Page 43 of Knotted By my Pack (North Coast Omegaverse #3)

NOAH

I’ve built houses with my bare hands. Spent fourteen-hour days laying concrete, hauling beams, pouring sweat into the foundation of other people’s futures.

I’ve broken my back for this town, quietly, steadily. And now I’m running for assistant mayor. The irony is not lost on me.

Lockwood’s face had gone slack when Cora made the announcement.

The kind of angry you can’t hide even with years of political training. He looked ready to burst out of his suit and bellow about protocol.

About legitimacy. About how ridiculous it was that a man with dirt under his nails and zero political experience might take his place. He tried to fight it, of course.

Claimed we were inciting unrest. That the council needed time to verify my candidacy. That appointing an interim assistant mayor through public endorsement was irregular at best.

But the town wasn’t buying it anymore. Not after the stunt he pulled with the paid vandals. Not with Vance Development’s name getting dragged into the dirt. And definitely not with Cora standing like a one-woman revolution in front of everyone.

We left that meeting with momentum on our side.

And now, everything’s moving fast. Through Jake’s help, the council set a special election for next month—under pressure.

They didn’t want it, but they couldn’t ignore the outcry. Not when a dozen fishermen stood outside the town hall the next morning with signs made from old boat wood.

Not when Cora and the guys hit every porch and shopfront with homemade flyers and tight, practiced talking points. We weren’t just some rogue group of mates anymore.

We’re a team. A campaign. A threat to everything Lockwood had built on backdoor deals and bribes.

I’ve had men offer to volunteer crews from my company. Told them no—Julian’s the one with the resort development, not me.

That clarification has to be made almost every time someone gives me a sideways look. I’ve had to repeat it enough that it’s practically a reflex.

Julian’s tried to stop it, made his calls, pulled strings, but his father dug in deeper. Construction’s still happening at the harbor. Steel frame going up like a sore on the shore.

Every time I pass it, I want to tear it down with my teeth. But Julian’s not backing down. None of us are. We’re just shifting the fight.

We canvass every morning. Elias handles logistics and route mapping. Julian plays strategist—clean, polished, knows how to spin a message without making it sound fake. I shake hands.

Talk to the folks who never trusted Lockwood, the ones who stopped talking because they didn’t think it mattered.

I tell them it does. That I’ll listen. That I give a damn. And when I say it, they believe me.

By the time I make it to the bakery tonight, I’m running on fumes. Shirt sticking to me, boots dragging, jaw sore from talking.

My back’s tight. My eyes sting. My body’s begging for sleep, or at least a beer I don’t have to drink in public.

Cora meets me at the counter. Her hair’s pinned up messily, neck flushed from the heat of the kitchen. She’s still in that soft pink top that dips at the collar, and my gaze sticks there a second too long before I drag it back up.

“You look like shit,” she says sweetly, sliding a glass of water toward me.

I down it in one go. “That’s because I’m trying to save this goddamn town.”

“You’re doing a good job,” she murmurs, stepping around the counter. She presses a hand to my chest and peers up at me like she’s weighing something. “Want to feel better?”

I blink at her. “What?”

Her smile shifts into something lazy and knowing. She curls her fingers in the front of my jeans and tugs. “Back room.”

I glance around, but the place is empty. Lights low. Music off. “You’re serious?”

“You’ve been carrying everyone for days. Let me take care of you.”

It’s not a suggestion.

She leads me to the back. There’s flour dust on the table, a few baking trays stacked off to the side, and that’s about all I notice before she drops to her knees in front of me.

“You don’t have to—”

Her hands undo my belt, and she shushes me without a word. Her eyes flick up, dark and unflinching.

I let out a long breath. Rest one hand on the shelf behind me, the other in her hair.

She frees me from my jeans and wraps her hand around my cock, stroking slowly. It’s so intimate. Her thumb slides over the head, gathering slick, dragging it down.

The rhythm starts slow, steady, like she’s got all the time in the world.

I can’t look away from her. Her mouth parts slightly, like she’s thinking about using it, but she doesn’t. Just keeps her eyes on mine as her hand moves faster, tighter.

My legs start to lock. I’m not vocal. Never have been. But something breaks in me when her other hand presses against my thigh and her wrist flicks just right.

“Fuck, Cora!”

“Good,” she murmurs. “Let it go.”

