Knot Your Damn Omega: Chapter 37

Avery did wreck me. I was wrung out of pleasure when his cock finally slipped out of me. Blissfully exhausted. The rest of the day I spent in bed, answering comments on my phone on my business account and making notes about ideas I had for paintings.

Between the sex, the chase, and dinner with my mother, I was already fading by the time the pack came home, and falling asleep before dinner. Someone carried me to bed and tucked me in. I wasn’t awake enough to remember who.

I woke again in the morning with far more clarity. My bruises were fading, I had energy, and I didn’t want to waste it. Today was going to be a fucking amazing day.

Wes showed up thirty minutes after I texted him, and I spent the day at my house. I mixed six different paint colors and set them into containers to harden, and I spent time working on a new piece. One I had started shortly after I met the pack.

It was chunky and three dimensional, like most of my work, but this was an outward explosion of color from a central point. I mixed some of the pigments I had left to harness the iridescent quality, and it was coming along nicely. I hadn’t found the thing yet, but it was close.

Eva told me I needed a better name than the thing, but I didn’t have one. The thing was what made the piece work. Sometimes it was just a clicking in my brain showing me what needed to happen. Other times I would see something and envision how it needed to change. I’d even had times where I made a mistake on the canvas, but the mistake was what I needed to reveal where the piece really wanted to go.

I knew my art wasn’t sentient, but man, it felt like it sometimes.

My phone buzzing made me look up. Somehow it was already three o’clock. I hadn’t even noticed it getting so late. I grabbed it with paint-stained hands and saw a text from Rylan.

So you don’t get blindsided. Just in case, sorry. (And exciting news to tell you at home!)

The first part was ominous.

I clicked the link, and my stomach plummeted to the floor. No wonder he sent it to me. The article was pictures of both Eva and I. Me, my most recent photo with Ben at the club, and Eva a picture from when she’d met her pack. A photographer snapped a photo of them when they were still in the phase where they couldn’t get enough of each other. She was pinned against a wall, kissing Liam while Tyler’s mouth was on her neck. The other two weren’t even there.

And the headline:

WHAT WOULD ELIAS WILLIAMS THINK OF HIS DAUGHTERS?

Fuck me, Eva was going to lose her shit. I texted the article to Jasmine before flipping back to it. It wasn’t a piece of any substance. All flash and mirrors. They were trying to be provocative, and the most damning thing was in the headline, but it was still a shitty thing to do.

I thought about what Eva said at lunch. Would he be over the moon about the Nautilus pack? Everything in me was desperate for the answer to be yes, but it wasn’t like I could ask him.

Well…

I could, but it meant doing something I’d avoided. But maybe it was time I faced it.

I cleaned my brushes and found Wes sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. “Wes?”

He looked up.

“Can you take me to the cemetery?”

Wes studied me carefully, in the Alpha way I now knew well. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I am.”

He nodded slowly. “Let’s go.”

I understood the hesitation. Eva went regularly to visit our dad’s grave, and I didn’t. It was too hard seeing his name carved out like that. He’d been so full of life, and a white marble headstone felt too stark and cold to have anything to do with the father I knew.

It was easier to let him live in my memories. But I felt like I needed to see him right now, despite my resistance to touching my grief.

The cemetery where he was buried wasn’t far from Mom’s house. They’d planned it that way on purpose, in case either one of them passed, the other wouldn’t have far to go.

I didn’t know how often my mom visited, but I hoped the closeness at least gave her some peace.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Wes asked.

“No, thank you, Wes.”

This was something I needed to do alone.

Dad’s grave was in the corner beneath a willow tree, backed by the tall wrought-iron fences. There was space next to him for when Mom passed, and a bench under the tree.

A fading bouquet of flowers rested against the pale stone. Tiger lilies, like he always bought for my mom. I looked away briefly, blinking away the tears.

It felt like an eternity, but he hadn’t been gone that long, and every day I ignored the hole he left. Right now it was a jagged, gaping wound.

The bench didn’t feel right. I sat down on the grass right in front of the stone and traced his name with my fingers.

