Page 187 of Knot So Social

The bond twists. Alessandro rocks forward, one hand on his stomach and his face marred with nausea. We’re all reliving the nightmare with her, and from the way Willow’s emotions spiral, I can tell we’re getting to the worst of it.

“By the time I was seventeen, I was bonded and living in their apartment. That’s when the abuse started. They encouraged me to drop out of school, to stay home, and play homemaker to their perverted needs. Degraded, treated like a sex toy, and isolated from friends and services, my life became a living hell. They even determined what I was allowed to eat.”

Her breath shudders and she digs her nails into her thighs.

“And I believed that was love.”

A lump lodges in my throat, and I shift uneasily on the stool. Fuck, how am I supposed to listen to the shit she went through and not comfort her? Joel squeezes both hands into fists, equally upset. A tear trickles down Alessandro’s cheek, the alpha so frozen in place he looks like a statue.

I drag my attention back to Willow’s story, wishing she didn’t have to tell it. Wishing none of it was true.

“My story doesn’t end there. You see, it wasn’t just about being isolated and treated like a sex toy.” She lifts her chin, valiantly pulling herself together despite trembling all through the bond. “What really broke me was the way they wore down my sanity. I learned years later in therapy that it’s called gaslighting, but at the time, all I thought was that I couldn’t do anything right; that I was a no-good omega. The meals I cooked, the coffee I served, the sex we had, cleaning the house. Even the way I went into heat. They criticized everything, criticized me. When I was eighteen they took . . .”

Willow’s voice breaks. She swallows hard before swiping at her cheek.

“. . . they took my nest away. Said I had to earn it back. Cut my favorite cushions to shreds and hung my c-cashmere b-blanket on the . . . banister upstairs.” Her bottom lip quivers. “I wasn’t allowed upstairs because that was the boys’ zone.”

I jerk in shock. They did fucking what exactly? Rage boils through my chest, and I can’t be sure where it originates, because all three of us alphas are steaming with livid pheromones. Stripping an omega's nest? Desecrating a church would hardly be more unholy.

And to take her blanket away and hang it where she would see it? Cruel beyond words. No wonder Willow always flinched when I moved her blanket. Even the way she asked so hesitantly if I liked her nest when she first saw it hits differently now.

A sob lodges in my throat.

Willow flashes me a tiny, lop-sided smile, and it breaks my heart even more. She’s trying so hard to be brave and finally tell her story. Joel jerks, a muscle in his jaw ticking sharply. Has he seen it too? The way she feels the need to cling to that sequin blanket of hers? All this time she’s still been trapped in that terrible past.

No wonder she fought us.

I reach out and grab Joel’s rigid fist. Right now, we need to feed her strength and calm so she can get through this.

Willow takes a few deep breaths and returns to the camera.

“I’ll never forget the first time they left part way through my heat and told me to finish it by myself.”

Willow drops her gaze, studying her hands. “I thought . . . I believed them when they said I was flawed. Too needy, my heats too demanding.”

Her delicate throat spasms, a faint outward sign of the trembling in our shared bond.

“They told me that because I wasn’t good enough to satisfy them, they needed to fuck other women. Omegas.” She rocks back and forth in her seat, wincing. “I felt it every time, in the bond. Every day, they compared me to the women they were meeting, told me how glamorous, or well-spoken, or smart they were. It all seemed to prove there was some kind of deficiency in me.”

I shake my head vehemently and she catches the movement. Although she doesn’t look my way, a ghost of a smile flickers over her face.

“I know that’s not true now, but back then, they were my entire world, and they had me in the palms of their hands.

“The other omegas, they . . . well it broke me. Especially when they started dating one lady. And that was when they banished me to the basement. I couldn’t resist the alpha domination in the bond, and I had no one to check in on me by then, since everyone had been driven away. All their friends just laughed and called me the hag under the stairs.”

A growl simmers in my chest, and I grind my palm into my sternum to keep the sound from breaking loose. The bond boils with our combined alpha disgust, and Joel’s arms tremble from how hard he’s gripping his chair. If it’s this hard for us just to hear it, it must have been torture for a gentle omega with no one to turn to.

“Willow, if this is too hard—” I whisper into the silence.

Willow holds her hand up. It hurts, but she’s simply trying to keep her emotions at bay long enough to tell her story. She straightens her spine, deep breathing.

“When I was twenty-two, the Ilvines came home one day and told me to pack my bags and move out; they were bringing in their new omega, and I wasn’t to be around. But, and here’s the kicker, they refused to sever our bond. That was the first time my life ended.”

She rubs my bite mark on her wrist, and our bond tingles. But I know it’s the empty one underneath that she’s thinking about.

“I lived in my car for eleven months. Twice I went through my heats on my own, using a rag stuffed up my lady parts in place of a knot. That was before I discovered heat suppressants. But pills couldn’t stop the livewire of a bond living in my chest.

“Every time my supposed pack fucked another person I lived it, felt their ruts crawl inside my own skin.” Twinkles of light catch on her collarbone, revealing a dew of sweat as Willow grips the sides of the bucket seat. “And then they bonded her. I had another omega I never wanted, never even met, living in my soul.”