In knots, p.23
In Knots, page 23
“It wasn’t a mistake!” I yell. “It was a decision. My decision! The best I’ve ever made. And I’ve never been happier. I’m going back to that pack. It’s where I belong. I belong with them.” I take my mother’s hands in mine and squeeze them. “I feel this bond with them, it’s so strong I can almost see it, taste it. And they haven’t even claimed me. We are meant to be together! I’m certain of that!”
My mother snatches her hands from mine and, standing, strolls to my father’s side. “Nonsense! Absolute nonsense, Alexa! Belong to men like that? Ridiculous! You’re just young and confused. You don’t understand the world. Your father is right, we have sheltered you from it and now we are paying the price.” I shake my head vigorously, the first tear spilling onto my cheeks. Her voice softens a little when she speaks again, “In time you’ll thank us, Alexa. In time, and with distance and perspective, you’ll see this was the right thing. For you, for us, for this whole family.”
“I won’t marry him,” I whisper, the tears trailing down my face and dripping off my jaw.
“You will!” my father says. “If you care for these men as much as you say you do, you will do this to protect them. Because if you don’t, I will have them locked up.”
“When?” I whisper, sensing there is more they aren’t telling me. “When am I marrying him?”
“Tomorrow,” my father says. “You have a day to get used to the idea and make yourself presentable. If you fail me, my side of the bargain will be off, and I will have no qualms in throwing you to the wolves and those little shits to the authorities.” He marches from the room.
“Mum,” I plead, but she shakes her head and walks away too. I fall back onto the bed, sobbing so hard I can hardly breathe.
There’s nothing I can do. I can’t change their minds. And I won’t be responsible for ruining the lives of the men I care about.
I’m going to have to marry Simon Stanford.
* * *
After a while, I feel the nudge of Claude’s warm nose against my cheek, and then he licks me. I roll onto my side and drag him to me, ruffling the soft fur around his head.
“I missed you too, Claudie. I’m sorry I left you. But you have to understand, I think I’m falling for these alphas.” I flop back onto the bed and Claude climbs onto my chest and snuggles down. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I tell him. He stares at me as if he understands. “I can’t get them into trouble. I couldn’t live with myself. But how can I live without them? How can I live with a man like Simon Stanford?”
Claude has no answers for me. Soon, he’s asleep, snoring quietly and leaving me with my emotions in knots.
After a while, I lift Claude onto the bed. I don’t have my phone and when I search the room, I can’t find my laptop or my iPad. I guess they were taken. In fact, the more I look at my room, the more I realise everything is a little out of place. As if it’s been searched, everything moved and rearranged, and then put back. Except not quite right. The books stand in the wrong order, the clothes hanging in the wardrobe drape in an odd way and the mess that usually sits across my desk has been tidied. I suppose they must have gone through my stuff when they were looking for me, trawled my laptop and my iPad for clues, not that they’d have found any. Without them though, I’m stuck. I have no way to communicate with the outside world. I could try running again like I did before, but I know this time I won’t even make it through the front door.
I sink to the floor and Claude follows me, jumping down from the bed and brushing against my arm until I reward him with a stroke.
“I can’t even tell them,” I say. “I can’t even tell them goodbye or explain what happened. They’ll think I just deserted them. They’ll think that Cam was right in the first place, that I never really cared about them, that I was using them. But I wasn’t Claude. I really wasn’t.”
Time passes, and I don’t move from my spot on the floor. Eventually, Claude tires of me, slinking out of the open window. I watch him go with an overwhelming sense of jealousy.
Am I giving up? I could go downstairs and argue it out with my parents again. I know them though. They won’t change their minds. The length my father has gone to track me down and drag me back, shows just how determined he is on this matter.
More time passes. The housekeeper knocks on my door and enters with a tray of food. She barely looks at me as she places the tray down on my desk and turns and leaves. Has she been given instructions not to talk to me?
“Where is Jonathan?” I ask her. She won’t help me, but Jonathan might. I haven’t always been upfront with him, but he wouldn’t approve of this. Then again, a month ago, I could never have imagined my parents would force this on me either.
“He’s left,” the housekeeper says, her nervous eyes darting to the doorway.
“Left? Gone where?”
She wrings her hands together, clearly unsure how much she should tell me. “They fired him.”
“Fired him? Jonathan? Why?”
She shrugs and scampers from the room before I can ask her anymore. But I already know the answer. Of course, I do. They blame him for all this mess. He was meant to be keeping watch over me after all.
The food is some vegetable soup, a crusty roll resting alongside. The smell makes my stomach turn. I have no appetite. This whole situation makes me sick.
I leave the food untouched.
More time passes. Then my mother arrives. It’s afternoon now. I can tell by the mellowing light and the flocks of swifts soaring across the sky in formation.
Behind my mother, is a small lady, her grey hair bobbed and dark-rimmed glasses framing her brown eyes. In her arms, she carries several zip-up bags. My mother beckons to my bed and the woman strides inside my room and lays down the bags, beginning to unzip the first one.
My mother scowls at me.
“Stand up, Alexa. Madame Laurent has brought you some wedding dresses to try on. She has kindly agreed to work overnight to fit this for you.”