He wasn’t here—I knew that. But I needed the relief of speaking out loud. “Hi, Dad.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “It’s been a while. I hope you don’t mind.”

There was no way for me to keep it together. I pressed my face in between my knees and let the tears come. “I’m sorry I can’t come here as often. It feels like it’s harder for me than everyone else. Just like everything.”

A breeze picked up, stirring the branches of the willow surrounding me. It smelled fresh and green, so far away from Dad’s scent, but it was still comforting. I missed the rich smell of leather that always surrounded him.

“I met a pack, dad. You’re probably rolling your eyes and saying ‘finally.’ But… I really like them.” It was more than that, but those words were stuck in my throat. “Mom doesn’t, but I think you would. I hope you would. Honestly, just everything. I hope you’d like what Eva and I have done since you’ve been gone, and I hope you’d be proud of us. Of me.”

My voice cracked on the last word.

I never let this pain in. Never thought about it or even let it surface because it was too much, and if it was this bad for me, I couldn’t even imagine how hard it was for mom.

“I really fucking miss you.”

It all came crashing in then, and I let it. A wash of grief and everything I’d pushed away the last two years. More than the grief for my father, and more than my mother’s disappointment. It was everything. Every moment of desolation and loneliness. Of pain. Of everything I’d let hold me back. The feeling of being replaceable and invisible. The utter worthlessness that slithered in my mind every time someone mistook me for Eva or told me I needed to be her.

And of course, this.

I’d never planned on doing all of this without him, and I was furious. At him and at the fucking heart attack that took him from me.

Our parents loved both of us, but Mom was Eva’s, and Dad was mine. It had always felt that way, and neither of us questioned it.

“I’m so angry at you for not being here,” I whispered. “I can’t even fit it all in my body because I’m so angry. And it hurts so much I can’t breathe. That’s why I can’t let myself think about it. Because I turn into this mess, and everyone already thinks I am one.”

I took a shaky breath and swiped at my eyes. “I don’t know how to do any of this without you.”

My phone vibrated on the grass beside me and I ignored it. There was nothing to take the place of this moment, when I was finally here.

The tears wouldn’t stop coming, hot and fast, and I stopped trying to wipe them away, letting them blur my dad’s name in front of me.

Elias Williams

Beloved husband and father.

“Please come back,” I whispered.

There was nothing but silence and the sound of the breeze in the branches, and there never would be. But I needed to say it. “Please come back. I wasn’t ready.”

My phone vibrated again, and I turned it over on the grass so I couldn’t see the screen. Whoever it was could wait.

“I love you,” I finally said, letting the true pain of everything wash over me. “And I’ll try to come back more. I promise.”

I sat with him, my words spent and tears flowing, rocking myself back and forth, listening to the rustling leaves and trying to find the words and voice I desperately wanted to hear.

The sky was darkening when I heard the soft sounds of footsteps on grass. I didn’t move, though I knew who it was. Their scents were on the wind.

Luke sat down next to me, and I tilted my head over to lean on his shoulder. “Hey, sweetheart.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You had us worried. Wes told us when we called.”

“Sorry.” What little was left of my voice was a rasping whisper.

Gentle hands on my shoulders. “You okay, baby?” Kade kissed the top of my head.

“No, I’m not.” Rylan was on my other side, picking up one of my hands and weaving our fingers together, and I scented Avery somewhere behind me. “Where’s Ben?”

“His parents are buried here, too. He’s paying his respects.”

It caused a whole new flood of tears, and I tried unsuccessfully to blink them back. “It was the article,” I told them. “I needed to see him. Not that he can hear me, but I needed to do it. I didn’t expect it to be this hard.”

Rylan squeezed my hand. “When you feel like you can, I’d love to hear about him.”

“Okay.”

Kade’s arms came around my chest. “Come home, baby.”

I nodded, and he lifted me to my feet and then into his arms. Ben joined us, and we didn’t need to say anything to each other to understand the twin pain we felt.

One of them held me all the way home, all the way up the stairs, and all the way into my nest. No words were needed, just the warmth of their presence and the sound of their purrs.