Page 33 of Knot Their Safe Haven

"How many fingers am I holding up?" He raised his hand in front of my face, and the concern in his eyes made my chest tight.

I rolled my eyes, pushing past him toward the door.

But his hand caught my wrist, gentle but firm, the kind of hold I could break if I wanted to.

If I wanted to.

"You're not taking care of yourself lately."

The observation hit too close to home, and I yanked my wrist free with perhaps more violence than necessary.

"Whose problem is that? Mine. Not yours."

"It is my problem."

"No, it's not." The words came out bitter, years of frustration distilled into syllables. "The only problem I have is you won't go off and commit to an Omega instead of continuing this odd dance of yes-no-maybe-so we're playing."

"Why do you keep bringing this up?"

The genuine frustration in his voice almost made me laugh.

How could someone so intelligent be so fundamentally stupid about something so simple?

"Maybe because the looming reality that I'm going to be forty and I'm still packless is finally nagging me like a ticking timebomb." My voice rose with each word, control slipping through my fingers like water. "And I'm fucking tired of you asking me stupid shit when you know exactly what I want."

"Velvet..."

My name on his lips, soft and pained and everything I couldn't afford to hear right now.

I spun to face him, letting him see everything—the exhaustion, the want, the barely-contained fury that had been building for twenty years.

"Are you going to wait until I have no Omega traits left to finally say I'm yours?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

No words came out, and that silence—that fucking silence—said everything.

The anger drained out of me all at once, leaving nothing but bone-deep weariness. I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking deep breaths that did nothing to calm the storm in my chest. When I spoke again, my voice was barely above a whisper.

"I love you, Knox. Love you more than anyone. Had a whole child because I love you." The words scraped my throat raw, twenty years of unspoken truths finally given voice. "And yet you don't love me enough to even pity that I'm wasting the remaining time as an Omega playing around with Alphas who will be there when I need it most but aren't at my side in any other aspect of my life?"

"It's not that simple?—"

"Yes, it is." I cut him off, the whisper turning sharp as broken glass. "It's so fucking simple you're overthinking it like it's the hardest equation you've ever tried to solve."

I turned toward the door, needing distance before I said something we couldn't come back from.

Or worse—before I broke down entirely.

"We just need more time."

His words stopped me at the threshold.

More time.

Always more time.

As if we had an infinite supply, as if my body wasn't already showing signs of the expiration date society had stamped on my forehead the day I'd presented as an Omega.