushes through us instantly, tugging at my heart. I moan into her skin and Willow whimpers, hands tightening in my hair.

To belong to someone so wholly is more than I can put into words. For Willow to allow me such a precious gift, all I can do is love her for it. She receives my love, my adoration, small noises slipping through her throat as the full strength flares to life within her own omega soul.

Here, beside the stamp of the lightning that spared her life, I add my own small life-long mark, along with a promise to never abandon her. Willow holds my gaze as she wriggles in my grip enough to reach my hand. She lifts my thumb to her mouth and bites down into the fleshy part between my thumb and palm.

Her overwhelm and exhaustion rolls into me, along with a growing sense of peace. Things don’t have to be right in the world for us to be all right with each other.

Willow sucks gently on her bite, and I bend my thumb back a little in her mouth to be sure she doesn’t scratch the inside of her cheek on my fingernail. She’s so precious, hair damp from sweat, body going limp with exhaustion. I lick at her thigh a few times, waiting for the bleeding to stop, marveling in the power of this incomprehensible physiology that we have.

Everyone’s heard what a bond is like, sharing emotions and all that. But nothing can describe the sensation of someone else’s wellbeing lodged in your own consciousness. I’ll never have to wonder what she’s feeling again.

Which means I found my own piece of binding magic after all.

I glance down at the omega resting against my chest and discover her eyes have closed. The awareness in the bond fizzles as she falls asleep.

Still sucking my thumb.

I choke down a groan. She’s so precious, I can barely handle it.

Jeremy rests a strong hand against my back. I check on him and he nods toward the pillows. With the brothers’ help, I ease myself down onto the bed, and they tuck themselves either side of us, Jeremy at my back and Joel spooning Willow’s side as she lays against my chest.

“We still don’t know what happened,” Jeremy whispers. “Today specifically, I mean.”

“She said her business was going up in flames,” Joel rasps, unsticking hair from her tear-streaked face.

I let my head drop back into Jeremy's chest. “I follow her on social media. If you check my phone, we might figure it out.”

He nods and slips out from under me to search for my phone. A minute later, he slides back into place, holding my device out with the lock screen showing.

“4-9-2-3,” I tell him. It’s not like we’ll have any secrets between us from now on.

Jeremy hooks one arm over my waist to reach Willow, the weight comforting after a harrowing evening. So much for our long-awaited date.

“Holy shit,” he rumbles. He reads aloud from the phone snippets of the comments rolling through Willow’s socials.

“Fuck,” I murmur. “I knew she got some hate speech from alphas in general, but this seems worse.”

“Ruthless,” Joel agrees.

He gets his own phone out to search for Boss Omega, growling over every insidious comment. His thumbs fly across the screen, tapping out messages or search terms, I’m not sure which.

The public discovered she doesn’t leave her home. From one faked post, it’s grown into a witch hunt where everything she’s posted has been scrutinized. Bus routes, cafes, even socialites jumping on the bandwagon to say they’ve never seen her at any events.

“No wonder she thought it might be one of us,” I mutter. “Just this morning I asked her why she felt she needed to fake all of this activity.”

“What did she say?” Joel asks.

I sigh. “That she had to be perfect on social media, and a housebound omega wasn’t perfect.”