Knot So Perfect Omega (Omega Match #1)(18)

“True, but a lot of those packs are in the government or high up in society. But I agree, we are long overdue to have an omega. We should have done this back when we graduated.” Rylan passed me in the wide hallway and got to the door first. “Kara? Open up.” He tried the door and then knocked before putting his ear against it.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the key from the doorframe. “We’re going to unlock the door. Beck isn’t with us.”

We needed to at least make sure she was okay. It had to be a lot going from an academy where all the students were other omegas and most of the staff were female. She didn’t know us at all besides the brief meeting we had, which wasn’t nearly long enough, and now she was just thrown in the middle of a pack of alphas.

There was something seriously fucked up about Omega Match.

Rylan unlocked the door and opened it slowly, light spilling into the pitch-black room. There was a loveseat and four gaming chairs that reclined enough to sleep comfortably, but it wasn’t an ideal place to sleep. It was dark, though, with blackout curtains, and was the farthest room away from any rooms that had noise.

The four desks that held our computers were all shoved into a corner, the height adjusted as high as possible, and there were dark sheets hanging to make what I guessed was a makeshift nest. It made sense she’d pick this room, but I wished we’d been there to get it set up properly.

Rylan pulled his phone from his pocket. “Fuck, my sister is calling. I was supposed to be on ten minutes ago.”

“Go talk to her. I don’t think you’ll be gaming today unless you plan on moving your shit somewhere else.” I stepped into the room, listening for any signs of omega duress but was met with silence. “Kara? It’s morning. Do you want to come out and get some breakfast?”

I put my coffee on the entertainment center that held more gaming shit. We worked hard, but during our downtime, we liked to play hard too, and for us, that was playing hours of video games.

She wasn’t answering or making any noise, but I could smell her perfume that had accumulated in the closed off room. It made me feel a certain way, and I had to remind myself that now was not the time to get turned on.

But it was definitely hard.

Shaking my head at my train of thought, I knelt next to the enclosed nest and lifted the sheet. She was in there but seemed to have every spare blanket and pillow in the house inside with her, including one from my bed.

One of her feet was sticking out, and I tried to stop myself, but since she wasn’t responding, I needed to make sure she was still breathing. It was a better alternative than diving into the blankets with her when we’d only met for a few minutes.

I ran a finger up the arch of her foot, careful not to touch the bandage. She inhaled a sharp breath, pulling her foot to safety. At least she was alive and hadn’t suffocated under all the shit she was buried under.

“You can’t stay in there forever. What’s wrong?” I crawled under the desks, sitting on the edge of one of the mattresses she must have ordered and had delivered. It was a special nesting one that was waterproof.

“Leave me alone.” The blankets moved like she was rolling over and away from me. “As soon as the Omega Match offices open, I’ll be leaving.”

Leaving? What the fuck had Beck done?

“I don’t understand.” I had been respectful, but now she said she was going to leave, I crawled across the mound of blankets until I got to where her head was and pulled the blankets away. “You can’t just decide after less than twenty-four hours to reject us.”

“I can. And it has been longer than that. You weren’t even here when I arrived.” Her back was to me and her hair was a mess in the bun it was in. I wanted to run my fingers through it and comfort her.

Wait.

“I thought you had curly hair.” We’d met a lot of omegas that day, but I could have sworn Kara had curls and her sister didn’t.

“That’s Kara.” Her voice cracked, and she blindly reached for the blankets, but I was quicker and pulled them away so she couldn’t hide under them again. “I tried to tell everyone it was a mistake, but they wouldn’t listen. Even your beta said you’d put me down.”

“Our beta? Brian is not our beta.” I was starting to get annoyed that people always referred to him as ours just because he was always around and made decisions when it came to Alphaball. He was our manager and coach, not a part of our pack.

“I opted out of matching, but the results came back and I matched to your pack.” She had her face buried in a pillow she was hugging, so it was hard to figure out what she was saying and make sense of it. “And I just thought... might as well give it a shot if they want me, but you wanted Kara.”

I wasn’t equipped this early in the morning to deal with something of this magnitude, and my coffee was on the other side of the room. “So, you’re...”

“Kayla.”

It honestly didn’t matter to me what her name was. She smelled like fucking heaven, and it wasn’t like we knew Kara. The only reason we’d let Brian submit our interest in Kara was because he said so.

“You told Brian you were Kayla? What did he say?”

“I messaged him and said there must have been a glitch because neither of us put your pack, and he said there wasn’t one. I just assumed you guys decided to pick me and then paid someone off at Omega Match to make it happen.” Her accusation shocked me a bit, and I was left speechless for a minute.