Page 103 of Knotted By my Pack

She stares at me, lips parted, eyes wide like I just quoted poetry instead of a lecture I gave once to a group of ten-year-olds. “That’s actually… beautiful,” she says. “You’re smart.”

I look at her, then cup the back of her neck and pull her in. “Glad you think that,” I murmur, brushing my lips against hers, “because you drive me stupid.”

She melts into the kiss, all soft lips and warm breath. I press her against a tree, my palm sliding beneath her sweater, on the bare skin of her waist.

She sighs into my mouth, and the sound curls straight through me. I groan low and nip at her bottom lip.

“Don’t do that,” I whisper against her mouth.

“Do what?” she says, all innocent, her eyes gleaming as she tilts her hips into mine.

“That sound,” I growl. “You do that and we’re not finishing this hike.”

She smiles again, like she knows exactly what she’s doing. But then her expression shifts. Serious. Conflicted. “There’s something else,” she says.

I lean back just enough to see her face. “What is it?”

“I didn’t just sleep with Julian,” she says quietly. “He… knotted me.”

A beat passes. Then another. I exhale through my nose, brush her cheek with my thumb.

Her eyes don’t leave mine, but I can see the tightness in her jaw, the way she’s waiting for the shift.

“So Noah and Julian have,” I say, not as a question.

“Yeah,” she whispers.

I nod, then lean in and kiss her again, slower this time, deeper. Not a reaction. A choice. She sighs against my mouth, and I hold her there, let the kiss linger, let it tell her what I can’t explain out loud. Not yet.

“Does that change… I mean… do you want to stop…”

“I’m still here,” I murmur when we part. “If you want me.”

She doesn’t say anything, but her fingers curl into my shirt, pulling me closer. That’s answer enough.

We stand there in the quiet woods, sun slipping through the canopy. Rusty barks somewhere up ahead, probably chasing a squirrel.

Eventually, we start walking again.

30

CORA

The sun filters through the canopy in dappled patches that flicker across Elias’s shoulders.

He walks beside me, steps even and sure. He’s quiet, but not distant. That’s something. At least he isn’t pulling away like I half-expected him to. After everything I just told him. After everything I did.

His hand brushes against mine occasionally, not quite holding it, but close enough that I know he’s still here.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say quietly.

He glances over, not startled. Just patient. Waiting.

“I mean... as far as I know, you’re the only one who’s ever had a mate. A real one. The rest of us are just... improvising.”

His mouth twitches like he wants to say something, but instead he stops walking and digs into his backpack. “What do you want to know?” he asks, pulling out a crumpled bag of treats.

Before I can answer, Rusty comes tearing through the trees like a streak of gold. He skids to a stop in front of us, tongue lolling and eyes bright, and devours the treats from Elias’s palm before disappearing again, back into the underbrush like some enchanted forest creature.