Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Belle
Everything happens all at once.
Percy storms out from the hallway behind us with a, “What the fuck is going on?” at the same time Knox shouts, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Rhys halts abruptly and turns to scoop me up in his arms, keeping me from getting any closer to the door. I peer around his arm to watch in confusion as a figure with dark hair elbows her way past Knox and into the house.
She marches a few steps past Rhys and me before doing a double-take and then backtracking. She cranes her neck to see me, worried brown eyes darting all over my face to check me over.
“Mia?”
The events leading up to my car accident come rushing back to me at the sight of my best friend. Oh, crap. Things might be a little more complicated than I first remembered. Safe to say I am single at this point, though, between Mia scent-matching with Jason and me running away from them both with reckless abandon.
Guess I ghosted them for a couple of days, then...
Double crap.
“Oh, thank god, Belle. When I finally found your car abandoned down the road this morning, I decided to start knocking on doors looking for you.” Mia leans over with her palms on her knees and heaves some deep breaths. “You left so abruptly without your phone or purse, and no one has heard from you. I thought you were dead!”
“Nearly,” I retort offhandedly, glancing at Rhys and thinking about the epic orgasm he just gave me.
Rhys must know where my brain went because he meets my gaze and shudders slightly. His lips twitch at the corners with good humor.
“Who the hell are you?” Knox growls, planting himself in front of me to cut off Mia’s view.
I stare appreciatively at his back. Mia’s arrival must have interrupted him working because he’s shirtless, the muscles between his shoulder blades taunting me. My impending heat is making it hard for me to focus on anything else. I notice a bead of sweat abandon its post at the back of Knox’s hairline and begin a long travel down his neck, between his shoulders, and along the path of his spine. I want to lick him everywhere the sweat touches.
Am I drooling? I swipe my fingers over the corner of my mouth. Oh, good, only a little.
What’s going on here, again?
“Mia is my best friend,” I announce to the room, answering Knox’s question for him.
He looks back over my shoulder and frowns at me. When his eyebrow quirks, I realize I zoned out staring at his back for longer than I thought, and Mia has already answered him herself.
Rhys laughs at me silently, his body quaking against mine as he struggles to contain his amusement.
Knox returns to looking at Mia. “I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
“Making sure my best friend is safe ,” Mia says, her voice rasping with exasperation as she throws her hands up in the air high enough that I can see them around Knox’s attempt to block us off from each other.
Percy scoffs openly and walks over to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Knox. “If Belle was so desperate to get away from you that she didn’t take her things with her when she left, I don’t think you’re in any position to be the one deciding whether or not she’s safe.”
Wow, these three have the protective alpha role down to an art.
“Guys, you can stand down.” I pat Rhys’s chest to reassure him as I pull away from his grasp.
Mia showing up here is fucking with my head. I ran away from the bar completely devastated by the betrayal of my best friend being a scent-match for my boyfriend, but my perspective has shifted after two days with my own scent-matches.
Am I thrilled about her spending the rest of her life mated to someone I briefly dated? Not really.
Do I understand now how little choice an omega has once they’ve found a scent-match? A thousand times, yes.
And with my heat imminent, I don’t want to spend another second thinking of any alpha other than the three whom I’ve spent the last few days shacked up with. I don’t have the capacity for a deep, heartfelt conversation with Mia about her budding relationship or my feelings about the matter.
“I’m safe,” I reassure Mia with as much heartfelt sincerity infused in my voice as I can muster. The fastest way to get rid of her is to give her what she wants.
I try to step between Knox and Percy to talk directly to Mia, but Knox puts out his arm to catch me around the middle, stopping me from getting any closer.
Mia scoffs openly. “How am I supposed to believe you’re safe with this big, shirtless oaf manhandling you?”
“Knox?” I glance down at his arm and get distracted, my eyes tracing over his forearm, up the crook of his elbow, along the length of his bicep muscles, up to his broad shoulder flexed to hold me in place. “He’s harmless,” I conclude breathlessly as I resist the urge to stare at his chest next.
“Belle, focus.” Mia snaps her fingers to draw my attention back to her.
Oh, I’m focused, alright. Focused on how hot Knox looks without a shirt on. I bet he would make a killing with his art if the buyers knew he looked like this while he paints.
“Is this Stockholm Syndrome or something?” Mia asks, throwing her hands up in exasperation.
“What? No.” I shake my head to clear the brain fog coming from another building heat spike. This time, I can feel the early signs of my temperature rising, my palms growing clammy, and sweat beading around my hairline. “This isn’t some kind of weird kidnapping thing; this pack is my scent-match.”
