Page 116 of Knot Only For One Night

“Esper Winnie Malent!”

“I’m sorry, I meant to call you after my heat! Things just⁠—”

“Don’t forget to call me, Esper! Gosh, so much has happened. We have to tell your dads—Boys! Our baby found her scent matches and bonded! We need to meet them ASAP, start planning!” I hear a door click and

Footsteps approach, then a second voice speaks into the phone. “How’s tomorrow?” Laken, my alpha dad, says. When I pause before answering, he says, “Baby, are you okay? They are treating you right?”

Hearing their voices, actually saying all this out loud for the first time, just solidifies the fact that I’m missing them so bad. “Yes, Dad. Give the phone back to Mom. I need to talk to her.”

“Oh this is serious. Babe, tomorrow might not be soon enough,” I hear Col, my beta dad, say.

“Okay, okay, they are gone now. Honey, are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I say, truly feeling better. “I just, we got into a fight about the bond. Reed, my scent match who is also an omega, got upset that we’d bonded. He thinks that I don't know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yeah, it’s just… We haven’t talked and now I’m scared to talk to him. He was super upset, but I… I just don’t understand. I can make decisions for myself. I’m a big girl. I don’t understand why he doesn’t trust us, trust me.”

“It’s not always about trust, honey.”

“Then what is it?” I whisper, turning on my stool to stare out the window, my throat getting choked up with unshed tears. I can’t even talk about this without crying. How fucking stupid.

“Two omegas is a tricky dynamic. If you’re already getting bonds and he doesn't have one too, it could turn into a nasty competition.”

“I don’t think it’s that.” She laughs a bit and I roll my eyes.

“It could play into it.”

“Sure,” I say, though I don’t believe it and she knows it. She chuckles and asks me to explain the issue more.

I relay the fight to her, trying to be as accurate about his words, as if they didn’t brand themselves into my head. She listened quietly. Not interrupting me once.

“Well, honey, MC life is dangerous.” I hold back my interruptions and try to listen to what she’s saying. “I think it sounds like he needs reassurance. He’s an omega and a person with needs too. He needs to know you can handle what this life will throw at you.”

“How do I prove that to him?”

“Time.”

I don’t like that answer, but it’s the only realistic one.

“Do you think… Do you think he might not want me though? Like all this doubt is because he doesn’t actually want to be with me?”

“No, honey, it sounds like he loves you. But fear is a powerful emotion and drives people to do unreasonable things. Like accidentally hurt the people we love.”

Her words rest alongside his in my heart. We say our goodbyes and I hang up the phone. Wrapping my arms around myself, I stare out the window. It’s dark in here. The windows have a covering on them that limits some of the sun, making the room feel incredibly soothing. I can see why Asher likes it so much.

Reed floats back into my mind, and my heart aches all over again. I have to prove to him that I belong, but… I thought I was doing that this whole time.

I don’t know how much more proving I can do.

“Moonlight?” Asher’s voice knocks me out of my pity party a bit.

“Hey.” I uncurl myself from the stool and find my alpha leaning against a table with a black t-shirt and cargos on. Boots too. “Did you go riding?”

“Yeah, we all are on around-the-clock patrol now.”

“Becuase of the Outlaws?”