Chapter 31 Knox
I'm sitting in my living room when she arrives.
She's smiling as she drops her bag on the hallway table and walks inside.
"I was on the ice today, and there's this girl. Maybe eight years old, and she couldn't land a spin. I showed her how."
"Are you sure that was a good idea?" I ask. "How's your knee?"
"I'm fine." She sits on the couch. Tucks her legs under her, which she hasn't been able to do for a long time.
Her cheeks are flushed. Not from the cold ice — from something underneath.
"Marilyn offered me a job," she says.
"What kind of job?"
"Discipline coach. For the team." She picks at a thread on the cushion. "She thinks I'm calm enough to manage a room full of alphas."
"You are."
"I was a figure skater three months ago, Knox."
"And now you're the woman who walked into a room with three alphas and made all of them behave." I sit in the chair opposite her, the distance deliberate. She's warm tonight and my body is responding to that warmth in ways I need to manage. "What did you tell Marilyn?"
"I told her I'd think about it."
"And what are you thinking?"
She looks at me. Her green eyes are wide, her pupils dilated. Her scent is thick. Bourbon and chocolate and orange filling my living room, layering over the leather and the wood and the space that has always smelled like me alone.
"I'm thinking I want to do it," she says. "But it's hard, Knox. The moment I agree, that's me accepting my figure skating career is over."
"It's not over. But this is a job where you stay close to what you love." I hold her gaze.
Her eyes lower. "I've also been thinking about us."
Us.
"Remi."
"If I move in with you," she says, "Steele and Crew come too."
The room goes quiet.
"We're a pack, Knox. That's what this is. It's not me splitting my time between your house and their apartment. It's not me visiting them on weekends. It's four people under one roof."
I expected the words before she said them.
"I want you to myself," I say, not liking them anyway.
"I know you do."
"That isn't selfishness. It's biology. You're my mate, and my body has been trying to claim you since the night you walked into my club."
"And Steele and Crew are the men who caught me when I fell." She doesn't flinch. "You don't get me without them. That's the deal."
I look at her. At the flush climbing her throat. At her hands gripping the cushion. At the thin line of slick glistening on her inner thigh, soaking through the fabric of her leggings.
"You're mine, Knox, but so are they."
"I am?"
She nods. "I knew when you sat opposite me in the café that it was you. You, I could smell the moment I woke up in the hospital. You, I could smell just before my body collapsed on the ice in Italy. You were there. Why?"
"I knew my mate was connected to Isabella. I knew it was you when you skated onto the ice."
Her eyes widen. "But you didn't stay to watch Isabella win."
I shake my head. "I'm not proud of that. But you were flown back to the US, and I had to follow. Our parents were there to watch her."
She sits and studies my face. "How often did you come to the hospital?"
"Every night. When everyone else had left. I lay beside you on the bed and talked to you."
"On my bed?"
"Yeah." I pause. "I wanted you to wake up. I thought having your mate beside you might give you something to come back to."
Her eyes are bright with tears. "Maybe it worked."
She swipes the back of her hand across her forehead.
"Your heat is getting worse. I don't want you to go through another omega drop. I’ll call a doctor to check you over."
"I don’t need a doctor. But you're right, my heat is about to hit. My temperature hasn't dropped below a hundred in two days. And right now the only reason I'm not on my knees begging you to touch me is because I need you to answer my questions first."
Her voice is steady. Her body is not. There's a tremor in her hands.
Sweat beading at her hairline. Her thighs are pressed together, trying to contain what her biology is demanding she release.
This woman is sitting on my couch negotiating the terms of her pack while her body is trying to drag her into a heat that could drop her if it doesn't break properly.
"And I'm answering them."
"Not the one I want you to."
"You're asking me to share you."
"I'm asking you to be part of something."
"I don't share, Remi."
"You said you'd learn. You called Steele and Crew your pack mates."
I did say that. I meant it the way a man means a promise he intends to keep, even though he has no idea how.
"And you want us all to live here?"
"Yes."
"In this house."
"Knox, it has eleven bedrooms."
"That's not the point."
"Isn't it?" She almost smiles, but instead her face tightens, and she grips the cushion with both hands, lifting it to her cheek and holding it there. Her breath goes shallow for three seconds before she forces it steady again.
"Remi."
"I'm fine."
She's not fine. Her scent is so thick I can taste it. My hands need to be on her body, my teeth at her neck.
"I need to call a doctor," I say.
"Answer my question."
"Remi, you're going into a heat that could send you into another drop. You need medical attention."
