All for Knot

All for Knot: Book One By Ember Blaze Copyright 2023 by OtherLove Publishing, LLC Cover by Ember Table of Contents One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-One Twenty-Two Twenty-Three Twenty-Four Twenty-Five Twenty-Six Twenty-Seven Twenty-Eight Twenty-Nine Thirty Thirty-One Thirty-Two Thirty-Three Thirty-Four Thirty-Five Thirty-Six Thirty-Seven Thirty-Eight ONE Juniper Maslow * THE BUZZ OF multiple text notifications in my pocket was barely noticeable in the pounding, strobing din of the Hippodrome Casino’s massive theater, where half-naked alphas danced and writhed on the stage above the crowd, hips thrusting suggestively. I fumbled for my phone out of habit, glancing down at the unfamiliar number. “What are you doing?” Olivia shouted in my ear. “Put your phone away and watch the show! It’s your hen night, Juni—enjoy it!” Bleached blond and model pretty, my co-worker Olivia Brigham’s bright blue eyes held a manic glint as she bumped her shoulder against mine before returning her attention to the alpha flesh on display beneath the spotlights. On my other side, Annie and Sandra squealed and clapped as a smooth-chested, muscular member of the Alpha Allure dance crew strutted to the front of the stage in time with the music. My heart skipped and stuttered with sudden alarm as he pointed down at me, a practiced leer dimpling one cheek. I was here with my four bridesmaids, supposedly for one last crazy night before my wedding tomorrow. And don’t get me wrong—it had mostly been a blast. I hadn’t seen Annie, Sandra, or my cousin Maria since I’d moved overseas from the US to the UK. One of many benefits to marrying a beta from a rich English family was that his father thought nothing of paying for roundtrip transatlantic tickets so my friends from back home could attend the wedding. I was thrilled they were here and happy to be able to share a wild night out in London with them. Olivia, the only native in our little group, had taken it on herself to arrange the details... and she had no way of knowing how uncomfortable I was around alphas. She gave me a broad wink as the sleek, shirtless alpha stopped at the edge of the stage and held a hand out to me in clear invitation. This close, I could smell his dangerous leather and gunmetal scent above the miasma of the crowd and the rest of the dance crew. Pulse rocketing, I shook my head in frantic negation and hunched back in my seat. “I told management you were getting married tomorrow,” Olivia said, pitching her voice over the music and raucous cheers. “Go on! You have to get up there or the crowd will start booing us!” “You go!” I shot back. “It’s not my party!” she said, and before I knew it, she and my other supposed friends were shoving me out of my seat, practically handing me up to the smirking dancer. His big hand closed around mine, hauling me onto the stage. His palm was hot and damp with sweat from the exertion of the show. The heavy scent of an alpha pack surrounded me, nearly choking in its intensity. Before I knew it, I was hemmed in, front and back—a female alpha embracing me from behind while the male alpha danced against my front, his body sliding up and down—almost touching, but not quite. Somehow, he’d insinuated a thigh between mine. To my mortified horror, I realized I was perfuming. The sickly-sweet scent of peaches and spice swirled together with the heavier pheromones of the alphas. Behind me, the female alpha made a show of scenting my neck, again not quite touching. I shuddered as her breath wafted across the sensitive skin of my mating gland. It seemed to go on forever, other dancers sliding closer to join us before skipping away again. My traitorous body responded the way omega bodies always responded to alpha bodies and alpha pheromones, while my brain cycled through a hysterical litany of all the reasons alphas were dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Finally, I was handed down from the stage and into my friends’ waiting arms. I collapsed onto my chair, sweaty and shaking. “Girl,” Sandra said over the noise. “That was hot! You smell like my Nanna’s peach pie fresh out of the oven. Did you have fun?” “Yeah,” I lied, hoping the flush of adrenaline had kept my complexion from going bone white. “It was great.” Around us, the burlesque show raged on, a whirl of light and sound. I willed my body and mind back under control, focusing on the future where I would be safely married to a nice beta man, once more part of an established family unit with all the security and stability that entailed. A functional family unit this time. I rejected the idea of pack, but that didn’t mean the old, omega instincts weren’t still lodged inside my brain. There was a reason that the only blood relative present for my wedding was a remote second cousin. Maria gave me a slightly worried look from her seat on Sandra’s other side, and I managed a wan smile for her. I definitely wouldn’t be recounting this little interlude if Percy asked me how my hen night had been. It seemed like there was probably some unwritten rule where you weren’t supposed to ask questions about the details of your partner’s stag night. Maybe, if I was lucky, that unwritten rule went both ways. When the show finally ended, I spilled out onto Cranbourn Street with the others. Laughing and jostling, they herded me back to Leicester Square, past the statues of Harry Potter and Mary Poppins. We piled into a black cab, Annie and Sandra squeezing onto the fold-down jump seats in front so we would all fit. “Next stop, Club Fiasco!” Olivia declared, cutting across the others’ giggling discussion of the Allure alphas’ generous assets. I dredged