Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Knox
The text across the screen makes me sick.
He has to be faking the art thing. Real artists are never this sexy IRL. He’s lying.
I don’t care about being slandered online by those who argue adamantly that I’m somehow using AI or an editing trick to pretend I’m an artist. The skeptics are few and far between ever since I started hosting random live paint sessions on social media.
No, the part that’s under my skin is the last part of her comment.
He’s lying.
About my art? No. But to Belle? Yes. And that seems so much worse.
Now that I have my posts for the day scheduled, I hide my phone in the cabinet where I keep my paints stocked. Belle nearly caught me with my phone recording earlier, and if she looked closely, she might have seen the full bars of cell signal advertised at the top of my screen.
We get perfect signal out here, despite what the three of us guys are leading Belle to believe. She must be too rattled by her accident still to start questioning all of the high-tech stuff throughout the house. Sure, some people play video games and buy big screen TVs without internet, I guess...
Not us. I think we have every channel known to man in our TV package, and our internet is solid enough that we could use every device we own and still not have to worry about congesting our network.
“She’s going to ask eventually,” I muse out loud to myself. She’s not an idiot. “If she stays long enough.”
I think she wants to. She hasn’t asked about a ride home, even though the snow is obviously melting today under the clear, sunny sky.
There are still brushes I need to wash off. I carry them over to the sink and get to work until the door to my workshop is thrown open. I jerk my head up hopefully, but then I hear the telltale sound of Rhys’s jolly footsteps. He walks like he’s barely restraining the urge to tap-dance his way over to me. Happy fucking bastard.
“Why did you have to go and tell her we don’t even have internet?”
Rhys whistles under his breath. “Nice to see you too, asshole. How is your workshop colder than outside?”
I turn to find him hovering near the space heater that I bought to keep the workshop bearable when I’m painting half-dressed in the winter. My tolerance for cold is still a lot higher than his.
“Answer the question,” I demand. His heart is usually in the right place, but I swear he never considers the possible consequences of his actions.
“I told her what she needed to hear.”
My jaw tightens, and I throw the damp paintbrushes down in the sink so that I can stalk closer to Rhys. “You led her to believe that we’re totally cut off from the outside world. A far drive from town. No phone signal. No internet. No way out of here unless you’re personally escorting her. You think that is what she needed to hear?”
“Knox, she has amnesia.” He leans against my paint-mixing workbench like we’re chatting casually over drinks, not arguing about his choice to lie. “She regained consciousness in a smashed car on an unfamiliar road with a strange alpha standing over her. If she thought she could be returned back to the life that’s familiar with a simple phone call, she might not have thought twice before making that choice.”
“That’s still her choice to make.” Once she finds out we lied... “She deserves the truth.”
“She deserves time.”
“Time for what ? To fall for a fantasy? For a version of her life where we trap her in a cabin and hope she doesn’t ask too many questions?”
Rhys sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t lock her in a basement, Knox. I gave her space to breathe and process her feelings about finding us. Do you really think Belle is worried about scrolling the internet while she’s following us around, learning about us and the cabin? Doesn’t seem to me like she’s missing anything much.”
His voice is thick with innuendo.
He doesn’t think anyone is waiting for her at home. I’m not so sure. She’s too sweet and curious to be alone. An omega like her? Alphas would line the block to take care of her, even if they wouldn’t be taking half as good care of her as we can.
“None of that is the point.” What is keeping her worth if we have to trick her to make her stay? “Her memory is going to come back, you said it yourself. And then what happens if even after all of this, she still chooses to go home? Because if that’s the choice she makes, I’ll tell you right now that I won’t let our pack disrespect her right to make that decision for herself.”
For once, Rhys doesn’t seem to have a snappy comeback at the ready. He crosses his arms, his expression unreadable.
* * *
Rhys
There has to be some way to change Knox’s mind. I know that the truth will inevitably come out. I’m not trying to keep Belle in the dark forever, just for a little longer. Like a teeny, morally grey grace period.
“I’m going to tell her the truth,” Knox says. His voice has that infuriating finality to it, the kind that makes you want to launch a snowball directly at his face.
