Page 44 of Knot Their Safe Haven

His hand moved to my hair, fingers carding through the tangled strands with a familiarity that shouldn't exist. We'd never touched like this. The boy I'd tutored had maintained careful distance, all heated looks and verbal innuendo but never actual contact.

"Malcolm was worse. Standing there with his medical degree and his ethics, explaining how he couldn't authorize treatment himself due to personal involvement. How it would be a violation of professional standards." Another laugh, darker this time. "But fucking you while you're unconscious was apparently within ethical bounds."

He knew about that?

"And the woman—Adyani, I believe—she was beautiful in her fury. Ranting in three languages about bureaucracy and regulations. But when the moment came to sign her name, to claim you officially?" He paused, and I could hear the smile in his voice, sharp as winter. "She said she needed to think about it. That you deserved to have a choice when you woke up."

Each word was a knife between ribs I couldn't feel. They'd all been here. All of them. Faced with the possibility of my death or paralysis, and still—still—they couldn't commit.

"Your son was the only one with any balls." His tone warmed slightly. "Tried to forge paperwork, actually. Would have worked too if he hadn't tried to claim you as his Omega instead of his mother. Amateur mistake, since he already has an Omega on the system with his pack, but points for effort."

Icarus. My beautiful, reckless boy.

"So I did what they couldn't." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, intimate as a secret. "I claimed you. My pack's Omega, under my protection, my responsibility. The paperwork's already being processed. Surgery within the hour to fix what can be fixed."

He leaned closer—I could feel his breath against my ear, warm and real and alive.

"And when you wake up—really wake up—you can rage at me all you want. Scream about consent and choice and autonomy. But you'll wake up able to walk, able to move, able to leave if that's what you want." His lips brushed my temple, the ghost of a kiss. "Because that's what someone who actually loves you does. They act. Even if it costs them everything."

The door opened, multiple footsteps entering. Medical staff, from the sound of it—efficient movement, quiet directions about prep and transport.

"Sir, we need to take her now," the doctor from before said.

"I'm coming with her."

"That's not?—"

"I'm her Alpha." The words rang with finality. "I stay."

No one argued.

As they prepared to move me, as machinery whirred and IV lines were checked, I felt his hand find mine. His fingersinterlaced with mine, and even through the drugs, through the numbness, through everything—I felt it.

"I've been waiting seventeen years to save you from your misery, Velvet," he whispered, too low for anyone else to hear. "Don't you dare die before I get the chance."

They started moving the bed, wheels squeaking slightly against linoleum. His hand never left mine, his presence a constant as we moved through what sounded like endless hallways. Others were talking—medical terminology I couldn't quite grasp, something about spine and nerves and windows of opportunity.

But all I could focus on was the weight of his hand in mine. The easy way he'd claimed me. The fury in his voice when he'd talked about the others' cowardice.

"She is my Omega."

Four words.

Suddenly, I remember what actually happened. The week long silence. The ignored calls and text messages. Locked doors, denial of flowers. Avoidance of the gym. I was sitting in traffic, feeling sorry for my predicament and thinking about regrets, confronting that stranger’s text before the bomb went off.

And now here I was, about to be denied care…no life-saving surgery that would ensure I wasn’t a regretful disabled, geriatric Omega because finally, someone had the boldness to say those four words.

Four words none of them had been able to say in twenty years with confidence.

It had taken a ghost from my past—a boy I'd taught French when he was too young and I was too desperate—to do what three grown Alphas couldn't.

And when I wake up, when I can move again, when I can speak...

The thought crystalized with perfect clarity, sharp as broken glass and twice as dangerous.

I'm done. This merry-go-round of misery…is over with.

It’s over with Knox and his eternal hesitation, Malcolm and his nighttime visits that meant nothing in daylight, and no more with Adyani and her perfect timing that never quite aligned.