I do. I jerk forward into her fist, groaning low, and she doesn’t stop until I’ve spilled across her knuckles, until I’m twitching and limp, barely able to catch my breath.

The door swings open behind us.

“Well, well,” Julian drawls. “What do we have here?”

I startle, tuck myself back in, but Cora doesn’t even flinch. She wipes her hand on a towel and gets to her feet like she just finished icing a tray of cookies.

Elias leans against the frame with a grin. “You do realize you’re a public figure now, right? Future assistant mayor can’t be getting caught getting his dick pulled in a bakery.”

Julian laughs, low and smug. “Imagine the headlines. Noah Callahan caught in a sticky situation—buns weren’t the only thing rising at Whisked tonight.”

“You assholes done?” I mutter, zipping up. My face is flushed, not from embarrassment, but because I actually needed that. Desperately.

Cora shrugs and heads toward the sink, washing her hands like she didn’t just reduce me to nothing with one palm. “Maybe you should install a lock on that door.”

Julian steps closer and slaps a hand on my shoulder. “You’re doing good, Callahan. The old man’s flailing. You’re making waves.”

“Even the fishermen are onboard,” Elias adds. “I think they’d go to war for you. Jake really is doing a great job campaigning for you.”

That hits differently. I nod slowly. “Yeah. They’ve got my back.”

Julian’s face softens just a little. “And we’ve got yours.”

It sticks with me. Later, after we’ve locked up, after the lights are off and the night creeps into the edges of the town, I think about that.

About how I never meant to lead anyone. Never wanted to be more than a man with tools and a decent reputation. But now, I’ve got a pack. A mate. A campaign. And a town that finally sees me.

Let’s see Lockwood try to stop us.

The week leading up to the election runs me ragged. We’re up before dawn and back home after midnight, feet blistered, palms worn from too many handshakes, voices hoarse from convincing people that change is possible.

Every time I look at Elias, he’s got a map rolled out, his finger tracing routes and neighborhoods, organizing the canvassers like a general before a siege. Julian is quieter, calculating, always two steps ahead.

His phone never leaves his hand. Cora has turned Whisked into our unofficial campaign headquarters, every surface stacked with pamphlets and donuts, volunteers spilling into the alley with clipboards and lists.

The tension in town is thick. Lockwood’s face is everywhere—billboards, benches, window signs—but there’s a stiffness to it now. His people look uneasy. Tired. Too clean in a town that knows how to smell bullshit.

You can feel the shift, the cracking of something old and untouchable. We’re getting through. Little by little, door by door, story by story.

Fishermen with salt-rough hands nod at me across the docks. Mothers in grocery aisles squeeze my arm and say thank you.

The younger crowd calls me “Mr. Noah” already, half-joking but not really. There’s hope clawing its way into the open.

By the time the polls open, I can barely breathe.

We walk together that morning. Me, Cora, Julian, Elias. No big speech. No campaign parade. Just us. Quiet and steady. When I mark my name on that ballot, something in my chest clenches.

The hours crawl.

We wait in the bakery. Volunteers pour in and out, dropping updates, numbers from districts. It’s tight. Closer than any of us wanted.

There’s food on the tables that no one touches. Coffee cups scattered and cold. Cora doesn’t sit once.

Julian keeps flipping a pen through his fingers, gaze distant. Elias stares out the window like he’s willing the town to behave.

When the sun starts to dip, we head to the community center for the official count. It’s packed. Reporters. Residents. Opponents.

Lockwood’s over in the corner with his little entourage, stiff-backed and stone-faced, but even he can’t pretend this isn’t real anymore.

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

I catch Cora’s hand in mine, rub my thumb over her knuckles. She looks at me like she already knows.

That’s when Grace’s name lights up my phone. I step aside to answer.

“Everything okay?”

Her voice stumbles. “I tried calling Cora, but her phone is switched off.”

“Is everything okay?”

“There’s been a fire.”

Something sinks through me. I go still. “Where?”

She hesitates. “Noah. Your workshop. Elias’s cabin, too. The ridge is lit up. They’re sending the team out now.”

I close my eyes. Try to think, but everything swirls too fast.

“What do you mean, team?”

“The Northern district. Evan’s in charge. He said they’ll meet you out there. But it’s bad. Really bad.”

I hang up and turn toward the others. They’re watching me already, faces sharp, instinct humming.

“There’s been a fire,” I say. “My workshop’s gone. Elias’s cabin, too.”

