Page 24 of Down Knot Out (Pack Alphas of Misty Pines #3)

Chapter Fifteen

Chloe

W armth envelops me, chasing away the lingering fragments of nightmares as I wake slowly.

Dominic’s arms encircle me, his chest a solid wall of heat at my back, his breath stirring the fine hairs at my nape in a steady rhythm of untroubled sleep. The bond hums between us, no longer the faint whisper it once was but a persistent, vibrating chord that resonates in my very marrow.

I lie still, savoring the weight of his arm across my waist, the way our bodies fit together, two halves of a whole. My mind drifts to last night, to the taste of him on my tongue, the sound of my name in his mouth as he came undone, and heat blooms low in my belly at the memory.

If I had been in Heat last night, if his teeth had broken the skin at my nape, I have no doubt we would be bondmates now. The thought should terrify me after so many years of hurt, but instead, it settles in my chest, heavy with possibility.

Behind me, Dominic stirs. His arm tightens around my waist, drawing me closer until not even air exists between us. His lips brush my temple.

“Morning.” Sleep roughens the greeting. “How are you feeling?”

Such a simple question, yet it catches me off guard. How am I feeling? Physically satisfied, my emotions raw, and uncertain about so many things that have nothing to do with the man holding me.

“I’m not sure,” I answer honestly.

His body tenses, muscles going rigid. Even his breathing stops, as if he’s bracing himself for rejection.

I twist in his arms to face him, my palm sliding up to cup his stubbled cheek. “Not about what happened between us last night. I’m very sure about that.”

Relief washes over his features, the tension melting away.

My fingers trace the ridge of his cheekbone. “It’s everything else I’m unsure about.”

Dominic’s brow furrows. “Everything else?” His hand finds mine, fingers interlacing with a familiarity that closes our years apart. “Does that include bonding with the pack?”

The question hangs between us, heavier than it should be. I should say no. I want to, but the words stick in my throat, tangled with complications I haven’t shared yet.

My silence stretches too long, and Dominic’s expression shifts, not to anger but to a careful neutrality that hurts more.

“Chloe.” He cups the back of my head, fingers threading into my tangled hair. “Look at me, please.”

I meet his eyes, seeing the vulnerability beneath the strength. This Alpha who faced down his mother’s rejection rather than abandon his friends, is afraid I’ll reject him after coming this far.

I sit up in the bed. “I need to tell you something.”

The cool morning air prickles my skin, and I pull the sheet with me, tucking it under my arms before grabbing my pillow and hugging it to my chest.

Dominic follows suit, bracing his back on the headboard. The movement causes the sheet to slip down, exposing the sculpted planes of his chest and abdomen. Last night, I had mapped every inch of that skin with my hands and mouth, relearning the texture and taste of him.

A trail of dark hair disappears beneath the bunched sheet at his waist, and my breath hitches at the sight, betraying my thoughts.

“If you keep looking at me like that,” Dominic rumbles, “we’re going to have a repeat of last night.”

Heat rushes to my face, burning along my cheekbones and down my neck. The lilac and lily of my pheromones spike, filling the air between us with unmistakable desire.

Dominic groans, a low, pained sound that vibrates in his chest. His hands fist in the blankets, yanking them higher over his lap, and he raises one knee to tent the bedding, but it fails to hide the evidence of his growing interest.

“Sorry,” I mumble, though I’m not sorry at all.

The bond between us pulses in time with my heartbeat, urging me to cast aside the pillow, to straddle his lap and chase the pleasure we found together in the dark.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, his handsome features showing the strain of holding back. “Just say what you need to say before I forget all about my doctor’s orders.”

Despite everything, laughter bubbles up. “Is that what you were doing last night? Following the doctor’s orders?”

His smirk sends my pulse racing. “I was lying down and letting you do all the work. That’s as close as I’m going to get to following directions now that I’m allowed to touch you again.” His expression sobers. “But right now, you said you needed to tell me something?”

And just like that, reality crashes back.

I clutch the pillow tighter and steel myself. “I do. And I’m not sure how it will change things between us.”

Concern darkens his features. “Nothing can change my love for you.”

I want to believe that with my whole heart. But the truth I’m about to share has already changed everything for me. It’s rewritten my past and threatens to reshape my future in ways I’m still struggling to comprehend.