If he could just wait until we’re all wearing matching pajamas and eating waffles made by my gloriously gifted hands–like a real pack–that’d be ideal.
He’s the pack alpha. Ultimately, this should be his choice to make. But I can’t let him make the choice without one last-ditch effort to convince him to give us a little more time. Belle already seems so happy here. In another day or two, I think she’ll have a hard time leaving even if her memory comes back in full.
“Before you tell her, there’s something you should see,” I tell him.
“Nothing will change my mind.”
I’m sure he believes that. I also know that Knox has a soft, marshmallow center under that dark, broody exterior. Beneath the I-fight-my-inner-demons-and-they-win energy, he’s basically a gooey pile of whipped cream.
“Just come with me.” I wait until my back is to him to roll my eyes.
Knox isn’t nearly as tough as he pretends. I see the way he melts for Belle when he thinks no one is looking, like she’s the sun and he’s just some tragic vampire trying to catch a tan. His whole body relaxes, his lips tipping up into a secret smile when he watches her.
I’m counting on his soft spot for her to kick in and stop him from potentially sending her back to where she came from prematurely. I want our mark on her before she goes home... and to only stay there long enough to pack her things.
Belle’s home is with us now. She can burn her old place to the ground, for all I care.
As expected, Knox follows me to the house with only a little grumbling under his breath. I ignore that the way I usually do, content to let him grumble away so long as he follows.
I pause at the threshold of Percy’s office.
We all share the spaces on our property as needed, but Percy gets the most claim to the small library room with custom bookshelves that I built for his book collection a few years ago. He’s the only one of the three of us who works anything close to a traditional desk job. Knox prefers to do his art in the workshop, which has been optimized with a lighting setup perfect for his social media posts. And I spend as much of my time as possible outside, even in the winter, maintaining the property and looking for new ways to improve our cabin’s efficiency.
“Look,” I whisper to Knox, stepping aside to let him fill the doorway.
I rest a hand on his shoulder, squeezing to try and alleviate the tension there. Lying to Belle is eating at him, but as I watch the omega, I tell myself that sometimes you have to make desperate calls in life.
Belle is so mesmerized by Percy’s shelves that she doesn’t notice us watching her as she stares wide-eyed at the spines of each book one by one. She might not be totally in love with the three of us yet, but she’s definitely in love with Percy’s home library. She’s only moved one bookshelf down since I last peeked in on her, and her face is still lit up with joy as if seeing the room for the first time every time she finds a new book title she recognizes.
Our sweet snow bunny loves books as much as Percy does, if not more.
“This is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen,” she announces dreamily.
Percy, who has been watching her from his desk chair, laces his fingers behind his head and leans back in his chair with a wide smile. I couldn’t have helped Knox witness a sweeter moment if I tried.
If nothing else convinces him, the happiness she feels here has to be enough to prove my plan isn’t all bad.
Sure, I know that lying isn’t the best way to start a relationship with someone. Our pack has always been honest with one another.
But I tell myself that we’ll be honest with her soon enough…
After she’s fallen completely in love with us and has no desire to be anywhere but in our beds for the rest of eternity. I’m talking matching robes, swimsuits with our faces on them, and a hot tub with built-in lights and speakers for a nightly rave. The dream.
I wonder if she wants babies? I’ll add that to the discussion list, you know, after she remembers her life and we tell her that we’re basically keeping her hostage. Is light hostaging a thing? Because this doesn’t feel like a full hostage situation.
Our omega releases a small squeak, pulling me from my internal debate. I watch her do a small happy dance in front of the bookshelves, oblivious to the attention on her.
Knox watches for a few more seconds before turning around and elbowing his way past me. “I’ll think about it,” he mutters as he goes.
That’s confirmation enough for me that I’ve bought myself more time to work on winning Belle over permanently. Based on her dreamy sigh as she runs her fingers along the spines of a row of books, she’s already practically ours. All she needs is our mark to make things official.
I agree with Knox about letting her choose us on her own. I just need a little more time to hedge our bets and show her all the reasons she should choose us.
Because if there’s one thing I’m most sure of, it’s that our pack is worth choosing.