“What?” Elias’s expression darkens, his mind probably snapping to Rusty.

Julian mutters something sharp and vicious under his breath, already pulling keys from his coat. “Lockwood did this. I don’t give a shit if his fingerprints aren’t on it.”

“We need to go,” I say. “Now.”

The ride to the edge of the forest is dead quiet. No one speaks. No one needs to.

We smell it before we see it. That bitter, acrid stink of ash and chemical smoke. The ground is black. Charred earth spreads like a wound along the clearing.

Elias stands stiff near the tree line, staring at the remnants of his cabin in shock. It’s collapsed. Something in his expression cracks open for a second. He doesn’t move.

I catch sight of the firefighting crew then—three Alphas, broad-shouldered and soot-streaked, moving with easy command through the wreckage. The one giving orders has smoke-gray eyes and a way of speaking that cuts through the chaos.

“Noah,” he says when he reaches me. He offers a hand. “We got here as fast as we could. Wind didn’t help. Pushed the flames right into the valley. But this,” he glances around, “it wasn’t accidental.”

The other two step closer. One of them, Gideon, has a burn scar along one forearm and carries himself like he’s walked through worse.

The third, Rhett, has a jawline sharp enough to cut glass and a voice like thunder when he calls for the perimeter to be secured.

Then we hear a whine and watch as Elias’s dog Rusty comes running from the debris. He kneels to pet him, relief written plainly on his face.

Evan’s gaze flicks to Elias’s cabin. “Gasoline. Traces of kerosene, too. Whoever did this wanted destruction, not a warning.”

“Yeah,” I say roughly. “I figured.”

Cora touches my arm. “Grace called again. She wanted you to know—you won. You’re the new assistant mayor.”

The silence after that hits hard. I don’t react. Don’t smile. Don’t move. Julian looks at me and doesn’t say congratulations.

“That motherfucker,” he says instead, voice low and shaking. “You win, and he burns your world down.”

“He’s desperate,” Elias says. He walks over, his face unreadable. “This is what a cornered man does.”

I watch the smoke coil up into the trees and vanish. The destruction is complete here and at my workshop. What used to be my site is just twisted metal, scorched beams, and a concrete foundation choked with soot. The tools, the paperwork, the workbenches, everything is gone.

“I want to retaliate,” Julian says. “We’re not playing nice anymore. No more press statements. No more talking points.”

“And do what?” I ask, voice rough. “Burn his estate down? Set fire to the country club?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Cora steps between us. “You’re Chief Officer for Land, Housing and Physical Planning now. You have power to restore this town. Don’t throw it away because he wants you to act like him.”

I exhale slowly. Glance at Evan, who’s watching me with something like quiet respect.

“I’ll need your report,” I say. “Official documentation.”

“You’ll have it by morning.”

The wind picks up, carrying smoke deeper into the forest. Elias stands beside me, silent. Julian looks murderous. Cora’s hand finds mine again.

Then a car pulls up. Doors slam. Footsteps on gravel.

Jake walks into the clearing with a solemn look and a bottle of whiskey clutched like an olive branch.

“I heard the news,” he says. His eyes flick from the blackened wreckage to me, then to Cora and my packmates, then back. “I’m sorry it comes on a day like this, but I came to say it in person.”

He walks up and extends a hand. “Congratulations. You earned it. Every vote that put you here? You earned it with grit and a shovel.”

I shake his hand. It feels surreal. My palm is still smudged with soot. My nails are blackened. I haven’t even processed the win. It doesn’t feel like one.

“I appreciate you coming out,” I say.

Jake looks around again. His mouth flattens. “Hell of a thing,” he murmurs. “I saw the workshop on the way up. Someone’s scared of what you represent.”

“That’s not new,” Julian mutters.

Jake turns to him. “Don’t do anything reckless, Julian. People here still view you as an outsider, and although Noah won fair and square, I am sure Lockwood and his cronies are less than thrilled by how everything went down. We’re not handing them excuses or a reason to reinstate the bastard.”

“No,” I say. “We’re not.”

Jake nods once. Then, almost gently, he places the whiskey on a half-burned log. “For when the smoke clears. I’ll cover the press statement. You focus on rebuilding.”

I nod, jaw tight. He gives me one more look—some blend of pride and warning—and then heads back toward his car, disappearing like the smoke curling into the trees.

The victory tastes like ashes in my mouth.