Page 22 of Knot All Is Ruined: Part 1

Petru, our gun specialist, squatted and pulled the gag off the pretty Omega who’d clearly had surgery performed on her upper lip. That wasn’t something that could be done in the North, so she must be one of the Omegas from Oscad. God, I could only imagine what hell that must have been to be taken from your family and sent here of all places. While she’d remained silent, her friend, on the other hand, took the opportunity to share her thoughts with us.

“You touch us, and it won’t go well for you when Dani wakes up,” she spat. “Do you even know whose Omega she is?”

That had us all surprised. As far as any of us knew, the North didn’t have packs or create bonds with each other for some crazy fucked up reason. While you couldn’t have an official pack without an Omega in the mix, those of us in units like ours were a pack. We all lived, trained, ate, and fought together—trusting the other would have your back no matter what. Except for Draza, who’d gotten separated from his team, this was my pack. My family and I would have the same loyalty to them that these three women seemed to have for each other.

Victor yanked Petru out of the way and glared down at the two making them cower. Victor, the unit's explosives expert, wasn't the most friendly-looking guy. His dark brown hair was cut close to his head, while his full beard grew wild. I’d tried to get him to maintain it, but that was a losing battle so I finally gave up. The look in his hazel eyes was intense, and with his size and bulk, he came across as one scary fucker. It probably also had to do with the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen the asshole smile before. He was the picture of friendliness, that one, but once you had his loyalty, there wasn’t a person he wouldn’t kill to keep you safe.

“Who?” Victor bit out.

The younger one just crossed her arms and glared, not willing to make it that easy. I snorted, it would seem this little firecracker had rubbed off on her friends. Victor took a menacing step forward and the other cracked, bursting into sobs, which was the reaction Victor got most of the time dealing with women.

“Please, please don’t hurt us,” she begged, clasping her tied-up hands. “We’ll do as you ask, I promise. Just don’t beat us.”

Victor’s lip curled in a snarl at the way this Omega pleaded. I caught Petru’s gaze and gave a small jerk of my head knowing that Victor and weak women weren’t a good mix. Petru rolled his deep green eyes at me, running a hand through his coppery red hair before stepping in.

“Vic,” Petru warned, grabbing his arm. “We need to get moving, and once we get past the river, you can ask them all your questions. The outpost is destroyed. Whoever they’re worried about is gone, so this conversation is pointless.”

Victor yanked his arm out of Petru’s hold, shouldered his pack, and stomped off. Groaning, I turned to Sorin but he hadn’t been paying any attention to us. Instead, I found him seated on a boulder trying to wash out the wound on the woman’s head. Sorin was our leader and head Alpha, if you will. However, he wasn’t a man who felt the need to flex that muscle. Instead, we worked as equals, which being the only Beta in a pack of Alphas was unheard of. Most units like ours could only have two Alphas at the most. We had four plus myself, and that led to moments like this where tempers flared, but they always cooled in the end.

“Sorin,” I called to him, causing his head to snap up like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I should take her so I can monitor her breathing and pulse as we go.”

“The wound looks pretty nasty, but it's not bleeding anymore,” he told me as he stood, handing her over. “We need to get her to the Med Center sooner rather than later.”

Her weight settled into my arms as her head fit perfectly on my shoulder, forehead resting on my neck. The scent of her caught my attention so much that I found my nose in her hair before I even realized it. A rich earthy spice wrapped around me that had a bite to it yet was softened by a sweet floral scent of magnolias. They’d been my mother’s favorite flower and reminded me of the warmth of home. I hummed with delight as I cuddled her closer to me.

When someone aggressively cleared their throat, I opened my eyes to find Toma smirking at me. “Been that long since you’ve held a woman? What, are the two of us not enough to satisfy you?”

Toma was all hard lines and bronze skin that made him sexy as fuck. His black hair, similar to ours except for Sorin’s, was cut short as the military required. On him, though, it just showed off his features making him that masculine beauty that instantly makes me hard. The shimmer of humor in his eyes that were so dark brown they looked almost black, only expressed to me he wasn’t being serious.

Was it uncommon for the Betas in the unit to develop sexual relationships with the Alphas? No, not at all. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to find relief elsewhere. Did it matter that I was one man who had been fucked by them all? Not one fucking bit. While I didn’t sleep with all of them anymore, we’d all been open to the idea. I cared for them all and loved each in their own way, even though my heart belonged to two of the four Alphas. As for which two, that would be Toma and Petru. They might both be Alphas, but they’d been friends since childhood and fell in love. It was uncommon for Alphas to develop relationships like that, but those two were meant for each other. I was part of that now, and the three of us just fit together like puzzle pieces.

“She certainly smells a lot better than you lot,” I teased. “And way more cuddlier without all those hard muscles. Sometimes I swear my cheek goes numb from sleeping on your pec muscle.”

Toma tossed his head back and laughed, flipping me off as he grabbed his stuff. “For that, you can sleep in the tent with Draza tonight.”

“If I didn’t have a patient who I was responsible for, then that might truly be a threat,” I countered.

“Hey,” Draza snarled. “Fuck you all. I didn’t ask to be part of your group, and the second I get the chance, I’ll be out of your hair.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing as he spoke, sounding like a petulant child with a stopped-up nose. He had the gauze I’d given him hanging out of his nose like an idiot, but at least it stopped bleeding.

“Nah,” Toma said, slapping the Beta’s back. “We have Cris for that. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Petru shook his head and crouched in front of the Omegas again. “Alright, ladies, we need you to keep quiet so we don’t have to gag you again. If you follow the orders given, everything will be fine and we’ll get you somewhere safe. Just know that if you make trouble for us, you’ll be tossed over Victor’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Trust me when I say, no one wants that.”

With surprising willingness, they let him help them to their feet and stood there waiting for instruction. Sorin took the lead with Toma, then Petru and I boxed in the girls, leaving Victor and Draza to watch our backs. Things were slow moving since the girls didn’t have shoes and this land was pretty rocky, but they didn’t complain. The sun was quickly starting to fall, however we needed the cover of night to make this crossing without drawing too much attention. We had people waiting for us on the other side who would make getting back to base much faster.

We’d been walking for a few hours when Dani started to stir in my arms. “Hold up, guys, I need to administer the sedative.”

Now that she wasn’t going to fight me, I decided to mix a cocktail of painkillers and sedatives. It would keep her under longer and provide more relief. I’d been worried about her head injury, but at this point, we needed to keep her calm and quiet. Until we got her to the Med Center to have her examined, it would be best not to have her fight us and fight she would.

Holding my small flashlight with my teeth, I grabbed a syringe out of my pack and drew from the small vials. When I brushed aside her wild curly hair to inject it into her vein, I paused. My mouth went dry as I saw the large brand that had been burned into her skin. I had no clue what the symbol meant. Nonetheless, it was barbaric to even consider doing that to a person. No wonder she hadn’t wanted me to touch her. She’d had more than enough pain at the hands of soldiers. Shaking myself out of my anger, I administered the medication. She flinched, but after a few moments, her whole body relaxed and she even breathed a sigh of relief. Just how much pain had she been in?

“Sorin,” I said, pulling the flashlight from my mouth.

My tone clearly indicated that it was something he needed to see, so he approached quickly. When I shone the light on her neck, he hissed as if, like me, he imagined the pain she must have been in. His face clouded with anger as his hands were fisted so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Those fucking monsters,” he growled. “How could they do something so savage? I knew they didn’t give a fuck about their Omegas, but I would never have thought they’d stoop to this level to make them feel like livestock.”