Page 45 of Knot Gonna Lie (Syzygy Omegaverse #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY

ELARA

Jaxom’s cabin wrapped around me like borrowed clothes—functional, worn at the edges, honest in its simplicity.

I traced a seam in the metal wall, feeling the faint vibration of the ship’s systems beneath my fingers.

Everything here spoke of restraint, of making do.

The narrow fold-down bunk, the single viewport, the recycled air with its faint metallic tang—this was the life of someone who wasn’t rare, who carved meaning out of limits.

But his scent… it lingered everywhere. Cedar smoke. Distant storms. Wild and untamed, pulling at something deep in my omega instincts.

“Homey.” The word slipped out awkward, clumsy on my tongue. His face flickered with hurt before he masked it, and guilt clawed at me. He didn’t know—couldn’t know—what “home” meant when luxury was only a gilded cage.

“It’s not much.” His voice carried an apology I wanted to erase with my hands, my mouth, my whole being.

“But it’s yours .”

I stepped farther inside, breath catching at how he’d shaped scarcity into art.

Surfaces folded into each other with practical grace: a desk that became a table, storage sunk into walls, a bed that vanished to make space.

Above, holographic 3D displays drifted in layered constellations—streams of numbers, glowing lines bending to his touch.

“You’re still working.” The timestamp glowed past midnight, and exhaustion shadowed his hazel eyes.

The bed dipped as I sat, the fabric practical and durable, nothing like the silk sheets the Matron insisted would keep our skin soft for our future alphas.

As if our worth lived in the texture of our flesh.

“Someone has to hold the threads.” He moved to the displays like a conductor taking his place, hands sweeping through glowing data that bent to his will.

“Luca spins deals from nothing, Seth dreams medical inventions. This—” he gestured, data shifting at his command—”this is how I care for the clan. By making sure we never go without.”

The certainty in his movements was its own seduction. Not duty. Devotion, written in the language of numbers and preparation.

“Show me your universe.” The words emerged soft as prayer.

Surprise softened his features, vulnerability shining through. “You want to understand my systems?”

I drifted closer, until our edges blurred. “I want to understand how you transform anxiety and fear into armor, how you weave protection from numbers and projections.”

The displays shifted at his command, peeling back layers like flower petals opening to moonlight.

Color bloomed through the data—crimson warnings for supplies running low like blood through veins, emerald rivers marked abundance, golden threads connecting possibility to possibility in a web that spoke of profound, unspoken care.

“This is your love language.” The revelation tasted like honey on my tongue. “Written in algorithms that ensure plenty, in preparations that guard against our clan’s future. To make sure we don’t go without…”

His breath fractured. Fingers trembled over a manifest suddenly more poetry than data written in light. “No one has ever—” He swallowed. “They see the anxious beta who panics over numbers, not... this.”

“I see the guardian who stands watch over our tomorrows.” I touched one projection, watching ripples spread like disturbed water. “This isn’t anxiety. This is love, written in mathematics.”

He turned fully toward me, expression breaking open—hope, hunger, recognition. The look of someone being truly seen, perhaps for the first time since he learned to hide behind numbers and necessity.

“Nova understood.” Her name fell between us heavy as a dying star. “My sister. Before the station claimed her.”

Grief moved through his voice like frost on glass.

“Tell me about her. Paint her for me.”

“She was—is—brilliant enough to make AIs weep with envy.” The correction came quick, desperate, as if the wrong tense might make her loss crystallize into unchangeable truth.

“Could calculate trajectory corrections while humming songs from Old Earth, turning mathematics into melody. When her scent bloomed omega-sweet, they came with contracts that looked like promises. And I—” His voice shattered like winter ice.

“I stood there. Silent. Watched our parents sign her away like she was cargo to be transferred between ports.”

“You were young, caught in systems bigger than any one person could fight.”

“I was a coward dressed in youth’s convenient excuse.

I should’ve fought.” Bitterness corroded his words.

“When Luca offered me escape disguised as opportunity, I took it. Fled to the stars while she remained caged in station walls, waiting for an alpha who might never emerge from the void to claim her.”

“But we will help her… I promise.” I frowned. “But don’t you ever wonder, why you never hear of omegas owning businesses?”

His silence was answer enough. We both knew the lies—omegas were meant to be pampered, sheltered. Ash on my tongue.

Omegas were meant to keep alphas in check… only those wealthy enough to pay the tithe and follow the laws were allowed a chance to enter The Den.

We were pampered, brought up uneducated, to be used as pawns… and then treated as property. Finding Luca was a blessing from the stars itself, and led me to this amazing clan… to this amazing man.

“The scanners stealing children the second they bloomed. The education built to create decoration, not determination. The Matron calling it protection while she counted credits.” My hands shook.

