Page 49 of Knot My Fate

“You can’t control them.”

“I don’t want to, but we had a deal.”

Angel looks at me rebelliously through his dark curls. “I like Paige. She feels like mine. Pack. Now put your burn back under the damn water.”

Slowly, I put my arm back under the running water. “Paige’s first pack died only a year ago. This is her first heat after suffering Shattered Bond Syndrome. We’re helping her to survive. We are not offering her a new pack. Tell me that you understand the difference because otherwise we’re pulling out of this right now before your heart is broken, and maybe hers too.”

Angel jumps off the counter, turning away from me.

I wish that I could see his face.

“But what if she wants a new pack?” He says so quietly that I almost miss it.

I feel like I am back in front of the flames being burned again.

I am trapped in the billowing smoke, screaming for my pack who I will never see again.

I struggle to breathe around the tightness in my chest. “Our job is to help Paige become used to touch and to allowing new Alphas into her nest. Our job is to drive her so wild with pleasure that she not only survives her heat but allows herself to go on living afterward. Then we leave. We let the Omega get on with her own life. That’s the deal. That’s what we signed up for. I ain’t got no business offering more than that. Not when one bad call or burning building could rip me away from her. She is barely surviving losing her first Alphas. I’ll be damned if I make her survive also losing me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Acorn Inn, Oak Hollow

Paige

“How the hell did I let my garden become this out of hand, Acorn?” I pull on thick leather gardening gloves.

Of course, no one answers me.

I’ve fallen into the habit of speaking to Beau and Evan like they are ghosts at my shoulder, however, especially in this place where I scattered their ashes, even if I can’t smell their scents anymore.

In fact, today I am surrounded by Luca’s spicy scent of white carnations and dark soil. I am wearing Luca’s olive field jacket over a pair of dirt-smeared jeans, as I kneel underneath the canopy of the oak.

I needed the heavy feel of the jacket to give me the courage to come out here and face my wild garden.

The house is as immaculate as I can make it.

I have put off coming out to deal with this jungle, however, as long as I can.