Page 25 of Knot Their Safe Haven

Adyani would have left poetry.

Malcolm left me clean sheets and the ghost of orgasms that actually satisfied.

I leaned against the bathroom counter, studying the love bites that trailed down my neck and disappeared beneath my robe. My fingers found the tender spots on my hips where his hands had gripped too tight, the slight soreness between my legs that spoke of more than fingers this time. He'd fucked me properly last night, probably couldn't help himself after watching me fail to find satisfaction alone.

She knew he liked to watch her.

The surveillance thing was just a precaution. At least at first with all the death threats and countless attempts to shut the Haven down, but the years went by, and the lines began to blur with him enjoying watching me more through that little hidden lens, as if I was doing something life changing than sipping on endless glasses of wine and fucking unsatisfied self with my fingers until their prune and aching.

The thought should have disgusted me or send me into a raging fit straight to his office, demanding explanations, or hell, threatening exposure because why would an Alpha want to fuck me asleep but not commit to me when I’m awake.

Instead, I felt that familiar cocktail of relief and shame that had become my morning after routine.

Relief because my body wasn't screaming with need for once.

Shame because this was what we'd been reduced to—stolen moments in the darkness, pleasure taken and given while I pretended to sleep.

Sometimes I wondered if he knew that I knew.

If he'd noticed the way I'd started taking the pills earlier on nights when the ache became unbearable. The way I'd switched to prettier nightgowns, silk that slipped aside easier than cotton. The way I'd stopped double-locking my door.

We were all such fucking cowards.

The phone rang, shrill and demanding, dragging me from my spiral of self-recrimination. I stumbled toward it, noting the way the room tilted slightly—residual effects from last night's pharmaceutical cocktail, probably. My hand closed around the device just as another wave of dizziness hit, forcing me to grip the dresser for support.

"Yes?"

"Ms. Morclair?" My secretary's voice was carefully professional, but I could hear the underlying concern. "I wanted to confirm you're still planning to attend the 2 PM meeting regarding the policy updates for the Haven expansion?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to focus through the fog.

Policy meeting. Right. The boring bureaucratic bullshit that came with changing the world.

"Yes, why?"

"Well, ma'am..." She hesitated, and my stomach dropped. "It's currently 2:17."

My eyes snapped to the clock on my nightstand, the digital display mocking me with its afternoon timestamp.

"Shit." The word escaped before I could stop it, professional composure crumbling. "I?—"

"I've already informed them you're stuck in traffic due to an accident on the highway," she interrupted smoothly. "Gave them specific timestamps and everything. You should have approximately twenty minutes before your arrival would seem suspicious."

God bless efficient secretaries who could lie with more skill than politicians.

"Thank you, Marina. I'll be there."

I hung up and flew toward the shower, shedding the cotton gown Malcolm had dressed me in—and wasn't that a mindfuck, knowing his hands had been all over me, cleaning and caring forme even after using me. The water scalded my sensitive skin, but I didn't have time for gentle.

I had twenty minutes to transform from well-fucked mess to professional revolutionary.

The marks on my neck posed a problem.

Cover-up helped, but anyone who looked too close would see the telltale bruising. I selected a high-collared blouse in deep purple—my signature color that also happened to hide sins effectively. My hands shook as I applied makeup, trying to disguise the evidence of my twelve-hour pharmaceutical coma.

What would they think if they knew?

The Omega leaders who looked to me for strength, for guidance, for proof that we could exist without Alpha ownership. Would they still follow someone who let herself be fucked unconscious by an Alpha who didn't even have the courage to claim her properly? Would they understand the desperate need that drove me to this arrangement, or would they see it as the ultimate betrayal of everything we fought for?