Page 44 of Knot Your Pawn

He tightens his arms around me, pulling me closer.

He’s not tall like Caleb, or curvy like Riley, he’s basically built exactly the same as me, but right now, in this moment, when everything feels so strange and overwhelming, he’s exactly what I need.

I need him, because he’s the only stable thing from my life before everything changed, because he feels familiar and reminds me of easier times.

4

Caleb

It would be nice if our lives could become a little less hectic very, very soon. Our pack needs stability, needs to be able to settle in with each other, needs to be able to fully develop and get used to our bonds, and that hasn’t happened yet.

At least not strongly enough for our Omegas.

Pregnant Omegas are much more sensitive to pheromones —both from their pack and from others around them— and having their mates around. And while Vera and Mathew have both had at least some of us around at any one time, there has also been a lot of interference, too much interference if I think about it honestly.

Things seemed to be going pretty okay, but that was probably just because we were too busy to notice it, too busy to pay attention, and now everything is falling apart.

The way that Mathew and Vera were tightly wrapped around each other all night, like they were trying to become one person, it was hard to watch. Especially when Vera’s pheromones were so messy and confused.

The exhaustion and all the stress had clearly caught up with her, and with Mathew too.

I noticed something was wrong with Vera when her pheromones changed slightly last night and when her mind seemed to drift off while she was talking.

At first, I thought it was just exhaustion. We were all exhausted, so that made sense.

But when she growled at Derrick when he offered to get the car to drive us home, I knew it was something else.

Something much worse.

When marked and bonded Omegas are taken from their mates, they first become withdrawn, then they start lashing out at everyone who isn’t their mate, to the point where they endanger themselves and everyone around them.

If they’re kept from their mate or mates even longer than that, they get ill, their bodies slowly breaking down.

Until their body simply gives up, and they die.

Normally, Omegas don’t need that many pheromones from their mates, a hug or simply being in the same room will do the trick. But pregnant Omegas need a lot more pheromones, a lot, lot more, and if they have more than one mate, they need all of those pheromones mixed together, not simply one by one.

Last night, Vera and Mathew were showing signs of pheromone withdrawal.

Even though they’ve been around us almost constantly, it clearly wasn’t enough. The stress and everything else they’ve been up to —like Mathew’s mission and Vera slipping away to rescue Luca and the kids— probably meant that they needed a lot more pheromones on top of what they needed extra because of their pregnancies.

And we didn’t notice it until it was too late.

We were all too busy to notice that our Omegas needed us.

We were all too busy to pay attention to what was going on, too busy to remember what the doctor told us, that our Omegas were going to need us more than ever.

We were too busy, and that put our Omegas in danger.

We can’t let that happen again. We have to be better about this. We have to pay more attention, or it could put Vera and Mathew, and the babies, in a lot of danger.

Which means that we’ll first have to figure out a way to get to the nest. It’s a much better place to sleep, for all of us, it’s much more comfortable, and it gives easy access to the bathroom and anything else we might want or need.

And we’ll have to find a way for Luca to be near them as much as possible too, which might be even more complicated than getting our Omegas to their nest.

Luca mostly spends his time with Riley and Jorge, since he can be around them without any problems.

But Vera and Mathew need his pheromones, they need him, and it’s clear that he wants to be near them, even if it hurts him.