He caught them, steadying. His scent—cedar driftwood rolling upon the waves on a beach—grounded me.

“We know that the ratio’s off,” I whispered. “Every year fewer omegas, more desperate alphas. Supply and demand. Biology turned into market scarcity.”

The unspoken word hung heavy. War.

It was only time before a powerful alpha challenge everything—and for others to join the rebellion.

“I refuse to let my role decide my future.” The vow erupted, fierce. “Why shouldn’t I start my own business?”

His eyes softened. “Luca would fund whatever you wanted. He’d back you.”

Warmth bloomed in my chest—real, not the artificial sweetness the station trained us to perform.

“I could help with inventory,” Jaxom added carefully. “With logistics. If you want.”

“I would love that.”

“Before they took her, Nova had an idea,” he said. “A system that could help betas and omegas find alphas who actually fit them—scent matches, compatibility beyond contracts. She wanted to stop betas from being left unclaimed, unmated. The Lost Ones the government pretends not to see.”

His hands moved through the projections as if shaping the memory into light.

“Betas desperate for a clan. Omegas trapped in stations. Alphas searching for more than just status. She believed data could bridge the gaps—show us where we belonged before desperation or the matrons’ contracts swallowed us whole. ”

His throat worked, grief pressing through. “It was her way of fighting back. A way to keep people from being forgotten…. But then she was forced to become a part of the corrupted system.”

His sister’s dream lit the air between us—software to match tablets with alphas, systems designed to help betas expand their clans. Innovation born before she was forced into captivity.

“She’d be welcome here,” I said, touching his hip in promise. Reality bit back—an unclaimed omega would fracture our fragile peace. Instinct always won. The system made sure of it. “But she would need to be claimed by an alpha first.” I leaned closer. “But her idea… I love to collaborate with her.”

His shock pleased me. Too many expected omegas to dream small. But captivity bred elaborate escapes. Nova understood. So did I.

Two omegas refusing competition. Choosing collaboration. Building bridges the matrons never designed. Rewriting the narrative we’d been force-fed since our scents turned sweet.

Here in his cabin, I felt the stirrings of revolution—not with weapons, but with code and choice.

“Wouldn’t you think it would be a nice idea to have your sister and me working together?”

“Yes, it would,” Jaxom whispered, his gaze searching mine. “But she’s still there, trapped behind those walls.”

We needed to find an alpha for Nova who was willing to take her gamma Alleria too.

“Don’t feel guilty about your sister. We will save her,” I told him. “Your own survival isn’t cowardice. It’s rebellion against a universe that wants us to crumble into stardust.”

“Is it?” His laugh was bitter. “I’ve spent years perfecting systems, praying to numbers, making myself useful but never essential.

Knowing that I can continue to do what I enjoy, with a clan that I love, while she’s been stripped of the future she’d always dreamed of.

Never deserving an omega’s consideration. Never—”

I silenced him with my mouth, swallowing doubt, turning poison into medicine.

For one heartbeat he froze, then he shattered into motion, responding with the force of storms breaking against cliffs.

His hands found my hair, tangling in the strands like he was anchoring himself to something real, something present, as he pressed me back against his desk.

Data constellations erupted, painting us in sapphire flame and molten gold. His mouth devoured mine with desperate reverence, tasting of hurricanes and want, of years believing he lived only in margins of other people’s stories.

This wasn’t the tentative kiss of the mess hall. This was claiming and being claimed.

My instincts roared awake, recognizing not just desire but necessity . I needed his steadiness like roots needed soil. His devotion like stars needed night.

“Elara.” My name broke from him when we tore apart for breath, each syllable a vow.

“You catalogue everything,” I whispered against his throat. “Every resource, every fraction. But you’ve never counted your own worth.”

His hands shook on my waist. “I don’t know how—”

“You’re mine. ” The declaration burned through me, primal and fierce. “My pack. My beta. Mine to keep.”

“I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.” His confession fractured, raw. “Even when I thought I didn’t deserve you.”

“No more waiting,” I breathed, pressing our foreheads together. “No more yearning, and pretending you’re just the clan’s inventory manager.”

“Luca—”

“Knows.” I touched our alpha’s claim on my neck. “He can sense everything and would’ve stopped the dare if he had a problem with it. Seth all but pushed me toward you. They know it’s my choice. And I choose you.”

His arms closed around me, erasing space. “The others will understand. Xavier—”

“Xavier thinks I’m nothing but a disruption.” I traced my mark, sending Luca my happiness. “He doesn’t matter. What I feel for you eclipses any judgment the universe might offer.”

Through my bond with Luca, warmth pulsed. Not jealousy. Satisfaction. Pride in his omega claiming what she needed to feel complete.

“Stay with me tonight?”