Page 17 of Knot Their Safe Haven (The Omega Rebellion Movement #3)

"Your breathing changed when she mentioned paralysis. Your heart rate spiked when she talked about them not claiming you." A pause, then quieter, "And you always did have tells when you were eavesdropping, even seventeen years ago."

Seventeen years.

My mind raced, trying to place the voice, the presence, the authority that let him claim me without hesitation. The math aligned too perfectly with the text messages, with memories of French lessons and inappropriate honesty.

Alessandro.

It couldn't be. That boy was gone, had disappeared into European universities and family businesses and whatever life billion-dollar heirs lived. He couldn't be here, couldn't be the one who'd?—

Fingers brushed my cheek, and even through the numbness, I felt it. Warm. Real. Calloused in ways that suggested he did more with his hands than sign documents.

"They're cowards, you know." His thumb traced my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "All of them. Standing in that hallway, arguing about who had the right to make decisions, who should sign papers, what would happen if word got out. As if your life was less important than their reputations."

The fury in his voice was quiet but absolute. The kind of anger that didn't need volume to be terrifying.

"Twenty years, Velvet. They've had twenty fucking years to claim you properly, and they couldn't even do it when you were dying."

Was I dying? Had I been that close?

"Knox kept saying it was complicated. That there were considerations, responsibilities, that you wouldn't want them to make it official under duress." A harsh laugh. "As if letting you potentially die paralyzed was somehow more respectful of your autonomy."

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 fingers interlaced 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.

I’m so fucking done with men who loved me in shadows but couldn't claim me in light.

No more fucking cowards.

"We're here," someone announced, and the movement stopped. Bright lights penetrated even my closed eyelids. The surgical suite, probably. Where they'd try to put me back together, to fix what the fall had broken.

"You'll have to wait outside now, Mr. Devereaux."

Devereaux. Alessandro Lucien Devereaux.

The name echoed through my consciousness like a bell, confirming what I'd suspected. The boy who'd looked at me like I was worth wanting had become a man who claimed me without hesitation.

"Velvet." His voice was close to my ear again, just for me. "I know you're stubborn enough to die just to spite someone, but if you die on that table, I'll find you in whatever afterlife you believe in and drag you back. You're mine now. Act accordingly."

The audacity of it— the sheer, breathtaking arrogance —should have infuriated me.

Instead, something else bloomed in my chest.

Something that felt dangerously like hope.

His lips pressed to my forehead, lingering just long enough to be a promise rather than a goodbye. Then his hand slipped from mine, and I was being wheeled away, into bright lights and medical voices and whatever came next.

But his words followed me into the darkness that rose to claim me again.

"You're mine now."

Not maybe. Or eventually. Not after twenty more years of careful dancing.

Now.

As consciousness fled, as drugs pulled me under into nothingness, I held onto that word like a lifeline.

Now.

Present tense.

No conditions, hesitation, or fear.

When I woke up— if I woke up— things would be different.

The men who'd circled me for decades without landing would find themselves on the outside, looking in at something they'd been too cowardly to claim. And Alessandro Devereaux, who'd waited seventeen years to make his move, would learn exactly what kind of woman he'd claimed.

The kind who didn't forgive cowardice.

Who didn't accept half-measures.

One who’d been dying slowly for twenty years and had just been given a reason to live.

The anesthesia mask covered my face, and someone was counting backward from ten. But all I could think about were emerald eyes in dark water, and how sometimes salvation came from the most unexpected places.

"You're mine now."

Yes, I thought as darkness claimed me completely.

But more importantly?—

You might be mine too.

The last thought before nothing was of French conjugations, dangerous smiles, and a boy who'd grown into a man who did what needed to be done.

Alessandro Lucien Devereaux.

The name tasted like future on a tongue that couldn't move.

Like possibility in a body that might not work.

Resonated with hope in a heart that had forgotten how to hope.

Mine.

Darkness.

Complete and absolute.

But for the first time in twenty years, it didn't feel like drowning.

I was diving deep, knowing someone would pull you back up.

Like finally being caught after decades of falling.

"You're mine now."

Yes.

Finally.

I’m yours…