I peer up at my mother, making no effort to move. “Alexa!” My mother hisses, bending down to whisper near my ear, “You heard what your father said. Stand up and go and wash your face. I don’t want mascara on these dresses.”
I keep staring up at her. I’m sure my misery must be written all over my face as clear as day.
“I don’t want to try on a dress,” I say loud enough for Madame Laurent to hear. “I don’t want to get married.”
My mother turns to the seamstress, laughing falsely. “Pre-wedding jitters, that’s all. It’s been very quick. Everyone gets these nerves.” My mother’s gaze flits between me and the seamstress. “Madame Laurent, perhaps you could step outside for one minute while Alexa undresses down to her underwear.”
“Of course, Ma’am,” the seamstress says, bowing her head and leaving the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Immediately, my mother rounds on me, her hands tight fists on her hips. “Do you understand what happens to men in prison? Do you understand what your father could arrange? I always thought you were a smart girl, but now I’m beginning to doubt that. You don’t have any options here, Alexa. Start cooperating and make this easier for all of us.”
“How could you do this to me?” I ask her, but she simply rolls her eyes.
“What? Protect you from the worst decision you could ever possibly make. Alexa, please see sense.” She sighs. “I’m sure when you try one of these dresses on you will feel so much better. A wedding is such a magical experience for a young woman. Try on the dress. Please.” And for the first time, I see something wavering in my mother’s eyes, and I realise perhaps this isn’t her doing. My father is her alpha after all. What he says goes. She has little say in the matter really.
And I wonder if he has blamed her for this situation. He probably has. He has always made it clear that I am my mother’s responsibility, my upbringing her job in life. Any failures of mine are also hers.
“Alexa, please.”
And I can’t refuse her, so I stand and walk to the bathroom, dousing my face with warm water and scrubbing away the trail of mascara left by my tears. When I return to the room, Madame Laurent has unwrapped one of the dresses and holds it out to me. It’s simple, made entirely from ivory silk, and it trails over her arm like water. It will do everything to emphasise my demure omega frame.
I let the two older women slip the dress over my body and twirl me around and around in front of the mirror until I’m so dizzy I hardly know which way is up and which way is down. Then they strip me and another dress is tugged over my head, then another and another.
“Do you have a favourite?” Madame Laurent asks me. I shrug my shoulders, avoiding my mother’s glare.
“They’re all lovely,” I say. “Beautiful,”
“And you look beautiful, Alexa,” my mother says.
Chapter 30
I never really imagined my wedding day before. I didn’t believe the day would ever happen. That I would ever find an alpha that I would want to marry, I would want to commit my whole life to.
But if I had ever considered it for one moment, this is not what I would have imagined. I guess if I had ever given it a passing thought, the image in my mind would have been one of a happy day. Because of course, I’d be marrying a man I loved. I would be so jubilant, my smile radiating, my scent blooming, and everyone around me happy too.
Today I am not happy. I am miserable. More miserable than I have ever been in my whole life.
I thought I was miserable before. Lonely, bored, misunderstood. That had been a passive gnawing feeling. Something I could easily forget if I tried hard enough. The feeling on my wedding day is entirely different. All-consuming, overpowering, drowning. It stops me from breathing. Guts me from the inside. Leaves me nothing but a shell.
Yes, that is what I am today. A shell, something they can paint up as the perfect omega. The perfect omega bride. Perfect omega wife.
My mother wakes me in the morning with false cheeriness. Throwing back the curtains and declaring it another glorious summer’s day.
“It’s good luck to have sunshine on your wedding day,” she says.
“I thought that was rain,” I say
“Well,” she mutters, “nonetheless this will be a wonderful day. I can feel it in my bones. Everything will be fine, Alexa. You will come to love this alpha, I know you will. He will be good to you and will give you a secure life. And if we are lucky, maybe children.”
I grimace at the thought, sliding lower in the bed and drawing the covers up to my chin. My mother strides towards me, grabbing a handful of the sheet, and yanking it away.
“Come on,” she says. “Rise and shine. We need you looking beautiful. Jump in the shower and by the time you’re out, Sadie will be here to do your make-up and your hair.” She straightens strands away from my face and pats my cheek. She seems determined to pretend that this is the wedding day she has been dreaming of for as long as I can remember. She will pretend that everything is fine and that this is perfectly normal. “Are you hungry, darling?”
“No,” I mumble. I realise in my bid to try and call this whole thing off, I have no idea what is happening today. Who will be there? Where is this wedding even happening? They’ve told me nothing. Probably because they think the less I know, the better. Less chance I can ruin the whole thing. “Who’s coming?”
“To the wedding?” My mother laughs, but it dies away on her lips, and I realise perhaps this won’t be the wedding that she wanted after all. “Just a few members of the family, close friends. Same on Simon’s side. We had to arrange everything in a hurry so …”
Yes, I wonder what people are saying about all this. What must my friends think? “What have you told everyone?”
“That you were both desperate to get married quickly. Everybody understands how it is between alphas and omegas. We promised a big party in the future to make up for it. But for now, it’ll just be an intimate wedding.”