"And I need to know that when I come out of it, I come out of it into a pack. Not a rotation. Not an arrangement. A pack. I need a place where I can live permanently and nest." Her eyes are wet. Her jaw is set. "Knox. Please."
I look at this woman. This stubborn, impossible, overheating woman who is negotiating pack terms while her body tries to shut itself down. Sitting on my couch covered in slick and shaking, she won't let me call a doctor until I say yes.
"You need to nest," I say.
Her shoulders drop. The exhale is shaky.
"Now let me call someone to help you. Please."
She nods.
I pull out my phone and call Dante.
"I need a doctor here. Now. Remi's heat is escalating and she's at risk of dropping."
Dante is quiet for two seconds. "Dr. Peters hasn't been responding since yesterday."
"Not Dr. Peters. I want a female doctor," Remi says. "Preferably an omega who knows how this feels."
My hand stills on the phone. "Find me a female omega doctor. I want someone here within the hour."
"Done."
I hang up. Remi is watching me from the couch. Her eyes are half-closed, the drowsiness of a heat that's building without releasing. She’s in the dangerous stage where the body starts shutting down non-essential functions to conserve energy for a biological event that isn't arriving.
Her body is failing her again.
"Lie down," I tell her.
"Knox."
"Lie down. I'm going to get you water and a cold cloth, and you're going to stay on this couch until the doctor arrives."
She lies down. I cover her with a light blanket. I give her water. And then get a cloth from the bathroom, run it under cold water, and bring it to her forehead. She closes her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispers.
I sit on the floor beside the couch. Her hand finds mine. The heat coming off her palm is startling.
My phone rings.
Isabella.
"Hey," I answer.
Breathing on the other end. Fast. Shallow. Wrong.
"Isabella."
"Someone left something on my door." Her voice is controlled in the way that people's voices are controlled just before they're about to break. "A handwritten note."
"What does it say?"
"You're mine. Don't forget it."
My vision narrows. The room, the couch, Remi's hand in mine. Everything shrinks to a point, and the point is my sister's voice and the words she just read to me.
"Lock your door. Close the windows. Don't open for anyone."
"Knox, I'm scared."
"I know. I'm sending Dante and Marco. Lock your doors and windows now."
"I want you to come."
"Isabella."
Remi wraps her fingers around my wrist. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
I close my eyes, glance at the ceiling. “Okay. And Isabella.”
"What."
"You did the right thing by calling me."
She hangs up. I stare at the phone for three seconds as the screen goes dark.
Remi is looking at me, her eyes are barely open.
"Go," she says.
"I can't believe I’m agreeing to leave you."
"The doctor is coming, and my heat is going to take forever. Now go to your sister." She squeezes my hand. Her grip is weak, too warm, her body pulling energy away from everything that isn't the heat trying to break. "She needs you. And I need to sleep."
“Why did I promise Isabella space after the Olympics?”
“Because you trust her.”
I smile at Remi. “She wanted her own apartment.
Her own life. I fought it, argued she was safer in the house with security, that the world was too large and too full of men who would look at her and see opportunity.
She told me she wasn't a child. She told me she needed to breathe.
She told me that if I didn't stop controlling her, she would leave and I would lose her for real.”
“I know. But you promised.”
I did. I gave her the apartment, installed security cameras at the entrance. I had Dante drive past twice a day. And I told myself it was enough.
It wasn't enough.
I lean down and press my mouth to Remi's forehead. Her skin burns against my lips.
"I love you," I say.
Her eyes open. "I love you, too. Now go."
I take my keys. My jacket. My phone is already connecting. Steele answers on the first ring.
"Remi is at my house. Her body is fighting the heat and a doctor is on the way. Send Crew to stay with her." My voice is level. My hands are not. "Isabella called me. Someone left a note on her door. She's alone in her apartment and she's not safe."
Steele doesn't speak for one second. "I'll meet you there."
I disconnect and dial Isabella.
It rings four times. Five. Six.
Voicemail.
I dial again. Voicemail.
I'm in my car. The engine turns. My phone is on the dashboard, redialing. The call connects and disconnects and connects and disconnects. My hands grip the steering wheel so hard the leather creaks.
My phone rings. Not Isabella.
A number I don't recognize. I answer.
"Mr. Olivetti, this is the front desk at the Claridge Building. I'm calling because a resident reported a disturbance on the fourth floor. And when we checked, your sister's apartment door was open when we arrived."
A pause.
"The apartment is empty."
The steering wheel cracks under my hands.
"Mr. Olivetti?"
"I'm on my way."