Mia gasps. “Your scent match? Why didn’t you lead with that?”
She takes them in with a completely different expression now, her eyes open with curiosity instead of narrowed with suspicion. I swear, scent match is the most magical combination of words to our kind. After a moment, her eyebrows pinch with concern again.
“That explains a lot but not everything, you’ve been missing for two full days,” Mia points out in an accusatory whine.
Yeah... “After I left the bar, I got lost in the snowstorm and somehow managed to drive hours out of town before I wrecked my car into a tree. Luckily, Rhys happened to be returning from town and saw my car. He rescued me.”
Mia blinks rapidly.
“Hours?” she repeats.
I nod solemnly. My self-preservation wasn’t so great that night.
“If you drove hours out of town, you would have passed through the next town,” Mia argues. “Did you circle back at some point? Because you’re only like thirty minutes from town here, maybe forty, as bad as the weather was the other night.”
What the fuck?
I glance back at Rhys, who suddenly finds an interesting speck on the floor to stare at instead of meeting my eyes. The other guys do the same as I try to look at each of them in turn. Percy reaches out to hold onto Knox’s bicep as if he needs comfort from the head of their pack.
“It’s a long story.” I turn back to Mia and try not to grind my teeth as I realize I might not know the real story of how I wound up in the pack’s house, hidden on the side of a mountain. No need to let her know that yet, though. She’s worried enough without seeing me confront the guys over the inconsistencies of our meet-cute.
“You can tell me all about it on the drive home,” Mia suggests. “Right after we talk about what happened at the bar, because I have so much to tell you.”
“Oh... uh, no thanks.” I shake my head, pink hair flying wildly around my face.
“Please,” she clasps her hands together and begs. “I can’t stand knowing you’re mad at me. Please let me explain and fix things.”
“I’m not mad anymore, but I still can’t go with you.”
“Why not?” Mia seems genuinely perplexed.
I can hear the guys shuffle around behind me for a moment and then press closer, letting me get a big whiff of their scents to remind me why I’m rejecting Mia’s offer.
“I’m going into heat practically any minute now,” I explain, thinking that will be the end of the conversation.
Mia’s jaw drops. “You’re not due to go into heat yet, are you?” Her eyebrows rise as she looks behind me at the guys and connects the dots. “Oh, shit. Do you want me to drive you to a clinic?”
All three of my alphas let out a pained noise at the suggestion, the sound giving me goosebumps.
“No!” I blurt out instantly.
A clinic would be the safe choice. Going into heat with this pack that hasn’t marked me is so risky, but I can’t imagine leaving. The alphas and I still have so much to figure out.
And apparently, I’m not as far from town as I’ve been led to believe.
“I need to stay and figure things out with these guys,” I explain to Mia, since she’s staring at me as if I’ve grown a second head and announced I’m entering the state fair’s pie-eating contest.
A rumble of surprise sounds behind me.
“You’re staying?” Percy asks in a dry, raspy voice of disbelief.
Do these alphas really think they’re getting rid of me so easily?
Not a chance. Not while my slick is still drying on Rhys’s chin, and I have other growing needs that need tending to , ASAP.
“I’m staying,” I confirm with a confident lift of my chin.
That seems good enough for Knox, who slips past me to face Mia with a growl. “You can go now,” he tells her in a surprisingly mild tone despite how bossy he’s being.
“Hey!” she protests.
“Run along, Belle has spoken.” Knox nudges her toward the door. I can tell he’s doing his best to be gentle, but because of his size, his nudge is enough to knock her off balance. She stumbles as she attempts to catch her balance, finally catching herself just a step past the threshold of the front door.
I know he isn’t trying to hurt her. He could have easily barked at her to leave when she first arrived, and her omega instincts would have demanded she comply. I don’t know how much longer his patience will hold out, though, if she keeps fighting him on it.
“Seriously?” Mia puts her hands on her hips and tries to step back into the house, but Knox hurries to slam the door in her face.
“Belle will call you tomorrow to talk if she wants to!” he shouts through the door for her.
I can hear her answering scoff, followed by a few seconds of silenc,e before I hear the sound of her retreating, her footsteps fading quickly away to nothing as she leaves the porch.
Knox wipes his hands together like he’s proud of a hard day’s work as he turns around to face the rest of us again.
I quirk one brow and cross my arms over my chest. “And how exactly would I call her tomorrow?”
Knox chokes out a sound that’s a definitive non-answer, and when I look from Percy to Rhys, they’re also struck speechless.
Yeah, we have a lot to talk about.