“Where?” I press her.
Her eyes shift uneasily towards the window. She doesn’t answer my question.
“Mother?” I ask.
“I really think you ought to try and eat something, darling,” she says. “You’ll faint if you don’t eat. I’ll go and ask Janet to make you some pancakes. You always liked pancakes when you were a little girl. Remember? Chef Daniel used to make you them when you came home from school every day. You were practically addicted to the things.” But then she banned them. Worried they’d ruin my figure. She hurries away to the door before I can ask any more questions. “Into the shower, Alexa,” she says from the door. “We mustn’t be late for Daddy. Or Simon.”
In the shower, I turn the water as cold as I can bear it so that it stings my eyes and my skin, until I’m shaking with the cold and my lips are blue. Then I yank the water off, wrap myself in a towel and tell my reflection in the mirror, “that’s all, Alexa.” That’s all the wallowing I will allow myself today. I will put on a brave face, and I will be the bride my father wants because what choice do I have? If I fail, if I enrage him, I know he will take that rage out on the pack.
When I step out into my bedroom, I find Sadie already there, waiting with his suitcase of makeup, hair products, brushes and curling tongs.
“Ahhh,” he gushes. “There she is, the bride!” He claps his hands together and bounces up and down on his toes. “And where are the bridesmaids? Where is the champagne? Am I too early?”
“Oh.” I grab my dressing gown from the hook and wrap it around my body, tying the belt at the front and slipping into the seat in front of my dressing table. “I … I don’t think there are any bridesmaids.”
He cocks his head to one side and looks at me. “You don’t think so?”
“My mother’s done most of the organising and it’s all been quite quick.”
Sadie laughs as he pumps moisturiser onto a cotton bud. “You don’t say! The last time I was here you were still dating guys. I didn’t think there was anyone on the horizon! But I know these things can happen, you meet a guy, he sweeps you off your feet –”
“No one swept me off my feet,” I mumble as he lifts my chin and smooths the cool liquid across my skin.
“Hmmm. This all sounds very intriguing!” He waggles his eyebrows. “I sense a story here.”
“I … I …” My vision swims as water pools in my eyes.
Don’t cry Alexa! Don’t cry!
“Hey,” Sadie reaches behind him and plucks a tissue from the box on my desk. “A little early for the tears. But get them out of the way now before I do your make-up.” He dabs at the corner of my eyes and smiles. I try to smile back, but it shakes on my lips. Sadie drops onto my desk and crosses his arms over his chest. “Right,” he says, “I’m sensing these aren’t tears of happiness then. What’s up, sweetie pie? Better out than in, in my experience.”
I want to tell him, I really do. Heaven knows why. I hardly know the man really. But I’ve had no one else to talk to apart from Claude and I’m so desperate to get all this off my chest.
I force myself not to. I’m forbidden, aren’t I?
“Would you like me to fetch your mum instead?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head, my wet hair slapping against my neck.
“Let me guess …” He narrows his eyes, inspecting me. “You are not happy about this wedding.”
I nibble on my lip.
“I’m going to take that as a yes, unless you want to contradict me.”
I shake my head, unable to stop myself.
“The gossip circulating is that he’s knocked you up,” he tells me. “Hence the reason for the shotgun wedding.” His eyes drift to my stomach and my hands rest there.
“Oh no!” I gasp. “We haven’t even, you know.”
His perfectly manicured eyebrows leap up to his forehead.
“Shit, sweetie pie, I have to say that is not wise. You need to test the man out,” he rolls his hand through the air, “What happens if he’s rubbish in bed?”
I shudder at the thought of going to bed with Simon Stanford.
Sadie shifts on the desk. “Oh my. That’s not good. That wasn’t one of those good omega shudders.”
My eyes fall to the floor. “No,” I admit, “it wasn’t.”
Sadie is quiet for a moment, his fingernails drumming against my dressing table. “Then why are we marrying him?”
I sigh. I shouldn’t tell this man the truth. Yet I can’t keep it hidden, the words come tumbling from my mouth. “They’re making me.” My eyes flick to the mirror, searching the reflection for anyone hovering near the door.
To his credit, Sadie’s face remains passive, but I see the way his throat bobs. He leans a little towards me and whispers, “who? Your parents? They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”
I twist the tie of my dressing gown between my hands, gripping the material so tightly it burns against my fingers. “They can.”
Sadie frowns. “I know it may seem that way because you’re young, but this is your life, sweetie pie, you get to choose what you want to do.” He crosses his legs and leans back a little. “My dad used to be uptight when he wanted to be. Used to like bossing my mum around. Tried to do the same to me. Wanted me to settle down with a nice alpha woman. But you see, women aren’t my thing, and he didn’t like that. I left. And I can tell you, I’m much happier, and doing just fine thank you very much. I’ve no doubt you’d be just fine too. I know they feed you all this bull about omegas not being able to look after themselves,” he rolls his eyes, “about alphas being dangerous and depraved. But hey,” he grins, “that’s what makes them fun!”
I laugh. It’s the first time I have in two days. But the sound quickly fades on my lips. “It’s not like that,” I say. “If I could, I would just get up and walk away, but …”