“I hope that’s true.” I lean over to grab my cell phone from the nightstand.

My fingers tremble as I unlock the screen and navigate to my email, finding the message I’ve stared at for weeks now, trying to figure out what it means for everything I thought I knew about myself.

When I find it, I take a deep breath. My thumb hovers over the screen for a heartbeat before I open the email from the Omega Registration Center that confirms I am, and have always been, a Sinclair.

I hand the phone to Dominic, watching his face as he reads. His brows draw together at first in confusion, then rise in disbelief. The muscles in his jaw tighten, a vein pulsing at his temple. His scent shifts, the citrus notes sharpening with a bitter spike of anger.

“What the fuck is this?” The words come out flat, controlled, but his knuckles whiten around my phone.

“My official registration,” I say, the words thick in my throat. “It arrived after everything that happened with Louie. I think it’s the reason he was so fixated on me, why my mother still wants me married into the Santaro pack. I’m just not sure how it all works together.”

Dominic scans the screen again, as if searching for some flaw, some evidence that what he’s seeing isn’t real.

When he finishes, fury burns in his gray eyes, not directed at me but at the world that has played us both. “So, you’re telling me that you were a Sinclair all along? That all of it, your father disowning you, my mother forcing us apart, you being vulnerable to Louie… All of it was for nothing ?”

I pull my knees closer to my chest, the pillow clutched tighter. “It appears so.”

“How is this possible?” His voice rises. “Your father made it very clear you weren’t a Sinclair. My mother wouldn’t have let me go so easily if you were. She wanted Sinclair connections more than anything.”

“There’s more.” I reach for the phone, my fingers brushing his as I take it back.

I swipe to my photos and find the picture I took of the letter, crisp cream stationery with embossed gold letterhead that screams old money. The Sinclair & Associates Law Firm, requesting my presence to discuss matters of inheritance and pack status.

I hand the phone back, watching Dominic’s expression darken further as he reads.

“When did you receive this?” he demands.

“A few days ago.” My hands twist in the blanket. “It came in the mail. They know where I am. They’ve probably known all along where to find me.”

“Is this what’s been bothering you the past couple of weeks?” His brow furrows. “Why didn’t you tell us? Tell me? ”

The questions aren’t accusatory, but they still cut deep.

“I needed to sort through my feelings first.” I hug the pillow tighter, though it offers little comfort.

“I spent ten years believing I wasn’t a Sinclair, Dom.

Ten years of picking up all the pieces of who I thought I was and building a new life around that knowledge.

Finding out my mother falsified my registration, that I’ve been lied to by everyone… ”

I take a shaky breath. “It’s like every time I think I’ve figured things out, like I can move forward, the ground gets ripped out from under me and puts me back at rock bottom.”

Understanding softens his features, and he sets the phone aside to reach for my hand.

“I don’t know how to feel about any of this,” I continue, “I was already struggling after what happened with Louie. And now I don’t know what this means for who I am. Who I’ve been all this time.”

His thumb traces slow circles on my wrist, a grounding touch that gives me courage.

“When my mom ambushed me at the doctor’s office, she told me—” My breath catches, and I swallow hard “She told me my real father rejected the pregnancy. That he wanted nothing to do with me from the beginning. That she listed Augustus as my father, but he’d never been Alpha enough to impregnate her. ”

I give him a helpless look. “What does that even mean? His older brother is impotent, so does it run in the family, and he just didn’t realize it? But, for whatever reason, she had an affair within the Sinclair pack, and that man didn’t want me.”

Dominic’s scent flares again, protective and fierce. “Chloe, you can’t believe anything Vivian says. She’ll manipulate you to get whatever she can. You know that.”

“I do.” Tears blur my vision. “Logically, I do. But emotionally? She hit every one of my insecurities, and then there’s this letter, asking me to come discuss my ‘inheritance’ and ‘rightful place’ in the pack. After I spent my entire adult life thinking I had neither.”

He shifts closer, his arm sliding around my shoulders to pull me to his side. “Why would they reach out now? After all this time?”

“They must have found out about my updated registration.” I rest my head on his shoulder, drawing comfort from his steady presence. “This is their preemptive attack.”

“And this is how they do it?” His lips brush my temple. “Fucking assholes. ”