Page 100 of Knot Only For One Night

“Red?” One Eye comes around the bar, waving his hand in the air to get my attention. I stop, nodding toward my fellow member.

We aren’t the closest. He is much closer to Asher since they spend a lot of time together at Coal’s. The man has always been cool, and anyone mated to Jewels must have balls of steel in my book. The omega isn’t a delicate flower by any means, despite her rainbow hair and supernova smile.

“I just wanted to let you know, member to member, that if this is how you are going to run the club one day…” He waves toward Soren, and my face goes cold like stone. I’m not sorry for my decision. I could never be sorry for choosing Esper. But hearing about how I should have done this, or could have done this, isn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy pastime.

One Eye watches my Packmate a moment, then turns back to me. “Well, I respect it. Having your own omega puts things into perspective. I know how some of the guys feel about an omega running things, and well… If you were to leave, I’ll follow you. So will Jewels and DJ.”

“DJ is Road Captain. He can’t.”

"Try telling DJ that. He’s been wanting to lay Cyclops out since the man started but knew it wasn’t his place.”

One Eye wasn’t here to berate me or criticize my methods. He liked my methods. So much so that he’d splinter off if I did.

My breathing evens out and my shoulders relax a little as I stare out towards the Bar. This club is more than its leader. More than prospects or wars. It’s home. It’s family. Dad found me, and he decided I wasn’t a discarded child—I was a Wolf. To leave would mean to tell him he was wrong.

Regardless of my position, this is where I belong.

“I wouldn’t leave. Being Prez would be an honor. But having a place where I belong, a place where my Pack lay their heads safely—that’s more important.”

One Eye claps my shoulder. “Don’t I fuckin know it.”

“Let’s head to Hall,” I say, which actually takes place in class.

Maybe that should be my campaign promise: streamlining the goddamn names in this place.

Prez sits behind his desk, the rest of his inner circle scattered through class. I’m always at the first table, sitting on the table next to Neven who sits in the chair like a normal civilized human being.

“Update us on the thief situation.”

“The money is sent to a woman named Claire Homestead. Hunter thinks he’s sending the money to a Mari Lowe, a woman he dated four years ago. He thinks he’s sending child support.”

“Hunter has a baby?” Bear asks, and Neven shakes his head.

“No, the woman is scamming him. Which is why she’s demanding a hell of a lot more money than child support at Hunter’s pay range would require.”

“Oh wow.” Queen collapses back against her chair, brings her hands to her lips in shock. My eyes linger on Queen—Mom, as her eyes glaze over a bit.

Children are a hard topic for the Nightwell Family.

Queen couldn’t have children of her own. No matter how hard she and my dad tried. How much money they spent. No matter that Queen was an omega and supposedly “made to have babies.”

Nothing would give Queen a baby.

After Ace found me alone in that park, he found my birth mom and tried to give me back. I hardly even remember my birth parents now…probably repressed memory bullshit. But I do remember that Ace spent all of five minutes in her trashed apartment before changing his mind and forcing my mom to give up her rights. We rode off into the sunset.

My sunset was Queen's damnation.

It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when Queen wanted to put me into the system. Let me be someone else's problem. She’s never said so in front of me, but even back then I could tell.

She was scared of me.

It took us a while to get where we are. Years in fact. She was never mean, nothing like my birth mom. But she was cold. Distant. She didn’t want to accept me because accepting me felt like giving up on having her own kids.

Seeing me was a constant reminder of what she couldn’t have. Watching Ace get close to me was tantamount to betrayal.

She fell into a depression. It was hard on her and Ace for a while. But then, one day, Soren was pushed down on the playground by some of his brothers’ friends, and I shoved them bitches right back.

She’d sit in the park and lick her wounds, watching the children play. Ace built the neighborhood playground just so she’d have somewhere she could find peace of mind for a little while.